Global Football Odds & Ends

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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Apr 15, 2006
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Word is that interest in Liverpool has been intense. I don’t think they’ll have a hard time if they really want to sell.
 

Zomp

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For years people have been saying that United is a financial giant. The club could spend more than they do now every summer because the cash coming in from sponsorships and fans is insane.

The Glazers use it as their personal piggy bank.

I think there will be a long list of suitors.
 

Vinho Tinto

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For years people have been saying that United is a financial giant. The club could spend more than they do now every summer because the cash coming in from sponsorships and fans is insane.

The Glazers use it as their personal piggy bank.

I think there will be a long list of suitors.
The club's revenues are really high. The question for any potential owner is can they foot the purchase price and capital improvements the club needs. I've read more than once that Old Trafford has seen much better days. As you noted, that is where the Glazers really did the club wrong - by not reinvesting in it.
 

67YAZ

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Dec 1, 2000
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The United deal is going to be bigger than we all expect. It’s not just the revenues - it’s the brand awareness, social media following, the global reach. The revenues are already massive, but smart investors will see so many growth opportunities in the real world & digital. Plus, the only two globally bigger clubs - Real & Barca - can’t be purchased.

This definitely slows down Liverpool’s sale - every potential buyer there is going to do due diligence on United. But it may ultimately help FSG to go second after the Glazers set a new record.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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Sep 27, 2016
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Also, Liverpool's fans don't necessarily want Henry to sell, do they? They know they're not getting anything better from an oligarch or a more banker-minded leech billionaire. They have an EPL title and a UCL win in the last 4 years, upgraded stands, other infrastructure. Anyone who will win an auction probably won't be in a position to do the same.
 

Mighty Joe Young

The North remembers
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Sep 14, 2002
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Also, Liverpool's fans don't necessarily want Henry to sell, do they? They know they're not getting anything better from an oligarch or a more banker-minded leech billionaire. They have an EPL title and a UCL win in the last 4 years, upgraded stands, other infrastructure. Anyone who will win an auction probably won't be in a position to do the same.
This one doesn’t. Devil you know and all that. FSG has done a great job running the club IMO. They’ve managed to compete at the very top of the table without the financial might of many of their competitors. Sadly that might change of course. When the Glazers sell United to the Saudis and they hire a competent front office no one will compete with them.

edit: mind you it might be worth it to see Gary Neville’s reaction.
 
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InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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We've heard "blow it up, root and branch" so many times in jest, that we hardly know what to do when they actually do blow it up entirely.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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The Super League gambit was a farcical fiasco in many respects but it has become only more and more clear how hugely impactful its failure was for the future of football.

Barcelona and Juventus needed the Super League even more than anybody outside those clubs realized at the time. Barcelona is stuck in financial shit and Juventus is headed for god knows what sanctions (maybe a return trip to Serie B, who knows).

Meanwhile, the owners of Liverpool and United have both decided that without the Super League its not worth owning an elite football club that needs to compete against the unlimited funds of the sportswashers and one or both seems likely to end up in the same kinds of hands.
 

67YAZ

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Chicago fans out here on Twitter urging Mansueto to buy Juve so it can become a Fire feeder club.
 

speedracer

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Jul 19, 2005
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I mean, if Ronaldo just halved his salary the club could probably purchase another couple over-the-hill stars and have a fighting chance of making it to the Club World Cup and springing an upset or whatever.
 

Vinho Tinto

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I mean, if Ronaldo just halved his salary the club could probably purchase another couple over-the-hill stars and have a fighting chance of making it to the Club World Cup and springing an upset or whatever.
They're buying his fame and image. The sporting events are just for show.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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Yeah, if I’m Bayern I might send James Spaders Blacklist character there to smother him with a pillow.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Don’t many athletes have contract clauses banning this?
Maybe it's a different thing in Europe. It's standard in American contracts now. I remember Cal Ripken Jr loved pickup hoops so much he negotiated a clause to enable him to keep playing it - the point being that he had to make a point to do that.
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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My worlds colliding:

The Athletic: Shakhtar Donetsk arguing to CAS that FIFA's ruling on contracts screwed them illegally

So, Shakhtar hasn't been able to play at their home stadium since the invasion started in 2014, so this was not a big surprise. And with the war breaking out and not even being able to play in Ukraine, and all the domestic players more concerned about their families and safety, there wasn't going to be a lot of football to play. But Shakhtar is a big, successful club and had 14 foreign players on the books, and FIFA's ruling last year that the players could unilaterally break their contracts on this past June 30th if they hadn't agreed to do so with the club before then, put them in a huge hole. Prior to that ruling, they weren't going to make the players play, but they were at least able to negotiate transfer sales with the usual amount of leverage. After that, players and club counterparties knew they could just wait them out to June 30th if they didn't like the terms offered, and it cost them millions of euros.

So I gotta admit they have a point, from an ethical perspective. The inviolability of contracts is kinda one of the pillars that western rule-of-law relies on. And while every insurance contract has an exception for war and civil disturbance (if the Russians shell your house, they won't pay for it), I'm not sure whether the same applies to football player contracts.

As a result, they're suing FIFA (in CAS arbitration) not just to overturn the ruling but for € 50M in damages. They owe a bunch of transfer installment payments and can't make them without the ability to earn money in transfers. FIFA's reaction will surprise nobody:

Shakhtar chief executive Sergei Palkin told The Athletic his club owe around €37million to clubs but require “reparations” from FIFA to cover the losses endured last summer.

Palkin said: “Clubs will start to ask for all our debts and I don’t know how to repay those debts if I have no possibility to sell players. This is the biggest problem. I have an issue with one club and I believe others will come.

“We are still open to sit with FIFA and discuss all our issues and find ways forward. We propose to establish a reparation fund for Ukrainian clubs affected by the suspension of the contracts. There are a lot of losses, not only Shakhtar, but other clubs with the same story.”

He says, however, that contact with FIFA has been minimal. He claims FIFA “do not see us even through a microscope”. He adds: “We tried to knock on the FIFA door many times but it has been complete silence.”
No word on whether they cited TransferMarkt valuations in order to arrive at the € 50M they would've been expected to recoup from selling their foreign players.
 

Vinho Tinto

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The Portuguese tabloids are reporting Fernando Santos is out with the Selecao. The FPF's target is Mourinho, with Rui Jorge as a possible interim manager until they work out the details.
 

OCST

Sunny von Bulow
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Jan 10, 2004
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Several Twitter-types speculating that Lampard could be under consideration for England job.
 

67YAZ

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Infantino announces that the FIFA governing board has agreed in principle to a 32-team Club World Cup starting in 2025. Details are scant, such as who gets these 24 new slots. but the suggestion is that the tournament will be held each June. There's also a rumor that the US will host in 2026 a prelude to the WC. If the past holds, this could allow MLS to get an automatic entry in addition to the CONCACAF representative.

Anyway, if you didn't get enough Morocco this month, they'll host the 2023 Club World Cup in February.

 
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67YAZ

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Queiroz to take over the Qatari National team & Qatar is coming back to the Gold Cup.

 

Vinho Tinto

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Vialli has passed away at 58 from pancreatic cancer. Always terrible when one of our heroes passes. He was already at Juve when I started following the sport. His final match for The Old Lady was their victory over Ajax to win the '96 CL. His move to Chelsea was in line with the club's first attempt to raise their profile before Roman took over. By the time he retired, he and Zola were club legends.

Here's video of him with hair scoring a crazy goal for Sampdoria at Highbury

View: https://twitter.com/sid_lambert/status/1611304978508808192?s=20


A lasting image of him and Mancini embracing after winning the Euros in 2021.

View: https://twitter.com/footitalia1/status/1611300014285889537?s=20
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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Fantastic player and rightly a legend in Italy.

People always talk (rightly so) about Maradona dragging Napoli to multiple Serie A titles but Vialli leading Sampdoria - a club that had literally never won anything - to Serie A, three Copa Italia, and two European finals in the 1980s and early 1990s was arguably just as impressive. He had good teammates and an owner willing to invest but Vialli was apparently the main man. I only really became aware of him during Italia 90 when I was first starting to learn about most European soccer players but I remember him being already a huge deal at that point and then he had a somewhat disappointing tournament, getting eclipsed by Squillaci, who was nowhere near as big a star. I largely lost track of him in the 1990s (didn't follow Serie A at all) but then he came to the PL and was iconic in those foreign-heavy Chelsea teams.
 

SocrManiac

Tommy Seebach’s mustache
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A friend of mine from college moved to Saudi Arabia with his fiancée for a short period in the 2005 time frame. He’s adamant that no real accommodation has been made for CR7 and that foreign nationals are granted the right to live with unwed significant others on a regular basis. He thinks this is a total non-story. Right now my Google Fu only brings up the Ronaldo situation. Anybody else have any insight?
 

InstaFace

The Ultimate One
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I've heard (from friends who were there) that people living at KAUST might as well be in another country, that they have movie theaters, bars, no morality police, etc. It just dramatically changes as soon as you leave campus.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

RIP Dernell
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Mar 24, 2008
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A friend of mine from college moved to Saudi Arabia with his fiancée for a short period in the 2005 time frame. He’s adamant that no real accommodation has been made for CR7 and that foreign nationals are granted the right to live with unwed significant others on a regular basis. He thinks this is a total non-story. Right now my Google Fu only brings up the Ronaldo situation. Anybody else have any insight?
Many folks in the Reddit thread on this said the exact same thing. Non story if you're an ex-pat rather than a citizen.
 

teddykgb

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Jul 16, 2005
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Bale had one of the strangest careers you’ll ever see a player have. Incredible highs and a weird malaise.

Which isnt a harsh enough word to describe my beloved Portugal MNT choosing to hire fucking Roberto Martinez to replace Santos. Any time you can hire the guy who failed with Belgiums golden generation I guess you have to take it? What an awful and devastating choice for a promising group of Portuguese players
 

Vinho Tinto

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Which isnt a harsh enough word to describe my beloved Portugal MNT choosing to hire fucking Roberto Martinez to replace Santos. Any time you can hire the guy who failed with Belgiums golden generation I guess you have to take it? What an awful and devastating choice for a promising group of Portuguese players
Especially strange since Portugal has developed a strong group of managers over the last 20 years. Even Rui Jorge, who manages the U-23 manager, would have made sense since he's worked with a number of the senior players and hasn't shown an inclination to move to club football. Martinez feels like the Cris Carter philosophy of always having a fall guy.

Bale, when healthy and locked in, was the prototype of a two way winger. In terms of physical ability and skill, he was a cut above Rooney and Owen (who won a Ballon d'Or). He had speed on Owen's level, but also had Rooney's work rate and dead ball ability. Wasn't the finisher either one was, but he was very productive.

For a guy who has two CL final match winning goals at Real Madrid, his legacy isn't within a planet of where it should be. His comments immediately after the 2018 CL final were all timers. Their fans never could embrace him because he came across as aloof and as if he didn't care.