THE NEWEST of football clones has popped up on our screens — with “baller” introduced to millions of people who, like me, had no idea such a sport had been invented.
All of ’s components are there bar the size of the playing pitch and the number of players in a team.
As a professional game it certainly has possibilities. One of them is work for part-time footballers who, I believe, are being paid £400 a time for the programme showing weekly on Sky TV.
Evidently, the objective is for baller to be shown when there is no professional action: summer, some evenings and afternoons.
Every fair-sized city has a potential venue and I guess crowds of a thousand or so would make it viable.
The — headlined by rapper KSI for the UK version — sees former Premier League stars, futsal players and celebrities face one another in 12 teams to win the league.
It is featured every Monday until June 2 on indoor football pitches .
Matches are in 15-minute halves and favour strong tacklers and skilled ball players, while teams are six-a-side with, in all, 12 players available.
There are no corners — but it is vital the ball is kept in play or penalties will be awarded.
Bafflingly, different rules are added in the last three minutes of each half while at another point it becomes three against three.
As players of indoor or five-a-side football know — let alone of rugby sevens — repeated acceleration quickly becomes exhausting. In baller, emergency dashes are even demanded regularly of goalkeepers.
The essence is speed and accuracy with plenty of goals, perhaps too many for the purist. The match I saw ended 7-3 and latterly scoring became too common.
Over a long time, ingenious people have been inventing football games, from five-a-side to Subbuteo, street footie by children to underwater football, never mind a distant relation, American football.
And then there is futsal, which claims 12 million players worldwide.
In 2014, more than 56,000 turned up to watch a match between Brazil and Argentina in Brasilia.
A baller bid for such popularity as a spectator sport would entail many millions of pounds of investment and club costs would initially be considerable.
The weekly programmes on Mondays are shoot or bust for the future and could fall into the category of “don’t call me!”.
But plenty of professional players, along with others who have passed skill tests, will earn those £400-a-time cheques.
I don’t know how much , Ian Wright, Alan Shearer or receive as managers but their names alone suggest seriousness of purpose.
The whole enterprise is an expensive gamble in which generally third-rate or retired players must entertain viewers in a league of no importance.
The same could be said of most TV competitions and baller at least has the virtue of providing live rather than deadbeat action.
It might be a football circus act but if it entertains millions of people, it is no worse for that.
