Killie fan in peace. I have to say that the Celtic fans at last nights match in Perth who organised the "Extra Balls" protest against the early KO have to be applauded . It was clever in that it disrupted the match for a short period in a way that no-one could be hurt (or arrested!) and the TV coverage could hardly ignore. It was neither disrepectful or disadvantageous to their hosts and IMHO it was funny. Well done. Having said that, I am sure the suits in their ivory towers at UEFA won't take a blind bit of notice, but I believe it was still worth it. The fans attending matches are no longer treated even as 2nd class citizens by the authorities who pander to the TV masses and lets face it, does anyone really believe that TV viewers with no affiliation to either St.Johnstone or Celtic are going to not watch ManU-Chelsea or Barcelona just because an SPL match is live on another channel. In most industries UEFA would not be allowed to enforce such rules as it has strong monopolistic tendancies - which once again shows how these suited arseholes think they are above the normal rules of society at large.
The protest is against early kick-offs and in general, TV companies messing around with traditional football kick off times. The problem is that every club signed up to these conditions for a slice of Rupert Murdochs vast fortune. If fans don't want these kick-off times, then they need to vote with their wallet and stop subscribing to Sky and ESPN.
The credit should go to FC Basel for the idea. http://www.insideworldsoccer.com/2010/11/rain-of-tennis-balls-in-switzerland.html
Exactly. Unfortunately, there are just too many football "fans" who prefer to stay at home or go to the pub and watch matches instead of going to the game, which is why the wishes of fans who go thru the turnstiles will always carry less weight. I still think it is important that fans make their feelings known, and last night's actions managed a mention on the news here so it must have done some good, however little.
