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Football

12th Oct 2017

Tim Cahill’s celebration in World Cup qualifying win will make you weep for modern football

That's definitely not his traditional celebration

Robert Redmond

Tim Cahill is still playing international football and still scoring goals.

Cahill scored twice in Australia’s 2-1 win over Syria in a World Cup qualifier earlier this week, to set up a play-off against Honduras for a place at the World Cup.

Of the 56 goals the midfielder scored in the Premier League during his eight years with Everton, 31 were headers. The 37-year-old netted with a trademark goal against Syria, to leave Australia just two games from qualifying for next summer’s tournament in Russia.

In the Premier League, Cahill’s goals were always followed by his boxing celebration at the corner flag…

However, the Australian captain ditched his usual celebration against Syria. Instead, he ran past the corner flag with his arms outstretched like an airplane…

And he a made a T symbol with his hands to the crowd.

It turns out that Cahill was promoting a travel company with his celebration. The company revealed in an Instagram post that the midfielder is a “brand ambassador” for them and confirmed that the player used the goal celebration to plug their partnership.

“Did you catch @tim_cahill, our new brand ambassador, doing the TripADeal ‘T’ after he scored the winning goal last night? Congratulations Tim!’,” the Instagram post read.

Cahill also mentioned the travel company in his own Instagram post following the match.

Every aspect of life is commercialised. As Karl Marx wrote: “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.” So, it’s no surprise to see football goal celebrations follow suit and this probably won’t be the last time we see a player promoting a brand following a goal.

However, some people still found Cahill’s celebration to be in poor taste.