Quote (ZxFamily-GuyxZ @ 11 Sep 2023 11:36)
Saudi teams don't even make the list before this year....do they?
So fucking hilarious that a league outside of Europe(mainly England) finally spends for the first time EVER and you got fans already thinking the worst
https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=101544141&f=205"The end of club football?" -- coming from an English fan is truly something remarkable
That list would consist of 12/13 English teams if you go back 1 year :rofl: ofc, followed by Barca, PSG and Bayern....breaking news :lol:
No fucking clue how one can think that 3-4 teams outside of Europe FINALLY making a splash will destroy the sport but not 4 Clubs + English league spending DOMINATING in money spent every fucking year after year
I need those drugs
you're missing some important points there.
young talent bought by english clubs play in a highly competitive league, against almost exclusively top notch opposition every week. they play in a league that participates in the undeniably best international club competition, the uefa champions league, and its 2nd and 3rd tier equivalent.
although i fully agree with the sentiment that english financial dominance has been very damaging to the rest of europe's domestic leagues, and that it has created its own issues (talented players moving to middle or low tier english clubs that have no shot at international competition rather than playing for clubs in other leagues that have a realistic chance of making euro- or even champions league, or simply rotting on the bench without a chance of getting any games, just to name two examples), the problems with the saudi league are of a different quality imo:
i don't even mind ageing stars, players past their prime (like cronaldo and benzema for example) going for a last big contract in a retirement league (like they always did, in the US, turkey, china, japan, russia... in the past), but young talent or players in their prime moving to a league that only consists of four teams, which themselves have mostly subpar players in their rosters, with no top international competition... that's a whole different deal, with a huge potential do outright ruin a lot of talent, lacking the professional training, competition, challenge, and also attention of national coaches.
so while i don't think this is the "end of club football", and still expect most talented young players to choose a slightly worse contract over a career-ender league, i very much DO think it's a big deal, and not just because it's such an obvious sports-washing operation by a human rights abusing oil monarchy...