8 Potential Game Changers For Football In The Near Future

Usually in times of turmoil, football supporters look to the beautiful game for something solid, real and consistent. However, the coronavirus outbreak has stripped many supporters of their raison d’etre. For many, entire weeks are scheduled around Super Sundays, Monday Night Football and maybe even some Europa League action. What are avid supporters supposed to do now when using the bathroom, if they cannot scroll through transfer rumours?

Football isn’t just watching matches, it’s the Fantasy Football Leagues, transfer rumours, and endless drunken VAR debates. Arrigo Sacchi described football as the “most important of the least important things”, so although football is not a priority right now, its absence is overwhelming for those fans who spend hour upon hour refreshing football news feeds.

So, with no realm football news for fans and with various footballing associations and governing bodies posing potential restart dates for football, that even to the most optimistic fan seem far-fetched and idealistic, it might be worth considering how the world and football itself will look upon its much-awaited return. Football is always changing, but the next few months, or even years, could see drastic changes to the beautiful game.

The football we miss now, may not be the football that returns.

Most fans of a certain generation will recall the famous 2014 Nike advert ‘The Last Game’. The ad tells the story of a scientist constructing perfect clones of some of the world’s great players, claiming real players "take too many risks". These clones destroy the world’s best Nike sponsored players, pushing football towards extinction. What follows is an “uplifting” display of how individuality, skill and intelligence can overcome the machine-like style of these science experiments.

Six years on and seemingly football hasn’t heeded the warning that football and technology simply don’t mix.

Whilst, goal line technology has been an irrefutable success, this is largely due to the lack of any potential ethical, moral or technological debate. We know what a goal is.

However, as has been seen with the laboured and widely criticised introduction of VAR (which has courted greater controversy and debate in England than other countries), many argue that technology is simply part of footballs future. Although, the refereeing body, the PGMOL, state that they don’t want technology to re-referee entire matches, it seems that given the oil and water nature of football and humanity, one may survive while the other fades into footballing folklore. It is not just offside where there is debate about where to draw the line.

It has been suggested that technology could influence the entire football experience beyond officiating, with fan interactivity, enhanced broadcasting through player cams and increased use of technology for managers truly seeing the end of the game as we know it.