Through thick and thin..

The attributes of a fan…

To be a fan/supporter of a sports team is a wonderful thing, you get a sense that you belong to something that in your eyes is the greatest thing. It can be a way to meet new people that have the same passions as you and it gives you a feeling of pride when your team does well. Notice I’ve said team and not individual players, in a sport like football, it truly is the team that wins or loses not the individual player. What the AC Milan fans have done recently, protesting about the sale of two players seems to be going against this, no matter how important the player is, he is not bigger than the club and the so called supporters should realise this.

Yet there is a flipside to this, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has scored over 20 goals for the club and has been an imposing figure in this team, and Thiago Silva has been called the best defender in Europe, and when he wasn’t available for the team the team did suffer, and the sale of Milan’s 2 best players could hurt the competitiveness of the club. So in the end the fans that are asking for refunds and threatening legal action, could be doing it in the name of the club as a whole. What I mean is that they probably feel that the sale of these 2 players is a sign that things will get a lot worse for the club.

Yet by saying the club will not be able to go on without these players no matter how important they may seem, could seem like a huge insult to the rest of the players because you are essentially saying that they cannot do their jobs properly without these 2 players. As good as these players are, a true supporter of AC Milan has to keep an open mind and put their trust in the club they profess to love.

Football is a global game with audiences from all over. The fan has to realise that with this kind of exposure also means that a lot of money has been invested in the game, through advertising, TV rights and sponsorship deals, and like any business they have to keep an eye on their finances. The fans should have faith that the huge fee they received from these two players will be reinvested into the club, although it is understandable that they don’t, considering what happened after the sale of Kaka’.

However if you are a real supporter of the club, you will support the club during all the hard times and accept that things will not always go your way. As a Juve fan, I’ve been with them all the way, through the calciopoli scandle to the finishing 7th and all the players we said goodbye to in between, and this has made their success last season even sweeter, so chin up, and keep the faith that your club knows what they’re doing.