At the beginning of every year every team declares how many points they hope to attain in the coming footballing year. On this basis supporters decide which teams to support, and invest accordingly purchasing tickets. Obviously the brighter the prediction the more tickets will be sold. The number of tickets sold will determine how much money the teams can invest in their team. All games however are played behind closed doors. Teams can play in any league domestic or overseas and accumulate points which will determine their overall performance. The registering of points will be made by the teams themselves, and will only be monitored by regulatory authorities. In this way all teams can out perform or meet expectations and predictions, therefore selling more tickets, leading to greater accumulation of capital with which to invest. There is no actual obligation to invest. Confidence and perception of performance drives the profits of clubs.
for example- Manchester Utd make modest predictions of 50 points in all leagues. Supporters believe they will comfortably achieve this and purchase tickets giving them a massive surplus with which to exceed their targets. Manchester Utd actually only play 3 games the whole year (a maximum of 9 points) but nevertheless declare they have attained 60 points. as this is matched by supporter/investor confidence there is no reason not to believe in Manchester Utd's results- whether or not there is any material basis for their market success. The whole thing works fine as long as not too many supporters ever demand to see too much football. The commodity, in this case football, has no real value, only the value given to it to by supporters, and the success with which the clubs, banks etc exposed to the market, have in dealing with it. A commodity is only as valuable as people say it is. Profit is not actually based on the value of the commodity at all but on the perception of the value of the commodity and its performance.
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3 comments:
There was an Alexei Sayle 'Communist Football League' play or similar where the goals were shared out equally, etc, or results were altered accordingly, that was quite similar. Each team finished as champions and also in the relegation places and fans were allocated which team to support, although the teams themselves all played in the same kit with the same name and the players were rotated and came from all walks of life, with blind and deaf and people with no legs etc, all able to play. This sort of makes sense as, like you say, what else is a commodity other than a reflection of the values of the culture within which it resides.
Goals that demonstrated individual flair versus collective endeavour were punishable by arrest, I seem to recall.
Yeh-I remember you mentioning that before after I wrote a similarish piece to this about footballing accoring to the rules of mutual co-operation or something,.
Maybe I should do a football played according to fascism piece. Or a footall played by the rules of neo-liberalism expansionsim.
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