Endangered Species: Grassroots Football

England, as a nation in the footballing world, may be on the up after a poor World Cup. However, bar the odd Euros win, you never hear about young English talent winning any continental competitions.

I think this starts right at the bottom.

Grassroots football.

Grassroots football is fading away more and more, and with less money being invested in the system where are the footballers of the future meant to come from?

Roughly, and I mean roughly, thirty-four million pounds is invested each year (twelve million from the FA and Premier League respectively and ten million from the government), but is that really enough? Once again, approximately, the Premier League makes around three billion pounds per year from the game we love. That is only around 0.4%.

0.4%!

If the Premier League truly wanted to improve the game they could give grassroots 0.8%, just 0.4%% more. and that would give them an extra twelve million to play with.

So, let's say the Premier League offered that extra tiny percentage to the grassroots development schemes. New training facilities, equipment, school teaching and the list goes on, could be added to the infrastructure of the beautiful game in England at lower levels. Give a child a football and he will play, it's that simple.

Read the full article...

Is Video the Future, or Are We Going to Live In the Old Fashioned Past?

The wrist watch worn by match officials to aid them with goal decisions

Goal line technology was introduced at all English Premier League grounds at the start of the 2013/2014 season. The technology proved to be a great help to referees, as with the watches and cameras nearly 99.9% of the decisions are right.

To put it simple, cameras are situated around the ground, in the goal, etc. Then if the hawk-eye system installed on the cameras decides that the whole of the ball has crossed the whole of the line, then it simply buzzes and flashes on the officials watches, signalling that it was a goal. This happens in a matter of seconds, and requires no stoppage for technical queries.

However, is it about time that referees are also aided by a 'video ref'? There are endless ways that this could work, even if each team had only 1/2 appeals per game.

If you go around the grounds on England nowadays, all you will hear is moaning about the officials. Sometimes, in fact most of the time, the moans and groans are correct. The refs are not robots, they will not get every decision right!

By simply adding a video referee, teams and angry managers could no longer complain about the decision. In some cases, one bad decision can cause an under pressure manager there job.

The new, and highly successful piece of equipment, vanishing spray

Next to be installed in the footballing world was the simple, but effective, vanishing spray, thus ensuring the wall or set piece taker does not encroach on the position the decision was awarded at. This so far has proved to be highly successful in the English top flight.

Although, the main point of this article is; if we carry on as we are doing, football will turn into a outdated, old sport. The sport itself needs to keep up with other sports, such as rugby and cricket where video referees are frequently asked to give a hand.

So what if there's two more additional minutes at the end of a ninety-four minute encounter, no one would be bothered. Everyone would get there moneys worth, and also, everyone would go home not complaining about that one dodgy decision that cost their team the game.

This is most definitely a thing that has to be looked into in the future. 

International Football Fan Day

Football is a game that transcends borders and boundaries. It is a common reference point that stretches beyond political and social divides, giving a common language to people of all nationalities, creeds, colours, gender, wealth and philosophical outlooks. The way in which football breaks down these barriers is not through the sport itself, but through the ordinary people who follow it. The football fans.

Football fans are the lifeblood of the game. The fans provide the atmosphere, the market, the financing, the publicity and even the participants. It is only right that football fans' role in the sport should be celebrated.

Conceived over a year ago, the International Football Fan Day campaign celebrates football fans’ timeless devotion to the sport, which overcomes social, cultural and political barriers. A worldwide vote to determine the date of International Football Fan Day will be held on Hinch.as, where clubs, players and fans meet online to suggest and discuss their greatest football milestones within the 100% football environment the social network provides.

There are more than 200 suggested dates so far, including classic games, breath-taking plays, unforgettable goals and saves, an idol’s birthday or a social need the sport has fulfilled. Clubs, players and fans are invited to nominate the most memorable moments from the sport they love and vote to choose the date to celebrate their passion. What date would you pick?

Among the many players to have voted so far are Andrés Iniesta, Dani Alves and Falcao. This day isn't just about the stars though. Your vote is as important as their's and counts equally.

The vote to choose International Football Fans Day will run until 7 November 2014.

FBD Daily

Today the first edition of the FBD Daily was published. It is something that I am trying and it will be a case of seeing how it goes. I have noticed for a while that quite a few of the twitter accounts that I follow are using paper.li to publish the top stories from their twitter timeline and thought that it might be an idea to do the same.

Being not the brightest spark on the planet, I am still not sure exactly how it works so I am sure there will still be a lot of fine tuning involved along the way. At the moment it is taking stories exclusively from my twitter timeline. I haven't worked out yet how to do the fine tuning to make it as relevant as possible to users of the directory. Anybody with any tips on how to get the best out of paper.li please feel free to tweet me or email me.

In the meantime, please feel free to check out the FBD Daily and send in your feedback. It's all about increasing traffic to the directory so that you get increased traffic to your blogs.

The Future Of Football Blogging

The following is an extract from an article posted on Richard And Neil's Football Blog about the future of football blogging.

Recently there has been a gloom hanging over the football blogging world; a sense of disillusionment that has left some notable bloggers considering their future in the hobby. The reasons for this are, of course, varied, but there is one that seems to reoccur: money. With recession once again closing in it is natural to think of one’s future and security, however, it is not the bloggers that are moving to secure themselves, but the journalistic world tightening ranks and bloggers are losing out because of it.

Read the full article here.

The article is well worth a read for anybody with an interest in football blogging.

That Sinking Feeling!

 

I predict a riot! With the start of the season only a few days away its all kicking off! The amount of money spent has reached upwards of £269,075,000!


With all this dosh being spent by 'The Big Boys' The other teams located up and down the country have been looting other clubs for any freebees they can get their hands on! Stoke snapping up former England international Jonathan Woodgate from Spurs, Sunderland have taken Westwood, Larsson & David Vaughan without even spending a penny! The QPR management team have also been @ it! Walking out of Upton Park with Welshman Danny Gabbidon & Kieron Dyer under their arms! While Neil Warnock was photographed taking Jay Bothroyd for a spin in his new bright pink Bugatti Veyron, next thing you know Bothroyd's pictured in the QPR team photo!

Read More....

Battling Sectarianism

The SNP have just performed a U-turn in their attempt to rush through the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill and it will be delayed until at least December.

Why has this bill came about and is it really good thing for Scottish football?

What Makes Us Real Football 'Fans'?

On the penultimate day of the Premier League season I sat down on the sofa, drink in one hand and feet up ready to watch my Chelsea team take on Newcastle United in a pointless, nothing to play for match at Stamford Bridge. The mood in the stadium seemed a little subdued, and the match proved a perfect opportunity for Chelsea to model their new home shirt for the next season. This game never had the makings of being a thriller, effort levels were low, bodies were drained from the long disapointing season and Newcastle came away with a deserving point.

After the game I studied a few match reports as well as comments on forums from Chelsea fans disapointed with the performance and decided to air a few of my concerns and views in a sensible fashion about the following season, something I feel I am entitled to do through following my team since the earliest of memories and spending a sizeable amount of money each year on attending home and away matches. However some of the responses I (as well as others) were given were quite rude and unreasonable and one even questioned my loyalty to the club questioning whether I was a 'real fan' due to not attending the match. This led me to think and made me pose the question what constitutes a 'real fan'?

Read more...

Calcio and the Mezzogiorno

The last team from the south of Italy to win Serie A was Napoli in 1990. Is this gap in success the exception, or the rule?

Calcio and the Mezzogiorno explores southern Italian success in Serie A as well as the problems of the south in general.

Read it here.

We Voted Yes To AV...But They Haven't Voted Yes For Us...Yet!

That's right! I have just been out and exercised my democratic right to vote by voting Yes for Randy Lerner as president. Unfortunately none of the followers of the AV party have yet voted for us by listing their blogs on this directory. The good news is that, as hurt as we are, we don't hold grudges and the opportunity to rectify the situation still exists. Even better news is that our polls don't close at 10pm tonight. In fact they never close - occasionally pause for sleep or a trip down the pub - but never close!

Its not just the AV party either. We would gladly welcome approaches from any football party - and not just the mainstream ones. Here at the Football Blog Directory we cater for all minority football views too. We've even got a link to Sunderland!

So spread the word. We're forming our own football coalition and everyone is invited!!

When Saturday Comes

I know that the footballing weekend is already well underway, after all there is more to football than the premiership, but the vast majority of games on this Easter weekend are still taking place on Saturday. When Saturday comes the football matches come - and when the football matches come football bloggers get typing.

As you get caught up in your ranting and raving over Saturday's action, discussing the penalties that weren't, the offsides that were and the goals that should have been, don't forget that all followers of the Football Blog Directory can post introductions to their articles right here on this site. If you have already signed up and become a follower then you will have been sent an invitation to become a site author. If you haven't yet signed up then email us and get signed up. The more links you have to your posts then the more visitors you will get to your site.

In the meantime, enjoy your football and good luck to your team - unless they are playing my team of course ;)