The Next 10 Years of Football
There have certainly been some interesting landscapes introduced to football and some still being being discussed by the existing federations to impact the game moving forward.
The global pandemic has presented football in general with a whole lot of problems but as we return to normal there are some things to look forward to.
Now that football is generally on track even though we are trying to clean up the football calendar as well as improve other aspects of the game, there are some predictions I would like to make about what football could look like in the next ten of years.
Some of the following are educated guesses and some maybe more fantasy, hoping or what I would love to see in football within the next 10 years.
Cryptocurrency & Blockchain in Football
No doubt cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is evolving as well as being on the rise, with many predicting cryptocurrencies will replace the traditional physical currencies or ‘’fiats’’ that we use in day to day life.
Cryptocurrency markets have already made their way into sponsorship deals for some Premier League clubs. The comedic cryptocurrency Dogecoin sponsors Watford and Bitici.com are the shirt sleeve sponsor.
Blockchain technology will work wonders for the fan experience. Digital rewards and tokens currently exist for clubs like Wolves, Atletico Madrid, Juventus and Paris Saint Germain.
The developers behind this technology will find more ground-breaking ideas for fans with Blockchain technology, whether it be preserving iconic moments or access to exclusive content, in 10 years the modern-day football experience is going to be based on blockchain.
If we are talking Cryptocurrencies itself, I’m going to hazard a guess and say a single entity or a consortium out there within the next 10 years will successfully purchase a football club with cryptocurrency.
This isn’t exactly a stretch. In January 2021, David Barral became the first footballer to be purchased using cryptocurrency. I do also think a couple of transfers like these will take place but my guess is a club will be bought with digital currency within the next 10 years.
I’m not sure it will be necessarily a rich owner. It could come in the form of a supporter’s trust coming together as a consortium to purchase a club.
This is mainly due to the fact that there are some banks that are hesitant to accept cryptocurrency and would likely not want to risk being involved in a takeover with digital currency with its market volatility.
There have been some murmurs recently that the owners of a football club currently in League One would be willing to sell via cryptocurrency and there is a group currently looking into ways to buy this unnamed club with digital currency on the Blockchain.
More CarbonZero Matches
September 19th 2021 saw the worlds first ever net zero carbon football match between London rivals Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur.
Tottenham have been advocates for raising awareness on climate change for quite some time and made steps to reduce their carbon output.
Both Sky Sports and Tottenham worked to minimise emissions by making changes to travel for both sets of fans and players. As well as, the refreshment choices available at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium.
The logistics for the players, staff and broadcasting teams in terms of using biofuel vehicles and preserving the energy used to power the matches shouldn’t be a problem for most professional football clubs.
The government has placed a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030 in the PM’s new green plan approach. Along with carpooling and public transport some fans already do, the emissions in most football matches are set to be closer to zero regularly.
I don’t necessarily think it would be compulsory as such to try and reduce the emissions by the government however I do think the success of the pilot in the London derby will be raised and the Football Association will look at ways to make sure there are more like this.
It could be an expensive project but it’s an important issue and to use football and its reach to try and influence the issues in the world around us. Once the Premier League shows the way, the rest of the leagues will follow and England could become that shining example.
WSL & Football Pyramid shifting
Some would say this is an easy one and a no brainer and I might be cheating with this one. Women’s football has grown at an exciting rate over the last 7-8 years, attracting more viewing figures and interest than ever before.
The World Cup in both 2015 and 2019 had a lot to do with that. However, if we look at domestic club football the FA WSL agreed a multi-million-pound three-year deal with Sky Sports as the primary broadcaster a huge landmark for the women’s game.
Now knowing the influence of Sky Sports had on the inception of the Premier League, you’d be right to suggest a shift to the women’s football pyramid is coming very soon.
Think just 10 years ago April 2011 the inaugural Women’s Super League begun with just 8 teams. The growth since has been incredible to witness with two well-funded divisions with professional clubs both the Women’s Championship and the WSL.
I do predict even more growth. Either more teams are added to the current 12 WSL and teams to 15 perhaps somewhere in the future. The same even with the Championship division.
As the money reaches the lower echelons of the pyramid the Women’s National Leagues will become another well-funded women’s league. I do think as a result of the broadcasting revenue there will be larger sums of money spent on transfers for players.
Often fees are undisclosed in the Women’s football transfer window but the ever-increasing viewership will lead to more curiosity about transfer activity.
The current highest fee paid for a footballer is £250,000 paid by Chelsea Women to Wolfsburg Women for Pernille Harder. I do imagine we will see regular fees closer to this mark and maybe even hyper-inflation will follow as a result of the game growing.
Some of the existing sides in the WSL will make bigger strides in Europe. I think there will be a point where English teams start to dominate the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Arsenal Women are the only English club to have won it so far.
There will be small-to-medium landmarks within the next 10 years and I can confidently say there are some big changes coming to the women’s game and that the pyramid will look very different consisting of many more teams with high level football.
All-Star Games
This one is more of a fantasy. As strongly opposed as the European Super League was there are some elements to take away from the proposal. The new generation of fan wants to see the best players against each other much more often than the annual Champions League.
An American concept across most of their major sports. An all-star game puts the best against one another in one off spectacle matches. Now in football this could arrive in a number of ways.
We could look at within the division. The best squad from the teams in northern England vs the best squad from the south. An idea that Romelu Lukaku posed to the community in 2018 via social media suggesting fans should also have an input on the squad members.
I think of fans in the modern day would be all for this idea as long as it doesn’t interfere with the football calendar of their own teams. I would like to see something similar however with some selected divisions.
So, the Serie A All-stars, La Liga All-stars, Premier League All-stars, Ligue 1 All-stars and Bundesliga All-stars go at it to provide a spectacle in itself. Squads can be voted for by fans, players or simply used the highest rated players from statisticians like Sofascore or Whoscored.
Each league be assigned an opponent at some time available in the calendar to ideally provide some high quality and top tier football. Maybe it could even be used to raise funds for charitable organisations or charitable initiatives.
If this idea was ever to gather pace it’d be likely something you would see in pre-season prior to the new season beginning, the All-star sides of the previous season go and play out what we hope to be entertaining matches.
As much as, we may think it could be another attempt to copy or adopt American culture in our sport this idea wouldn’t be too dissimilar from international duty, which we can agree at times is tedious to watch.
There is a demand for seeing the best take on the best in this current generation of fans, whether it’s inspired by some outlandish sound bites from players and coaches or the experiences fans get from playing video games this dynamic will be brought up soon.
A complete fantasy of course and perhaps an idea that will be met with some hesitancy from some but I do think in the next 10 years, similar proposals will be made and some work will be made towards it.