Yes, early footy games sold really well. My next project at Codemasters in 1987 was going to be a soccer game, but then stuff happened and I moved over to the business side. Pete Williamson wrote a series of four mini games instead, called Four Soccer Simulators, which sold very well. It was quite hard to do a convincing 11-a-side game at the time, with the hardware constraints on 8-bit machines. A young Ted Carron managed to get that side of things working really well, but in a rugby game. He then moved on to a super-secret project which became the Game Genie, so didn't get a crack at footy either. There were many about though, and they were regarded as money in the bank if you published one. Fact was, though, it was really hard to find devs that understood or were passionate about the game. Most self-taught programmers back then learned their craft at the expense of time spent outside kicking a ball, I suspect.