How The Balance Of Power In World Football Is Changing

the world around us is rapidly changing in ways that can be difficult to fully comprehend in real time climate change conflicts artificial intelligence demographic aging and migration Trends mean that the world of 2035 let alone 2050 or 2070 is likely to be radically different to the world of 2023 much as some people might like to imagine that football exists within a vacuum unmoved by the machinations of geop politics and world events it would be foolish to imagine that football won't also be irrevocably Changed by these seismic shifts outside of its control then there are the aspects that are within football's control China Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all invested tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in football in recent years and there are several other countries starting to get similar ideas former minnow of the international game are becoming competitive whilst longtime Giants struggle to maintain their standards competitions are dying new ones are being born and those that survive are having their formats changed beyond all recognition the next World Cup will have 48 teams instead of 32 the Euros will soon move from 24 to 32 both accompanied by format changes the European Super League hasn't gone anywhere just yet and now clubs from America to West Asia also want in on the app it's no exaggeration I don't think to say that the world of football is changing at a much faster rate than at any other time in the lifetime of any living human being and that the traditional Geographic and political power bases within the sports have never been so under threat for the last 130 years though football has touched every corner of the globe just two continents Europe and South America have managed to define the sport between them they have won every single World Cup in the men's game and have actually made up every single World Cup finalist they have had the best players the most resources and the most powerful clubs leagues and federations football has functioned effectively therefore as a duopoly played and adored by all but determined at the elite level at least by two continents which are only actually home to less than 15% of the world's population for the first time that hierarchy is coming under threat people have been predicting this kind of a shift for a very long time from Pelle predicting that an African nation would win the World Cup before 2000 back in 1977 to those who felt that China's population investment in football and track record when it comes to Central planning would turn them into powerhouses on the international stage neither of those nor several other predictions have ever come to fruition so what's different this time around well as you've probably figured out by this stage that's what today's video is all about so sit back relax and join me on a journey to the planet Earth quite literally all of it from pekham to Patagonia for a look at how the world is changing how football is changing and how the combination of those two is likely to shift the long established balance of power within the world's most popular sport whether you noticed it consciously or not the landscape of international footballers already changed minnow who were formerly Canon fodder for any of the more established national teams are increasingly able to hold their own as the playing field is constantly being leveled and professionalism becomes much more Universal all right I know what you're thinking yes jalter did just lose 140 against France but I promise you that is the exception rather than the rule just look at the Pharaoh Island a self-governing archipelago home to just 50,000 people which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark there are currently 14,000 men in the phro islands age between 15 and 49 which if we are being extremely generous the youngest player in the Pharaoh Island Squad is actually 22 and the oldest 37 is effectively the national team's player pool men within that age group therefore have a roughly 1 in600 chance of representing the national team and in previous eras that sparity was reflected in the quality of the Pharaoh Island Squad their performances and indeed their results between September 2004 and October 2008 a period of more than 4 years the Pharaoh Islands didn't win a single game they played 30 matches more than 30 in fact during that time in a run of form which included six 60 defeats against Switzerland Scotland and Georgia it was a record which left the Pharaoh Islands 198 in the FIFA world rankings just one place off bottom with fewer than half as many points as footballing powerhouses such as Tahiti Tonga and Mongolia just 15 years on the Pharaoh Islands haven't won the World Cup yet surprisingly but nor are they Europe's whipping boys anymore over the last four years they've won eight games including a 2-1 win against turkey a football obsessed nation of more than 80 million people who were World Cup semi-in in 2002 and have four football stadiums that could fit the entire population of the Pharaoh Islands inside of them that's just one example but take a look at the most recent International break San Marino who are the lowest ranked team in the FIFA world rankings have now scored in three consecutive matches including in only very narrow 21 defeats against both Finland and Denmark before their last three matches it took San Marino 7 years yeah s seven years and more than 50 matches to score three goals in competitive fixtures and even then two of those three came against the much less formidable opposition of Azan and Kazakhstan heck Luxembourg and Kazakhstan have made the playoffs to qualify for Euro 2024 sure the expanded format helps a lot but Luxembourg still won games against Bosnia twice Iceland and Drew with turkey meanwhile Kazakhstan beat Denmark Finland Northern Ireland and previously Slovakia in the UEFA Nations League monzerat who have the smallest population of any FIFA member Association at less than 5,000 and where men have about a 1 in 50 chance of representing the national team won both games over the international break against Barbados and the Dominican Republic under the management of former premier league and one time England midfielder Le Boya when you take a look on a slightly grander scale also and not just at the most extreme of minnows we see a similar story playing out of the 2022 World Cup Japan beat both Spain and Germany Saudi Arabia beat eventual winners Argentina South Korea overcame Portugal and Morocco knocked both Spain and Portugal out of the tournament on route to the semi-finals becoming only the third non-an or South American team to ever make it that far at a World Cup Qatar though atrocious at the World Cup beat Asia's two football superpowers South Korea and Japan on route to winning the 2019 Asian cup having never previously made it beyond the quarterfinals over in South America Brazil five-time world champions and the most decorated national team on the planet are currently feeling very grateful for the World Cup's expanded format as they sit sixth in com ball qualifying below Colombia Venezuela and Ecuador having lost their last three games on the bounce and without to win in four let's not even get started on Germany who lost both games over the international break against turkey and Austria to continue a truly horrendous run of form and can count their lucky stars that they qualify automatically for Euro 2024 as hosts hopefully I have established a trend there quite an emphatic one in fact of minnow rising and Giants falling across several confederations then even if jalter I know might have let team minnow down a little last week it's not just that traditionally unfancied and smaller nations are professionalizing the established Elite are also no longer the feared forces that they once were in the mid 2000s England were able to field a starting 11 of David James Gary Neville Rio Ferdinand John Terry Ashley Cole David Beckham Paul skulls Frank Lampard Steven Gerard Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen that is an entire starting 11 with the exception of David James in goal of world class players in every single position and yet England still weren't the best team in the world or even in Europe and won absolutely nothing that's because France had Vieira Mele Perez HRI trees and zidan Italy had Buffon canavaro Nesta Perlo Del Pierro Vier and totty the Netherlands could boast vasar Stam van Bron cost dor Kaku David sorf Schneider over Mars Robin cver and vanissa Roy Brazil hadida kafu Lucio Roberto Carlos jilberto Silva Kaka Ronaldinho and Ronaldo and Argentina had aala mashiro cambiaso Rael Crespo T and Messi wherever you looked at the top ranked national teams all you saw was Superstars and it is not nostalgic just looking back at those teams to say that that is no longer the case it is just factually true where are the super teams in international football now maybe France though it is early depth where they Excel rather than having an abundance of superstars and I would argue that they had more of the latter in the 2000s England maybe have three or four really outstanding players Argentina Brazil and oddly Norway have a couple but by and large these teams just aren't the terrifying super teams that they once were the end result is that a team of decent if not outstanding players who are well organized and well coached can pretty much go toe-to-toe with any of them Hungary for example who are brilliantly set up by Marco Rossi qualified for Euro 2024 undefeated and have beaten Germany England twice and drawn with France in recent years they fear no one and why should they Hungary were want superpowers in football when they did have a genuine super team during the 1950s and footballers has long been deeply ingrained in Hungarian culture the even more interesting developments are in countries where football hasn't been quite so long established as ubiquitous as it might always have seemed or felt football is still growing and its popularity is increasing rapidly in some parts of the world in a recent video about the rise of Japan who are increasingly becoming a force on the international stage I talked about Japan's 100-year Vision First laid out in 1993 unlike a lot of countries China Qatar and Saudi Arabia being the most notable and recent examples Japan took a long-term approach to expanding football having only founded the country's first Nationwide professional football league in the 1990s the principal aim was for Japan to have 100 fully professional football clubs by 2093 a figure which is only currently exceeded by England it was accompanied by reforms of coaching access to Academy systems and major infrastructure and facility improvements and as things stand Japan is decades ahead of schedule one of the standout teams at the 2022 World Cup Japan have since won 4-1 against Germany and 4-2 against turkey with a youthful Squad of players who have really Bright Futures in the game when people look at the dominance particularly of Europe in recent decades combined with the difficulties that teams from Africa and Asia have endured they often point to socioeconomic factors per capita Europe is the richest and the most developed continent in the world but though that does come with its benefits in football undeniably it's not actually the be all and endall Brazil for example has a slightly lower GDP per capita than China and that economic divide is growing but Brazil have been the greatest Talent producers in the history of world football and continue to churn out worldclass youngsters meanwhile China hasn't given birth to a world-class footballer since leeway Tong almost 120 years ago and even he was born in what was then British Hong Kong it's a similar story when you look at Argentina and turkey two football mad Nations turkey being roughly twice the size of Argentina and marginally wealthier per capita yet Argentina just won their third world cup meanwhile turkey have only qualified for the World Cup once since the 1950s so what can explain that discrepancy well there are lot of things like climate culture and demographics but primarily it is football development rather than broader economic development that is the key determinant of talent production and success Brazil might be poorer than China but virtually every kid who grows up in Brazil has access to a football pitch lives close to a club and if they're good enough at least will be able to receive quality coaching from a young age that just isn't the case in China despite enormous investment in football pitches and coaching which means that millions of potential footballers slip through the net those things are reversible though if China turkey Indonesia or Nigeria were to Buck up their ideas create the necessary facilities scouting and coaching networks over a long period of time just like Japan there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't eventually become powerhouses on the international stage South Americans and Europeans are not in apperently or somehow genetically predisposed to being better at playing football it is purely a matter environment those are the internal factors within football which are likely to shift the balance of power within the sport over the coming decades but more significant still are the external factors when Uruguay hosted the first ever World Cup in 1930 the global population was just a fraction over 2 billion up from 1 billion in 1800 in less than 100 years that is quadruple to more than 8 billion it is an extraordinary population growth over such a short period of time but most demographers now predict that the world's population will Peak by the end of this Century that in of itself is significant but in a football context it is important to note that though the global population and birth rate might be starting to Plateau the distribution of that population and of those birth rights won be evenly distributed demographic aging is already a serious problem for the economies of Europe North America Australia and parts of East Asia as an older population means more pressure on public services and particularly on healthc care and fewer working age people providing the economic fuel to meet those costs and to do that work football likewise is obviously impacted by demographic aging footballers unless they're called Jan Luigi Buon tend to be quite quite young so the older a population the smaller the player pool available to be developed to turn professional and ultimately to playing the national team under 25y olds for instance make up just 20% of the German population which is historically low it is less than the 40 to 59y Old bracket alone which makes up 23% the average age of a German is now almost 48 which makes Germany the fourth oldest country in the world compare that with the mid 1940s when the likes of France beckenbauer and G mull were born when Germany's average age was just over 30 when the majority of Germany's Italian 9y winners were born it was just 33 and even when the likes of Mell Neuer Thomas Müller Philip L and Bastian Schweinsteiger were born Germany's 2014 World Cup winners Germany's average age was just under 36 that Germany's average age has risen by 10 years since that is is incredible and while there are more immediate factors in their most recent demise longterm it is a genuine issue on the opposite end of the spectrum there are 12 African countries where the median ages under 18 in Nigeria which has a larger population than Brazil and is also football mad the median age among males is just 18 and a half the Arab world and parts of South Asia have similarly youthful populations and though that is really only of any use if you are able to implement the type of football development that I mentioned earlier on in terms of access to coaching and Facilities it creates the opportunity for a major realignment long term if or when those changes happen in this sense Japan will provide an interesting test case up until now the rise of the Land of the Rising Sun has been remarkable but Japan is the oldest Nation on Earth with a national football team with an average age of almost 50 putting it second only to Monaco worldwide a micro State on the edge of a mountain full of miserable old people who refuse to pay any tax just 11.62% of Japan's population is under the age of 15 roughly half male and half female as you would imagine and though Japan is a large nation that presents real challenges in terms of future player Poes the elephant in the room in all of this is climate change domestic birth rates are one thing but as the planet warms and major weather events become increasingly common migratory Trends are likely to play an even greater role in the short term climate change is going to mean changes to tournament formats as playing football in the summer becomes problematic even in large parts of southern Europe and all year round in West Asia and the Horn of Africa it is going to make some places incredibly inhospitable to playing football at all if not impossible and throughout much of the world World it will see an era of constant disruption ranging in severity in the long term obviously it is existential countries close to the equator are not just going to become difficult to play football in which is already the case in many of them but downright unlivable by 2070 as you can see in the shaded areas of this map large parts of the world are predicted to become uninhabitable and even some of these predictions have had to be revised as being two optimistic that includes hot beds of football Talent like North and Central Brazil Colombia and Central America as well as vast SES of Africa India Australia and both East and West Asia the impacts of this are obviously Monumental and will cause Mass destabilization so football is probably the least of anyone's concerns but theoretically the impact on the sport would be massive as early as 2050 it is projected that there will be be over a billion climate refugees worldwide forced to flee their homes and regions in search of milder climates and less extreme weather events places like Patagonia a region covering 260,000 square miles spanning Argentina and Chile are likely to experience massive population growth along with Europe large parts of North America and more hospitable parts of countries which already have very hot or eratic climates obviously with lots of social and political variables infantes lower numbers of migrants and refugees has led to significant political backlash in recent years so it would be naive to assume that more habitable parts of the world will be able to accommodate hundreds of millions let alone billions of climate refugees without some pretty significant unrest we could get lost down a rabbit hole at this stage in terms of potential resource and climate conflicts that may arise in response to these crises but tried to steer us somewhat back into the realm of football fundamentally though even if the world rapidly decarbonized and a climate catastrophe on that scale Were Somehow averted the likes of the males kabas and tuvalu will be entirely submerged and will disappear by 2100 just based upon current trends in sea level rises they will literally seize to exist that is about 34 of a million climate refugees right off the bat and of course within a football context it would be three national football teams that would no longer exist of course those three are hardly International powerhouses but the Maldives have beat India and Pakistan the largest and fifth largest countries on Earth by population in recent years on the flip side some formerly inhospitable parts of the world where playing football has historically been very difficult like parts of Canada Finland Norway and perhaps even Alaska I know that there is a lot of love of soccer there could become more accommodating of the sport the rise of AI and robots ludicrous as this may sound are also likely to play a decisive role in the future of football it might sound like science fiction but AI is already having an enormous impact upon the game in terms of data analysis tactics and what one might call the mathematization of football everything now within the game comes down to percentages and then it feels like that has already had a significant impact upon how the game is played we are likely only at the very beginning of a so-called AI Revolution both in football and Beyond ultimately the pace of change in football whether that be competitions who owns the sport and how it is played and interpreted and in the World At Large at this moment in time make it NY on impossible to make predictions or predictions that are likely to age well at least multiclub ownership for example is going to become more and more ubiquitous at least until or unless it is regulated against which seems improbable at this stage the increase in multiclub owners which could see football function a lot more like other Industries where a handful of corporations are effectively able to control the entire sector might be a certainty but the impact that it will have upon the balance of power within the sport is a great unknown on the one hand the sharing of data re resources and coaching methods could be a democratizing and globalizing force throughout the world further leveling the playing field and reducing the development gap between the established Elite and Rising minnows on the other hand it could as we have seen up to this point just serve to cement those hierarchies Manchester city a city football group's primary interest and all of their other clubs just exist within their orbit so far the same has been true of practically every multiclub ownership model which have very distinct pecking orders if that system continues it could prove to be a barrier to football in different regions of the world becoming more equal currently though minnows may be rising and Giants falling within the international game the economic disparities have never been so emphatic no Club from outside of Europe's Big Five leagues ranks among the top 30 worldwide in terms of Revenue and the Premier League's increased hemony has been as yet unthreatened even by Major investments in China or Saudi Arabia those differences so far at least would appear to be a little trickier to undo or even just a temper and the biggest story in World football over the next few decades could well be the women's game which is currently growing at a rate that such great saturation dictates that the men's game could never match the Live Match audience of the 2019 Women's World Cup more than doubled from 201 and it doubled again in 2023 the growth of the women's game is simply staggering and as the economic incentives to invest in it increase it has the potential to turn into a real Force well we have covered migration AI birth rates multiclub ownership Japan's 100-year Vision the women's game Alaska's inevitable super team climate catastrophe and the looming apocalypse don't ever say that this channel lacks range anyway thank you all very much as ever for watching stay safe out there hit the like button if you enjoyed today's video let me know your thoughts Down Below in the comments and of course goes without saying make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on both for this Channel and my second Channel Alfie Poots armor both of which should be on or about to appear on your screens now along with a couple of videos that you might enjoy watching after this one you can also find me on Twitter Instagram or threads bya the username @ h SS on all three and all of those links plus a whole lot more should be down in the video description below cheers

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 156,812

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Power, International, World Cup, Euros, Japan, Germany, Footballers, Documentary, Premier League, Saudi Arabia, MLS, World, FIFA World Cup, FIFA, Europe, South America, Population, Youth, Academy, Finance, Economics

Id: q7C8S6BqUIU

Length: 26min 6sec (1566 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 24 2023