FOOTBALL IS BORING
By Celine Dion
February 27 2026
There I’ve said it. I am bored of football. Lots of people find football boring, to be fair. But in my experience, these people have always found it boring. They like gardening, or horse racing. Or even rugby (sigh). We have all met someone, or in my case married one, who says ‘Well it’s just some men running round trying to kick a ball into a net, isn’t it’. I was always aghast at this idea. Until recently, that is, when I have felt myself susceptible to the creeping realisation that these people might have a point.
As an example of my boredom with it all, I have a DAZN subscription, which means I can watch Serie A games, Spanish Highlights, all kinds of football features really. Do I watch them? Never. I’ll stick the Italian football on nowadays and find myself glazing over. I’ll be back watching ‘Four in a Bed’ within about ten minutes (it’s a programme about bed and breakfasts on channel 4, before any of you make any childish jokes). I have all the Sky subscriptions. Do I watch Premier League football, apart from Arsenal games? Not really. I’ll watch a Tottenham game if I think there’s a strong chance of them losing (I’ve been watching a few lately, to be fair), but that’s about it.
Now, there’s nothing unusual about someone finding football boring. But I’ve been to hundreds of Arsenal games, well over a hundred Exeter City games, plus internationals and various random grounds. I’ve been to around 40 stadiums in the UK. I once thought nothing of getting up at 5am and driving to Scunthorpe. From Exeter. To watch a League Two game.
I wonder why this is. Let’s try and explore the reasons shall we? If we can be bothered..
It’s the Money (Again)
First of all, there’s the money thing. Let’s get that out of the way first, because it’s not hugely interesting anymore. I used to bang on about the money aspect ruining Arsenal on here about 15 years ago. I wrote some truly excellent articles. Obviously, it hasn’t improved, and everything else has caught up now. It costs about £50 to go to the cinema, and about £100 to take a few people out for a pizza. About a grand to go to an Oasis concert. Basically, if it’s fun, some nasty people in a skyscraper are in charge of it now and determined to rinse you for every penny they can get. Because if you can’t afford their prices, someone else will pay anyway.
Clearly, it distorts and corrupts the game. Most of the European leagues are extremely predictable now. It’s a wonder why they bother even playing some of them, Domestic leagues across Europe have become exercises in predictability. In France, Paris Saint-Germain have dominated the modern era. In Germany, Bayern Munich hoovered up titles for over a decade before Bayer Leverkusen briefly broke the pattern. In Spain, it remains largely a duopoly between Real Madrid and Barcelona, with Atlético Madrid occasionally interrupting.
Here, Manchester City have set new standards for sustained dominance.
City fans insist it’s all organic excellence. Chelsea fans once said the same. Perhaps they have to believe that. Otherwise, it must feel faintly hollow. I don’t remember City winning four in a row in the days of Paulo Wanchope and Joey Barton though. Or Chelsea winning three titles on the trot with Kerry Dixon and Speedie up front.
Football has been corrupted by money beyond the same teams winning everything all the time. We could all probably write a book about FIFA, and all the ridiculous things they have done. We all know about silly home kick off times that mean away fans can’t get a train home until the following day. We all know about needing about 10 TV subscriptions to be able to watch all the leagues and competitions you want to. Nobody’s in charge you see. Well, except money.
And then there’s VAR.
Supporters at top-level games will tell you there is no point properly celebrating a goal anymore. Someone in a remote office must first decide whether a toenail was fractionally offside.
Celebrating a goal used to be one of the most exhilarating experiences in everyday life. I’ve celebrated goals by falling down steps, losing trainers, being crushed by large gentlemen, and — perhaps most memorably — being dragged out from under a row of seats with a young Son of Dion after a late Exeter winner at Newport.
You won’t convince me VAR is about fairness. If football’s powerbrokers were truly interested in fairness, they might have addressed structural financial imbalance before introducing forensic geometry.
No — this is about legal insulation. In a world where elite clubs deploy battalions of lawyers over financial regulations, it was only a matter of time before refereeing decisions became litigable events.
Too Much Football
Another reason why I am bored of football is that there is simply too much of it, and it is too hyped. There is a wonderful Mitchell and Webb sketch which you have probably seen, where David Mitchell takes the p*ss out of football by walking round Loftus Road pretending to be a football pundit and hyping games like Macclesfield v Bolton. ‘CATCH ALL OF THE FOOTBALL, ALL OF THE TIME. EVERY MATCH MORE CLIMACTIC THAN THE LAST’. It’s absolutely bang on. I listen to Talk Sport, which has become an absolute parody of itself, and where the pundits discuss the minutest details of football on a 24-hour loop. People ring up to talk about corners. In the summer, when there isn’t any football, they don’t really talk about cricket or athletics, they still talk about football, but they talk about transfer rumours, because there is no football. They talk about rumours about transfers which, in general, never actually happen. And everyone still rings up. Call me a conspiracy theorist, Sometimes I half-suspect the endless football noise is convenient. If Colin is on hold waiting to debate set-piece zonal marking, he’s perhaps less likely to organise a residents’ association about his rising council tax.
During lockdown, I remember watching early-return Bundesliga games in empty stadiums and feeling — irrationally — that things were normal again. Football as anaesthetic. Football as reassurance.
I get it. I bought into it.
But stand back from it and there’s something gently absurd. People spending huge portions of their leisure time and disposable income travelling to watch a game their team will probably lose in a half-empty identikit stadium.
If you’ve ever read Albert Camus, you might think of The Myth of Sisyphus. Eternal repetition. Eternal struggle. Eternal return.
The Death of Spontaneity
Next, the game itself, has become so sanitised. Top level football is choreographed, data-analysed, and coached to such an extent that is a mistake, not flair, that wins a top game nowadays. I have a suspicion that the likes of Bergkamp and Henry would be seen by modern coaches as rebellious mavericks nowadays – dangerously unreliable. Jack Grealish I think is my favourite illustration of this point. Indeed, a maverick player in his days at Villa, but a player who was snapped up by Manchester City and then regarded as increasingly undesirable, apparently due to his penchant for not doing exactly what the data driven coaches told him to, and was eventually moved on, with his best years wasted. Think about when you last saw a goal from a mazy dribble in a top-level game in recent years. It’s hard work, because nowadays your mazy dribblers have been coached to lay the ball off back into midfield or to an overlapping full back, long before any mazy dribble could be attempted. The patterns of football itself have become predictable and boring. And that is indeed what they are, patterns, it’s not a game anymore, it’s a pattern.
Retreat to Verdi
So, what can be done?
Well, nothing really.
When I was younger, I felt energised by injustices — in football and elsewhere. Now I mostly feel tired by it.
You should all watch the current channel 4 series ‘Dirty Business’, about UK river pollution, its excellent. It’s about two campaigners who make it their life’s work to confront the UK water industry because sewage is being poured, with total impunity, into the nation's seas and rivers. But there’s a very prescient moment at the end where Jason Watkin’s character suddenly loses heart with it all. ‘Nothing will happen’. He says, realising suddenly that the little man now has no power in a commercial world, now totally under the eternal control of the people in skyscrapers.
And it’s also probably my age. I think I might have seen all the different types of goals that it’s possible to see. A 30-yard screamer into the top corner of the net isn’t really ‘ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE’, because thinking about it, I saw a similar goal last week. And the week before that. I’ve seen all the possible combinations of football results that I can possibly see. The Champions League is just a blur of the same teams doing the same things season after season, several times. Bayern Madrid against Inter St Germain, Borussia City against Athletico Milan. I just don’t CARE.
I’ve retreated to other pastimes. Things embedded in culture and history. Art. Classical music. Human creations that still feel largely untouched by hedge funds and commercial lawyers.
Instead of driving to Scunthorpe and Carlisle, I now find myself buying tickets to Giuseppe Verdi and Mozart. You can still wear full CP Company to the Royal Opera House if you wish. The beer is cheaper. The police don’t keep you in afterwards.
You can’t celebrate a fine aria by launching yourself across the seats in front of you — that’s frowned upon. But it’s a small price to pay.
I still watch Arsenal on television. I still appreciate the social ritual of a matchday - catching up with decent people and enjoying a drink
But live and breathe football? Kick the metaphorical cat across the room because Arsenal have conceded in the 93rd minute at Wolves?
Not anymore.
It all feels slightly absurd.
And, if I’m honest,
a bit boring.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2026:03:05:14:16:04 by Flava.
Enjoy.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2026:02:27:12:01:51 by Boston Gooner.
Football at the top level is boring and essentially dead as well. Only things that keeps it going is the constant hype train of the media companies and their recognition that the only way to keep the product relevant is more football morning, noon and night.
Most football media "products " are now based on the programming of people via social media and "reactions" for their dopamine addled brains, which need constant bitesized stimulation, in order to escape the increasing hellscape that is modern society.
We have a choice as "consumers" though, we can give the 10 subscription packages and the sports washing the two fingers and engage with it on our own terms, ie through alternative methods and compartmentalization.
Or we can follow the old model, spend a fortune, stick out fingers in our ears when Infantino comes up with his latest abomination and live and die by Arsenal results and the ensuing damage the cat endures along the way.
I know which model Iam following that's for sure.
Life is boring and up to oneself to find that little imperfections that will take you a lifetime of interest to examine.
I am currently more interesting in reading and watching ancient history/political history/nature shows than German, Spanish and Italian football games.
Like little known controversy still not resolved:
65 million years ago - an asteroid or Deccan Gap volcanic eruption extinct the dinosaurs?
It is not resolved due to the more glamourous theory of an asteroid impact porposed by a Nobel Prize for physics winner.
That guys are the power of Social Media and Mass Media that brainwash hoi polloi to believe what they had written as gospel true beyond reproach.
Deccan Gap Volcanic Eruption
The Deccan Traps are a significant volcanic feature in India, formed around 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. These eruptions are believed to have caused hyperthermal warming, mercury toxicity, ocean acidification, and acid rain, which contributed to the mass extinction event around 66 million years ago. The eruptions are thought to have been produced by the Rรฉunion hotspot, which is responsible for the creation of the modern Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Deccan Traps are a large igneous province that consists of many layers of solidified flood basalt, covering an area of about 500,000 square kilometers and having a volume of about 1,000,000 cubic kilometers. The eruptions occurred over a 600โ800,000 year time period and are divided into four subprovinces: the main Deccan, the Malwa Plateau, the Mandla Lobe, and the Saurashtran Plateau. The eruptions are thought to have played a minor role in the mass extinction event, although some scholars continue to argue they may have contributed.
See, there are more thing than football in life.
It is diluting the product.
The speed at which the game is played + the high frequency of games incentivises functionality.
The new players today get into the professional game having played less off the cuff street football.
When I was in school people spent the same amount of time playing sport outdoors as they devote to video game consoles today.
CR7 spent entire days playing real football. Would he have bern doing that as a 10 year old in 2017?
Arsenal Times | [www.gov.uk]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2026:02:27:14:51:39 by Ares.
Football is getting boring and Arsenal is getting boring with Mikel Arteta.
I am only here at Arsenal Times because of Padre Pio.
Otherwise, I will be long gone.
Quote:Merlion96
You are both correct.
Football is getting boring and Arsenal is getting boring with Mikel Arteta.
I am only here at Arsenal Times because of Padre Pio.
Otherwise, I will be long gone.
๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ฅ๐๐ซ๐ค๐๐ฒ!
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
There are far more interesting and productive things to do.
Celine is absolutely right. If you want entertainment you're better off paying for actual Entertainment and Experiences. Eg: Travel.
If you can do both as Padre often does It's Win + Win.
Arsenal Times | [www.gov.uk]
Quote:celine dion
thank you Mr Ares, and all the others who have commented. It's a flippant article that I drummed up overnight, but it masks a serious point. Football should be a distraction. An enjoyable pastime. Not the be and all of life. It is, after all, only a game.
Bill Shankly would disagree.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
Quote:Ares
You shouldn't spend 4 days a week EVERY week talking or thinking about football (or any sport) unless you're being paid to do it or you're playing it.
There are far more interesting and productive things to do.
Celine is absolutely right. If you want entertainment you're better off paying for actual Entertainment and Experiences. Eg: Travel.
If you can do both as Padre often does It's Win + Win.
Fully agreed.
Regrettably, football is the opium of hoi polloi.
Like video games and online gambling, watching and commenting on football is an addiction.
Just as some don't.
Who's to say they are wrong.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
Theodore roosevelt - In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
What a spectacular!
It brought back my love for Italian operas, ski jumping, ice skating & ice dancing.
Quote:CantonaFootballPoet
Someone tell Celine to skip the match and get down to Covent Garden, matinee performance of Cosi fan tutte about to start
'Cosi Fan Tutte' isn't on at Covent Garden this year, sadly. But dont worry I have a seat booked for Giselle in a few weeks. An excellent ballet.
My thoughts only. Mods, please draw no inference, or take the wrong way...
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
I've also been watching a lot of Man United and Spurs games over the past 10 years as they have been@#$%&most of the time.
Quote:Merlion96
You are both correct.
Football is getting boring and Arsenal is getting boring with Mikel Arteta.
I am only here at Arsenal Times because of Padre Pio.
Otherwise, I will be long gone.
Guess the advent of Internet and social media had stopped Millennials and Gen-Z from reading hardprints. Mainstream Media MSM.
Here is a story of how easily on that old saw "When enough people said it is truth, and professionals, experts and scientists backed all of it, an asserted falsehood can be proven it is the truth".
Where the true becomes the false,
The false becomes the true.
Where there is nothing, there is everything.
Virtually all of us are convinced by experts and scientists that 65 million years old, it is an asteriod that extinct the dinosaurs. They found the impact crater and found iridium in those 65 million years old layer that proven it is an asteroid strike.
This story was detailed in a book by Nevala-Lee, Alec "Collisions: A Physicist's Journey to the Death of the Dinosaurs" - story of Dr. Luis W Alvarez of Manhattan Project fame.
It is a sexy story; it sells and all professional publications plugged for it and shutdown all naysayers and others who opposed this theory.
Hoi Polloi lapped it all up without question. Hey, they are experts and scientists, who am I to dispute with them.
The minority, mostly a group of paleontologists, -ologists, et al took years of worldwide research to rebuke this asteroid strike theory since geological layers disputed that and they proven an asteriod strike can't destroyed all lives on earth.
Through their records, they proved that dinosaurs were on the decline due to volcanic activities, and they found evidence in Deccan Gap where the continuous volcanic activities were so great that at least a 1,000 miles lava pipe was discovered stretching right into Bay of Bengal.
A book by Dr. Greta Keller "The last extinction: The real science behind the death of dinosaurs".
It is not boring to read books guys.
Read more and question those experts and your politicians, your so-called Leaders more.
My point is that one must always be a thinking humankind and not easily led by the noses simply it they spouted by "experts" and "scientists" and "religious leaders" and "social media personalities".
That is why Trump 2.0 is so effective in leading his MAGA Hordes by their collective nose. When Trump 2.0 declared the Sun should rise in the West, MAGA Hordes will scream at Heaven that God got the compass wrong and move the Sun rises in the West.
East is West! Four legs Good!
West is East! Two Legs Better!
Football is spontaneous competition with another set of humans actively trying to stop the other team expressing itself. This is why creative players and teams are so admired.
I've definitely had my interest ebb and flo over the years, I hate the glazers so much some past seasons i've barely cared.
Everything has its season. And humans should ideally put their attention in things that excite them.
That doesn't mean giving up on your team, but for sure as Celine says football is in a lull at the moment. The forces of entropy are currently on top. The game has become robotic and your control freak manager kind of exemplifies it. To tie it back to the thread's theme, if I had to compare Arteta to a character opera it would be Baron Scarpia.
Only 2-3 years ago your lot played the best attacking football in the league. @#$%& pragmatism, its supposed to be entertainment.
"๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ฟ๐๐. ๐๐ณ ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐๐ฒ๐ฐ๐ผ๐ป๐ฑ, ๐๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ป๐ด."
Quote:CantonaFootballPoet
not really a valid comparison anyway. When we watch plays or especially operatic works, typically you are getting masterworks by geniuses that have survived through time. Its the cream of the cream.
Football is spontaneous competition with another set of humans actively trying to stop the other team expressing itself. This is why creative players and teams are so admired.
I've definitely had my interest ebb and flo over the years, I hate the glazers so much some past seasons i've barely cared.
Everything has its season. And humans should ideally put their attention in things that excite them.
That doesn't mean giving up on your team, but for sure as Celine says football is in a lull at the moment. The forces of entropy are currently on top. The game has become robotic and your control freak manager kind of exemplifies it. To tie it back to the thread's theme, if I had to compare Arteta to a character opera it would be Baron Scarpia.
Only 2-3 years ago your lot played the best attacking football in the league. @#$%& pragmatism, its supposed to be entertainment.
This lovely paragraph described football fans now:
Heavy drinkers veer towards exaggeration of their basic temperaments, the classic four - Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric and Melancholic.
The Sanguine Drunk goes gay to the point of hysteria and idiocy.
The Phlegmatic sinks into a morass of sullen gloom.
The Choleric is the fighting drunk of the cartoonists who spends much of the life in prison for smashing people and things.
The Melancholic succumbs to self-pity, mawkishness and tears.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.โ Saint Thomas Aquinas
โI see players trying to create corner kicks, trying to create throw-ins, I see ball boys ready to give towels to the players. Football has become absolutely horrible. I hope that this is not the path we are heading at.
โI am waiting for players who will take on defenders again, someone like Lamine Yamal. I am missing the joy! I just donโt enjoy football anymore.
โEveryone is executing tasks on the pitch. Where are the players dribbling? Where are the players with balls? Why is everyone passing? Passing! Passing! Passing!โ
It is so staged that it is obviously manipulated to decide an outcome.
You need to behold the outright rigging and manipulation that happened during the Africa Cup of Nations AFCON because CAF and FIFA wanted desperately for the host country Morocco to win the tournament. It was so glaring and that is why most of us Africans, especially the west African teams were celebrating Senegal for rocking their boat.
I'm not sure in any of the manipulating permutations do the English FA factor Arsenal winning the EPL. VAR and Ref blunders have cost us dearly. The year Liverpool won the league, you could see clearly that they were the favoured ones with all the blatant help they got from the officiating; VAR and Ref combined.
Tell me why every year , they will dangle City's charges yet do nothing about it but punish other lesser teams with point deductions and relegation for a lesser offense ๐คท๐ฟโโ๏ธ
The whole system is messed up that I'm almost on the verge of abandoning my love for football ๐
Can We Now Trust The Process ๐ค๐คท๐ฟโโ๏ธ or Should We Still Remain Cautious ๐๐ฟโโ๏ธ
F#@$$%^^&&&@@**King h*ll!!!
What a cardiac arrest and hearting stopping 7 minutes of injury time.
And you called football boring!!
I am going to call my cardiologist on standby for that Everton game!
Perhaps itโs all about cathartic release, or was it the sheer beauty of Max โ s finish.
Boring? Depends doesnโt it. Watching Liverpool failing to beat Spurs certainly bored the pants off me
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Quote:AJ The Gunner
I don't find football boring but extremely annoying. So annoying that these days I watch less games and more highlights.
It is so staged that it is obviously manipulated to decide an outcome.
You need to behold the outright rigging and manipulation that happened during the Africa Cup of Nations AFCON because CAF and FIFA wanted desperately for the host country Morocco to win the tournament. It was so glaring and that is why most of us Africans, especially the west African teams were celebrating Senegal for rocking their boat.
I'm not sure in any of the manipulating permutations do the English FA factor Arsenal winning the EPL. VAR and Ref blunders have cost us dearly. The year Liverpool won the league, you could see clearly that they were the favoured ones with all the blatant help they got from the officiating; VAR and Ref combined.
Tell me why every year , they will dangle City's charges yet do nothing about it but punish other lesser teams with point deductions and relegation for a lesser offense ๐คท๐ฟโโ๏ธ
The whole system is messed up that I'm almost on the verge of abandoning my love for football ๐
I also do enjoy 'the powers that be' having their plans foiled.
I'll enjoy City's 115 charges being ignored but them still going back to back seasons trophyless anyway.
And when we win the league and Arteta reverts back to the beautiful attacking game of 22/23, the whole league will follow suit, the way it did when Mourinho and Abramovich had us all adopting their five in midfield.
Apparently Arteta had wanted to play Max Dowman a lot sooner. If we win the league, put him in the 10 next season and buy a few more exciting attackers. Back to the 03/04, 07/08, 22/23 and whatever season that was when Wenger put Cazorla in midfield.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.