Development and Challenges of Football after 1990 World Cup
1.0 Introduction
Football has over the years faced challenges despite its growth in popularity. Szymanski (2002) argues that football has significantly improved the economic standards of the countries who host the world cup and also those with the major leagues. Lee & Taylor (2005) argue that tourism has been on the rise due to football, and this has come to be with the 2202 World Cup hosted by South Korea and Japan. However, the report has dwelt much on the recent history of football that took center stage after the 1990 world cup finals. Some of the main topics that the report will include the development of football since the 1990 world cup, which includes a change of rules and incorporation of technology out and within the stadiums and not forgetting the events that have come hand in hand with the increased number of match officials. Also, the report covers some of the developing challenges that are currently facing the sport such as match fixing, racism, poor weather conditions, fights, and even corruption. Due to its popularity, football has attracted many investors in trying to search for talents from the less exposed children, and also football clubs have assisted on the same talent search. All these developments have come with their challenges and it’s up to the whole human race to come up with solutions to counter these challenges since football has become a global event.
2.0 Background of football
Football for the first time in World’s history was staged in Glasgow with the two teams being England and Scotland in the year 1872. By this time, football was in its initial stage being played within Great Britain alone. By the year 1900, the sport had gained popularity and football associations were being formed in many nations of the world. In Year 1904 FIFA was formed, and its headquarters are located in Zurich Switzerland. Later on in the year 1930, FIFA World Cup commenced in Uruguay with only 13 teams participating. The FIFA World Cup today has a total of 32 teams competing from all over the world. All these developments have come with their challenges.
In the recent past, we have heard from news reporters and seen some of the biggest challenges that have faced football. The newspapers have also discussed in details some important issues that are apparent to football. Football analysts have made it even better by holding one on one conversations with the football players and managers. All in all, all these individuals and media stations have not given a full layout of the challenges that are developing day in day out in the current era of football. Due to non-exhausting of these difficulties, it was necessary to come up with a more comprehensive research trying to narrow down the football history from the 1990 world cup up to today’s football.
3.0 Development of football from the 1990 world cup finals
In the year 1990, the world cup was hosted by Italy. During these finals, some remarkable events happened with the most memorable being the progress of Cameroon team to the quarter-finals only on their second outing of the tournament after recording a win over Argentina. In their work (Pillay, Tomlinson, and Bass, 2009) tries to explain how the 2010 World Cup would look like and tried to explain some of the significant changes that were deemed to happen. Since then, significant changes have occurred in the football sector which includes; Introduction of goal-line technology during the 2010 world cup that was held in South Africa the first time a world cup tournament was held on African soil. Goal-line technology was introduced with an aim of detecting whether the ball has crossed the goal line or not to minimize any errors that have over the years been made by the referees and other match officials. Goal line technology gives a 99.99% accuracy in determining whether it’s a goal or no goal. The need for the goal line technology was pushed due to unfair refereeing especially when Franc Lampard’s goal was denied in 2010 World Cup when England was playing against Germany leading to their loss (Hughes and Franks, 2012). During this world cup, the football world witnessed a beauty in the pitch when vuvuzelas became dominant as a way of cheering the players during match proceedings (Cottle, 2011).
Another development is that on the Isokinetic machine. The isokinetic machine has been developed with an aim of sensing muscle injuries. Sensing and Prediction of muscle injuries have prevented serious injuries from happening to the players. Development of football shirts has helped regulate body heat to the required level with an aim of maintaining optimal performance from the players.
Today’s football has been an avenue of money exchanging hands. Football has been a business whereby players are earning quite large amounts of money. Football clubs are willing to spend a lot of money to bring in experienced and talented players to the club. Football clubs earn all this money from the selling of jerseys and through the selling of tickets on match days (Kim & Chalip, 2004).
In 2014 world cup hosted by Brazil, Cooling breaks were first introduced. Cooling breaks were introduced for the players to take a breath and take some water due to high temperatures that could have interfered with their performance. Some of the future developments expected to occur have focused on Qatar 2022 world cup whereby the Qatar government has considered equipping its stadia with air conditioners to reduce the high temperatures in the month of June. This development has been eagerly awaited by football fans and players to see how effective it will be. Unlike in Brazil where cooling breaks were introduced, Qatar has found it necessary to improve the ways of countering the high temperatures during match periods technologically.
Another development in football is the introduction of the referees vanishing spray o vanishing foam. This spray is contained in an aerosol can that is clipped to the referees attire especially the short. Vanishing spray is used to mark the point where the referee awarded a free kick and also to mark the ten yards where the players defending the free kick should stand. Vanishing spray has considerably helped to prevent any cheating during free kicks either to the players awarded the free kick or to those who are defending.
4.0 Challenges are facing football
Football is one type of sport that is confronted with a lot of difficulties. One of the biggest problems harming football is corruption. It is evident that corruption has been an ongoing routing from many years back. Corruption finds its entry into football mainly due to the role played by the referee who subjectively makes decisions on the pitch. Corruption is greatly reducing the reputation of football, and this is lowering the morale of the sponsors to support the game and thus reducing their assistance. Despite all this, football organization downplays the threats posed by corruption.
Corruption greatly degrades and destroys the beauty of football. Lack of fair competition, favors can lead to the degrading of the game. A certain team may display a very excellent game within the ninety minutes of the competition but fail to emerge as the winning team. Also, a referee may make a mistake when making a decision which could determine the result of the game. These mistakes might be unavoidable, and the disappointment which both the players and the fans have undergone is what makes the game enjoyable. However, due to personal interest referee may decide to commit errors knowingly for one team and this depreciates the fun of watching football.
Allmers and Maennig (2009) say that there are cases whereby corruption portrays itself in football. He says that corruption when there is a need to construct a football stadium whereby a president of a football league can receive a bribe for a certain company to attain a contract of building a stadium. Also, poorly ranked countries in football league may be attempted to give bribe to attain high ranking (Cornelissen, 2007). Also, countries which have well established betting market may be involved in manipulation of certain games to gain higher betting capital. The Recent case of corruption is that of FIFA (International Federation of Association Football) whereby it was reported that there were cases of vote buying after a decision was made to shift the 2022 world cup to Qatar.
Some measures can be taken to combat this crisis. It is a duty of all football stakeholders to play a role in fighting corruption. The Partnership should be enhanced among private and public sectors and also the media and civil society should play their part. Involvement of all these stakeholders will enhance the creation of stronger workforce to try and eradicate this crisis. Anti¬- corruption measures should be laid down, come up with plan and measures to combat corruption. There is a need to create awareness by involving the footballers, the whole football management, fans and the media who will play a vital role in enhancing maximum publicity.
Active fighting of corruption can further be improved by the use of modern technology. Identification n and implementation of modern technical equipment should be increased. This equipment includes manuals which will effectively lead to law enforcement thus reducing cases of corruption. Also, severe measures should be taken to people involved in corruption, and this can be enhanced by prolonging the jail term of individuals caught engaging in corruption.
Another challenge facing football today is match fixing. This has mainly arisen due to the increased demand for gambling globally of which globalization highly facilitates it. Gambling has now been widely spread all over the world to almost all the countries in the world. Asia is one of the continents which are highly affected by gambling. There exists a link between gambling and match fixers. Match fixing is mainly done to benefit the gamblers who usually places a large amount of money on already known winning team. Match fixers have greatly lowered the essence of football in Asia, and now they are targeting the rest of the world. One way of countering this challenge can be creating awareness on football ethics right from the officials to the football governing bodies of the different nations. Ethics in football can play a big role in improving the understanding of the fans, players, and officials with an aim of maintaining the beauty of football.
Racism has been reported in many football leagues all over the world. Racism is a situation whereby abuse is subjected to the footballers, football officials and fans due to their skin complexion and nationality. An example of racism is when a Barcelona player Dani Alves, a banana was thrown towards him by a Villarreal fan, and this led to the club being fined £9850. Other cases of racism portray itself when a certain individual decides to support a certain team. New measures have been laid down to fight away this crisis. Players caught in the act of racism are highly fined and banned from playing some of the football matches. Fans involved in racism are taken before the court, and if guilty they usually face jail terms. Also, football association should come up with a plan of organizing anti-racism matches to try and end this crisis. In today's football, we have seen fans from all races and players as well carry posters written: "Say No to Racism." This is a big step in an aim of trying to fight this menace.
Another challenge that is facing football is harsh weather conditions. In Europe, many matches have been postponed due to falling snow and heavy rains. Stadia have always been affected by this bad weather since they are not fully covered. It has not been established yet on how to deal with these harsh weather conditions, but plans are underway though the cost may be extremely high.
Another challenge is fighting arising inside and outside the pitch, between fans, players, coaches, and even between match officials. Fights arise as a result of frustration and even pressure when matches are going on. Disappointments as well lead to fans fighting each other especially when the matches end. When the referees’ fails to award fouls, or even deny goals and penalties coaches are fuelled up and tempted to attack match officials. This can be controlled by staging fair play by the referees’ and improving the level of refereeing to avoid chaos and disturbances from players, coaches and fans.
5.0 Conclusion
Football over the years have increased in popularity, and major developments have been realized both in the rules of the game itself and in the stadia where matches are played. We have witnessed sponsors from all over the world finding ways to be associated with the beautiful game of football because they no footballers are the best ambassadors they can ever have in promoting their brands. All in all, these major developments should try and give solutions to already existing problems but not to create more problems (Newton, 2009). It is evident that the major challenges facing football are human related and therefore there is a chance that people can change their behaviors and let the beautiful game of football take the center stage and dominate as it has always done.
6.0 Bibliography
Allmers, S., and Maennig, W., 2009. Economic impacts of the FIFA soccer World Cups in France 1998, Germany 2006, and the outlook for South Africa 2010. Eastern Economic Journal, 35(4), pp.500-519.
Cornelissen, S., 2007. Crafting legacies: the changing political economy of global sport and the 2010 FIFA World Cup™. Politikon, 34(3), pp.241-259.
Cottle, E. ed., 2011. South Africa's World Cup: A legacy for whom?. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Hughes, M. and Franks, I., 2012. Analysis of passing sequences, shots and goals in soccer. Journal of Sports Sciences, 23(5), pp.509-514.
Kim, N.S. and Chalip, L., 2004. Why travel to the FIFA World Cup? Effects of motives, background, interest, and constraints. Tourism Management, 25(6), pp.695-707.
Lee, C.K. and Taylor, T., 2005. Critical reflections on the economic impact assessment of a mega-event: the case of 2002 FIFA World Cup. Tourism management, 26(4), pp.595-603.
Newton, C., 2009, February. The reverse side of the medal: about the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the beautification of the N2 in Cape Town. In Urban Forum (Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 93-108). Springer Netherlands.
Pillay, U., Tomlinson, R. and Bass, O., 2009. Development and dreams: the urban legacy of the 2010 Football World Cup. HSRC Press.
Szymanski, S., 2002. The economic impact of the World Cup. World Economics, 3(1), pp.169-177.
