"Postmodernism is incredulity towards meta-narrative" - Lyotard.
At all societal levels, the illusions warrant our attention, from the doublespeak of democracy to the figment-of-imagination that is football.
"Can we sell you a fated event, pal?".
"No, we are postdelusional, thank you".
Berlusconi wins the Italian elections and the far-right Northern League significantly increases its vote. Berlusconi is Italy's Murdoch in his monopolisation of media. The illusory democracy of Italy produced an election which was decided on the mountains of rubbish in the streets of Napoli and the potential selling off of Alitalia to any willing overseas buyer. Now, if one chooses to change governments annually, such micro-hyperrealities might be worthy of a weighting in a voter's decision making process, but Berlusconi is back in power SOLELY via a spectral media campaign against the unions (rubbish in mafia territory) and an appeal to xenophobia (loss of a flagship carrier). If the media are to define elections, this is the Illusory Democracy that results - and another country falls (yet again in Italy's case) under the yoke of a libertarian fascist monopolist psychopathic oligarch with mafia links.
It also means Milan will win Serie A next season - you heard it here first...
This freebie piece of information neatly and altruistically brings us to the New Premiership Order (NPO), a sub-operation of the New European Order, which is itself but a mere sub-division of the New World Order.
The Premiership is fighting to save its brand. Like the League Cup and the FA Cup before it, the Premiership is becoming an irrelevance to the Big 4 teams. Benitez has always put Liverpool's Champions League interests first and, last night, Chelsea rested or "rested" Drogba, Carvalho, Makalele, Lampard, Wright-Phillips and the two Coles, while also choosing to utilise the match as a psychological training session for serial self-harmer Petr Čech. Just as there was no focus by Chelsea on the FA Cup tie at Barnsley, there is similarly no intent to put that much effort into maintaining the pseudo-excitement of a Title Race. Roman wants glory in Moscow - the Premiership is an irritation.
The bookmakers and the mainstream media are not happy about this.
The Premier League are furious. It is difficult enough to hold aloft the brand when clubs are run by a collection of undesirables tainted by corruption and worse, when the match and tournament outcomes are linked to the gambling markets, when the majority of games require full volume on the Sky mixing desk to make it sound like there is a knowledgable and cacophonous multitude enjoying the Spectacle. Having been globally rebuffed in the imperialist concept of the 39th Game, Richard Scudamore now sees the inevitability of the European Super League (ESL) all the more clearly in his rear view mirror.
And it is looming up.
The G14(18) conveniently comprises 18 clubs - a ready made ESL. Once the Big 4 have made their getaway to private equity pastures new, the Premier League will become a simulacrum virtually immediately. Take away the top four and Derby County and there is not that much to choose between the Premiership outfits - particularly when the "leading" teams ie Spurs, Man City, Everton etc will be distracted by a targeting of the ESL2. Suddenly, Reading v Bolton and Boro v Ipswich is a Grand Slam Sunday. And Sky will still possess the audacity to call it that!
Once a sporting competition enters the mature phase of its market development in relation to the links with the gambling sector, there is no point of return. The "sport" will have become a total simulacrum.
Horseracing is a total simulacrum. Having started out in the Realities of hunting and breeding, only the very tip of the sport holds any claim on a current Reality. In mature markets, corruption is king. The corruption may take on a variety of forms and may even quantum between different forms just to make it more profitable and to make our lives more interesting. Reality does not exist. Horseracing results, for example, have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with form. Really. Nothing at all. Horseracing is an Illusion, a Hyperreality that bears no trace of a connection to the Reality where the journey began. It still involves small people and horses and, sometimes, there are fences to be jumped but substitute any other three objects and the Hyperreality would remain intact - think stuffed rabbits on rails, dogs and, sometimes, there are obstacles to be jumped. This is because both instances are governed by gambling money. As we have stated before, the power of incentives demands that a £3K prize is irrelevant in a £3 million betting market.
Similarly, once the ESL becomes our new Reality, a Premiership football match will morph into a structure where form will no longer matter. By form, we mean quality of players, management, morale, motivation etc etc - all the basic factors that both the rational and the irrational take into account before considering a bet. The necessities and requirements of the betting markets, the insider traders, the privileged with access to psychopathic power positions will demand that outcomes will maximise profits. Of course, media commentators will still verbally pollute with views on the (dis)advantages of zonal marking but the match outcomes will be determined not in the penalty area but in the trading rooms. In 5 years, Premiership = horseracing = total simulacra.
The major turnover, mega-marketed, Super Sat/Sunday, Grand Slam brands are already Total Illusion in that the match results bear no links to the Reality of the football game taking place - if, indeed, the said match is Real as there are some of these mega-brands that are anything but Real, being simply real.
Super Sundays are Simulacra!
Baudrillard: "...there is suspense, but no destiny. The fateful against the fractal, change against becoming".
Liverpool v Chelsea, Man Utd v Chelsea, Arsenal v Liverpool, Chelsea v Arsenal, Man Utd v Liverpool, Man Utd v Arsenal, Arsenal v Man Utd, Chelsea v Liverpool and Arsenal v Chelsea - all of these events were ruined and/or randomised due to the inputs of a whole collection of power bases competing in the fragmented cartel which represents merely a stage in the precession of simulacra.
Football used to be underpinned by Rules. Aside from defining the sport, concepts like fair play were built into the fabric of the game. In 2008, football is no longer built on Rules, it is governed by Laws. A Frenchman once said: "No-one is equal before the law whereas all are equal before the rule, since it is arbitrary". True. The offside law is indeed arbitrary but it is written down and, if correctly implemented, it works. It is also understood - the current demands for clarity refer to the implementation rather than to the underlying rule itself.
Contrarily, The Laws that now govern the game are not written down in any public place.
The Rules are of no importance when they share space with The Laws, and The Rules will always bend to The Laws.
The Institutional Reality that was founded on The Rules is now asset-stripped, stripped bare and destroyed by The Laws.
The Laws determine the form of Hyperreality to which the sport evolves.
We all have a right before The Rules to know why a decision is made in a football match.
We all have no right whatsoever before The Laws.
We might wish for an invasive intervention by the state but The Laws and the state share strategic objectives and, anyway, a "Socialist" who repeals the 10% tax-rate for low earners is hardly likely to separate The Laws from the game.
The Laws are implemented.
Falsely.
The match outcomes are fated.
Our outcomes become a Random Walk With Destiny, which, of course, doesn't exist.
No Reality.
No Destiny.
Why do we bother with this charade?
In China, the English Premiership is observed as a strange Hyperreal Entity. It is absolutely not a sport. Nobody watched it even before it was moved to a Pay-TV channel for the 2007/2008 season. And now, even less than nobody watches it.
And yet, hundreds of millions of pounds, largely illegally and underground, are bet on the Premiership events across the Far East. These pounds and dollars generally link to Honk Kong and China for, at least, part of their journey of speculative capital flow. China has not only created the most dynamic and liquid global betting markets for a sport from an entirely different culture but they have turned this sport into a Total Illusion.
In China, The Rules are not generally understood but The Laws are and the football events are seen as abstract exercises in lateral thinking, contrariness, double bluff and treble bluff.
Which, evidently, is exactly what they are...
Consequently, the Asian market makers continue to run rings around the European operators in the big scheme of things. Strategy always slaughters short-termism in the end...
Brains and Brawn or Brawn is a No-Brainer.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
