Is Football the new religion ?
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
As considerably less than 10% of the population go to church regularly and over 50% of the population have said they have watched Euro 2000 are we now in a position where football is the new religion.
Consider the facts:
£1.5 billion paid for the TV rights for just the England matches by the BBC
A vast majority of 18-30 year olds know all the England player names and a large proportion of these can argue the merits of the 4-4-2 system, whereas most people probably think Jesus is a South American footballer and are more likely to ask - what position does he play ?
Over 100 hours of TV football coverage shown in the first 2 weeks of Euro 2000- no coverage on terrestrial TV of religious matters except Songs of Praise on BBC 1 on Sunday.
So is Des Lynam the new messiah ?
Are Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson three of the new apostles.
There is another worrying connection between the two, we all sang Jerusalem before and during the recent England matches.
Should we be issuing prayer books at football grounds or gideon bibles as they do in hotels ?
Consider the facts:
£1.5 billion paid for the TV rights for just the England matches by the BBC
A vast majority of 18-30 year olds know all the England player names and a large proportion of these can argue the merits of the 4-4-2 system, whereas most people probably think Jesus is a South American footballer and are more likely to ask - what position does he play ?
Over 100 hours of TV football coverage shown in the first 2 weeks of Euro 2000- no coverage on terrestrial TV of religious matters except Songs of Praise on BBC 1 on Sunday.
So is Des Lynam the new messiah ?
Are Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson three of the new apostles.
There is another worrying connection between the two, we all sang Jerusalem before and during the recent England matches.
Should we be issuing prayer books at football grounds or gideon bibles as they do in hotels ?
