The Final Solution
Whilst you were sitting in your plush lounge, feet extended, beer in hand watching the biggest club football game in the world, enjoying a beer in the comfort of an English evening, some of us weren’t so at ease in our pursuit of the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea last night.
The rhetoric is hard to ignore, it’s the biggest game in the world, commanding an audience of however many millions it supposedly commands. But for the fast growing, and football hungry fans in this part of the world, the champions league final kicked off at 3:45am on a Thursday morning, and that - if the European game is to continue it’s assault on the Asian economies - is simply unacceptable.
The game itself was a tense, typically English affair. Both sides created enough changes to have won in ordinary time, but instead, at 6am this morning, I was still perched on the edge of a bar stool in downtown Fukuoka waiting, hoping for Chelsea to slip up. But how many more people across football mad Japan were staying up into the morning to watch the game? Not many, I’d guess.
The solution probably isn’t that complicated. Make it a day-time kick-off, on a weekend. Had yesterday’s showpiece game kicked off at 3pm in mother Russia, it would have been noon in England, and 8pm in Japan. Great, suitable for everyone within the band of football nations from The UK to the most eastern ports of Asia.
Better? Yes, of course it is. Now lets fix it before next years final, because if kids are going to grow up in rural Shizuoka trying to imitate their favourite European footballing luminaries, they need to be able to see the best of the games that Europe has to offer.
