With money around, who cares about club loyalty

In the world of football, players want money, fans want loyalty.

Football – club football in particular – allows fans to be parochial and hypocritical without the slightest hint of irony. It is deemed fair to heckle the opposition by ridiculing a player, his family or the most private aspects of his life. Fans back even an overly aggressive player if he plays for ‘us’, exhibits include Nigel de Jong, Roy Keane and Javier Mascherano among many.

Emmanuel Adebayor and his family’s humble origins were used as ‘banter’ by Arsenal fans upset over his move to Manchester City. Arsene Wenger suffered abuse by Manchester United supporters and they, in turn, have been at the receiving end of chants such as ‘who is dying on the runway out there’ with reference to the 1958 Munich crash. More of this was seen when Wayne Rooney’s runaway comments witnessed a mob outside his mansion. There was also a clear cut message for him on a Manchester City poster: ‘Join City….and you are dead’.

Fans should not be surprised if club ‘loyalty’ is thin on the ground nowadays, when even common decency is severely lacking in a significant proportion of the supporters themselves. In the Rooney saga, an employer-employee pay dispute became public and the striker and his family were at the receiving end of a mob outside their house and in public places.

Moreover, fans need to understand that loyalty does not really exist in the current financial realities of club football. Rooney was famously pictured wearing a ‘Once a blue, always a blue’ undershirt while at Everton, little before he walked from Merseyside to Old Trafford. Similarly, John Terry, considered to be the embodiment of Chelsea as a lion-hearted central defender was embroiled in contract disputes with rumours of a move to Manchester City in case Chelsea were unable to meet his demands.

Take Steven Gerrard, Liverpool captain and attacking midfielder, for example. He is considered to be the heart and soul of Liverpool primarily because Gerrard is the romantic story of a local-boy-done-good. Raised on an underprivileged residential estate, rife with crime, he managed to become the star of Liverpool. That did not stop him from rejecting a new contract in 2005 with a potential move to Chelsea in the offing, presumably to win a domestic title, something which has been beyond Liverpool for the past 20 years. Gerrard was widely ridiculed for being ‘greedy’ and there were reports of threats by gangsters if the transfer went ahead. Gerrard was then offered a new contract, one he promptly signed.

Furthermore, Luis Figo signed for Real Madrid from Barcelona, a day or two after declaring he would never leave.

Football is more than just a game, but club loyalty is an abstract notion that has no place in an economically-motivated profession. A Ryan Giggs or a Paolo Maldini stays at one club for their entire career because they are offered compensation on par with the best in the business, financially and in accolades and titles. Players like Matt le Tissier, who stayed at Southampton despite offers from Chelsea, do not exist. Everything in football is more professional, less spontaneous more deliberate.



The writer is a freelance sports columnist

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2010.