Something is off.
You can feel it.
Wars grinding on. Prices rising. Institutions wobbling. People stretched thinner than they admit. It feels less like stability and more like we are living on the edge of chaos.
And still, most people carry on like it is 2010.
That is the first problem.
The world has changed. Most people have not.
AI is not a toy. It is not just a better search bar or a clever app. The IMF has warned that AI could affect nearly 40% of jobs worldwide, replacing some work and reshaping a lot more. That is not a niche shift. That is a system-level change.
So while people are arguing online about old political tribes and stale culture war talking points, the floor is moving under their feet.
That is what I mean when I say people are asleep.
The Great Trade
We were sold convenience.
What we gave away was connection.
The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on social connection said about one in two adults reported loneliness, and that the health impact of social disconnection is comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. That is not just sad. That is industrial-scale social failure.
We did not lose connection by accident.
We built systems that weakened it.
Work moved online. News moved to feeds. Friendship got reduced to notifications. Community got replaced by audience. Presence got replaced by performance.
And then we acted shocked when people felt empty.
The Scroll Is Winning
Look at how people live now.
Ofcom says UK adults spend an average of about 4 hours and 30 minutes online each day, and social media use remains massive, with 89% of adult internet users using at least one social platform. Among younger adults, it is even higher.
That is the battleground.
How many people are doom scrolling instead of building a life?
How many are watching other people live instead of showing up in their own world?
How many sit with the phone in their hand and call that “connection”?
I will say it plainly.
Fake connection is worse than no connection.
At least being alone is honest.
Fake connection numbs you. It gives you just enough stimulation to stop you doing anything real. It feels social. It is not. It is digital chewing gum.
No nutrition. Just movement.
The Cost of Living Is Also the Cost of Community
Connection needs places.
Pubs. Grounds. clubs. parks. local rituals. spaces where people turn up and bump into each other without an algorithm arranging the meeting.
Those places are under pressure too.
The price of a pint in the UK has been pushed above £5 on average according to industry reporting, while warnings about the first true “£10 pint” have become a real part of the hospitality conversation as costs keep climbing.
That matters.
Because when ordinary social life becomes expensive, connection becomes a luxury good.
And once that happens, isolation spreads faster.
This Is Not Abstract to Me
I live in a nice area.
But it borders Blackpool.
You do not need a think tank to see what is going on. You can see the contrast with your own eyes. But the data backs it up anyway: Blackpool’s 2025 district profile says it is the most deprived district on the Index of Multiple Deprivation among local authorities in England, and says about 32.9% of children live in relative low-income families. UK government figures show 22% of children across the UK were in relative low-income families in financial year ending 2024.
So when I say kids are going without, I am not being dramatic.
I am saying the system is not doing enough.
Governments talk support. But if families cannot properly cover food, heat, rent, transport, and basic life, then support is not support. It is rationed decline.
Peanuts dressed up as policy.
And once families are trapped in survival mode, connection suffers there too. They do not go out. They do not join things. They do not build community. They retreat. That is what pressure does.
The Institutions Have Let People Down
This is the part polite people do not like saying.
Trust is breaking.
In media. In government. In banks. In the promise that if you work hard and follow the rules, the system will broadly hold.
Mainstream media keeps people trapped in a cycle of fear and distraction because fear keeps attention. Politics keeps reducing everything to left versus right because division is easier to manage than honesty.
But I do not think left versus right is the real divide anymore.
I think the real divide is simpler.
Good versus evil.
Build versus exploit.
Truth versus manipulation.
Human beings versus systems that drain them.
That is the line I care about.
Gatekeepers Are Killing Creativity
Here is another truth.
Gatekeepers kill good ideas.
Not always because they are evil geniuses. Often because they are timid, compromised, career-driven, or too invested in protecting the current game.
They make everything safer.
Cleaner.
More acceptable.
Less dangerous.
And in doing that, they kill what made it powerful in the first place.
I am not one of them.
I do not want to join a tribe.
I have had offers. I know how it works. Align with the right people, say the right things, flatter the right egos, and doors open. Short term, it feels good. You get access. You get support. You get momentum.
Then you realise what happened.
You are in.
And once you are in, you are locked in.
You cannot say what you really think. You cannot move freely. You become another managed voice inside someone else’s machine.
That is not freedom. That is membership.
I do not want it.
Why Football Matters
This is where football comes in.
I love football. That is why I am doing this.
And football has been taken away from fans.
Not all at once. The same way connection was taken from people generally. It got packaged. Priced. sanitised. controlled. Turned into content. Turned into product. Turned into something many fans can watch but not truly belong to.
But football still has one extraordinary advantage.
When it is done right, it brings people together faster than almost anything else.
Strangers stand next to each other.
They sing.
They argue.
They care.
They share a moment that cannot be faked and cannot be downloaded later.
That is gold.
That is why bringing back LA Aztecs was never just nostalgia.
It was a hook.
A device.
A reason for people to show up in the same place again and feel something real they own together.
Not history for the sake of it.
Connection.
That is also why I am building Football Is For The Fans.
Not as a tribe. Not as a gated club. Not as a fake movement built around a leader cult.
As an open community.
No gatekeepers. Just humans.
And the door is open, even to people who do not like me.
That matters.
Because this is not about me being liked.
It is about whether people want to be part of something real.
I have built communities before. I know this much: people have to want to be in them. You cannot drag people into belonging. You can only create the conditions and leave the light on.
My Worry
I have scars from business. I battle. I know pressure. I know what it feels like when things do not go to plan and you still have to stand up the next morning.
That gives me empathy for people.
It also gives me a sharper fear about where this goes.
I worry what the world will look like for my daughters.
Because if we keep going this way, the future starts to look less like progress and more like Ready Player One fused with The Hunger Games, with a layer of Black Mirror over the top. Digital escape for some. Economic pressure for many. Real power concentrated in fewer hands. Synthetic connection replacing human connection.
That is not some sci-fi fantasy anymore.
It is a direction of travel.
The Choice
So here it is.
AI will take jobs.
Loneliness is already a public-health problem.
People are spending hours online while real-world connection weakens.
Parts of the country are being left behind while families and children carry the cost.
And football, one of the last great engines of human connection, has been increasingly taken away from the people who made it matter.
So no, I do not want a tribe.
I want something better.
A real community.
Built by people who are awake enough to see what is happening and brave enough to show up for something more human.
That is the mission.
And the door stays open.
Always.