How to Save Modern Football: A 12 step guide
Football is in crisis. At least, that’s what every article says before trying to sell you a subscription to The Athletic. But don’t panic. We’ve cracked it. A simple twelve-step programme. No need for UEFA taskforces, Deloitte reports, or a DTB working group chaired by Angus Fox with six subcommittees. Just follow the rules below.
1. Ban MK Dons
MK Dons are the ghost at football’s feast. Every time you see their name in a fixture list, it’s a reminder of the worst decision in football history. We’ve built Plough Lane, rebuilt a club, and lived the values of supporter ownership. They’re still trying to pretend a franchise counts as heritage.
Ban them, and you restore football’s moral compass. Bring back the values of the Crazy Gang, the FA Cup win, and the graft of climbing from non-league. Let MK’s stadium host dog shows, corporate away days, or whatever else pays the bills. Just stop letting them play football.
2. Cap Ticket Prices
£20 away, max. If that’s not possible, clubs should cut costs to ensure it is. We suggest the Wimbledon way – get a goalkeeper on loan, and sell your best striker in January.
3. Limit Squad Sizes
Football shouldn’t be about who can stockpile the most teenagers from every corner of Europe. One squad, one season. You pick your 25, and that’s who you ride with until May. If injuries bite, tough luck. If your backup keeper is useless and 4 foot 6, welcome to real football.
The worst part is the PSR loophole. Clubs flogging their best academy lads because selling homegrown talent is pure profit on the balance sheet. It’s perverse. We should be celebrating “he’s one of our own,” not selling him off so we can buy a similar version from someone else’s academy. Fans don’t connect with balance sheets. They connect with players who’ve actually walked through the youth ranks.
4. End Multi-Club Ownership
Football isn’t meant to be a corporate family tree where one billionaire owns five different teams. You shouldn’t be able to run Strasbourg on Tuesday, Chelsea on Wednesday, and Atlético Torremolinos at the weekend.
Fans deserve clubs that stand on their own two feet. One badge, one history, one community. Not a slot in a portfolio. If you want to treat football like a business asset, go away. Leave the game alone.
5. Scrap 12:30 Kick-Offs
They kill atmosphere, kill travel plans, and kill the first pint. Half the ground’s still queuing for coffee when the first goal goes in. Football wasn’t built for brunch.
6. Wear First Choice Colours Unless There’s a Clash
It’s not complicated. You’ve got a kit, the colours represent your area and your history. You wear it. Only change if the opposition are in the same colours and the ref can’t tell the difference. That’s it. None of this “marketing opportunity” nonsense where we trot out a third kit against someone in completely different colours just to flog a few more shirts.
The whole point of colours is identity. When you turn on DonsTV and see us wearing lime green away against Doncaster something inside you dies.
7. Stop Calling Them Laws
They’re rules. That’s all. Rules of a game played by twenty-two people in shorts and watched by others with pints. Laws are what Parliament passes after three readings and a late-night debate. No one ever shouted “obstruction, your honour” from the East Stand. They shout “sort it out ref,” followed by something unprintable, which is a very different thing.
Just because you call them laws doesn’t make it true. They are rules. End of story.
8. Ban VAR
Yes, it doesn’t affect AFC Wimbledon very often, but it’s a horrendous addition to the game. It doesn’t add clarity. It adds three minutes of confusion followed by the wrong decision anyway. Let Referees make decisions without micromanagement. Scrap it and donate the screens to WiSH for their heritage archive. Future generations can gawp at them next to the old trophies.
9. Punish Timewasters Properly
We once saw an opposition keeper at Kingsmeadow take so long over a goal kick that a small child grew up, went to university, and came back to heckle him.
Forget “added time.” If your keeper takes 30 seconds for a goal kick, JJ gets to sub on Terry Skiverton to chase him around the penalty area with a baseball bat. Game fixed in five minutes flat.
10. Fix the Pies
Wimbledon knows good food matters. Remember when MyPie was at Plough Lane and people raved about it like we’d re-signed Lyle Taylor? That’s how important pies are. Then the contract fell apart, and we went back to the lukewarm “Piggott Pies” that make you question life choices.
Fixing football means fixing the pies.
Solution? Appoint an independent Pie Regulator. We need someone armed with a thermometer and a pastry knife at every ground. If the pie fails the test, points are deducted. Raise the standard, raise the game.
11. Ban Fantasy Football Admin
Fantasy football was supposed to be a distraction. Something you glanced at on a Monday morning. Now it’s become a second job. Weekly transfers, wildcards, free hits, triple captain chips. Nobody wants this kind of admin.
Pick your team in August, live with the consequences, and only change it in January. That way you get the authentic managerial experience of regretting every choice you made. Just like a League One gaffer who thought he could rely on a loanee striker, only to find out he’s injured after three matches.
12. Football Articles Must Always Finish the List
Even if they’ve run out of ideas. Which is why this step exists. Because nothing says serious thought leadership like stretching twelve rules out of about nine decent ones. A bit like most Dons Trust manifestos.
Closing Thoughts
If even half of these were adopted, football would be saved. But they won’t be, because the EFL would rather introduce another pizza trophy, FIFA another World Cup and the DTB will still be arguing about whether an addendum to a policy should really be its own policy.
In the meantime, we’ll keep screaming about offside decisions and buying £7 pints. Because saving football is important. But moaning about it? That’s the real tradition.
WombleWorld