The Kick Project

Pic: pearsonblog The BBC have released the results of a study into just how much it costs to be a fan of a major football team these days. The headline figures are telling and say a lot about modern football's shift away from its grass-roots, street level base. It emerges that the average cost of the cheapest seat in the EPL now sits at 30 Pounds. Note this is for the cheapest seats. While few seats in today's super stadiums are like the old nose bleeds - behind a wall and facing at an angle - these spots are well away from the field. The minimum wage in Britain in 2015 is 6.70 Pounds/hour. So that means, the man/woman on the street working in the lowest formal jobs in the country (and we all know lower rates are paid in the informal or underground economy) would need to work for almost 5 hours to watch a 90 minute game of football. Chelsea FC is owned by a Russian whom some consider a modern day Robber Baron - in Russia at least - with an estimated net worth of o...

Pic: Jessica Hilltout, taken in Burkina Faso Not entirely sure I can say what The Economist is truly on about here . But, clearly, when that mag starts talking about football and big money, bringing in fancy stats and data, you know the business side of the world game is getting more and more prominent. This piece in These Football Times also picks up on the increasingly powerful commercial trends in football and details the activities of Red Bull as it levers its way into European high level football - and elsewhere. We all know its there and since at least the beginning of the EPL in 1992,  football money has gone stratospheric. My concern is this. While the money players earn and corporations can take out of the game is a problem, the bigger problem is how the money skews the game away from its roots. Where's the money in junior football? Even more pertinent, where is the money to support struggling football leagues in developing countries and to fund youth systems? It r...