How has commercialisation affected professional football since the Essay

How has commercialisation affected professional football since the formation of the premier league and what effect has this had on the average fan - Essay Example d the 1980s witnessed England entering into a rather novice phase marked by lack of commercial enterprising on the part of sponsors and top brass of soccer administrators. In fact European football in general followed a downward curve during these two decades (King 59). Several key factors were responsible for this lean period in the history of English soccer. These factors ranged from societal issues to lack of technical adroitness. However, the Premier soccer League teemed with the very best from the global arena and players from all continents signed for various clubs featuring in the League (Storey 108), thus turning English club football into an action-packed display of power and dynamism. The focal point of this paper is going to be the period following the formation of the English Premier League, during which the entire skeleton of English soccer underwent a drastic change in terms of growing commercialisation and corporate professionalism. The paper will also discuss the relative position of British soccer in the larger framework of world football in the last two decades. The charm of English soccer ebbed away following the series of poor performances by the national soccer team in FIFA World Cups after their historic win over West Germany in the 1966 version of the premier title. It was imperative for the administrators and players alike to bring people back to where they could relate themselves to. However, due to a pervasive sense of hopelessness prevailing among the average followers of the sport, the task was not an easy one. Moreover, hooliganism was on the rise in the 1980s both on English soil and outside (Dunning and Malcolm 101). In fact English football had earned a notorious distinction of promoting hooliganism across Europe and other soccer playing countries (Bloom and Willard 306). Political reasons also came into contention in this regard as some of the earlier events in the annals of world history were believed to have contributed to the