Is There Any Point in the Community Shield Anymore?

Here's an interesting challenge: Name the last five winners of the Community Shield.

Struggling? Alright, try naming three. 

Even if you can comfortably name the last decade of FA Cup and Premier League victors, you would be forgiven for scratching your head when it comes to what used to be England's preeminent preseason fixture.

In the '80s and '90s, this writer can remember getting incredibly excited by what was known as the Charity Shield. 

Not only did it mean that regular football was coming back (this was a time when the entire summer wasn't taken up by international preseason tours) but it was a clash of the titans! The first trophy of the new campaign! A game on the hallowed turf of Wembley!

It was a true Super Cup. A reason to stay at home on a late-summer Sunday. 

These days, it feels more like the NFL Pro Bowl. Audience figures are low, teams don't fight very hard through fear of obtaining injuries and one can read very little into the result.

It was the last trophy Roberto Mancini won at Manchester City, but even he probably doesn't bother putting it on his CV. 

Perhaps the most slamming indictment of the match is the utter lack of interest from FA Cup holders Wigan in the 2013 edition. According to the Daily Mail, just 5,500 of those at the 90,000-seater Wembley Stadium will be Latics fans. 

Granted, Wigan also struggled to shift tickets for the Wembley FA Cup semi-final with Millwall, but one would think that fans would jump at the chance of a rare visit to the home of English football, particularly against their local rivals Manchester Utd. 

No disrespect to Wigan, but if even their fans can't be roused by a day out in London like this, what hope does it really have as a spectacle?

In a rare laconic moment, BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson aptly described the Community Shield as a "glorified friendly" in 2007. And that is exactly what it has become.

Sadly, it is a victim of the modern game and the round-the-clock desire to maximise revenues. Its stock has fallen considerably in the past few years due to increasingly ubiquitous high-profile international preseason tours.

Not so long ago, the Community Shield was a magical elixir for those who had been dying of football thirst all summer long. This week, we have already seen Chelsea play Real Madrid in a glamorous tournament final in Miami, while Arsenal and Manchester City face each other in Helsinki just two days before the Wembley match.

With so much action between top teams in rival "friendly" tournaments over the summer, the Community Shield is fading into the background.

Another issue may be the changing nature of preseason games. Traditionally, top-flight teams would visit lower-league opposition to give a rare money-spinning treat to those further down the football pyramid. Now, the pattern is for Premier League opponents to play each other—and other top-flight international rivals—in foreign climes where extra marketing exposure is needed. 

When so many high-profile teams are playing each other, the impact of seeing a Premier League champion and FA Cup holder is rapidly diminished.

So, should this game that very few people care about simply be scrapped?

Absolutely not. It is, after all, a game where all proceeds are donated to community-based initiatives and UK charities.

So why not try and increase those proceeds so the game is acting for the greater good? 

A simple method of doing this would be to stage the game in a new market that will generate plenty of media interest and a sold-out stadium. If you can't beat the international summer tours in Asia and America, join them!

Italian football has been doing this since 1993 with their Community Shield equivalent, the Supercoppa Italiana. While often held in Italy, it has also been staged in the USA, Libya and Beijing. 

Some may bemoan the break with tradition this would represent, but in an environment where the "39th game" is on the brink of irrelevance and some clubs have more fans outside of the UK than within it, this is a modern reality and a necessary adjustment. 

Another idea may to revive it may be to incentivise it. Why not guarantee the winner a European playoff spot? Or, in the likely event that the winner will already have qualified for Europe, promise them a bonus 10 percent on their Premier League winnings for the forthcoming season.

There is still life left in the Community Shield. To revive its relevance, however, it needs to be repackaged to suit the modern football climate.