{"id":14575,"date":"2025-08-27T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14575"},"modified":"2025-11-24T12:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:07:37","slug":"the-true-face-of-football-wars-fans-and-billion-dollar-busines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/the-true-face-of-football-wars-fans-and-billion-dollar-busines\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood, Fans and Money: The True Face of Football, According to a Famous Polish Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The True Face of Football: From Wars to Big Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Whatever the truth about Honduras and El Salvador, one thing is certain: football \u2014 sometimes called the \u201creligion of the new age\u201d \u2014 unleashes passions like nothing else. Passions that all too often explode into battles not only inside stadiums, but also on the streets. Battles marked by looted shops and burning cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the most infamous stadium disaster, at Heysel in 1985<\/a>, 39 fans lost their lives. And only a year ago, in the Guinean city of Nz\u00e9r\u00e9kor\u00e9, a clash between rival supporters left almost 60 people dead. But because Guinea feels so far away, the tragedy barely reached European headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Poland, fortunately, we are not witnessing violence on such a scale. Clashes happen, of course, but they rarely turn into riots, and stadiums today are mostly calm. Yet it wasn\u2019t always so. In 1980, during the Polish Cup semifinal between Legia Warsaw and Lech Pozna\u0144 (Legia won 5\u20130), fighting spilled across the stadium and the streets of Cz\u0119stochowa. Hundreds were injured. Official figures listed just one fatality, but to this day no one knows how many really died. Curiously, those street battles began not during or after the game, but long before the first whistle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might like to read<\/strong>:<\/em><\/strong> Jacek Piekara: The Price of Naive Hospitality? Fear on the Streets<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Club Football: A Multi-Billion-Euro Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But football is not only about emotions<\/a> \u2014 both the joyous and the violent \u2014 or the criminal pathology of hooligans. Today, football above all means money. Gigantic money.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"True
Lech Pozna\u0144 supporters\u2019 display during the game against Crvena Zvezda. Fot. Wojciech Wybranowski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We hear about record-breaking transfer fees all the time. In Poland, a few million euros is already big news. In Western Europe, sums reach one hundred million and more. The world record remains Neymar\u2019s move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017: a staggering \u20ac222 million. Even Robert Lewandowski and other Polish stars, playing for top Western clubs, sit far down the list of the most expensive transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To grasp the scale of the money involved, consider this: the market value of each of the seven richest European clubs exceeds one billion euros<\/strong>. The next ten clubs on the list are each worth over half a billion. No wonder football is no longer just about sport \u2014 it is a monstrous business where organizations like FIFA and UEFA handle multi-billion-dollar budgets, and their presidents wield political influence greater than many heads of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n