Football without Fans is Nothing!

Football without Fans is Nothing!

Coronavirus and sporting events haven’t exactly gone hand in hand! With the growing concern over the pandemic large gatherings and sporting events across the world are being cancelled or played behind closed doors! While I admire the effort, the world is going to, to try and stop the spread of coronavirus it does raise some issues with these sporting events and football is the one we are going to delve into.

The first obvious issue is the behind closed doors games! This may be helping to prevent the spread but…
As with the title of this article Football without Fans is nothing! This week has seen champions league games played with no one in attendance within the stadium. The atmosphere within the ground is dead and you can see it affecting the players.

Valencia played Atalanta this week needed a pretty miraculous comeback from the first leg but were now playing with no “home crowd advantage”. Now we are playing in a competition where away goals have an impact due to the home team having a benefit but now, we are taking away that advantage by playing behind closed doors.

Aside from the possible lack of advantage home teams are getting, the lack of atmosphere in the game and the training like nature of the surroundings takes away the whole ambiance and feeling surrounded with football. When you go to a game its not just about the sport itself, its about being with 30,000+ fans all with one single focus for 90minutes, riding the wave of emotion that comes with live sport. The wave of emotion effects the players as well, we have all seen the classic Anfield European Nights. Anyone who says that the crowd doesn’t have an effect is couldn’t be more wrong! When the crowd start chanting/singing/cheering it give the teams add momentum, the little extra push they might need. Its no wonder a good crowd is called the 12th man!

The other problem with the behind closed doors idea is that fans still attend the game. The idea is to minimise the spread of the virus, but fans are still attending the games and meeting outside the stadiums! Near enough the same amount of people attending the event just not inside watching the game. There is an argument to be had that they are in closer proximity to each other outside the stadium than inside. It was quite clear from the Champions League games this week that fans were going to attend come hell or high water. It remains to be seen if this will be the same for league games but knowing football fans around the globe I would be surprised if it’s not the same as the Champions League games.

While writing this post it has been confirmed that Premier League and EPL games will be postponed until early April due to coronavirus.

The purpose of this blog is really to emphasise and discuss the huge importance fans have on the game not necessarily the coronavirus. So far, I have looked at the atmosphere they create within the stadium but it’s so much more than that, especially for the smaller clubs. Smaller clubs rely on the gate receipts generated by the fans attending games to keep their clubs afloat financially. With games being played behind closed doors these clubs stand to struggle financially within the coming weeks/months.

This has been proven by fan protests when ticket prices go up, certainly in Germany they have kept prices steady for this reason to keep the gate receipts high. This doesn’t even include the money spent on matchday on merchandise, food and drink, once you start adding all of that up its comes in at quite a substantial loss for the club.

There is also a social aspect to the behind closed doors idea. Fans look forward to these games each week to spend time with friends, family and like-minded supporters. It becomes a ritual every Saturday following your club through think and thin, through all the ups and the downs, from relegation to promotion. Football fans are the most loyal in the world and not attending games will have a real social impact on the majority.

Football without fans is nothing! It may be due to a global pandemic that these rules have been enforced but with the build up of fans around the stadiums and still following their team I am struggling to see whether it will have the desired effect.

What is your opinion on this? Id love to hear it! Please share/comment on this id love as many people as possible to read my work and have discussions.
“Discussion is an exchange of information; an argument an exchange of ignorance”