As football slips into the mire, it must remember it is first and foremost a sport | Jonathan Wilson

Every match should be a challenge, teams rewarded for success, but not so that superclubs’ domination becomes permanent

It’s been another fine week for the people’s game. The Super League Three – two of whom will probably be eliminated from the Champions League at the group stage despite the enormous advantages they enjoy both financially and via the coefficient system – continue to agitate for a competition that would make them even more money.

Fans chant disgracefully about tragedy and find their club not merely not condemning them, but blaming the manager of the other side for having made an entirely reasonable observation about the financial advantages enjoyed by state-run clubs. That manager, on the very weekend local referees had gone on strike to highlight the abuse suffered by officials, is sent off for abusing an assistant referee. Team buses are attacked, social media becomes a battleground of the basest insults, managers who are the de facto agents of authoritarian states lecture others about touchline behaviour.

Continue reading...