The economics of sport (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anthropologists sometimes refer to sport as an example of how codes and conventions can radically alter the significance of everyday activities, pointing out that anyone anywhere can kick a ball past a post but that only within the institutional framework of a football match can one score a goal. This can be taken further: only in a society based on commodity production can one get paid for scoring goals, making runs, serving aces, converting tries, and so on.

As with everything else under capitalism, sporting activity cannot be carried on in isolation from harsh economic realities. This applies also to participatory sports of non-experts. Providing sporting equipment (pitches, clothing. rackets, balls) is big business, geared to making a profit. There is no point in producing only top quality cricket bats and tennis balls, since most workers cannot afford to buy them. As a result, thousands of workers spend their time producing cheap saleable sub standard goods.

But when most people speak of the money involved in sport, they are referring to the vast sums earned by leading professional players, for instance £40,000 to the winners of a recent tennis doubles tournament that involved playing just five matches. Top boxers like Muhammad Ali can earn a million dollars a fight, though much of this money goes to support a large retinue of hangers-on. In most sports, the possibility of such huge earnings is comparatively recent; the maximum wage for footballers was only abolished in 1961, and we have all seen stories of how yesterday's goalscoring heroes are today's social security "scroungers''.

In fact the vast majority of professional sportspeople sell their labour power (their sporting proficiency) for a wage not noticeably greater than they would receive in a factory of office. Indeed, there was a case a couple of years ago of a Fourth Division footballer returning to his previous job as a carpenter because it was better paid.

Many county cricketers—those who have not caught Kerry Packer’s eye—spend the winter on the dole and on the breadline. And it should not be forgotten that for most a career at the top will last fifteen years at the outside. Even the highly paid George Best looked to his post-footballing future by opening a chain of boutiques while he was opening up opposing defences.

Let's look a little more closely at the economics of football. Only a handful of league clubs can exist on income from gate money. Others survive by selling their best players for huge transfer fees, but most rely on various fund-raising schemes run by their supporters’ clubs or on money made available by their directors. Football club boards are usually self-perpetuating elites who deny their players and other employees any say in the running of the club, are often prepared to sack the manager after a handful of adverse results and yet themselves remain in charge no matter how badly things are going. At Newcastle United the directors refused to appoint as manager a man the players preferred: this was one of the causes of the disputes which led to many of the best players leaving the club and the remainder becoming so demoralized that United were relegated. The directors stayed put. however.

In view of the unprofitability of most clubs, directors aren’t in it for the money (the recent controversy over the issue of new shares at Manchester United, perhaps leading to enormous profits for the chairman and his family, is exceptional).. Directors are normally wealthy businessmen who either regard football clubs as rich men’s playthings (the way other capitalists view their mistresses) or aim to acquire some local kudos or publicity. The very last people to be considered at any football club are the paying spectators: at far too many grounds the view from the terraces is atrocious if more than a handful turn up to watch, while sanitary facilities are a disgrace. Part of the explanation for this is that money spent on new players entitles the club to tax relief, while that spent on ground improvements does not.

The most recent example of the impact of financial considerations on sport is undoubtedly Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. The world’s leading cricketers were persuaded by merciless application of the cheque book to play against one another in matches not under the jurisdiction of the official cricketing authorities but concocted for the benefit of Packers’ television cameras. Packer’s TV station had been unable to wrest coverage of Test matches from the Australian government broadcasting service, and his response was to stage and televise his own matches. Various commercially-directed gimmicks followed such as portable pitches and floodlit cricket played with a white ball. One hilarious episode was a match played in the United States, which introduced such variants as bowling all overs from the same end (to make things easier for Americans brought up on baseball). America, you see, offered an enormous potential market where there was no built-in opposition to Packer’s series. It may be arguable that spectators will see more and better cricket under Packer’s scheme, but what is certain is that the ordinary county cricketer has in no way benefitted.

One effect of increased commercialization has been the disappearance of the amateur from many sports. Lawn tennis was made open just over a decade ago, ending the ludicrous situation where full-time tennis players were officially amateurs, their jobs usually being “representatives” for sports goods firms. In football the FA Amateur Cup has been discontinued and cricket no longer distinguishes between Gentlemen and Players. Amateurs still exist at or near the highest level in some sports (Scotland’s Queen’s Park Football Club, for instance) but as a rule the part-time player cannot hope to compete with the full-time, professionally-coached, opponent. Hence the proficiency of Eastern European athletes, who are able to devote almost the whole of their time to sport while being strictly amateurs whose official occupation is student or teacher. Variations on this idea are by no means new. Arsenal Football Club was founded in 1896 as a works team of the Woolwich Arsenal, but soon players were conscripted for the team and then placed in jobs specially created for them (an ignominious start to such a famous team).

The lack of profitability of most sports has led to an increased reliance on two sources of revenue, sponsorship and television. The winners of the £40,000 prize mentioned earlier can proclaim themselves not just as World Double Champions but as Braniff Airways World Doubles Champions. Other lucky people can win the John Player League or the Texaco Cup, or can take part in a Coca-Cola International. He who pays the piper calls the tune, of course, and events are often modified to suit the sponsors' requirements.

The importance of television’s financial support for sport is graphically illustrated by the deal between the Football League and London Weekend Television, an agreement so momentous that it led to questions in the House of Commons and investigation by the EEC. Sports like Rugby League, which has permitted live televising of games, have seen gates diminish and hence an even greater dependence on cash from TV. One of the problems with marketing (an appropriate word) soccer in the US is that, unlike American football, it lacks those brief natural breaks so suitable to the insertion of advertisements during a live broadcast; perhaps players will be encouraged to waste even more time at throw-ins so that the precious ads can be slotted in.

So while watching and taking part in sport is one of the ways in which many workers relax and enjoy a respite from their daily toil, it is as well to remember that even there the requirements and limitations of capitalism still make their ugly presence felt.

Paul Bennett

Billion-dollar Games (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the biggest media and commercial binges in the last four years got under way at the end of July. We refer of course to the Los Angeles Olympics, rumoured by some simple souls to be a sporting festival but in fact an excuse for making money and reinforcing nationalist prejudices.

These were clearly the most commercialised Games ever held. The stages of carrying the Olympic torch across the United States were auctioned for three thousand dollars a kilometre and prominent alongside each runner was someone in a T-shirt advertising the telephone company, AT & T. Each sporting facility had its own sponsor; McDonalds, for instance, built the swimming pool, and Southlands Corporation the cycling velodrome. Fearing a repetition of the Montreal fiasco of 1976 (where the Games will not be paid for until the next century), Los Angeles only agreed to accept the Games if it could be guaranteed that the city would not lose money on them. This was assured when a consortium of businessmen accepted responsibility and set out to make as much money from the Games as they could.

The modern top-class sportsperson can hardly be other than a full-time athlete. Long gone are the days when it was possible to stay at the top by means of a couple of light training sessions a week. Training nowadays is highly scientific, with different emphases for different events, and a daily commitment is required. This is partly why Olympic eligibility is determined not by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but by the international governing body of each sport. So runners are allowed to make a living from the sport, while swimmers are not. In 1988, when tennis is part of the Games, professionals will be openly allowed to compete — provided they are under twenty!

The American athlete Carl Lewis has openly stated that "the Olympics are about money and not much else”. And he should know: he calculated that every gold medal he won in the Games (and he won four) would be worth one and a half million pounds to him. There would be endorsements for sports products, of course, but also for clothes, deodorants, and the like. Coca-Cola are discussing an extra contract with Lewis worth over four million pounds. Even this will just keep him in the style to which he is accustomed. He maintains his “amateur” status by having his income paid into a trust from which he can draw generous “expenses”. Not surprisingly, he sees little point in formally turning professional.

It may be worth recalling that the original Olympics of Ancient Greece were not based on amateur ideals either. In addition to victory garlands, sizeable prize money was paid, and athletes eventually organised their own professional associations to negotiate with the promoters of games. It is probably not too far-fetched to discern a professional circuit of games which provided an income for highly-trained full-time athletes. There was no pretence that taking part was more important than winning: victory in competition was what mattered, and there were no records or personal bests.

According to the accepted mythology, the Olympics were revived in 1896 because of the heroic vision and single-minded energy of Baron de Coubertin. In fact, there had been plenty of earlier attempts to do so. In 1612, Robert Dover founded the Cotswold Olympics, which won royal approval from James I (they endured in some form till 1852, when they were discontinued because of “debauchery”). In 1862, some “Olympics” were held in Liverpool, but nothing further came of them. Basically, these were sports gatherings for ordinary people — it took an aristocratic movement to get the Olympics truly going again.

De Coubertin was much influenced by the ethos of the English public schools and sport’s role in them. Thus his list of proposed sports for the first Games included rowing and cricket. The early Games were very much for the rich — ordinary workers could not afford the cost of attending, and sporting organisations were too primitive to arrange and finance large teams. In fact it was not until 1908 that entries were made nationally rather than individually, a change which presaged the later jingoism and national rivalries. Many of the early competitors — especially those from the United States and Great Britain — were university athletes, as these institutions provided some of the best facilities for training and competition.

Ironically it was in 1936, the year of the Berlin Olympics, that de Coubertin died. The Olympics had been assigned to Berlin in 1931, before the Nazi takeover, and no had forseen what would happen. No expense was spared in providing superb stadia and other facilities, or in ensuring that the German squad was trained as well as was possible. In 1933 the American Amateur Athletic Union had voted to boycott the Games if German Jewish athletes were discriminated against: but in December 1935 the American Olympic Committee decided narrowly against a boycott. It is often said that the 1936 Games were the first overtly political ones, but a better candidate for this title is the 1920 Games, which were awarded to Antwerp (as an emotional consolation to Belgium after the war) and from which those countries defeated in the war were excluded.

The organisation of events so as to fit in with convenient television timings is a fairly recent innovation but their manipulation for non-sporting reasons is not. For instance, the marathon distance of 26 miles 385 yards has no connection with Ancient Greek battles. The distance was fixed at the London Games of 1908. The race was run from Windsor to the White City, which turned out to be precisely 26 miles. But an extra 385 yards was added so that the finish could take place in front of the Royal Box.

Talking of royalty, the Games are fated to occur in the same years as American Presidential elections. But for this, there would hardly have been an American boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. This year President Reagan has noted the potential for exploiting the Games as part of his re-election campaign. Having been thwarted by Olympic officials in his attempt to secure a more than purely formal role in the opening ceremony, he made the most of every American success. As far as the tame American media were concerned, there was certainly only one country competing.

Which brings us to the boycott on the part of Russia and other East European countries. This was ostensibly because of lack of guaranteed security in Los Angeles but is more likely to be at bottom another move in the lofty and lowly world of power politics. In view of the strength of some of the withdrawing countries, it inevitably means that the achievement of the winners will be devalued, thus reducing the capital that Reagan can make out of American medals. One side-effect of the boycott was the decision of the IOC to pay all the expenses of the Rumanian team, as a way of ensuring some East European presence.

With these the third Games in succession to suffer from a boycott, the IOC executive committee has proposed that attendance at future Games be made compulsory. Of course, the only way to punish infringements of such a rule would be suspension from the Olympic movement. Like truancy from school being punished by expulsion. It clearly takes an Olympic committee to dream up something like this.

The Olympics, then, were not a sporting festival designed to promote international peace and harmony, but a further example of the way capitalist rivalries and priorities pollute and distort every aspect of life under the present social system.

Paul Bennett

In a League of Their Own (2021)

From the May 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

April is known for showers and fools. The shower presently in charge of six leading Premier League football clubs seemed determined to make fools of the rest. Their stated intent was to form an elite of European teams to secure the largest possible slice of the revenue pie.

As it turned out they were the April fools as the scheme quickly collapsed as all six English (geographically, if not by ownership) clubs withdrew from the scheme. However, even though a Spanish and an Italian club followed suit, according to Real Madrid’s president, the European Super League isn’t dead, it’s ‘on hold’).

The other 14 Premier League clubs had been joined by the rest of football and publicity-seeking populist politicians, including the prime minister, in condemning this blatant money-driven assault on purported sporting values. Many a pious platitude was solicited from commentators, pundits, former players and supporters.

Whether this was a serious proposal or a high pressure negotiating position remained unclear. It did seem remarkably coincidental that it appeared as football authorities were announcing changes to present structures. Whatever the purpose, money will be the driving force behind it. How could it be otherwise under capitalism?

Those loudly protesting this assault on the values of the game have more than a little hypocrisy about them. The Premier League was formed in 1992 for precisely the same reasons offered in support of the European Super League.

Sky Television offered fabulous amounts of money for exclusive rights and football was reformed for that reason alone. Subsequently, other media platforms have bought into the product, the only value actually realised being the commercial one.

Football has succumbed to modern capitalist financial practices. Clubs are purchased via leveraged deals, whereby the buyers borrow the money they need, but then settle that borrowed amount as debt on the club. Manchester United led the way in this sort of trading, but even smaller clubs are now subject to these methods.

One such is Burnley, recently bought out this way by an American deal, ending local ownership for the first time in the club’s history. Burnley was one of the original 12 founding members of the Football League in 1888, when the town was a major centre for cotton textile manufacture.

Of those 12 clubs, 6 were in Lancashire, the rest were in the industrial heartlands of the Midlands. The common factor was economic dynamism. The original Football League was itself a product of the financial circumstances of the day.

Football served an ideological function, encouraging workers to identify with their local team and, by association, the local capitalists who actually owned the clubs. It also encouraged workers into rival groups, sometimes leading to violence.

The link between football and violence of supporters is usually portrayed as emerging in the 1970s. However, a Times report on the 1914 cup final between Burnley and Liverpool made a point that the two sets of supporters did not assault each other, which suggests such events were not unknown.

Capitalism is all encompassing. Sport is not, and has never been, exempt from that. Even amateur football cannot escape: there’s the hire of the ground to play on and facilities to change in, kit to change into and various other expenses. Free it is not.

Whatever the eventual formulation, huge sums of money will be involved. One often-voiced criticism is that footballers are generously remunerated while nurses, for example, aren’t. Which are of greater value?

While the word ‘value’ has various dictionary definitions, for capitalism there is only one significant meaning, and that relates to profit alone. Footballers sell far more media subscriptions than nurses. Which is why the major factor driving the Super League is the production of a commodity that can be marketed around the world.

The big difference between1888 and now is that capitalism has moved on from the local (as it was already beginning to do even then) to the global. Football must reflect this. If it’s not the Super League then some similar formation will be required.

Supporters can gather outside clubs, chant their dissatisfactions and burn replica shirts all they like, but sooner or later commercial decisions will be the deciding factor in how the game is organised and played. It might be football in Britain, soccer in America, but the name of the game, as it’s always been, is profit.

The media has alleged that a deciding factor in making the infamous 6 change their minds was fan power, as supporters outraged at the prospect of their game being threatened by greedy businessmen forced them to abandon their plans. If only it was so.

When the Premier League was first launched a major concern expressed in the media was that the ready availability of televised football would result in fans no longer going through the turnstiles. Indeed, it was posited that entrance to games would become free to attract a crowd to provide the atmosphere.

Clever marketing sold the concept of glory by association to the point that some clubs had a waiting list for season tickets being sold at inflated prices. Cinemas showed matches live for those who could not afford either tickets or subscriptions.

The elite league as it then was quickly became a financial juggernaut, attractive to oligarchs, Middle Eastern princes and American speculators, among others. The Premier League became the ‘promised land’, the only worthwhile place for a club to be. A European Super League, by capitalist logic, would have been a reasonable next phase.

That it will not now be realised in its proposed form does not mean some version of it will not eventually emerge. If the financial imperatives require it to happen it will, whatever the opinion of fans, politicians or a media willing to curb their usual enthusiasm for free enterprise to court populist opinion. Not that such enterprise has anything to do with being free.

As with all aspects of life, free development is contingent on freeing society from the obligations of capitalism. Sport in general, football in particular, will mirror the social environment it exists in. Only with socialism and the subsequent absence of money can true sporting values be allowed to develop freely.

Dave Alton

Wood for the Trees: History as Drama (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent film Le Mans ’66 represents an addition to the long tradition of transforming historical events into entertaining dramatic film narratives. Given that its centrepiece is one of the many famous races held at the Le Mans motor racing circuit it already has a built in dramatic edge but the film focuses mainly on the relationships between the people who had the imagination, power, courage and knowledge to change motor racing history.

For decades the Ferrari motor company was dominant in this form of motor racing where performance has to be matched by engineering consistency and endurance. These were thoroughbred cars where no expense was spared – both on the track and in its road cars. They were the cars for the rich elite to show off their wealth, and status and success at the race track was seen as essential in maintaining this image. In contrast to this the American car industry specialised in the ‘mass production’ that would bring down prices and so make cars accessible to most everyone. Primary among these was the Ford motor company and Henry Ford himself is usually identified as having instigated the alienated assembly line manufacturing process.

The film opens with Henry Ford’s son expressing a frustrated desire to give his cars a much more performance-oriented sexy image. To acquire such engineering credibility he was advised that winning the world’s most prestigious motor race (Le Mans 24hr race) would be the most assured way of entering the performance market. To do this Ford initially attempts to buy the cash-strapped Ferrari Company but its owner Enzo Ferrari finds a better deal with Fiat and in refusing Ford’s offer he insults the American company and its CEO. Furious at this Ford instructs his employees to construct their own car to win the Le Mans race. The film follows the technological and social implications of such hubris in terms of the antagonism between the personalities that were essential to its realisation. The conflicting traditions of capitalist production in America and Italy and their respective corporate hierarchies together with maverick designers and drivers, their egos and comradeship combined with the aesthetic of speed all converge to make this movie entertaining and informative.

The result was the famous Ford GT40 racing car which was a winning combination of British design (Lola) and Ford’s 427 racing engine tuned by Carroll Shelby and driven by hot-tempered Brit Ken Miles. The traditional trope of the soulless big corporation trying to keep control of the free spirits of the drivers and engineers is used to entertaining effect by emphasising that the only way to achieve their goal was somehow to synthesise the incompatible realities of capitalism and freedom. We can only speculate as to the number of examples of other such attempts in numerous walks of life that have failed to hold together under similar inherent contradictions – but then nobody would want to make a film about failure.

This is, of course, one of the flaws in any attempt to make drama out of history. Not that history is without drama but to condense events into a story with structure and meaning must always involve being selective, depending on who’s telling the story as much as with its subject. Homer, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and countless other authors have not been inhibited in using historical events as the background to the stories that they wish to tell. It has become the job of many historians and archaeologists to try to unravel the myths and legends that have become so inextricably linked with our understanding of the past. Indeed many within those professions were themselves initially attracted to history by those same legends and myths.

Most of us enjoy a story where the ‘underdog’ or ‘maverick’ individual overcomes the conditioning and control of the powerful. Many are unaware of the political implications of this desire to escape the dead alienating prison of capitalism and can only express it by vicariously enjoying the escapism provided by drama. The heroes of the past express our anger in a positive way rather than the everyday negativity of conforming to tribalism, prejudice and competitiveness because of fear and political ignorance. Humankind has always loved to discover and/or impose patterns on existence. Dramatic stories provide meaning and structure to the chaos of life but this need we all possess must not be allowed to eclipse or disguise other more uncomfortable perspectives. We are all aware of such travesties of history in films like: Birth of a Nation, Quo Vadis, Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven. Such movies emphasise the danger of conflating history and drama especially because they are aesthetically pleasing with a good story, good acting and great scripts. Stories are used to obfuscate historical truths as often as they can illuminate them — the next time you read the legend ‘what follows is based on real events’ at the beginning of a film always bear this in mind.

Wez

Fair game? (1983)

From the October 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The current football season got off to its traditional start with rampaging "fans” whose activities attracted almost as much space in the press as the actual events on the field. The Observer (28 August 1983) reported one early clash: "The Birmingham fans were staking an early claim for the annual first-day-mindlessness-over- matter award”.

The beginnings were rather different. Football has developed from an informal, local, mass team game in feudal times to a nationally organised sport, with a sophisticated bureaucracy and a financial structure of its own. with armies of officials, players and spectators. In its organised form the game emerged as an acceptable type of violence. From being considered disorderly, even subversive, it came to be thought of as encouraging manliness and gentlemanly virtues. The game's purpose became the formation of character — preparation for the game of life. Many clergymen, influenced by their own public school education, introduced football to the young men in their parishes. They hoped that such a team game would influence working people into becoming “decent”, law-abiding citizens — a satisfactory result for the master class. Along with better physical health, footballers would develop the vagaries of character necessary to the protestant work ethic.

This season could well be make or break for many league clubs. Wage bills have been reduced by drastically cutting playing staffs, forcing many footballers onto the dole and bringing home to them that their type of work is not as glamorous as it might once, in the days when they dreamed of being a First Division hero, have seemed. The struggle for survival is worsened by a conflict between the Football Association, the administration of the game which still clings to the ideals of amateurism, and the owners of the football clubs who have rather different priorities. The FA have always been reluctant to allow club directors to be paid a wage, or to allow players to wear advertising matter on their shirts. The owners argue that sponsorship is part of the more "businesslike" approach the game needs if it is to survive.

Since the sixties both Labour and Conservative governments have encouraged firms to put their money (and, of course, their advertised names) into football and this growth in commercial sponsorship is the latest challenge to amateur attitudes; the Football League has now become the Canon League. Honest and sporting values have to be sacrificed by team managers and players for the sake of commercial values. Directors demand not only prestigious clubs but also prosperous ones. This puts the managers in a difficult spot. They know that to make the paying spectators come through the turnstiles their sides must play exciting, which means attacking, football but they also know that this policy is likely to concede goals. Every manager knows about job insecurity, as a succession of them are thrown out by directors who, like the supporters, are interested first in success.

Unscrupulous methods are used by managers conscious of the axe which hangs over them and which will fall if they fail to please the board. On the field defenders, aware that they will be dropped if they are responsible for too many goals against their team, use cynical fouls on opposing strikers. Players are transferred on a market as managers try desperately to reconcile fielding a winning side with the confines of a limited budget. Spectators join in thinking that they are watching "their" team and that their interests arc bound up with it winning. They jeer and harass opposing players who, if they happen to be black, are followed with loud imitations of ape noises.

Why do such large numbers of workers take so passionate an interest in something which has no real effect on their lives? Football is a fantastic escape from the reality of exploitation; it gives spectators a sense of order and continuity which they cannot find in their workplace. If the team is doing well, a supporter may feel that capitalism is not so bad after all; whatever the pressures during the working week there is always Saturday to look forward to. In his book The Sociology of Sport Harry Edwards claims that watching sport serves to: "Reaffirm the established values and beliefs, defining acceptable means and solutions to central problems in the secular realm of everyday societal life".

This squares with the concept of football as a quasi-religion. The game not only provides hooligans with an outlet for their pent-up feelings; it also gives other followers a sense of identity. After willingly handing over the fruits of their labour to the capitalist class during the week, or being a nobody on the dole, the football spectators, like churchgoers, can have a sense of belonging somewhere. They are not simply one of 25,000 people but a City or a West Ham fan. To label the hooligans as "not real fans", who "give the game a bad name", is to misunderstand; if football is in the place of a religion of modern capitalism then they are its priesthood.

In a profit-dominated society the appreciation of sporting skills is overridden by the desire for the dominance of one side, often at whatever cost is necessary, over the other. After their weekly dose of exploitation workers trek along to their holy shrines to give homage to the teams, hoping they will put their opponents to the sword without mercy. Strong words are spouted about violence on the terraces and about unruly youth, with calls for greater punishment but anti-social behaviour has its roots in the basis of capitalism. Sports goods firms cash in on the market with their pennants and scarves which create artificial bonds between the fans and their chosen team. The football priests robe themselves in the colours of their denomination and, if their side wins, can go back to their exploitation with an easier mind.

And that, for capitalism, is justification enough. For this is a social system which weighs everything, including such concepts as sporting behaviour, in the balance sheet and leaves the fans to walk on, walk on, with only hope in their hearts.

Gareth Thomas

This (Capitalist) Sporting Life (1998)

From the August 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

There was sport before capitalism and there will no doubt be sport after capitalism. Here we discuss three questions. What does the profit system do to this thing called sport? What are the pros and cons of the way we "do" sport today? And what will sport be like when we replace capitalism with socialism?

It is a truism - if not a cliche - that sport today is big business, at least in the economically developed parts of the world. Like all capitalist businesses, sport is one in which profit seeking is the spur.

Take football for example. Huge sums of money change hands around the spectacle of 22 men chasing and kicking a piece of leather. There are admission charges to grounds, the buying and selling of players (sometimes for millions of pounds), the "merchand-ising" of items of clothing and other paraphernalia to the faithful fans, the money gambled on the results of matches (out of which the pools promoters, the bookmakers and the government take a hefty slice). The shares of the big football clubs are marketed on the stock exchange.

The process is similar, with some differences of detail, in other sports around the world. In 1996 two megacapitalists, Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch, joined forces to launch a "super league" of Australian rugby football. As with World Series cricket, the target was pay-TV The previously free-to-air broadcasts were turned into paid-for commodities.

Reforming sport
Not all sport is useful to capitalism. And sometimes sport has to be reformed to make it amenable to the profit-seeking process. Originally, football was a very unorganised, rough and wild "folk game" between village teams of different sizes and with no fixed pitch boundaries. Only in the nineteenth century was it adapted for mass consumption.

Organised and commercialised sport helps to train a "docile" labour force. It encourages an acceptance of the kind of work discipline demanded by capitalist production. Ellis Cashmore. in his Making Sense of Sport, has a splendid cartoon in which a factory time-keeper is shown back-to-back with a referee, stop-watch in hand.

Hard work is urged in both competitive sport and employment. Sport both expresses and reinforces "qualities" that have counterparts in society at large. Aggressive individualism, ruthless competitive-ness. elitism, nationalism: all these are today regarded as admirable.

Writers on the social function of sport offer hypotheses about why it is so popular. Why do some people follow sport with much the same zeal and commitment as active churchgoers follow religion? Sport, it is suggested, has become a substitute for religion because it supplies the follower with a meaningful cause, an emblematic focus, a sense of allegiance and belonging.

Consuming sport
Perhaps the most notable feature of modern sport is that, while it is bought and sold rather like any other commodity or service, it is most like entertainment or showbusiness. In terms of preparing workers to be consumers not only of things but also of status-quo ways of thinking, the marriage of sport and television has a lot to answer for.

So what of sport in socialist society? One thing we can say for certain is that it will be engaged in for its own sake and not for money. We can all have our own ideas about what sports we would like to take part in or watch. The provision of facilities and events will be decided democratically. Competition will probably continue to play a part in some sports. But we can be fairly certain that there will be a red card for anyone who praises the mantra "Winning isn't the main thing? it's the only thing."

Stan Parker