The death of the 'character' - has modern football become boring?

We all know what an incredibly big-business modern football has become. Money dominates in a world where the World Cup, the holy-grail of all football competitions, may be moved to the Winter in 2022 as multi-billionaire Qataris struggle to find a way for the world's pampered elite players to strut their stuff in such a searing climate. Certain players in the top leagues across the globe, and increasingly in lower divisions, personify everything that supporters dislike about the modern footballer: he's a money-grabbing, Porsche-driving, sniveling 20-year-old with no acknowledgement of the sheer privilege of his position. Players, however, are not  the only aspect of the modern game that emphasises the capital-driven nature of the sport.

No, the biggest clubs are now almost unanimously referred to as 'franchises'. To the owners of these clubs, the 'Galactico' spirit, where the Korean shirt-sales figures matter as much as the fact of whether this big money signing is worthy of being paid £150,000 a week. Clubs such as Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham are coming under increasing pressure due to the sheer global magnitude of their peers to increase their influence across the globe. Arséne Wenger seems to have finally caved in the long-running debate he has had with the Arsenal board and marketing department over how beneficial it would be for Arsenal's players to embark on a Pre-season tour of the Far East, and Arsenal will most probably be doing so before the 2011/12 season.

If it were ths simple, and the abundance of money was the only problem affecting modern footballers, then fans could probably just about take it. However, I believe there is a more pressing problem with the modern game, this being that there is an absence of traditional 'characters' - those players who go out for five pints on a Friday night and score a screamer on the Saturday. Those great men - the George Bests, the Ian Wrights, the Paul Mersons, Gascoignes and Fowlers. Essentially, these men are flawed characters: two studs short of a boot room, perhaps personal demons or some latest shenanigan hitting the papers every week, but the fans adore them. They love the clubs they play for. In many cases, such players have grown up watching a certain team with the rest of the punters, they are one of the punters. One of the lads, living the dream.

I'm not accusing modern players of being boring, don't get me wrong, nor am I saying that there are no players left who embody this spirit - the guy you just can't stay mad at, be it because he's pulling another prank or conducting another legendary interview. One thinks of Jimmy Bullard, perhaps one of the foremost remaining members of this clan, but there are many more. Most teams still have a 'prankster', but generally there are fewer stories that emerge from clubs than there used to be, excluding the latest prostitution or gagging-order scandal. The reason for this declining phenomenon, in my opinion, lies very much with the structure of player recruitment across the world. A rather ridiculous story of a one-year-old baby being signed by professional club VVV Venlo highlights my point here perfectly. Although this is obviously an extreme case, when I read about Manchester United or Chelsea, Arsenal or Barcelona battling over the signature of a nine-year-old boy it makes me cringe. Children are being signed at increasingly young ages, and trained within clubs throughout their entire teenage life, many being educated solely with other trainees. When they emerge on the other side, they resemble cookie-cutter drones: bred for the strength of their legs and the quickness of their mind. Nowadays, many who don't quite fit the mould are discarded at ages when players before would have only been starting out.

In the modern game, this urgency of recruitment is unfortunately unavoidable. Teams must gamble on training younger and younger kids in the vain hope that one will turn into the next Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas or John Terry. Gone are the days when a player like Roy Keane can only sign for a professional club aged 19 and go on to captain club and country. No, the conveyor belt of talent rumbles on at football clubs across the world, with children as young as seven recruited after they show glimmers of potential. By the time these kids are ready for a starting place in a first team, they have been indoctrinated in club mechanisms for at least ten years, and I ask how healthy this is for football as an environment? Perhaps this system is marginally more effective for developing talent and sifting through young players, but for the game as a whole, i'm not so sure.

The landscape has changed drastically, some of the tales from tournaments even as (relatively) recently as Italia '90 and Euro '94, where squads of players with life experiences and real, working personalities genuinely enjoyed spending time with each other, put modern yarns to shame. Players pranking each other, legendary drinking sessions, sneaking out of hotel rooms and a plethora of other stories which fans can tell over and over again with unwavering enjoyment. In 2010, however, England's players were couped up like a gang of unruly schoolchildren or recalcitrant dogs whose owners are on holiday, about as wild as it got was when the players inexplicably lit up cigars after being spanked 4-1 by Germany. Honestly, how many players are there in the current England squad that you'd like to go for a pint with?

I'm not encouraging players to behave irresponsibly or in a way that brings negative attention to their clubs or national teams, but I am simply mourning the passing of an era where fans were actually able to relate to, and dare I say even like, footballers who lived their careers with the boyish enthusiasm of teenage supporters who still couldn't believe they were doing this for a living. I worry that the next generation of fans might merely be consigned to Twitter feeds of mega-stars discussing their latest Xbox exploits, while others of us are lucky enough to reminisce about the great stories of the past.


Perhaps one day this culture will develop again, and supporter's eagerness to watch more genuine, normal men playing the beautiful game will lead to a resurgence of the great 'character'. Until then, we will only have to wait and tell our great stories. Have you heard the one about...