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Football since 1945 has dramatically changed, from the money which is now in football to things like facilities at the grounds and even certain playing rules. Football is believed to have started from medieval England, it was played on special occasions and the matches were played on miles of countryside. In 1880 the game of football was organized by a number of private amateur football clubs whose members played for their own amusement on public grounds and in primitive conditions By 1990 football had taken a big step and the game was increasingly being dominated by professional clubs run as companies, playing on their own ground and using paid players and officials who saw the game as a career. Many ecological changes were afoot which would benefit the game. For instance, reduction in working hours, introduction of Saturday half holidays, increase in the standard of living and the rapid growth of towns and cities which had cheap public transport to serve them. Anyone of these alone could not have succeeded in changing the local tradition of amateur football into the professional game we love today, however when all of these changes came together the effect was dramatic. Many of the things we see today you may think are just modern occurrences however things such as floodlights, penalty shoot-outs and crowd violence have been round for years now. No, the one thing that has really changed since 1945 is the money side. As the game is professional now players have contracts, the money for these and the fees to attain the players have grown out of all proportion in the last few years, the major reason for this is the money which is being handed over to the clubs by TV corporations such as bskyb and ITV. The English premiership was formed in 1992, no one knew then how financially viable the league would become. The company which has helped the league is of course bskyb, they have had the rights for live screenings of the games since the league was formed, and the money which they have handed over has enabled the clubs to spend big on transfers and meet players huge wage demands. Innovations which Sky have introduced such as player cam and the ability to have a number of cameras at all grounds has changed the way we watch the game, no longer are controversial incidents missed as they were in the Chopper Harris era. Now everything that the players do on the pitch is open to the scrutiny However even with the growing amount of revenue clubs were receiving there was to always come a time when the money would run out, clubs such as Leeds, Fiorentina etc. have spent millions in trying to gain success yet have failed miserably, in Leeds case they are currently around 90 million pounds in debt and would face administration if relegated from the premier league, the latter I am sad to have say totally folded and now cease to exist. Lately clubs are looking at what they are spending and with the introduction of the transfer window are trying to keep loss down as in today’s climate being in the red can be a crippling situation for anybody. Another way in which the big clubs are able to make money is through merchandise, sides like Man Utd and Real Madrid are now world wide businesses due to the money they rake in from places around the world especially the Far East. Indeed tapping into the Far East market has often become a dominant thought in certain teams planning, for example Junichi Inamoto was brought from Japan to Arsenal in 2002 yet the player failed to make one league appearance, however the move was still deemed a success as it allowed the club to raise its profile in Japan. One thing that has been round now for years but has changed in its importance to a club is shirt sponsorship, now the sponsors know that there logo will be seen round the world so they are more inclined to spend more money in letting the club have their logo on their strip, taking Man Utd for instance their latest deal with Vodafone is rumoured to have got the club around 500 million pounds to have Vodafone plastered on the front of their kit for the next ten years, now that seems a ridiculous amount of money for a football club however that is one of the reasons that Man Utd are the richest club in the world. Moving away from the money side other things have also changed the football game, things such as the boots and strips that the sides now play in have become a major part in football. Football strips in 1945 were played in a collared cotton shirt, usually long sleeved, cotton shorts and woollen socks. Today the game of football is played in lighter fabrics such as Lycra. Most shirts today are made of this material and shirts can now be played in either short or long sleeved. You know football has evolved when players now days have a choice of which shirt they would like to play in, e.g. short sleeved. The players even get an extra three shirts just in case they would like to change at half time. The players have a choice of two short sleeves and two long sleeves. Shorts are of a man made material scientifically enhanced to make them lighter and more flexible the same goes for the socks and boots now days. There are so many varieties of boots players are given as many as they like for sponsorship. Where as years ago you could pick up a pair of football boots such as Gola for a relatively cheap price. In 1905 the birth of Gola when the first pair of hand made football boots was conceived in a small workshop in England. These boots were made completely from leather, even the sole and studs were leather. To this day, Gola has a pair of boots from this era. From these small beginnings Gola has developed into a high profile brand with worldwide recognition. The sad thing is nobody seems to know where the Gola name developed from, however it has to do with the goals scored by this shoe in European football.
Approximate Word count = 4193
Approximate Pages = 16.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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