The Barça Effect

In this post I would like to touch upon the new world order of football. It is staring us all in the eyes, yet we try to resist its onslaught. It is a known fact that football is the leading sport in the world, but it is also a fact that football is turning from an exciting sport to a more simple form of exciting soap opera for men. Don’t you feel that sometimes in big Champions League games that you can actually know the outcome with watching only five minutes of a game? Especially when European heavyweights clash with each other. Don’t you notice how in the past two years the world has been divided between the blue and garnet on one side and the white on the other? Was it a coincidence or is it a planned operation behind closed doors with shadowy men controlling the outcome of games? I believe that it doesn’t really matter. Rather what matters is how Liverpool can emulate the successful ideas behind Barcelona.

In the past twenty years we have seen how Man Utd has overtaken us in the business department. Yet we can all feel that 99% of Man Utd fans around the world only happen to be fans because of success. Take trophies away from them and they will lose their fan base like what we have seen with the emergence of Chelsea. We can't fool ourselves anymore into thinking that the business factor of football is not directly connected with success on the pitch, and so we must start focusing more and more into how to bring this double success. This would be easy anyways; heavy marketing in Asia and North America would immediately give you enough ammo to compete on the pitch. But what can be tricky is how to have success in the business department without losing your soul. We can see this in the Barcelona model. They have risen up to second place in terms of revenue in football, yet still can be appealing to any football fans. It is a simple yet delicate balance. They appeal to all football fans through the powers of romantic football and political struggle. Easy when you think about it, yet extremely difficult to pull off successfully. So how can Liverpool emulate such a model?

First of all we already have the attractive football on the pitch, we only need to carry this over to the next season and little by little we would develop a reputation of playing attractively. We should take into consideration not to take it as an excuse though, or we would end up something like Arsenal and how they hide behind their attractive football when faced with the lack of trophies. There is also a factor that in the 2008/9 season Liverpool were at its peak in terms of attractiveness and fear factor. We didn’t care what ball would come out of Platini's little basket and that was a "fakht". The romantic football joker card can be a double edge sword, so it is best kept for the more highlighted games of the season and keep the more realistic playing style to the lower tier clubs in the league to insure more points in the bag. Losing in a big game can have a psychological backlash but when losing with pride it can have a positive drive on players, pundits and fans.

The second factor into the Barcelona model is the political struggle effect. This raises more romantic sympathies of a repressed people under an occupation. Anyone who visited Barcelona or Catalonia could clearly see that there is no repression taking place and it's only a calling for a romantic past glory. Nevertheless they have succeeded in having the sympathy of everyone who would witness how their fans and players represent the old kingdom of Aragorn. Although look to the north of Spain and you would see another people calling for their freedom in what is called the Basque Separatists, yet we don’t see football fans sympathizing with them. This romantic nostalgic marketing is the trademark of Barcelona as a football club and is being used to its fullest by its marketing vehicles. So unlike Man Utd, if Barcelona should go through a trophy dry spell it wouldn’t have as much a blow on their fan base as would on a club like Chelsea or Man Utd whose only means of success is though achieving trophies.

I do apologize for having written my raw thoughts and ideas into this subject, but I do believe that Liverpool is more than capable of achieving a higher standard than what we are in now. I also believe that there are good lessons to be learned from all football clubs, we just need to see which one would suit us more and how it can be applied without drastically changing our beloved club into a fan exploitation corporation.