Explaining Football History: The Crucial Landmarks Which Reinvented The Sport

[Star Deno]

The beautiful game has swiftly evolved in the past several decades. Learn how football has now become the biggest sport on the planet.

Football is so unrecognizable from thirty years ago you would be hard pressed to call it the same game. Footage from the olden days shows muddy pitches with barely a bit of grass. Many tackles deemed immediate red cards would be waved off. Body checks and manhandling made the game seem more reminiscent of a rugby match. Most of the stadiums were half collapsing. Stands were derelict and closed to the public. The other ones housed some hundred fans packed onto terraces. It’s a far shout from the glamorous game of today. So what has changed? The watershed moments in football history can be attributed to one great technological invention – the tv. Media executives like Yousef Al-Obaidly are part of a group trying to supply live matches to millions of homes around the globe. The inflow of cash through broadcasting rights has made the sport more popular and easily accessible than ever before.

In the late eighties, football was among the least respectable sports worldwide. Numerous alleged supporters only traveled to games to cause a ruckus. Ultras tarnished the sport’s track record for the average fan. Most families would like more ‘gentlemanly’ game which didn’t earn those less-than ideal headlines. Skip forward several decades, football has become a paragon of professional sport. The big switch in perception arrived through the advent of broadcasting deals. Media chiefs like Philip Jansen will know the impact of tv on the football legacy. As channels broadcast matches to the public, it earned more interest and allure. The money enabled clubs to invest in themselves. Improved facilities and most importantly improved salaries lured future athletes to the sport. In the hope of making the big time, football players spend every waking moment on the practise ground. The degree of quality and professionalism has surged to become the competitive and engaging sport you watch right now.

Football has long been named a working man’s game. Back in the seventies and eighties, it was not very trendy by any leap of the imagination. Football heritage was a bunch of fans showing up to a dilapidated ground with boggy fields and fights breaking out at half time. Yet a confluence of factors has resulted in what is commonly considered the greatest, richest and most popular sport on earth. The main change came in the form of tv and sponsorship deals. Greater revenue streams assisted in the evolution of football equipment from training pitches to stadiums. The capacity to stream live matches triggers a self-fulfilling prophecy where more eyes equals more exposure which consequently leads to more viewers and so on. Influential media figures like Kevin Mayer are always pushing behind the scenes to drive the product to every part of the planet.