This week too, it was announced that the forthcoming Club World Cup, Fifa’s green-eyed attempt to park its tanks on Uefa’s lawns, has failed to secure a television deal. Clearly Gianni Infantino and his Fifa cronies had not anticipated that the footballing public does not share their enthusiasm for their utterly unnecessary ego-fest foisted on to an already furred-up seasonal calendar.
But this is what modern sporting authorities do: at every opportunity they pump up the volume. Never mind the quality, feel the width. Make things longer, add more rounds, extend the season: that way, they assume, profit lies. No doubt at Uefa they are already planning a new competition to schedule in that lucrative Thursday morning television market.
What they have not recognised is this: for the spectator, that holds ever diminishing appeal. Brian Moore, of this parish, once put it best. He explained that the difference between sport and real life is one of outcome. In the rest of our lives, everything is coloured by compromise; it is one long grey area. In sport it is black and white, you win or you lose (and occasionally share the spoils). Except, clearly, in the new Champions League, when defeat is no full stop. There is always another chance to progress.
Oddly, in the USA, the home of capitalist expansion, they understand this. Sports leagues there do not constantly bloat and expand. The NFL season, which has just got under way, will this year be as it always has been: short, sharp and meaningful. Each team plays just once a week across 18 weekends, each match an event. In that competition they understand the term rarity value. For them less is more.
And we have just witnessed the true power of frugality in the sporting world. The Paris Olympics took us constantly to the edge of our seats because every second had meaning. Across just a fortnight, in each of the sports on show, the purpose was brutal in its simplicity: victory was all, lose and you were out, three years of graft notwithstanding.
The truth is what gets our juices flowing is the excitement of competition that matters. Which is why, in February, we will all be watching when the Champions League eventually, by the most circuitous route, arrives at its knockout stage. The clue is in the word knockout. All or nothing, boom or bust: that is what proper sport should be about, not this pointless faffing.
