This is going to be the latest and possibly the biggest abomination of football.
Karim Benzema (two-year contract worth €400million), N’Golo Kante (€86m per year throughout his four-year deal), Ruben Neves, Kalidou Koulibaly, and Edouard Mendy has already joined Christiano Ronaldo. More prominent players are set to join.
I saw someone on Reddit asking which Saudi club has a traditional left-wing, trade unionist supporter group, 'cause those are the clubs he likes to follow.
Doesn’t even deserve its own thread.
It’s horrible, of course, but the only reason that the PL has had pre-eminence since the nineties has been money. English clubs could outspend clubs from continental Europe, with a couple of exceptions, and consequently the league attracted the best players. It wasn’t that players like Juninho or Okocha relished playing in freezing rain in January, or enjoyed the lifestyle of Middlesborough or Bolton.
The best talent will follow the money, and the fans will follow the best talent. In ten years, they will have bought their way into the CL and will be competing for it. We will be relegated to the level of a Benfica or PSV Eindhoven.
It’s all plastic and fake, and it’s aim is to burnish the reputation of a nasty and crooked regime, but money talks and no amount of protest will change it.
Do I have to buy another subscription to watch this?
How do you block a thread?
Quite funny watching a geordie mate as he realised that they’ve been leapfrogged.
Saudis won’t need them once they have all the stars in their own league.
Looking at what they just did in golf is instructive.
@mackie UAE, Kuwait, etc. are oil empires too, just saying
I’m not even sure this thread should exist, there’s already a “Minor Leagues” one.
Unless you don’t want to pollute it.; )
None of the Minor or Major leagues is going to destroy football like this one is going to.
thats not the only reason.
English football has always been popular, its the whole romance, the history, the characters, the culture…
i have no doubt that the money has turned it into the 'best league in the world '…but it was never a ‘nothing league’
dunno…i wont be arsed watching the saudi league…for me football has never been about perfection, its never been about seeing the equivilant of a footballing harlem globetrotters…id rather watch the english 4th teir than PSG knock seven shades out of the french league…id rather watch Brentford vs Bournmouth than City vs UTD…
Saudi league might eventually be the ‘best and most popular league in the world’…but it will take centuries of commitment for it to have the allure of any of the European leagues (even Ligue un or the bundesliga which are just a procession)
Of course I agree. I’m a Liverpool fan ffs! I never said that the PL is a nothing league, but other leagues have their stories and romance too. The reason that the PL became the most popular league was mainly financial.
Fans today, brought up on Playstation and Tiktok, aren’t going to be as moved by history. They want stars, glamour and glitz.
I wish it wasn’t that way, but I fear that’s the direction we’re going.
I used to hate the close season.
I’d be almost counting down the days to the fixture announcements, the Charity Shield if we were in it, then the opening day.
This year, I couldn’t be less arsed.
Football is dead.
Yup, it’s why I quite like the Championship.
This league looks to me like a commode where top European clubs can take a dump and get paid for it.
Be interesting to see if anyone purchases the UK rights, I assume the reason no one has purchased LIV was due to Sky having the Dp World and US Pga tours so didn’t want to conflict and BT moving to TNT sports this summer.
Can’t see LIV asking for much, I know Sky got the Chinese ones and then dumped it during the Covid season.
Sky probably will.
And they’ll be paid by the Saudi government’s “investment arm” to do so.
