FA vs Sky (Football Association vs Sky)

Member Name: sunchymeno9

Product:	Football Association vs Sky
Date:	16/03/02 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Fa is there as a national representative of football, both at home and aborad

Disadvantages: Sky controls the coverage of sport

For those who read my first review - so sorry about that. Put it under the wrong heading.

I am currently doing a study at Southampton University about the influence of Sky television on the English football leagues. Basically what I have found is that Sky television has so much power over the game now that it can make or break any team that it chooses to. After all, Sky has complete rights to the media coverage of the games played, the rights to every Premier league match.

In the modern world, the FA seems a token body. What power has it really got? It can organise matches and determine what day they are laplyed on. Hang on- then Sky can come in and say that they want to change the kick-off time, the day of the game and even when it is played. Pretty soon you can just imagine Sky saying that they want the game to be played in a studio so that they can fully record every angle and movement made by the players and the ball. After all - who needs to fans? They don't make the television company money by actually being at the ground. That means that they're not paying to watch the televised version of the games does it. God forsake all those who actually want to go and pay for the atmosphere, the adrenaline of actually being there.

Take Monday night football as the prime example. Until Sky bought out the rights to show football, this was unheard of. Football would have one day when all teams would play, at the same time, 3 on a Saturday. Sometimes a second day would be used, the Wednesday evening, if there was a congestion of fixtures, but usually the week would be used for European games. But now....if you get to wait for three teams results coming in at 5 on a Saturday you are blessed. Instead, a team has played at 12, one will play at 5.45, three on Sunday, maybe even one more on Monday. This isn't what football is all aobut. The FA should make football so that waiting for the scores is exciting again. SO that
you can see how everyone is doing at once. Not knowing how well your rivals have already done before you play. It takes the excitment of 'how did 'x' do this week and where does this put us in the league?


So what does the FA do? Well we've established that it already has very little control over the times and staging of the games that Sky wants to change. So what else can it do? It can make decisions based on events that have occurred within a match. But hang on, a lot of the time this only occurs because Sky have made an issue of a foul. It seems to be that Sky says if it was a foul, was a penalty, was a booking and the FA agrees with what they say. Maybe this isn't how it really is but it might as well be. THe Fa don't want to offend those that pay for their offices, their wages, their upkeep. Until television is controlled, the national body for the long-term protection of our sacred game is little more than token gesture.

Summary: