Quote (Andi @ 29 May 2022 06:12)
Feel ya
Amongst all the evil still 2 of the „lesser“ evil ones there
Quote (zarkadon @ 29 May 2022 13:06)
Not sure what your point is. Madrid has had to cut on its spending over the last 4 years in order to pay for its stadium and abide UEFA regulations, while City and PSG are like "hahahaha corrupt oil money from inflated sponsorships go brrrrr". Not to mention the salary cuts and so on, since the pandemic.
In any case, both Madrid and Liverpool have attained their position, wealth, power and presitege through decades of hard work, stemming from times where sugar daddies were not a thing and footballers where happy to earn 50 times less than what they earn now. Same goes for other clubs like Bayern, Man Utd or Barça.
While I'm totally on board with new clubs going big, I can't respect them when they are artificially inflated like City or PSG, rathen than going through the FFP abiding path like, for example, Atletico.
well, i acknowledged in earlier rounds already that against psg and city, real madrid is indeed the slightly lesser evil, but let us not forget their loooong history of generating massive amounts of money out of seemingly nowhere (despite being heavily indebted actually) for one record transfer (and more importantly, insane contract) after the other. let's not forget the ridiculously crooked land deal that saved them from outright bankruptcy in the early 2000s, all of florentino perez' business and societal connections, spanish banks exercising extreme leniency towards a club STILL operating with massive debt juggling and accounting tricks to keep the books at least officially somewhat in accordance to the rules, their emirates main sponsor...
now obviously all of this is coming from a german perspective, where football clubs are held to rigorous financial standards, where even bayern's commitment to training camps in dubai are (imo justifiably) criticised, and any debt-ridden club is mercilessly relegated, regardless of history or standing - so i obviously don't expect people who simply grew with vastly different standards and expectations to demand the same from their league and clubs. i still think it offers some perspective to the different tiers of shady / questionable business dealings, in which in my opinion, the likes of real madrid and chelski occupy the second rank behind above mentioned clubs - way ahead of a club like liverpool for example.