By Hakan Cobez

The world hasn’t “given” Jari Litmanen fame, in the sense that he just woke up one day and he was famous. He earned fame through mutually beneficial transactions. People paid to watch him play basketball. The reason they wanted to watch him play football is because he developed his natural talents through hard work, and was entertaining to watch. People enjoy seeing something done very well.

He was born February 20, 1971 in Lahti, Finland. He is a finnish footballer, widely considered the country’s greatest ever. He was chosen as the best Finnish player of the last 50 years by the Football Association of Finland in the UEFA Jubilee Awards in November 2003. Litmanen also finished 42nd in the 100 greatest Finns voting the next year.

Litmanen currently plays for Malmö FF in the Swedish Allsvenskan and is the captain of the Finnish national team. He has also represented Reipas Lahti, HJK Helsinki, Mypa and FC Lahtii in Finland as well as Ajax, Barcelona, Liverpooll and Hansa Rostock abroad. Litmanen is a classic playmaker with excellent technique and vision, and has played either as an attacking midfielder or withdrawn forward throughout his career. He became the first Finnish football superstar while playing for Ajax in the mid-1990s.Litmanen is considered one of the most underrated players of 1990s in many circles. In a generation that produced wonderful playmakers as Zinedine Zidane, Roberto Baggio, Dennis Bergkamp and Luis Figo, he deserves a mention with the best of them, possessing wonderful craft and imagination with the ball at his feet and scoring supreme goals. He is revered near the top of Ajax’s long list of legends. Litmanen is a legend in Amsterdam and he is one of the three players presented in a special video featurette at the Ajax Museum. The other two players are Marco van Basten and Johan Cruyff. Categorizing Litmanen in the same group with Cruyff and van Basten tells us just how great a player he really is.

However Litmanen is the most famous star of the Finnish sport, he is also the brightest icon of the Finnish society because he has played in many major leagues and it has been a free advertisement for his country all these years Finland should take him for this greatest favor because a lot of countries all around the world spend lots of money for broadcasting their advertisements on entertainment world and on the other hand situation of soccer is a little bit different than the rest of Europe.Clubs are delighted If a league game attracts a crowd of three thousand,tiny in comparison with the average of 33,000 at A-league games in Italy.

Finns find it almost incomprehensible that an ordinary league game at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium can draw a crowd of 150,000. That explains why it is so difficult for people in Jari Litmanen’s home country to grasp how famous he is abroad.

Litmanen has not been just a star, he has been also a cultural product for whom wants to consume, there has been also lots of companies who has gained lots of money by using his name because his name has become a brand and this brand has become a business we can say that it has been a sector which opens up a good job opportunities Litmanen has just not been a Football Star he has been a cultural product and he is still and even after when he is going to quit football his products such as mugs, flags are going to be sold in the stores people are still going to gain money by his name.

As a football fan I might say that I love this valuable game but I also want to mention that in the era we are living now is not just based on the game there are a lot of aspects which is related to it so when we support a team it means that we also support its brand.