Future of Football: New series launches on Sky Sports explores what's next for the Beautiful Game – Sky Sports
Football
Special Sky Sports series investigates what football could look like in two or three decades’ time, as rapidly evolving sport changes across a broad range of areas; transfers, tactics, rules, women’s game, diversity, climate change, ownership all explored through in-depth studies
Monday 24 July 2023 12:32, UK
Football is evolving quickly in many departments – so what could the game look like in 20 to 30 years’ time? That’s the question Sky Sports is asking this summer in a special feature series.
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at a broad range of areas to see how football is changing.
Some of those changes are from within, driven by players, coaches and fans, others are a reaction to a changing world around the sport, as financial, political and societal pressures influence the business and organisation of football.
Predicting two decades into the future is complicated and uncertain, so there is a mix of pessimistic and ambitious ideas about how much football will progress in that time. There are also revolutionary suggestions from experts around the game, which opened our minds!
Join us on the journey as we ask, ‘What is the future of football’. Here’s what’s coming up across our digital and TV platforms over the next fortnight from Monday July 24…
We asked you to suggest rules you’d like to see changed in the future – and played a match with the best of the suggestions! Power plays, sin bins, goals counting double from outside the box and more!
We also asked players, managers and pundits which one rule they’d change and spoke with top rule makers within the game about the direction football is headed and what laws could be introduced in the future.
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With the Women’s World Cup going on, we take a deep dive into the next big landmark moments for the women’s game. From milestone transfers to innovative ways to grow the audience, players, coaches, agents, finance experts, social media partners and strategy leaders explain what’s on the horizon for this rapidly rising area of the sport.
What positive environmental impact can football have in the coming decades? We visit the likes of Southampton and Reading who have launched special initiatives to help and encourage their fans to go green, while experts share how stadiums can become more sustainable in the future. Including Forest Green’s plans for a stadium made of wood!
If you rewind the clock 30 years ago you’d see a style of football vastly different to what’s played today. So what can we expect to be watching in three decades’ time? We use our own data to illustrate the shifts we’ve seen and plot what might come next, hear from top managers for their predictions and consider how technology and AI could influence coaches of the future.
Jake Daniels, the UK’s first male openly gay professional footballer since the early 1990s, tells us about when we can expect to see a gay footballer in the top-flight in England. We also tackle the issue of trans-players and whether they can be integrated into the current football structure.
Plus, what is the future for those with disabilities, both on and off the pitch? Is enough being done to make the game inclusive?
As the Qatar World Cup and impact of the Saudi Pro League has shown, football could see new areas of the world take a leading role in the future. But what would that look like for club ownership, where Premier League matches are played, who is in the stands and on the pitch for Premier League games on these shores and will the established elite be shaken up at World Cups?
The actual running of a football club could be set to change too, as the business of football grows. Will we see more Premier League sides become part of multi-club structures or could AI influence their processes?
How much will a top-class striker cost you in 2053? We mull over that question but also consider how the powers around these big-money deals could change, with player power on the rise, clubs investing heavily in data-led scouting and agents fight to underline their importance to these mega deals.
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