Saudi PIF own over 60% of Clearlake.
Saudi takers for Chelsea’s unwanted players too, getting them out of a real pickle.
Nothing to see here.
because it’s not “direct” ownership…they’ll get away with it.
Has football always been this fucking corrupt and we’ve been too blind/naive/idealistic to see it, or is the sport worse now than it’s ever been?
Starting to hate what it’s become.
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I think it is worse now than it has ever been.
Human nature being what it is, there will always be an element of skullduggery here and there.
But now, with the advent of nation state involvement, the scope, means, and brazenness have ratcheted up several notches.
There’s a sense in which they are bigger than the custodians of the game, like the FA, the Prem, UEFA, and so there’s a real ‘bravery’ in the transgression, as the assumption is that we will defeat the rap. More lawyers. More money. They can tie the custodians up in knots for years on end.
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Do they? I thought they had funds invested through Clearlake not in Clearlake itself?
I misspoke. I thought I read Saudi PIF had a 60% controlling stake of Clearlake, but having just looked into it, they are just investors.
The amount is undisclosed, but it certainly doesn’t pass the sniff test.
That’s how I feel about the world and life in general. I don’t know how naive I was in my younger days? But I can’t ever remember politicians being as corrupt as they are now? Nowadays they don’t even try to hide it.
The same goes for corruption in football. They’re not even trying to hide it and the footy authorities are complicit in their dealings with these cheats. 
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It had always a touch of ‘bad boys, bad money’ in it. Look at Maradona’s Napoli for instance, or the way Real Madrid was funded by the Franco regime during decades. Some countries also bought world cups in order to practice sportswashing (ie. Argentina 1978). Later, football reflected society by going all-out to maximise its business aspect.
But the Arab nations have taken it to a wholly new level now. Big business combined with sportswashing, systematic cheating in oder to completely take away the remaining sporting interest. It’s disgusting.
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I think all sports have their fair share of malaises. Doping is/was pretty common in athletics, swimming, etc. Football being the most popular just have its fair share. What’s happening for the last two decades is that the regulators/administrators are involved in the aiding and abetting.
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The richest sports have become so rich that even the mega rich are priced out of acquisitions without going to find institutional money or putting together a consortium. The guy who is being touted as the new owner of the Washington NFL team is buying them for over $6b. Even as one of the 150 richest people in the world that is more expensive than his entire net worth, and so in reality he is the mouth piece for a group of about 15 investors purchasing them. There are probably 8 or 9 teams in the NFL who would get a higher valuation the the Commanders, so other than large investment groups like Clearlake, or sovereign wealth funds, there just arent viable buyers for these things anymore.
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With politicians you will find they were every much as corrupt back then.
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worst part is, it’s fueled by the supporters. urging the clubs to spend big money (especially in NA sports) means the price of a ticket to watch a game is going to increase exponentially.
now you’re seeing kids being thrown into high-intensity development programs at 8-9 year old, with this pipe dream that one day they’ll “make it”. my son was asked to do AAA baseball this summer, we turned it down. he’s 8, should be out playing with his friends.
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With RLC now gone aswell who played a fair bit at RWB, they’re relying on James staying fully fit. Some whispers going around they also wanna offload Pulisic, Sterling & Auba before window shuts. With Ziyech likely to get a move elsewhere this could be the record number of departures ever in a single summer.
He played about 10 games down the right side last season. They have James (started pre-season) and Gusto (who they bought last January), who might provide backup at RB. Still to be seen which formation Pochettino uses. If Chalobah stays, he can also cover at RB in emergency.
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A 40m hit…ouch.
https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1676957789040824320
I remember how distraught I was that Chelsea beat us to Havertz and Pulisic… how wrong I was… though I still think with Klopp in their corner things may have been very different.
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You’d have thought so, a lot of players whose career took a turn for the worst fall under this category. The Klopp effect exists amongst us all!!!
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Pulisic could have been a good player under Klopp, Havertz just wants to float through games. Doesn’t have the intensity Klopp requires.
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At the time of the Pulisic deal to Chelsea, I was disappointed, but he’s suffered a lot of injuries so maybe he was a bullet dodged.
I agree, Klopp would have been able to get more from him.
Chelsea are such club in modern times, the huge amount of players that went through there…
And not only that, but a lot of coaches as well, different ideas, so it’s not easy to actually stay there. If players fail there, sometimes it doesn’t mean they’re not good enough for some other teams of similar level.