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...

A nice audio piece from the BBC on an historic football competition in The Aleutian Islands, known as the International Friendship Cup dating back to 1872. Also this piece by the same journo.

Pic from the game: Maxim Malinovsky/AFP/Getty Images Just in case anyone doesn't believe soccer/football takes shape off the field, take a look at this take on the current tensions around Russia and its border nations. When Ukraine and Belarus played a Euro 2016 qualifier last week, politics came to the fore. But, what is really interesting is that the game, for all the violence - both potential and real - put the blow-ups on hold. The violence here was around the game, not during it. Sure, soccer/football can set off or be used to justify thuggish behaviour. But, the game itself - those 90 minutes between white lines - is rarely disrupted (I say rarely as it does happen). The thuggish stuff would happen anyway, with or without any soccer/football, so it's unfair to blame the game for it. The game can take some credit though for putting it on pause, mostly, if only temporarily. That's a moment in which peace can take hold. Read more

This detailed article shows the dangers of using football for politics. Clearly, the Kremlin has dabbled too far into the beautiful game and now it has become a political soup in which us v them battles are waged and where the actual game is marginalised. Clearly, the incident that set off the latest riots in Moscow had nothing to do with football. What is shameful is that football becomes the rallying point for the violence and a means to emphasise ignorant views. It may seem this blog is obsessed with Russia, but its the site of the 2018 World Cup people.....is this really the best the football world can come up with?

Winners of the bid for the 2018 World Cup, Russia, have been given the equivalent on a stud-run down the shinbone as racist nutters in the capital rallied for the bad ol' days in the Red Empire (yeh, I know this is a little old, but I've been on a break...) Not for the first time, football has been used as a popular point of interest or front around which to send all manner of bigoted rubbish, particularly targetting non-white immigrants, students and visitors in Russia, into orbit. How will Russia face this dilemma? Will it allow it all to just simmer away and try and ignore it or will it come down hard, at the risk of alienating some of the government's own support base? They've got 8 years to sort out generations of racism.