This.
Saudi Arabia FA interested in joining UEFA Champions League (Bloomberg)
- Thread starter Samid
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
I've seen a few kids with Ronaldo Al Nassr kits, some were even full kit wankers. I blame the parents.
The sources for these headlines are almost always completely random twitter accounts with no credibility whatsoever.
Yep, 40k followers doth not a reliable source make.
I'd rather get worked up from a non credible source then hearing no news, so this suits me perfectly.
The source for that story has just claimed that the Spanish FA are looking at moving La Liga matches so they don't clash with Al-Nassr matches, because too many people are apparently choosing to watch the latter instead.
The fixtures don't even clash, for starters.
The fixtures don't even clash, for starters.
Its almost done. My cousin is sport journalist, one of the biggest on Balkan, Sabahudin Topalbecirevic "Baho" and he told me it's just matter of the time. And I know that he have Saudis connections. They helped us a lot during a infamous balkan wars 1992-1995.
Cerefin has already nipped this in the bud back in September, by stating unequivocally that only European teams would be eligible to play in the Champions League, Europa and conference.
Unless something has changed dramatically in a few months then the situation is still the same, and no amount of non descript nobodies online is really going to make it true.
Logically it stacks up.
Kazakhstan is now European apparently, as is Israel....
Massive difference in Saudi and Israel, knowing that Israel has an extremely close relationship with the EU and has advocated for EU membership in the past.
Hmmmm Saudi has a very close relationship with Europe and, crucially, has much more money.
It stacks that they'll try. I don't think it stacks that they'll succeed.
99% of the interest is on Ronaldo being there, so the clock is very much ticking on them getting anything done. Once he retires/leaves, what's left for them that generates any actual interest?
They can already throw unimaginable sums of money, but the level/prestige of the competition is the one thing that's stopping the likes of Mbappe going there.
Other than a short term bung, there's nothing for any side in UEFA to gain from allowing Saudi entry. The whole point of the super league was to create a closed-shop for the European "elite", why on earth would they want to give one or more Saudi clubs a seat at that table?
Saudi Arabian have a business relationship with Europe, but not a cultural and framework relationship like Israel. It's not even close.
Look at it this way, let's hypothetically say Cerefin and his cronies bend over for the money And allow Saudi teams in the Champions League, what then happens to FFP, as the Saudi teams don't adhere to it?
What's then stopping teams from Japan wanting in on the European champions League, as their own Asian Champions League has been decimated by the loss of some of its stronger teams?
Lots to go wrong, not a huge amount to go right really, Cerefin has already stated it won't happen, and for once I am inclined to believe him, he doesn't want this can of worms to be opened.
Teams don't adhere to FFP now, so your first point is moot.
I think it's naive to believe anything, anyone says in football, especially UEFA/FIFA
More importantly how many spots would be made available and which teams in Europe would miss out to make way for this absurd idea. The problem is SA will just create their own world champions league if UEFA say no ?
It's not really moot though is it, when the majority of teams do adhere to it.
I wouldn't put it past them, but the issue would then be what happens to the domestic game,
no way United go into a Saudi super league after the ramifications of the last attempt. Premier League/FA wouldn't allow it,
Except for which teams?
Can't wait for their Eurovision entries.
You underestimate the strings being pulled at the top. There will be a super league eventually, United will be in it (assuming we haven't damaged our reputation as a 'big club' beyond repair in the banter era we're currently in by the time it happens) and the FA won't care two jots about it because they'll get some lovely back handers from the crown prince.
Regardless of the source, this has always been the goal and the real way in which Saudi will be able to pull younger/better players from European leagues. It will happen, it will be interesting to see how many slots they can get - what I assume might happen is they get allowed initially into the earlier qualifying rounds (Champions path - this is where you see Galatasaray and Copenhagen enter for example) and within a couple of seasons they just go straight to the group stages.
The football world deserves this after hooting and hollering about how good the Qatar WC final was.
The ones that are being investigated or have been fined yeah?
The simple fact, bo matter how you try and dress it, is Saudi clubs do not and have not adhered to the same rules as EU clubs, for them to even think about getting admitted into a UEFA competition they would need to change the way the clubs operate and adhere to the same set of regulations, which quite frankly won't be possible currently, due to the wage structure and transfer fees.
The FA will not want the decimation of the domestic league, so they will not allow a full super league to happen, and if it did it wouldn't be affiliated with any football governing body, leaving the teams who wish to enter making a massive gamble on their futures.
It's not at all in the interest of any of the European clubs to let them in, precisely because they "will be able to pull younger/better players from European leagues".
Also, the source is simply not a source. It's a nutter with a Cristiano Ronaldo/Al-Nassr fan account posting utter nonsense and calling it "News".
Here are some of his recent tweets:
Newcastle are already in the Champions League
This
We saw what happened when the Saudi deal got blocked the first time for Newcastle. If you choose not to believe it will happen, no worries, I personally think it is inevitable because we know the organizations that will decide on these things are corrupt as feck.
What does the Newcastle deal have to do with it?
The fact is that the super league lot would actually be somewhat justified in fecking off if UEFA let Saudi clubs in.
It's not in the interests of the big clubs to accept extra, heavily resourced competition. It's not in the interests of the smaller clubs to accept their already limited chances of qualification to be diluted. It's not in the interests of UEFA to piss off the big clubs that tried to leave not long ago.
I don't doubt the Saudi interest in getting involved, but the reality is that there's still very little global interest in their product outside of Cristiano Ronaldo, who's going to be 40 years old in a little over a year. Once he's gone, I wouldn't be at all surprised if it all fizzled out.
There's also been little to no actual news about UEFA letting Saudi clubs in, but there have been actual statements from the ECA and UEFA basically saying it's not happening.
Yet every time some fantasy nonsense is posted on twitter by a complete randomer, these threads end up with multiple "I knew this would happen!" posts, despite nothing actually happening.
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They won’t want it but billions and even perhaps trillion might make them hold their noses. Same with the clubs, no way they won’t eventually cave in to some version of it.
I don't disagree with anything you're saying i.e. I just can't see this happening - not from UEFA and even then, the big European clubs will have something to say (threaten super league etc?). But with respect to the bolded, that'll be a tiny issue for the Saudi PIF to overcome. Sign bogus sponsorship deals with state entities, or pay their star European players through state entities and not through the club - basically how clubs like City are circumventing it atm (though they have 115 charges etc.).
International break
The ease in which Saudi clubs will navigate FFP is precisely why no club in UEFA will want them.
City (and now Newcastle) already make almost no effort to hide how dodgy their sponsors are.
115 timesNewcastle shows an example of a football governing body being outruled by a government.
Your point seems to be that it benefits no one but is that true? City being state owned is a negative for the PL but that happened anyway, people point to them spending more and therefore smaller clubs benefitting but that also works for Saudi. Newcastle being state owned is also a negative for the league, it was blocked and then Boris got a call.
Your point about interest in the league is completely false though, just look at the numbers for the overseas broadcasting rights, they will likely take over Serie A next year. I don't watch it, I assume you don't watch but then the bulk of football fans aren't even in Europe these days - why would the millions upon millions in India, China, Nigeria etc. not want to watch the Saudi League if some of the biggest names in the world play football there?
Which government is stepping in to change UEFA's mind?
You're conflating club ownership with wholesale structural changes to the most prestigious competition in club football.
With hindsight, it was always going to be a shit idea to let a state buy a club, but the reality is that we didn't really know how it was going to pan out for City. We spent the first few years laughing at them for repeatedly spaffing money up the wall on mediocre players.
I said the interest was small outside of Ronaldo. Which it is. Some broadcasters might have jumped on the bandwagon for a bit, but it's not going to last. Besides, the countries you listed there aren't the ones paying large amounts for broadcast rights, even if there was a lot of interest in watching the league, of which there is little evidence.
The average attendance in the league is less than 9,000 per match, and Al-Ahli and Al-Ettifaq, two of the clubs with "some of the biggest names in world football" playing for them drew a crowd of less than 700 people.
All of the eggs are in the Cristiano Ronaldo basket. People might be tuning in for him, but that's it.
Potentially multiple, that's the point and the issue with state ownership. UK needs no added info given Newcastle, PIF just opened an office in Paris, they just caused uproar in Spain muscling into Telefonica, Italy is desperate for investment and you can see the push for bilateral relations across Europe right now with Saudi. You really think if Ceferin has any real power if he starts gets pressure from heads of state when our own PM didn't?
"The interest is small outside of Ronaldo" is a very naive thing to say. Firstly, even if it was, he's a one man marketing machine - you can't just dismiss him. Secondly, it's very easy to disprove: The most followed footballers in world football from 1st to 10th are Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar, Mbappe, Marcelo, Ibra, Salah, Ramos, Pogba, Rodriguez. They already have No1 and 3, and then it seems a matter of time until Salah and maybe Pogba go there. That's not even factoring in Benzema, Mane, Mahrez, Henderson (lol) etc.
Not sure why you think attendance has any bearing at all on how popular the league is globally, it's not a footballing country so there will be a lag until you start to see bigger crowds, as long as the % keeps rising every year (despite bad attendances it's up 25% from last year) they will be happy but the focus is on external tv deals and commercialization of the league. But it would be the same anywhere that doesn't have the historical interest in football, that side you can't really fasttrack unless you pay fans to come (which they might end up doing). I'm not sure they care about home attendance aside from maybe wanting it for the players, they can just self sponsor the shit out of themselves so it doesn't matter for revenue and then, let's be honest, I doubt any of the big name players who moved there went for the atmosphere or crazy fan support.
Wouldn't fly though, the simple fact that multiple Saudi Clubs are owned by the PIF means they would be under heavy scrutiny in itself.
As much as UEFA FFP rules are rather lackluster, other clubs would kick up a huge fuss should UEFA ever allow this to happen. We have already seen that UEFA are under the clubs influence more than they should be.