European Super League 2.0 - 2023 and Beyond

Other Leagues and Sports
45

FIFA Club World Cup 2025 - The Next Front of Battle Beyond Saudi Vision 2030

Note the fine video as attached. Via FIFA, this is a great idea in theory as opposed to any given one of the soccer diarrhoea tournaments in the summer around the globe in odd years over the years.

Speaking of which, wow go figure, gee, only one year after the World Cup in Qatar, who knew that the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup in its smaller format is in …wait for it …SAUDI ARABIA this December?

I sure don’t care such showboating crap with overly shiny trophies as now an older fan, but hey, more than enough will I figure.

The real problem of the proposed expanded format for 2025 though is the very heavy load on the best players in the world, who already have a crowded league and tournament and international calendar.

We’re not supposed to have players play 12 months per year folks!

In now bygone times that lasted until 2020 with the pandemic disruptions and resumptions of play, the soccer calendar in the northern hemisphere was anywhere from mid-to-late August to late May or early June with some international breaks during the season, and then major tournaments in the even years in which lesser known players on the rise shared much of the load until the big games.

Nobody is certain, despite whatever bluster and claims, how this proposal is going to work out in practical reality. Do maybe a lot of top players sit out anyway, and we get the stand-ins and a seriously watered-down spectacle but maximum obnoxious hype?

FIFA is pushing this matter on a hard front to also counter UEFA most especially after the failed efforts in 2018, as noted above in the linked video, to create a global super league funded secretly by the Saudis and knowingly by Softbank out of Japan at the time.

Those telling and foreshadowing events in 2018 were overlooked even at the time the Super League was attempted by 12 top sides from Spain, Italy, and England in April 2021.

46

Saudis Building Up To December 2023 - Neymar

It looks clear to me that it is all about the build-up to December this year, and Fox has been all too happy to follow the billions from the Saudis rather than in the US.

1 Like
47

As football is my first sport, interesting to stumble on this.
Couple of points around super league europe just from my take.
I cant see it happening in the format suggested.

German clubs cant join as they are owned by the fans.
English premier league tv money has become so much more than the others that the biggest clubs in spain italy had fell behind hence why they had this interest of the super league.

Premier league voting is you need 14 votes from 20. The other 14 teams arent daft and wont vote them through. As the money maker is the premier league for english teams not uefa
I cant see it happening, the fans reaction and fear of booting out the the big 5 and tottenham (these so called big 6 have changed over the years they arent fixed).

As a Villa fan (Aston Villa) we are one of those 3 teams due to fanbase and history and conmericial opportunity that maybe replace spurs, or expand it to 8. The 3 Newcastle, Villa, Everton. You might add Leeds perhaps.

Saudi at the moment is early days, at the moment they have bought some good players but to me many are players whose careers are ending soon and the clubs were offered money no one else would offer interms of money and wages. So the clubs were happy to sell, lets see if they start taking players where the clubs didnt want to sell that will be a big moment.

Interesting times.

1 Like
48

Well the heat is no doubt turning up via the scrutiny on heavy petrocurrency investment into clubs based in both Europe and he UK, as well as for their distortion of the global market for players.

In the same breath though, I would point to the Football Association, Serie A, Ligue Un, La Liga, UEFA, et cetera for not having cleaned up their own acts over several years with regards to so-called “Financial Fair Play.”

We can start most definitely, for example, at Manchester City, Chelsea, and Paris Saint Germain.

And so here we are with what now passes as Fair Play whether or not the case, and when some of those who were not engaging in Fair Play are being beaten at their own game, well though there are some legitimate concerns, some of this fuss now is little more than sour grapes:

49

A bit of Clever accounting means FFP doesnt really work. Or when it you do get caught just pay the fine as what PSG did.
Man city’s lawyers will have everyone running round in circles for years that the penalty will be watered down at least if they are still at the top, if they drop then uefa will pop out for a bigger fine.
There is lots of moving parts.
Uefa vs super league was just about uefa protecting their power vs the stronger clubs trying to protect their own. English 6 in tje super league was there to stop newcastle and Villa becoming competition. For italy and spain it was trying to increase their income to keep up with the premier league money.
Below the premier league in england you have a mess 20 clubs who all could he lower half premier league teams chasing the dream and getting in a mess.
Villa got relegated a few years ago, we were in a mess once our american owner lost interest (a lot thought they make money, yes you do but its so compeitive that all the money has to go back into the team) we were on uk tv every other week in the second tier and earnt £2.7million on tv rights, the team who finished bottom prem league that season got £100million.
For the uk premier league was the beginning of this mess. (As it was all about bigger teams making more money) That has spread to europe to what we see today in europe. Rich uk owners eventually got to rich world owners to countries.

1 Like
50

The easy fix to this is the NFL style hard salary cap. Everyone in the EPL can spend the same amount of money attach some harsh fines to the law breaking and you are good to go. But this goes against how soccer works - it is not about finding and developing players it is about buying them and outspending your opponents. The two top Spanish clubs have payrolls that dwarf the rest of the league so does the top German club.

I always find it interesting that the USA sports leagues are more socialist in regard to spreading the weather around to teams in the various leagues whereas in Europe their soccer leagues are unrestrained capitalism even though Europe as a whole is much more socialist than the USA in almost any other facet of life and governance of the people.

1 Like
51

I think the difference is fixed leagues in north america whilst there relegation promotion if the cowboys or yankees or probably more middle income teams say seahawks, 49ers etc could get relegated then it would soon fall apart.
In england every second tier team gets £7.5 million a year or £3m and £2m for 3rd and 4th tiers a year. Plus the relegated premier league teams get 45/40/15 million in first 3 years.
I think there is something similar in spain.

Nfl is sharing the socialist money between 31 rich men and Green Bay.
There is some incentive to growing your own here, save you having to buy them or now being able to sell these homegrown is massive too on ffp as Villa have just done to 2 local lads who maybe good enough if given a chance but Villa cant wait now

2 Likes
52

I think the Saudis had been underestimated until only recently and are still only understood by a minority of fans.

It’s a brave new world for players and key tournaments now that will continue to change at a greater pace now that FIFA has also approved the expanded FIFA Club World Cup for 2025 to take place in the USA.

Saudi Pro League clubs spent nearly $1 billion on bringing new players to the competition in the recently concluded summer transfer window.

The $957 million spent by SPL clubs was a record for the league — more than any other except for the Premier League, which spent $1.39 billion, according to a new report from Deloitte.

The SPL was responsible for almost half of overseas transfer fees received by EPL clubs, shelling out $312 million for players like Ruben Neve ($59 million), Aleksandar Mitrovic ($56 million), Fabinho ($50 million), and Riyad Mahrez ($37 million).

53

@Paolo_X that is crazy that they only got outspent by the EPL. That is crazy money for a league that just a few years ago was nowhere close to being on the radar. Crazy thing is they can spend money like for the next 300 years and not even get close to breaking the bank.

1 Like
54

This one might be filed under
“When Two or More BIG HEADS Enter the Same Room”

We’ve been in those meetings at work or wherever before. These are times when sometimes Zoom or Teams is better too. I don’t miss most of those in-person meetings.

But these are true heavyweights not wannabes, but well…

According to a new report from The Athletic, Kroenke and his organization, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE), are extremely unhappy about the financial arrangement set out by FIFA. And they’re so unhappy, they may be willing to walk away from hosting entirely.

The disagreement stems from the revenue sharing setup, essentially, how the money is distributed between FIFA, the cities and the World Cup stadiums. Unsurprisingly, given the popularity of the event and massive fan and sponsorship interest in a U.S. based tournament, revenues are expected to be massive.

And Kroenke reportedly believes that FIFA is trying to keep too much of it.

I would not be surprised if Los Angeles walks away from the upcoming World Cup. In fact, I would welcome a move away from Los Angeles as well.

Another city with a pitch that is wide enough for the knockout rounds (see post from 30 March) can take over from here.

It was not long ago and a very long time before SoFi Stadium could be constructed to presumably also meet all FIFA requirements like any new NFL stadium used as a multipurpose facility, including especially with public funding and subsidies, but how all those professionals overlooked this modern feature is most baffling.

Even worse - Kroenke owns Arsenal of the Premier League, one of the biggest clubs on the planet.

It sounds like maybe working for Kroenke SUCKS so bad that even top executives do not have basic communication with each other. Dictator much?

Let’s note this is all in modern times even with “technology.” AI won’t help here where people are way off the mark again folks. Bojacks! :roll_eyes:

55

With rumours of the Saudis bidding now for the 2034 World Cup, the next front of media rights for the top league in the world has opened as well.

56

2030 World Cup - Six Countries on Three Continents?

This is an odd strategy, and let’s just say many eyebrows have been raised already.

After Qatar 2022 and after attempting to facilitate a secret sale for a Euro Super League to the Saudis in 2018, only revealed years later as linked in the video above in the excellent Tifo series by The Athletic, screw you Gianni Infantino for this move too.

And the World Cup, the pinnacle of the sport, is supposed to be a global party.

But nobody outside a chosen few inside Fifa headquarters in Zurich was celebrating the latest brainwave pulled off by world football boss Gianni Infantino.

A World Cup covering half the globe, spread over 39 days and involving 48 teams and 104 matches.

Starting with three games in South America, before the rest of the tournament is split between the Iberian peninsula and North Africa.

Yet what was inconceivable is now, overnight, a looming reality, coming our way in just seven years, in 2030.

57

Solid move here by Ligue 1 of France, which is down in the dumps in France for a host of reasons - now they seek to take advantage of the rising market in the US and the run-up to the World Cup in North America by moving in this direction - expect other leagues to copy this move:

58

Interesting move here for merely a 25% ownership stake - the rest remains owned by members of the Glazer family, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers:

59

Could be a slow take over.
When Aston Villa got took over, the current owners didnt buy it all in one go. Took it over but knew the previous owner couldnt pay the 5 million and paid it and took 5% a month till they ended up with 100%.

1 Like
60

Uh-oh. The day of reckoning for The Football Association, and probably also in Parliament, is coming.

UEFA and FIFA? Pfffttt …they seem to be coated in heavy Teflon.

Look at this can of worms via Everton. Logically with far more violations, the standing matter of Man City with far more violations arises anew.

Watch the PL kick this can down the road into perhaps the summer of 2024, with Euro 2024 and the Olympics in Paris as helpful distractions.

Following a slap on the wrist a few years ago for the same violations and general vindication, there’s simply too much riding on Man City now for the sake of the PL and the Champions League plus other competitions around the world.

Meanwhile, it appears the FA and PL forgot until Ukraine was invaded that somehow a Russian oligarch owned a team without much scrutiny for 19 years!

In addition, well look at the City of London work the petrodollar investments with some degree of sport-washing.

The curse via Chinese is upon us: “May we live in interesting times” when it comes to football.

Here’s the Yahoo! Sport UK summary of the original article in The Telegraph, which is pay-walled:

1 Like
61

And drum-folks, Australia has withdrawn its bid for 2034, so shocker, it’s Saudi Arabia for 2034 now.

I am already less interested due to the bloated edition in 2026 with too many sides, and I think after 2030 I will now be even less interested after the crap they pulled in Qatar.

To be fair, Qatar did run a good tournament as did also Russia in 2018 that seems so long ago, but I did not like the sport-washing media coverage at all and now rest assured there will be a whole lot more of that nonsense.

62

I want to see how this works out for the “Big Sandbox” - For those of you who have never been to Saudi it is a trip. Read all the stuff on the subject but I am just going to say that it was an interesting adventure. That being said I guess we are looking at another winter WC when this one happens as with the last WC in the “Big Sandbox” it is just way too hot over there for anything other than a winter WC. I also wonder how they are going to deal with beer and visiting females dressing in a sufficiently modest manner to keep the religious police from going off the rails.

1 Like
63

Harsher than Qatar dealt with those situations that went beyond even liberal allowances for tourists is the answer here - they simply remove those people from the screen, and then you don’t hear about them or they are made to leave the country during the event.

And the hosted media say NOTHING. Or else. Like that Alexi Lalas hack on Fox, they are given a script to read. Or they will find somebody else paid well with a hotel suite upgrade and all kinds of perks who can do it.

And those involved are also coerced by more than the Saudis to say NOTHING, including sometimes with hush money if they are any given party with some audience. Insert cover story et cetera.

But it is not only in Saudi Arabia that such is akin to how such situations are handled when the wealthy and the powerful are involved.

1 Like
65

The Day of Reckoning for the Premier League and for the Football Association arrived during the usually tranquil international break on Friday.

Everton FC were hit with a 10-point penalty (note they have only four wins this season so far, so this is HUGE), which remarkably still places them second to bottom on the table such that they still have a solid chance to remain in the Premier League.

The spotlight shines more brightly now on Manchester City FC for alleged even more egregious violations of Financial Fair Play rules from 2009 to 2018, as well as on Chelsea FC for violations via the prior owner Roman Abramovich
(shocker here, a Russian owner with ties to Putin, with scrutiny only recently due to the War In Ukraine, really now there City of London!? :unamused: ).

The Premier League has warned both clubs of the respective allegations under investigation and potential sanctions.

Everton’s financial losses of £372million over the last three years is more than £250million above what the Premier League’s guidelines allows clubs to lose, but many believe their breaking of rule would be less severe than both the Blues and City. A recent investigation into alleged payments made by Chelsea while former owner Roman Abramovich was still in charge has turned up ‘offshore vehicles’ being used to route payments that favoured the club unbeknownst to regulators or governing bodies.

The Russian billionaire, who was forced to sell the club last year after sanctions imposed on him by the UK government following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is believed to be the owner of those accounts, with the 57-year-old also reportedly involved in further rule breaches in the acquisition of Willian and Samuel Eto’o back in 2013. Pep Guardiola’s side are already under investigation for 115 alleged breaches of FFP from a period starting in 2009 until 2018, with many fans feeling that the Premier League’s approach to their case in comparison to Everton’s is showing signs of favouritism towards the bigger clubs.