Well people are now speculating on things getting very tough for as much as a few years and beyond. I wonder if this could finally be the turning point for football?

I suspect season ticket sales aside we will see reductions in attendances this season throughout the leagues, as prices are pitched not only well above what is reasonable but ever further above what many people will now be able to justify for a non-essential 'entertainment' activity. Sky subscriptions could also fall through the floor.

Seems to me that over 10 years of relative prosperity have allowed the whole 'industry' from top to bottom to get way too full of itself, and much painful adaption to reality lies ahead!

The recession's been forecast by some for quite a while; the financial newspapers I read for work have been debating it more and more over the past year, but after such a long period of prosperity people are so used to buying whatever they want and putting it on credit that consumer data has pretty much held up until recently!

Got the feeling that there's going to be a motherf*cker of a hangover for Britain for at least 2-3 years. In terms of money, employment etc. it'll be bad for pretty much everyone.
For football clubs as institutions it's likely to be a rough ride as well; given the amount of debt that clubs live with we might see some even go to the wall when all the suits are falling over themselves to get out the door and the money dries up. Attendances will sink rapidly - people love their clubs and that, but when people are in negative equity etc. and need to cut back, overpriced football tickets will be the first thing to go. Likewise pay-TV, corporate boxes, all that sh*t.

It won't be pretty if the economy does go the way that pessimistic commentators are saying it will (and they've been spot-on in their predictions for quite a while), but on the other hand I think it's the best chance of structural reform that English football is likely to get. When the self-interested c*nts in suits shrug and go off to make money somewhere else who does the club need to survive? The fans, and what we want will suddenly start to seem a whole lot more important ;)

Of course, this is all wild speculation. There's any number of things that could happen, but suppose we'll see!

I think L1, L2 and BSP attendances will go up next season. This is mainly due to a lot of clubs doing season ticket special offers, Leeds not going up, Wrexham going down and Aldershot and Exeter in the league. Also some relatively big clubs got promoted into the BSP including Barrow and the smaller ones (Farsley, Stafford, Drolesden) got relegated.

On the other hand, perhaps it means that football will continue to lose working class supporters, and pursue 'new markets' with ever more vigour.

You should work in marketing

Yeah I'd say this is the way a lot of the premiership clubs will go. I'd expect to see some reductions in the lower leagues though.

What is this recession thingy all about anyway?

TBH I don't think it'll affact clubs that much at all, you'll have the diehards still attending but will sacrifice something else in order to do so and you'll have the little rich kids still being able to afford to attend. Attendences in the UK have been fairly consistant for the past decade, and are infact on the up (on league averages from previous seasons).

The problem is that the type of supporter who has been attracted to football over the last few years wont necessarily be affected by any recession. I think one of the most worrying statistics about the Premier League is that the average age of your match going fan is something like 43. It will be the youngsters who are most affected and the 'new' older fan with more income behind them who will still be able to go. Cant see any change soon....would need something radical like a salary cap to drive down players wages. After all thats where all the money goes.

Who knows where it could go, but it's pretty obvious that the economy will hit most sectors badly, and football could be hard hit.

Basically football, despite how some of us might see it, is a luxury good, and when pennies pinch, it's the luxuries that suffer. Mr A who drives 100 miles to the ground for 10 games a year, may now go to 7-8 games. Mr B who has been laid off and is looking for a new job now may have to stop going to games for a while, and won't buy the replic kit this season.

Football will feel the pinch around the edges, but I think the structure of the sport is pretty sound. TV money will still flow, fans will still come to the games in big numbers, and it will still prosper.

Now's the time to stay put, work hard and keep your head down so to speak. Hopefully we'll come out the other side in a few months, with free market capitalism having had some it's deficiencies exposed.