Empty seats are everywhere at the Club World Cup. But does this miss the real point?

Put in the proper wider context, the attendance issues that have emerged during the tournament perhaps aren’t quite as embarrassing as they seem

If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it’s that images of nothingness can still generate hysteria. Empty seats – which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football, a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup, an issue demanding coverage delivered with brows fully furrowed – have been commonplace in the competition’s opening dozen games. Social media is awash in panoramic photos from a nation of press boxes, informing you incredulously that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff – or (gasp) even closer.

Why do we care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention? Continue reading...