View the full article at:The Fiver doesn't wash. The Fiver is frequently forced to expose itself in public. The Fiver, in this regard, is probably like you. And your children. Because though it boasts some of the richest sports clubs on the planet, Britain doesn't bother looking after the vast majority of its sports-participating people. Yes, while every hamlet in France, Germany, Holland and the rest of the civilised world is equipped with changing rooms, showers, pitches, swimming pools and so on, sporty folks in Blighty must spend their weekends attempting to peel off their shorts with frigid fingers while trying not to slip in cow pat. And as for what to do when you need to have a whizz or empty your bowels before a game, well, let's just say the Fiver has frightened more than a few Sunday drivers in its time ...
Football clubs, of course, are the most wealthy in the land, yet in spite of all the money sloshing around the game, facilities in most places are roughly on a par with those for dog fighting and camel wrestling. That is not quite what the Tory MP for Kettering, Philip Hollobone, complained about to parliament today but it should have been. Instead he took only a tentative step in the right direction: "Premier League footballers are vastly overpaid, Premier League clubs are hugely in debt, our national team is, in many ways, a disgrace," Hollobone exclusively revealed to Westminister. "Meanwhile, in the real world with clubs like Kettering Town football club in the non-league, they are struggling to provide suitable ground facilities despite massive fan support," continued Hollobone before asking his colleague and sports minister Hugh Robertson: "Would you agree with me that football in this country at the moment faces an unsustainable future unless the issues of governance are properly sorted out?"
"If you look across sport, it is very clear to me that football is the worst governed sport in this country, without a shadow of a doubt," replied Robertson as several MPs who weren't asleep belched in agreement. Robertson then declared that he would await the findings of a culture, media and sport select committee report before deciding what to do. "Action is needed and the government will take it but it wants to see the results of that select committee first," trumpeted Robertson. Hands up who thinks a Tory government will demand not merely that clubs run themselves properly but actually ensure more of their wealth trickles down to the grassroots? Perhaps that could help fill the funding gap that will be exacerbated by the Tories' planned cuts? Or does the Tory plan for preventing children from playing sport in primitive conditions simply consist of preventing them from playing sport full stop?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011 ... ball-email
I am so glad that finally, people in this country are beginning to acknowledge how wasteful and overfunded this "national game" of ours is. The people who fund all this are happy to throw millions of pounds at the players who really aren't going to be able to use all that money and could probably get by perfectly well on about 5% of their wages, but they can't even provide decent facilities for their fans and players to watch and play in. It is good to see that all this money is being invested in the wrong places and that the need for reform in this game is being acknowledged. I expect to see no immediate results, but if The Guardian is onto it, you can tell that it is a serious issue. So it bloody well should be, with all this money flying around. If I were calling the shots, I would literally be making even the best footballers of this country work proper jobs to fund their lives in the time they're not on the football field, but people don't like a guy who rocks the boat too much, so we're going to have to see how our current politicians do so. This probably won't be of interest to the American members of this forum but as Britain is going through a recession at the moment, it is good to know that all the money that is being wastefully thrown at the football industry is being acknowledged as not serving a good purpose. We need to channel a lot of these pounds into solving the country's real problems.
Best regards,
i_like_1981
I'm fat and sassy! I love to sing & dance & stomp my feet & really rock your world!
Eeeek! Mutants! 
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*sigh* Those were the days.