villa4europe Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Mic09 said: Someone on youtube (i don't remember the source) made a good point. People don't watch the Premier League to see Kante or Fabinho or Koulibaly. They watch the Premier League to see Chelsea or Liverpool. The brand and history if these clubs is much more powerful than a few individual players. The saudis have a long way to go before they put out a product that is comparable to the Premier League, Serie A or La Liga. english and european people of a certain age group watch football like that the argument for the super league was right, in europe the fanbase is starting to plateau, there's not a huge floating fanbase, certainly not one that can sustain the insane spending of these clubs, so therefor they need to pick up the floating fanbase of the south east Asian 12-21 year olds and they are shown to follow footballers and not clubs the logic as to why those clubs needed the super league was sound, their god given right to have it was definitely not the saudis are merely replacing the super league concept (and they're a long way off it still) Edited August 22, 2023 by villa4europe 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoony Posted August 22, 2023 Share Posted August 22, 2023 13 hours ago, villa4europe said: english and european people of a certain age group watch football like that the argument for the super league was right, in europe the fanbase is starting to plateau, there's not a huge floating fanbase, certainly not one that can sustain the insane spending of these clubs, so therefor they need to pick up the floating fanbase of the south east Asian 12-21 year olds and they are shown to follow footballers and not clubs the logic as to why those clubs needed the super league was sound, their god given right to have it was definitely not the saudis are merely replacing the super league concept (and they're a long way off it still) Yup it’s depressing but this is just the way the game is going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 Mancini to become saudi national team manager Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 hour ago, bobzy said: Why do you hope it's wrong? Because the Saudi League is utterly toxic for football. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 2 hours ago, The_Steve said: Because the Saudi League is utterly toxic for football. Is it though? It's just another money league like the Premier League. I can appreciate the worries around the country itself, owning Newcastle, potentially hosting the World Cup et al, but I can't massively see the issue with them having their own league and paying players loads of money. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MellbergsBeard Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 37 minutes ago, bobzy said: Is it though? It's just another money league like the Premier League. I can appreciate the worries around the country itself, owning Newcastle, potentially hosting the World Cup et al, but I can't massively see the issue with them having their own league and paying players loads of money. For me, I can see the appeal for the older player chasing a last contract but for a young player I can’t imagine there going to go grow, only 5 foreign players for each team means a lot of poor quality still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 hour ago, bobzy said: Is it though? It's just another money league like the Premier League. I can appreciate the worries around the country itself, owning Newcastle, potentially hosting the World Cup et al, but I can't massively see the issue with them having their own league and paying players loads of money. It's a totally artificial construct. Ok the Premier League has loads of money sloshing around too but there's still a proper footballing tradition and history there. Not really the same at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Steve Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 hour ago, bobzy said: Is it though? It's just another money league like the Premier League. I can appreciate the worries around the country itself, owning Newcastle, potentially hosting the World Cup et al, but I can't massively see the issue with them having their own league and paying players loads of money. It’s not though, especially when the Saudi state is using its massive GDP to fund four teams for its political aims of normalising geopolitical ties and masking its abhorrent human rights abuses. This isn’t a bunch of rich blokes getting together to play fantasy football. It’s unprecedented in scale. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 20 minutes ago, Mantis said: It's a totally artificial construct. Ok the Premier League has loads of money sloshing around too but there's still a proper footballing tradition and history there. Not really the same at all. All football leagues are an 'artificial construct' lol, they don't grow on trees. Look, at the end of the day Saudi is a country, and a member of FIFA and the international footballing family. They are allowed to have a league. The Asian equivalent of UEFA gets to decide whether their clubs can play in continental competition or what rules will apply, but there's nothing wrong with Saudi clubs buying and selling players. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted August 24, 2023 Moderator Share Posted August 24, 2023 13 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: All football leagues are an 'artificial construct' lol, they don't grow on trees. There’s degrees though. Some leagues kind of evolved out of teams already existing and wanting to set up a regular set of fixtures and be a bit more organised, others are completely artificial where clubs are created in order to form a league, as is the case with the US in the past, and Saudi now. Obviously, to stay on topic, these clubs then need to be heavily involved in player recruitment in transfer windows. They’re not so much selling and buying, as just buying to create squads for their new teams and new competition. It’s more akin to the IPL, or the Hundred in cricket than it is to (say) the English football league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 8 minutes ago, blandy said: There’s degrees though. Some leagues kind of evolved out of teams already existing and wanting to set up a regular set of fixtures and be a bit more organised, others are completely artificial where clubs are created in order to form a league, as is the case with the US in the past, and Saudi now. Obviously, to stay on topic, these clubs then need to be heavily involved in player recruitment in transfer windows. They’re not so much selling and buying, as just buying to create squads for their new teams and new competition. It’s more akin to the IPL, or the Hundred in cricket than it is to (say) the English football league. Yes, exactly. There's no natural progression there whatsoever. And at least with the IPL, India is actually a huge cricket nation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 hour ago, blandy said: There’s degrees though. Some leagues kind of evolved out of teams already existing and wanting to set up a regular set of fixtures and be a bit more organised, others are completely artificial where clubs are created in order to form a league, as is the case with the US in the past, and Saudi now. Obviously, to stay on topic, these clubs then need to be heavily involved in player recruitment in transfer windows. They’re not so much selling and buying, as just buying to create squads for their new teams and new competition. It’s more akin to the IPL, or the Hundred in cricket than it is to (say) the English football league. It's true that the government is financing the clubs (some to a larger extent than others for whatever reason) but AIUI the clubs haven't been created to form the league but were all previously in existence. They've basically had varying degrees of cash injection, which is something that has happened to us in recent history as well. I'm not sure I agree it's more similar to the IPL, as it's not a new league. But in any case, the fact remains, Saudi can have a league, and its clubs can buy players. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 2 hours ago, Mantis said: It's a totally artificial construct. Ok the Premier League has loads of money sloshing around too but there's still a proper footballing tradition and history there. Not really the same at all. The Saudi Pro League has existed longer than the Premier League. Al-Hilal are the most successful team in Asian Champions League history (4 titles). Football is the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia. I'm curious by which of these is the nation "artificial"? The only thing they haven't done previously is thrown money at the domestic game. They're now doing that. 1 hour ago, The_Steve said: It’s not though, especially when the Saudi state is using its massive GDP to fund four teams for its political aims of normalising geopolitical ties and masking its abhorrent human rights abuses. This isn’t a bunch of rich blokes getting together to play fantasy football. It’s unprecedented in scale. So the league is toxic because the country is toxic? Surely the Premier League is therefore also toxic for allowing Saudi Arabia to own one of its clubs? The UK is toxic for being involved in trade deals with Saudi Arabia? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobzy Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 hour ago, blandy said: There’s degrees though. Some leagues kind of evolved out of teams already existing and wanting to set up a regular set of fixtures and be a bit more organised, others are completely artificial where clubs are created in order to form a league, as is the case with the US in the past, and Saudi now. Obviously, to stay on topic, these clubs then need to be heavily involved in player recruitment in transfer windows. They’re not so much selling and buying, as just buying to create squads for their new teams and new competition. It’s more akin to the IPL, or the Hundred in cricket than it is to (say) the English football league. See above post, but the Saudi Pro League has been around for ages. The only thing "artificial" about these teams now is the amount of money - in the same way that the Premier League became "artificial" when it had enough money to hoover up talent from across the globe. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 Next step in this farce will be paying players to switch nationality Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 (edited) People slag off the premier league but isn't it so rich due to TV rights and sky paying like a billion a year for rights or whatever, which in turn is only possible due to X million people in the UK paying £50+ a month for sports channels? What's stopping other countries doing this? Edited August 24, 2023 by VillaJ100 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 If they sign Salah, that would be huge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 23 minutes ago, VillaJ100 said: Next step in this farce will be paying players to switch nationality Qatar got stopped by FIFA from doing that 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 2 minutes ago, Keyblade said: If they sign Salah, that would be huge. And hilarious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted August 24, 2023 Share Posted August 24, 2023 1 minute ago, Zatman said: And hilarious Might need to start a RAWK meltdown thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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