CHANGE IN FOOTBALL

Futbol nedir tanimi vs.

Futbolun tarihcesi

Many ball games are being played throughout the human history and some of
them are needed to be kicked by feet. It is thought that Ancient Greeks and Romans
were the first nations who played ball games for the first time. A very similar ball
game to modern football as it is known today was played by Greeks for the first
time in 388-311 BC. As one of the Roman Politicians said an air filled ball which
was made from “the follis”, entered into a barber`s shop and killed a man who was
having a shave. As it can be understood ball games were played even in the first
centuries of ancient times. According to researches almost every indigenous
peoples all around the world played some kind of ball games, such as Chinese,
Japanese, Eskimos and many others. However modern football was founded in
Western Europe especially in England.

As a result of Norman Conquest, first football games have arrived to

England and in the Middle Ages a huge rise in popularity of football was seen
especially with “Shrovetide Football” which has been occurring since 12th century
throughout Europe, particularly in England.

An illustration of so-called "mob football"

One of the first types of football namely “mob football” was played between
neighboring towns and villages, which was involved by unlimited number of
players with a few of rules, was seen in England as it can be easily predicted a huge
heaving mass of people, struggling to move the ball such as an inflated pig`s
bladder, to a particular geographical place such as the church of the opponents.
This game is still being played in some local English Towns. A clear description of
football which was played in about 1170s by youths of London during an annual
festival is given by William FitzStephen:

After lunch all the youth of the city go out into the fields to take part in a ball
game. The students of each school have their own ball; the workers from each city
craft are also carrying their balls. Older citizens, fathers, and wealthy citizens
come on horseback to watch their juniors competing, and to relive their own youth
vicariously: you can see their inner passions aroused as they watch the action and
get caught up in the fun being had by the carefree adolescents.[16]

In those years football was being played as an entertainment for society. It was
played by youths, workers, shortly by ordinary people and watched by them.
Especially with the regulations of government on working hours in the UK,
workers played football as an entertainment on their free time, on Saturdays after 3
o`clock. Today football games are still being played on that time as a result of old
traditions of UK.

As a result of working hour regulations and workers interest in football, its

popularity boomed and became more popular day by day. This increasing
popularity caused a necessity for more modern, more complex and industrialized
football.

As the time passes football has changed and the modern football as we know it
today has become into existence in 1800s with the establishment of first football
club. The first football club as it can be easily predicted was established in the
United Kingdom as “Sheffield Football Club” in 1857. It is still active today and
officially accepted as the first football club by FIFA and English Football
Association.

The establishment of the first football teams and competitions between them
led the existence of common rules and associations who build these rules and
monitor them. After some approaches of local rule makers, football associations
became into existence. First football association was founded in 1863 by UK as
“The FA”. Then International Football Association Board (IFAB) was founded and
started to determine the laws of the game association football.

The increasing population and spreading of it to Turkey was happened in

1875. The English people who live in Selanik, brought football in that area and
naturally it was liked by Turkish people who live in that area and after a small
period it was started to play around Turkey and first football club “ Smyrna FC”
was established. Then professional Turkish football clubs were founded.
Galatasaray FC was the first Turkish club established in 1905 and then other
Turkish clubs Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş were founded.

FOOTBALL AND GLOBALIZATION

In 1930 FIFA World Cup which is seen the most important competition right
now, was organized for the first time in Uruguay. 13 national teams were involved
in that competition and especially involved nations were interested in that
competition seriously. In the final game of the competition were watched by 93.000
people. It can be seen a very important success for a competition which was
organized for the first time. In the following years the importance of this
competition has increased dramatically and become the most important, prestigious
and popular competition of the world. The number competitor nations of the
competition reached 32, in the FIFA World Cup France 1998.

Until 2010, approximately 31 million people watched World Cup matches in

stadiums. For the first time the world cup televised in 1954 and was watched by
people from all around the world. In 2006 World Cup it is estimated that 26.29
billion people watched the games from stadiums or televisions and proved its
importance.

BEFORE INDUSTRIAL FOOTBALL

Football was a kind of entertainment for hundreds of years, the foundations

of first clubs did not change it and for the next decades it remains same, just a
simple entertainment. People were going to the small stadiums free of charge and
watch the games that were being played there just for fun. Almost for 120 years
football clubs were money consuming establishments for founders and a way to
gain prestige, image, political and economic clout.

Even for the first football competitions football clubs were paying huge
moneys to be able to involve to competitions. For instance in 1950 Turkish
National Team withdrew from the competition because of financial problems they
had, although they had the right to participate.

Money consuming football clubs did not have important incomes at that time
and could not cover the expenses were occurring. People were funs of their
favourite teams but they did not have enough income to support their clubs. They
were supporting their clubs perhaps more than they do right now, they even were
sleeping in front of the stadiums before match days.

With the increasing interests and surely income of people and limited places
in stadium and high expenses of football clubs, led a change in 1970s. Football
clubs started to make advertisements, accept sponsorships, sell their products, sell
tickets for matches and lastly quoted on the stock exchanges.

INDUSTRIAL FOOTBALL

REVENUE ITEMS FOR CLUBS

After money became important in the football, clubs have started to aim to
make profit and increase their revenue. In this way, there are some revenue items
that clubs pursue:

1- Club owners and/or Executives

2- Broadcasting
3- Sponsorships and Advertisements
4- Gambling Companies
5- Governments
6- Football Association
7- Match-day Revenues
 8- Stadium
9- Stock Exchange Markets

Club Owners and/or Executives

Almost every country’s football clubs are owned by people or companies

like private companies and they are organized and managed to maximize their
revenue. Entrepreneurs buy clubs from popular leagues and aim to get success in
the competitions. Thus, clubs` can increase their fan number and popularity
worldwide. So, clubs` and owners` revenue are related and depend on each other.
Also entrepreneurs find the chance to make advertisement of their companies. If
football clubs are thought as advertisement channels, the message that
advertisements give reaches to huge number of people. So, despite of the enormous
amount of money needed for investment, ownership of a club is a profitable
investment option for entrepreneurs. For example, Roman Abramovic who is a
Russian oil magnate, purchased Chelsea FC , English Premiership Club. In
Abramovic`s era, the football team won two Premier League Titles, three FA cups,
two Football League cup, two Community Shield, and they played one UEFA
Champions League Final. After this successful period, Chelsea FC and Abramovic
both increased their popularity and income profit. According the authorities, behind
the success of the club, Abramovic`s 705 million Euros investment is seen. The
same situation can be seen in all over the world, such as Manchester City FC,
Liverpool FC, Shakhtar Donetsk FC etc.

In Turkey football clubs are being operated like a non profit organization.
Actually they aim to make profits but, they are not owned by a real person. The
organizations that own clubs, usually have their own communities and the clubs are
usually invested by these companies without a profit aim. As a result the taxation
applied to the income of these clubs are completely different than a profit aimed
organization.

Broadcasting Income

Nowadays especially important prestigious leagues` matches are being

watched by people throughout broadcasts which reaches almost every countries and
as it can be predicted easily broadcasting firms earn millions of dollars and
dependently football clubs.

The first broadcasted football match was Arsenal – Arsenal Reserves in 16

September 1937 by BBC on band. First live broadcast happened in 1960 by ITV
broadcasting company. ITV purchased the broadcasting right 150.000 pounds.
Demand of live broadcasts had increased in 1970s and boomed in 1980s. This cost
of broadcasting right reached to 1.314 million pounds. As a result the income that
football clubs generates through broadcasts have increased to incredible amounts.

Top 10 broadcast revenue generating clubs

Rank Club Revenue (€m) Money League

ranking

1 FC Barcelona 178.1 2

2 Real Madrid 158.7 1

3 AC Milan 141.1 7

4 Internazionale 137.9 9

5 Juventus 132.5 10

6 Manchester United 128.0 3

7 Arsenal 105.7 5
8 Chelsea 105.0 6

9 Liverpool 97.1 8

10 Bayern Munich 83.4 4

In Turkey the first live broadcasting occurred in 1971. The broadcasting

rights reached to million dollars after the boom of football in Turkey, especially
Industrial Football. In 1996 private television companies purchased the right of
broadcasting and the income that football clubs generate has increased
dramatically. In 2010 the broadcasting right has been sold for 321 million dollars
for a year.

SPONSORSHIP AND ADVERTISEMENTS

Nowadays advertisement and sponsorship incomes reached to millions of

dollars especially for important football clubs. The first sponsorship income
became into existence in the UK for the first time. Actually for lots of people who
interested with football even just a little bit, know that English Premier League is
the most important league in the world, therefore the first sponsorship agreement
was made in the UK. However if it is asked to these people who could be the first
team that signed a sponsorship agreement? They probably guess that it could be
Chelsea, Manchester United or Arsenal. However they are wrong. Surprisingly the
first team that signed a sponsorship agreement was Kettering Town.

The story started in 1975. Kettering Town was a small football club which
plays in a regional league only. Most probably only a few hundred people knew
this football club right now. The CEO of Kettering Town who played in an
important team in England, Everton, played a crucial role in the history of football
and signed the first agreement of sponsorship. He made the first agreement with a
small tire company in that town, namely “Kettering Tyres” in 24 January 1976.
After that day the name of the company was written on the shirts of football
players. However only 4 days later English Football Association forced the club to
remove the advertisement from shirts. Then the CEO of Kettering Town made a
trick intelligently and shortened the “Kettering Tyres” to “Kettering T”. As it is
seen the T on the shirts was understood differently from person to person, it was
the T for “Town” and also for “Tyre”. That trick increased the life of the first
sponsorship but only a few months. Later English FA placed a 1000 pound penalty
to Kettering Town and removed the “T” from the shirts. So the life if the first
sponsorship and advertisement lived for only a few months. However it made an
enormous effect to modern football.

There are lots of ways to earn sponsorship incomes for football clubs such as
shirt sponsorships, advertising boards, stadium name rights, stand name rights, kit
sponsorships, transportation, clothing etc. The most important part of these
sponsorships is shirt sponsorships. As an example Barcelona which has the most
expensive shirt sponsorship income right now, earns 30 million Euros per year. In
one of the most prestigious sport competitions, on UEFA Champions League, the
advertisements of Heineken, Ford, Sony, Playstation, Master Card etc. are being
seen by millions of people on every game. On the stadium name rights also
millions of dollars are being earned by football clubs such as Allianz Arena,
Emirates Stadium, Commerz Bank Arena and Volkswagen Arena. As an example
of the incomes of stadium name rights, Arsenal FC earned 390 million pounds for
the name right of the stadium. Stand name rights are not so common in the world
but in Turkey there are some well known examples for it. On the kit sponsorships
well known kit companies have sponsorships of almost all football clubs. Adidas,
Umbro, Nike and Puma are usually seen almost everywhere. On the other
sponsorships there are hundreds of examples but it is better to give a well known
example of Turkish company, THY. THY purchased the transportation right of
Barcelona for 3 million Euros and Manchester for 3 million Euros per year.
Similarly on clothing sponsorship clubs earn reasonable incomes.

A football club usually have tens of different sponsorships, it can be stated

that they have incomes from every possible thing to be sponsored. The highest
sponsorship income is Bayern Munchen FC’s income as 172.9 million Euros.
 In Turkey despite of late passage to Industrial Football, there is an important
amount of income of advertisement. On shirt sponsorships Galatasaray has the
highest income, It sold the sponsorship right of shirts for approximately 15 million
dollars per year. In Turkey’s advertising boards also there are different important
sponsors like Medical Park, Acibadem, Duffy and THY. On Stadium name rights
again Galatasaray has the highest income, it has 5 million dollars per year. On
stand name rights there are some important advertisements such as Pegasus in
Galatasaray’s stadium, Migros and Turk Telekom in Fenerbahçe’s stadium. Also in
others advertisements area there are different sponsorship agreements signed.

Futbol takim gelirleri

GAMBLING COMPANIES
Gambling companies have been existing since the football had spread to the
world decades ago. In the past some rich people were interested in to bet on the
results of football matches. It was an illegal activity and stayed illegal for years. In
1930s betting on football matches became legal and after a while the popularity of
it increased dramatically. After the boomed popularity and millions of dollars spent
on betting, governments felt a need to restrict and tax it. Because of these high
taxations, betting companies moved to some countries which are better for taxation,
which can be called “tax heaven” like Malta, Luxembourg etc. Especially with the
increase of internet, betting reached to every place in the world. First gambling
company which bets for football via internet, were established with the name
“Betsson” in 2001. Today millions of people spend and earn millions of dollars.

In Turkey the first gambling company was established as “Spor Toto” in

1959s and has been operating for over 50 years. However interestingly there is no
private gambling company in Turkey. Spor Toto is officially owned by Milli
Piyango which is a public institution. Then with the spread of betting on internet, a
necessity for an online gambling company occurred. The first online gambling
company “Bilyoner” established and many other gambling companies established
after the success of the first online company.

GOVERNMENT

Governments do not have so many approaches on football in the world.

Therefore it is not possible to give so much information about government
approaches on football. Despite of that they have some incentives on taxation etc.
However in the Turkey government is closely related with the football industry. As
an important activity, government leases its own land to football clubs for
laughable prices. Also the stadiums can be built by government and leased to clubs.
The aim behind that is to improve the quality of football. There are some
regulations on clubs like to force the clubs to have six different branches actively
and also the teams of these branches have to send at least a player to national team
if necessary. For example a new stadium “Ali Sami Yen Spor Kompleksi Türk
Telekom Arena” has been built and leased to Galatasaray. The necessary six
branches for Galatasaray are football, basketball, volleyball, scoop, handball, water
polo, swimming, athleticism and sailing. Also training facility buildings for football
clubs are built and leased like the same thing happened on stadiums.

FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

All football clubs are associated with football associations. These institutions
are managed autonomously. The first Football Association built by England in
1963. Broadcasting income, some sponsorships, national team issues and incomes
and referee committee issues are completely undertaken by FAs.

Broadcastings are sold by auctions to broadcasting firms every year. The

income generated from these auctions are held into the pool system of Football
Association and shared to football clubs in the league equally. Also the sponsorship
agreements are quite same, sponsorship agreements are made between the
companies that want to make advertisements through football associations. For
example English Premier League has the advertisement of Barclays which is an
important bank in the UK, also The Bank of Spain BBVA has the sponsorship of
Spanish La Liga.

National teams are controlled by FAs. The technical staffs of the national
team including head coach are determined by the FA directly. Also the licences of
team players and referees are issued by the FA. All of the efforts that the FA made
are covered with the money earned by it. Actually it is possible to think the FA as a
huge football club, all incomes earned from sales off the products of the national
team and also money earned from the achievements of the team in international
competitions are controlled by the FA. The aim of FAs of all countries and FIFA as
a worldwide institution is to be sure to be having the same rules all over the world
and increase the quality of the game itself. This situation can be thought as an
example of the proof of increased globalization of football. As a same situation the
referee committee and the control of the FAs over them aims to improve quality of
football globally.

As a result of the need of FAs, Turkish FA established in 1923 and did the
all necessities of Football Associations. It has been operating to maximize the
revenues of the league itself and to increase the quality of Turkish League. As an
example the income of FAs, the minimum attendance income of FIFA World Cup
starts from 10 million dollars and can be reached maximum 50 million dollars.
With the all incomes can be generated from these championships can reach to 200
million dollars easily. The Turkish National Team could not attend to the World
Cup 2010 and therefore it lost a huge amount of money in that year. Also the
money that is earned from sponsorships is 20 million Euros especially on the
important competition times. Turkcell, THY, Nike and Mercedes Benz are just a
few examples of the sponsorships that Turkey has.

MATCH DAY REVENUES

Match day revenues include ticket sale, sales from fan shops, sales from
stadium restaurants etc. The money earned as match day revenues reached to sky
high amounts nowadays. As an example Arsenal earns 4,2 million Euros as an
average match day revenue. Therefore one of the most important audit firms of the
world Deloitte started to make researches about match day revenues in 2004. A
table from Deloitte’s research:

To increase the match day revenues especially huge clubs are making new
stadiums which contain different stores. Shopping malls, restaurants, museums are
included to these stadiums. In 2006 Arsenal moved from Highbury, to Emirates
Stadium. By moving its stadium Arsenal increased its match day revenues 69%.
The aim behind it to make complexes for the fans of the clubs more attractive to
spend most of their time in there. Also to maximize the income earned in a season
football clubs tend to make as much as matches possible in a season.

STOCK EXCHANGE

With the industrialization of football, the expenses of the football clubs

exceeded their revenues. To find enough money to cover the deficit football clubs
are quoted to stock exchange. Moreover they supply financing by benefiting from
the opportunities of being able to get bank loan and give certificate of debt
proposing guarantee for the shares also after the clubs are opened and the shares
begin to be processed in stock exchange. In this frame football clubs accelerated
the institutionalizing period and succeed in getting modern management methods in
a shorter time than it is needed, thanks to inspection mechanism of capital market
by being opened the public and getting their shares processed in stock exchange.

In Turkey firstly Beşiktaş and Galatasaray Football Clubs initiated the

process of supplying public with the shares. These clubs realized this process
through the companies. At the end of the 2002 – 2003 season football clubs are
evaluated by IMKB Stock Exchange and opened the public. The indexes of the
shares of clubs are depended closely to the success of the teams, as it can be seen
below the results of even each games changed the trend of the indexes of the shares
rapidly.

Through the institutionalization process of clubs all the favourable things of

clubs like amateur sport branches, memberships and social relations are remained
same in the body of the clubs. However professional football teams activities are
transferred to the body of corporations which are quoted to stock exchanges.

Also the institutionalization enabled the investors and even speculators to be

able to invest to the football clubs. Even for ordinary football fans found the chance
to buy the shares of their favourite teams and increase their level of partisanship
with the portion of profits of clubs.

CONCLUSION

Looking for Eric is a movie directed by famous director Ken Loach, which is
about the life of a Manchester United fan. It reflects the situation of a football fan
against the industrialization of football. A dialogue from that interesting film says:

*What kind of car parks in there on a match day?

*Not the kind of the cars that we can afford. How many postmen, you know,
go to the game.
*Yeah. We are going on bikes with f.cking baskets on the front.
 *I mean where else can you sing at the top of your voice with all your mates.
That is what I really miss. It is gotta be a good ten years now since I last went to a
game.

You can change your wife, change your politics, change your religion. But
never, never can you change your favourite football team!

As a result of all of the changes in financial view of the picture, the

chemistry of football has totally changed. The small entertainment that people were
playing in the past, has changed over years and years. Football, a folk game, has
changed in time and turned into a business organization called “industrial football”.
The ties it has established with symbolic values has increased the significance of
the game, in addition to its mythical, religious and class features. Professionalizing
process has transformed this sports activity from a game into a field that functions
at economical level. Consequently the value of the capitalist order has dominated
the field of sports and starts to shape it. Competition and the desire for success have
averted all kinds of sportive values. The most significant impact of
professionalizing and has been on the supporters and the players. With a shift to
new understanding of industrialized football, not only the core of football but also
its plays in our lives has started to change. Beyond being a game football functions
as a “miniature” in social life through which some role and value transfers take
place. Therefore, it is vital to speak out that the game being played is not football
anymore after its designation as “industrial football”.