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The irrelevancy of the World Cup in the era of modern football

July 14, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Analysis:
Another World Cup comes to an end. By the end of it only one team is cheering. Most other teams are disappointed though a few are more or less satisfied with their results. As with all things in life the World Cup in football/soccer has evolved over the course of time. However, in the case of football the evolution over the past 20 years has deemed the tournament largely irrelevant by 2010. Though the World Cup itself has not changed much since its glory days of the 60s , 70s , and 80s the surrounding landscape of football is a very different story from what it was as late as the 1980s.
To understand what has happened and how it effects the World Cup of the 21st century one might compare the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 with that in South Africa 2010.
In 1986 there was no cable TV, no satellite TV and just a few channels in each country run by the government. In many countries the local league was not televised because the clubs were afraid that it would take spectators away from the stadiums and since there were few TV commercials and no extra TV packages for sports it would take revenue away from the clubs.
Furthermore the broadcasting of foreign leagues was limited. Often only highlights of the goals were available.
No Internet and a very limited DVD and video market meant that all in all football on TV was very scarce compared to what it is in 2010 where it is very plentiful.
The international club tournaments were cups in the true sense of the word with no seeding of the teams. Only the champions of the local league would participate and therefore even if the international matches were broadcast on TV often many of the best teams and the best players would only appear very rarely because either their team did no qualify or they were knocked out at an early stage.
Foreign players on teams was usually capped at 2 meaning that the concentration of top talent was much more limited than in 2010. At club level there was no dream team with players handpicked across the world.
It meant that to see best players from one country who played abroad the only chance was to watch them for the national team since these matches were usually shown on national TV (public service obligation) but not the foreign league.
To watch a World Cup would often be the chance to watch the great international stars play in full time length of a match – while the only live motion picture available of those stars otherwise would be short clips of high lights. Many of the best Brazilians and Argentinians would play at home and players would emerge on the world scene at the World Cup whom nobody abroad had ever watched before or even heard about.
Today top talent leaves their home country at an ever earlier age and almost all the top talent is playing or has played at European clubs.

So while scarcity made the World Cup as late as 1990 a truly unique event the enormously extensive coverage of football from the 1990s and beyond has meant all the top players are the World Cup are very familiar faces whom most spectators have watched dozens up times throughout the year and hundreds of time over all. They come to the World Cup at the back of a season with an enormous amount of matches and team up with players whom they do not play with on a weekly basis. The result – quality is suffering.
The World Cup is hosted in increasingly exotic locations where few people travel to and where the locals have no special interest in the tournament. The atmosphere in the stadium is dull compared to what is found at club matches where each and every single spectator is very involved in the match since it is their team.
So all the aspects which made the World Cup exciting as late as 1990 are no absent and have moved over to club football primarily the UEFA Champions League which offers the most excitement since it brings together the best of the best and the brightest of the bright.

The question is whether reform can make the World Cup more relevant for the future or whether it is simply a lot case in the course of evolution.
I think few people got very excited about the World Cup 2010. Probably many people watched many matches but all the aspects making it a thrill in the past were absent and nothing new had taking its’ place in order to renew the driver behind the tournament.
The relative scarcity of the product with one tournament only every 4 years does not seem to be enough to make it attractive. Too many dull and irrelevant matches with too much TV exposure makes the seemingly short duration of 1 month a rather lengthy affair by the end of it. The new TV gold formula with matches taking place in succession rather than at the same time gives over-exposure for the average spectator watching a fair number of matches.
So by the end of the World Cup 2010 the fact remains. The World Cup has lost its’ relevancy whether it is possible to re-invent somehow to serve a purpose in international football is unknown though. It remains to be seen.

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