Author Topic: Qatari's plan football tournament....  (Read 8883 times)

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Qatari's plan football tournament....
« on: March 13, 2013, 02:34:56 am »
From oliver kay of th times the stunning cash on offer...
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The Times Exclusive: Absolutely Fascinating - Sheikhs to change the face of world football

The world’s leading football clubs are to be offered enormous financial inducements to participate in a 24-team tournament every two years in Qatar and neighbouring Gulf states, The Times has learnt.

Backed by the Qatari royal family, the self-styled “Dream Football League” (DFL) will release plans next month for a new club tournament that it hopes to establish as a rival to the Champions League and the Club World Cup.

The move, the latest stage of Qatar’s bid to establish itself as a dominant player in world football, represents a clear threat to the existing powerbases of Fifa, football’s world governing body, and Uefa, its European counterpart.

It remains to be seen which, if any, Barclays Premier League clubs will sign up for the project, but DFL is prepared to offer elite clubs such as Barcelona and Manchester United an astonishing €200 million (about £175 million) per two-year cycle in an attempt to gain support.

Its plan is to have four of England’s most prestigious clubs among 16 “permanent” DFL members, with a further eight global clubs competing on an invitational basis.

The project is being driven from Doha and Paris after the recent takeover of Paris Saint-Germain by Qatar Sports Investment (QSI).
Qatar is eager to win the full support of the increasingly influential European Club Association (ECA), which is involved in a continuing power struggle with Uefa and Fifa, but the recent ECA general assembly, held in Doha, featured a stern warning from Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the chairman, to PSG about the French club’s aggressive attempts to win power and influence among the game’s elite.

If successful, the idea — which would feature the first tournament held across the region in the summer of 2015 — would change the face of world football, not least in widening the gap between the richest clubs and the rest.

The sums under discussion would dwarf those in the Champions League, which has an annual prize fund of £595 million. Chelsea won £47.3 million as European champions last season.

DFL’s idea is that the sums involved would lead clubs to make the tournament their top priority, even ahead of the Champions League and their domestic leagues, particularly in an era in which additional revenue will help clubs such as PSG and Manchester City, respectively owned by sovereign wealth funds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, to overcome Uefa’s new “financial fair play” regulations.

The idea of holding the tournament in the summer is a key part of Qatar’s strategy. Having encountered widespread objections to its controversial plans to host the 2022 World Cup finals in summer, when temperatures soar beyond 40C (104F), Qatar aims to demonstrate that it can, with the backing of the most powerful clubs, overcome concerns about player and spectator safety with the use of air conditioning not just in the stadiums but throughout all host cities.

DFL plans to hold the tournament not only in Qatar but in six cities across the Gulf, with venues in Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and possibly Saudi Arabia.
Officials from Uefa and the Premier League declined to comment on the DFL proposals last night. The ECA did not respond to inquiries.

Leading figures from Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United also declined to respond, although some privately expressed full support for the existing competition in club football while saying that they had not heard of the DFL proposals.

The existing European club competition structure has been far more stable since Uefa reacted to the “Media Partners” breakaway league threat of the 1990s by expanding the Champions League, but there have been renewed discussions in recent years about the idea of creating a competition whereby the elite clubs play each other more often than the present arrangements allow.

Florentino Pérez, the Real Madrid president, said in 2009 that it was time to push for “a new European super league, which guarantees that the best always play the best, which does not happen in the Champions League”.

At very least, it is possible that there will be a desire among the clubs to use the interest from Qatar to push for changes to the existing Champions League and Europa League structure and to the financial rewards that are involved.

But in Qatar they are serious about the DFL proposal.
As one source close to the project said: “These people have already shown that, if they want something to happen, they will throw enough money at it to make it happen. And the football industry has shown that everything can be bought for the right price.”

Oliver Kay: Shifting sands that could transform the global football map

Be afraid. Be very afraid. If you were already worried that modern sport was at risk of selling its soul to the highest bidder, prepare for the Qatari vision of football in 2015.

It is a vision of a Champions League-style tournament taking place in Doha and other cities across the Gulf region in the searing heat of summer — but with air-conditioning technology in use not only in the stadiums but, in the interests of supporter safety, in public areas across the cities. And it is a vision that Dream Football League (DFL) hopes to persuade every leading club on the planet to buy into — and is prepared to offer inducements of up to £175 million for them to sign up for the first two-year tournament cycle.

Two of the most influential administrators in English football expressed horror last night, when the latest proposals emerging from Doha were put to them. They maintained that, in the course of discussions with Uefa and with the European Club Association (ECA), the specific DFL proposals had not yet come up.

But as one of them said, while declining to comment publicly: “I’m not surprised. The Qataris are putting an incredible amount of money into football in all kinds of directions — not just to Paris Saint-Germain, not just to Barcelona with their shirt-sponsorship deal. What they don’t seem to realise is that it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult to pull something like that together.”

So why are they even trying? Why is a desert nation with a population of less than two million, willing to spend such mind-boggling sums in an attempt to add club football to a portfolio of sporting events that already includes ATP and WTA tennis tournaments, the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters golf, an IAAF Diamond League athletics meeting and other equestrian and motor sport events as well as, most prestigious of all, the 2022 World Cup?

The answer is that Qatar wants more. It wants all the sport that it can get its hands on. And if it costs it hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of millions of pounds even to stage one tournament, it maintains that it will be worth it as it looks to earn the global prestige and respect that it feels that top-class sport can bring.

Can it happen? A personal view, strengthened last night by several influential figures in European football, is that this is an even more wildly over-ambitious project than Qatar’s bewilderingly successful bid to host the World Cup.

In awarding the 2022 tournament to Qatar, Fifa showed that it could be “bought” — the word that Jerôme Valcke, the organisation’s general secretary, used in a leaked e-mail in 2011, explaining that it related only to his belief that the nation “used its financial strength to lobby for support”.

The word within European football’s corridors of power last night was that the club game cannot — will not — be bought. The objections expressed by prominent figures were diverse. First came the practical objections: about the timing of any such tournament; about the idea of holding it every two years in the same neutral venue, hardly renowned as a hotbed of football, which, might make it, like the present Club World Cup, a far less appealing prospect than it should be; about the demands on leading players.

Then there were the other issues. One leading figure expressed doubts that clubs could commit to something like this without severe repercussions for the domestic leagues and for the existing Uefa club competition structure. Another, at one of the wealthiest clubs, pointed out that it would be unsatisfactory for the gap between the rich and the poor to become any wider than it already is.

In Doha, they are unmoved. They maintain that the project will earn support — and not just from PSG, who are owned by Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), or Barcelona, who, after years of eschewing shirt sponsorship deals, succumbed to the richest on offer from the Qatar Foundation before preparing to switch next season to Qatar Airways.

In Qatar, they get the distinct impression that football is available to the highest bidder — and that the European club game would uproot from Europe, at least for a month or so every other year, if the price was right. And if the prices being mooted last night are anything to go by, there will be some clubs who will be lobbying for others to sign up to the DFL project.

Something will come of this. It will almost certainly not, for now, be the Qatari vision of all the world’s great clubs playing under one air-conditioned roof in the summer of 2015, but at very least this looks like a strong power-play from a country whose ambition seems to know no bounds.

It remains to be seen how the DFL proposals will be greeted by Fifa and Uefa; Qatar, as a force in football, is effectively a monster that they created. Fifa’s executive voted, against the advice of their own evaluation reports, to hold the 2022 World Cup there, with their backers including Michel Platini, the Uefa president, after he was invited for dinner with the Emir of Qatar by former French President Sarkozy.

The first thoughts of Platini and Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, are likely to be about how they can use this latest Qatari proposal to strengthen their campaign for what is shaping, below the surface, into an increasingly bitter battle for the Fifa presidency in 2015.

More than one source suggested last night that Qatar’s latest project might, in part, be an effort to try to “buy off” the European clubs in order to reduce opposition to the 2022 World Cup, having already tried to sell the idea to the ECA at its general assembly in Doha last month. But the same people supposed that the Qatar 2022 bid was merely about trying to make a nation trying to make its presence felt as part of a wider political goal.

As has been shown, Qatar’s goals — and the budgets and the determination with which it pursues them — are bigger than anyone imagined.

Raising the temperature

24 Clubs from around the world competing in a tournament every two years

16 “Permanent” members. Eight places will be distributed on an invitational basis

£175m Prize money proposed to each participating club per two-year tournament cycle

40C Expected minimum temperature in Qatar in the summer months

Q&A

Who would be invited?

According to the initial proposals, 24 clubs — 16 on a permanent basis and eight on an invitational basis. As for which clubs, Paris Saint-Germain, owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, are prime movers behind the project, but Dream Football League (DFL) expect the 16 “permanent” memberships to be highly coveted.
The DFL idea is that all of the most prestigious and powerful clubs in world football take part. No leading English club expressed support for the idea last night, with two privately expressing concern about any threat to the existing Uefa club structure, but DFL would hope to entice four from Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. It remains to be seen whether Celtic or Rangers, both of whom have huge fanbases worldwide, would be invited.

When would the tournament take place?

In every odd-numbered year — and, in a clear effort by Qatar to overcome concerns about player and supporter safety at the 2022 World Cup finals, the plan is for it to take place in the summer months. If this proposal were successful, it would cause disruption to the Fifa international calendar as it stands. While there is a two-year gap between the European Championship and World Cup cycles, this would have a serious impact on tournaments in other federations, such as Africa, Asia and North and South America.

How can a tournament happen in Qatar in the summer?

The plan, as with 2022, is to combat the 40-degree summer heat with use of air-conditioning, not just in the stadiums but in the public areas in all host cities. Qatar, in particular, plan to convince the world that their climate-control technology can eliminate the health concerns spelt out by Fifa’s inspectors in their evaluation report prior to the executive committee’s controversial vote to stage the 2022 World Cup finals there.

Why would Qatar be so desperate to invest such incredible sums in a non-prestigious tournament?

Because they believe that prestige — not just for the tournament but for themselves as a a hub of world sport and, from there, as an economy that can thrive beyond its natural gas resources — can be bought.

What would be the consequences for club signing up to this project?

If the timing of the tournament conflicted with existing Fifa, Uefa or domestic competitions, clubs would almost certainly be threatened with serious consequences if they took part.
Does this stand a chance of happening?
DFL’s vision of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, AC Milan and United going hell for leather in the heat of Doha seems far-fetched, but the money involved will turn heads. In Qatar, they believe that everything, particularly in football, is available for a price.
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Offline Simplexity

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2013, 02:39:30 am »
Will be the end of football as we know it.

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2013, 02:45:53 am »
Think I can sum up my opinion in three letters.

Ugh.
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Offline Matt8Pie

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2013, 02:49:30 am »
Aaaaaaaaaand there goes football.
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Offline Big Red Richie

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2013, 03:03:56 am »
If it actually comes off (and there's no evidence it would, at this time ) then it will be the death of football as we know it.

Quite simply, it will cause civil war throughout the footballing world, with the likes of FIFA and UEFA threatening expulsion, and bans, on the scale of the anti-aparthaid sports bans of the 90s.

They may well have a bottomless pit of cash to throw at it, but unless FIFA was on board, it would be suicide for any club to be there, regardless of the amount of cash offered. 


So the pupil might succeed the master eh, as FIFA get out spent, out bribed, and out manouvered by the sheiks.

It's a brave new world, where the rich get richer, and everyone else falls by the wayside.


The real truth is though, if they manage to get it off the ground, and clubs are enticed in, then FIFA and UEFA have no real choice but to get in bed with the Qatari's and make some kind of deal to include them in some of the leagues, and some of their tournaments, or be usurped

It's not like Septic Bladder and his cronies to miss a trick when someone comes calling with a wheelbarrow full of cash.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 03:05:44 am by Big Red Richie »

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2013, 03:05:59 am »
Disgusting.
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Offline Big Red Richie

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2013, 03:08:05 am »
Disgusting.
....and yet, in the context of modern football.   Not surprising in the least.


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« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 03:09:53 am by Big Red Richie »

Offline Gifted Right Foot

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2013, 03:11:46 am »
maaad world

Offline Malaysian Kopite

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2013, 03:23:23 am »
c*nts.
Football without fans is nothing.

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Offline Alan_X

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2013, 05:11:41 am »
And the point is?..  That's rhetorical obviously - the point is greed and a crass attempt to buy in culture and sporting events to an alien environment rather than build something of their own. Like the outposts of the great museums this will be vacuous and empty of any context. Football purely as staged entertainment rather than a sporting contest rooted in the culture of the cities and countries the teams originated from. Sporting teams as pure brands.

Who's going to be in the grounds? Are they going to train up and pay for a Kop, a Stretford End, a Curva Nord to give the atmosphere and intensity that goes with a real contest? Or will these 'amazing' events be played out in front of stadiums full (or half full) of disinterested tourists and a few locals while a sound track is added to the tv feeds to provide a bit of atmosphere?

It's a nasty shitty snidey idea thought up by utter c*nts who clearly have no soul. I would hope anyone associated with any of the clubs who might be approached will realise that they would be killing their clubs if they went for it and fuck them off. I'm sure there are plenty of tv-footy fans who just 'love football' rather than any one club, who would watch shit like this. For me, that would be the finish of it - the final nail in the coffin.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 05:27:15 am by Alan_X »
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Offline forrest1980

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #10 on: March 13, 2013, 05:32:22 am »
Screw That Shit
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Offline unknownuser

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #11 on: March 13, 2013, 05:39:41 am »
Sigh..this kind of shit pisses me off...

« Last Edit: March 13, 2013, 05:42:08 am by unknownuser »

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #12 on: March 13, 2013, 05:39:49 am »
Love the idea of rich assholes sticking a thumb up the collective colons of the current rich assholes ruining football...

...but this would be a horrible thing. Imagine both Mancs, Arsenal and Chelsea are invited. How the fuck are the likes of us and Spurs supposed to compete with an 80m bump in the budgets of those four teams? Same if we were in and Arsenal were out, it destroys what little integrity there is left in the Premership.

And Alan makes a tremendous point - who the fuck will watch it?
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2013, 05:40:07 am »
I'd rather watch pub leagues than watch this shit, if this happens it will be the final in football's coffin.
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Offline Kovai Red

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2013, 05:50:18 am »
Shit
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2013, 06:06:10 am »
hmmm.

this is not a league that will compete with local domestic leagues.

it seems to be in direct competition with the champions league and it could very well thrive.

if they remove the fixed location and provide the same home/away format it could get off the ground and i won't really have a problem with it.

let's see how much money talks eh
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2013, 06:06:28 am »
I still can't over the idea of something like this happening, those Sheikhs & Oligarchs represent everything that is wrong with world football. They are destroying its soul.

Years ago, well run clubs like Swansea & West Brom might have a crack at the title in one season or so via good scouting and player recruiting, something Clough did with Derby & Nottingham, something that Robson did with Ipswich. But now it is impossible to do that because for all the good work the people at Swansea & West Brom do, you can have a club like City or Chelsea blow them out of the water by buying whoever they want for insanse amount of money killing off competition. If a Sheikh buys us next season and we win the league, I'd be ecstatic no doubt about that, but it will feel hollow I think.

That is why I have so much time & respect for Spurs (and Arsenal for that matter) because they manage to be near the top of the table with a financial sound plan and not via a suggar daddy buying them and blowing cash insanely with no plan whatsoever. That's why my favorite league is the Bundesliga because you look at clubs like Dortmund and feel that there is still something right in the football world.
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #17 on: March 13, 2013, 06:11:55 am »
^^^

perhaps the most default statement people resort to.

while money has certainly changed the game i think team building just takes longer now. I have no doubt that if swansea keep chopping and upgrading sooner or later they'll start pushing the upper tier.

we're seeing a lot of teams build their own identity on the pitch now and all this is backed by 1 common thread. making sure your youth players are well schooled
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Offline Lothar88

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #18 on: March 13, 2013, 06:22:21 am »
As I always said,the sheiks and their money enviroment are the ruin of football.

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2013, 06:34:30 am »
Football will never die as long as kids play it on the street and you get yourself muddy on a Sunday morning.

Watching the pros get richer and richer is getting harder for me, I try not to think about it too much any more.

Offline Alan_X

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2013, 06:55:53 am »
hmmm.

this is not a league that will compete with local domestic leagues.

it seems to be in direct competition with the champions league and it could very well thrive.

if they remove the fixed location and provide the same home/away format it could get off the ground and i won't really have a problem with it.

let's see how much money talks eh

...no problem with it?... Wow.
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2013, 06:59:58 am »
Bad dream: Why the Qatari football league could have devastating consequences

Ed Malyon discusses why UEFA and FIFA may struggle to deal with Qatar's proposal for a megabucks summer football tournament

The Khalifa Stadium: Potential venue in Doha, Qatar
It is rare that you read a football story and feel your heart sink.

When your team loses it’s more of a fit of anger or a sighing inevitability, but on reading of Qatar’s plans for a Dream Football League, the emotion was something more. Something deeper.

The prospect of some sort of European Super League is nothing new.

For years fans and journalists have speculated about the possibility while clubs have used it’s spectre as a bargaining chip to lever Champions League expansion, but there has always been a sense that it would never happen. It couldn’t.

“Where would it fit in the schedule?” “Who would play in it?” “How would fans afford it?”

Well, Qatar think they have all the answers – except to the last question, because they couldn’t care less about supporters. Unless they’re draped in merchandise, that is.

A biennial summer tournament comprising 16 regular competitors and eight invitees would showcase to the world that Qatar was ready to become a major player on the world football stage.

The fact that investing billions of pounds into their own football infrastructure would almost certainly providing them with a far more long-lasting football impact is lost on these investors.

Backed by the Qatari royal family, they are intent on providing the world with a footballing circus, but there ain’t much sadder than the tears of a clown.

When you consider that last season Manchester City got prize money of £15million for winning the Premier League, and The Times states the DFL [shudder] would offer up to £175million just to take part, you don’t need to be an economist to work out where clubs’ priorities would lie.

Each club would be given an annual budget of £2billion, not forgetting performance-based bonuses.

Each ‘permanent’ team would have its own stadium and training complex, with offices, medical facilities and all the necessary extras.

Participants would receive tax-free salaries three-to-four times higher than their current levels, and would be housed in luxury accommodation built on artificial islands – with these peninsulas given ‘extraterritorial status’ that would exempt players from custom laws, according to Cahiers du football.

The striking thing about this whole proposal is the threat that it poses to FIFA and UEFA.

In some ways it slyly wriggles in with their current agenda, with prize money a legitimate source for revenue under Financial Fair Play guidelines.

But the sums of money involved would undoubtedly make this competition a focus for competing teams, sidelining UEFA’s shining jewel, the Champions League.

Having got into bed with the Qataris, FIFA and UEFA have just found the gun under their pillow, and the route taken in any confrontation could be enormous for the future of the game with outlawing the DFL threatening to create a rebel situation like cricket experienced with Kerry Packer’s World Series in the 1970s.

It may not be a revolution, and it might be a brave new world, but rather than a dream football league it appears to be the nightmare football has been dreading.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/dream-football-league-qatars-summer-1759818?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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Offline Alan_X

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2013, 07:38:05 am »
FIFA should have told Qatar to go and get fucked when they bid for the World Cup. It's funny that a few years back, people were creaming themselves at the idea of middle eastern investment in our club, as if it was some no-strings attached bottomless barrel of money. As PSG are about to find out, there are strings attached - puppet strings - as they dance to their owners tune as the poster boys for this horrible dead-eyed proposal.
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Offline Niru Red4ever

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2013, 08:10:15 am »
Won't this be a glorified preseason cup? Can't see how FIFA or UEFA can oppose it.

The sums involved is very worrying; especially as we have seen how the CL money (which is small in comparison) creates a huge divide.

Would love the 19th more and more trophies; but would love even more to see a fan owned LFC.

Offline Dubit10

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2013, 08:18:57 am »
Inevitable. Money makes the world go around and i'm afraid we as a club would have to be onboard or get left behind.
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Offline Vinay

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2013, 08:37:09 am »
We need to shut these guys up. Why and how are they hosting the WC?

Offline campioni

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2013, 08:47:24 am »
Inevitable. Money makes the world go around and i'm afraid we as a club would have to be onboard or get left behind.

Or how about we take a stand along with the other invited clubs and tell them to stick it because in the long run it will ruin the game of football?!

If it did somehow go ahead I'd rather we were left behind.

Offline LFCDad

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2013, 08:50:55 am »
FIFA invited the assassin into their home, wined and dined him and are now asleep as he gets up out of bed, puts the silencer on his gun and slowly creeps out of the guest room up the wooden stairs of their swiss cabin...
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Offline ThingOnASpring

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2013, 08:52:23 am »
I suppose it's one way for city and psg to avoid worrying about ffp
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Offline indianscouser

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2013, 08:55:44 am »
As the article says, FIFA/UEFA created this Qatari monster, now they will have to deal with it. Today, it is happening in not only every other sport but all walks of life. Disgusting really.

Offline lindylou100

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #30 on: March 13, 2013, 09:06:56 am »
playing devils advocate here, playing for a couple of seasons in that tournament would pay for our new stadium. From a purely financial point of view its hard for clubs not to be tempted.

Personally speaking I'd hate this to ever become a reality but I hope the clubs collectively use this as a bargaining chip to exact reform in FIFA & UEFA, which I think is long overdue.

Offline Passmaster Molby

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #31 on: March 13, 2013, 09:10:46 am »
Here comes the money and there goes football.

Qatar has become FIFAstein's Monster.

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #32 on: March 13, 2013, 09:14:31 am »
playing devils advocate here, playing for a couple of seasons in that tournament would pay for our new stadium. From a purely financial point of view its hard for clubs not to be tempted.

Personally speaking I'd hate this to ever become a reality but I hope the clubs collectively use this as a bargaining chip to exact reform in FIFA & UEFA, which I think is long overdue.

Game theory in action. It is best for the good of the game if all clubs say no. If a few clubs say yes, they will have disproportionate spending power that would allow them to outbid all of their domestic rivals. We are vulnerable to that offer. Would JWH say no to recouping all of his investment from a couple of year participation in a tournament.

When would the players rest? As it is, players don't get enough time off in the summer - expect to see more players ruined by being overplayed, or players taking a couple of months off in the summer.

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #33 on: March 13, 2013, 09:19:46 am »
Whats the difference between this and a beefed-up world club championship?

If it once every 4 years wouldn't we want to see the top clubs in the world facing off against each other?
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #34 on: March 13, 2013, 09:23:40 am »
Would it be terribly cynical of me to suggest the likes of PSG and Man City have known this for some while and are banking on this or s similar thing to effectively stick it to FFP?
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #35 on: March 13, 2013, 09:30:08 am »
As I always said,the sheiks and their money enviroment are the ruin of football.

That's bollocks. Football became all about money a long time before Sheiks got involved. I don't have a problem with this because of who it is proposing it. My problem is its a further kick in the balls to the game itself. The Sheiks weren't the first ones to start throwing money around, so why shouldn't they have a right to get involved in it? Football as a game has been fucked for a long time.
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #36 on: March 13, 2013, 09:32:02 am »
...no problem with it?... Wow.

as long as the local domestic leagues remain untouched i don't see much problem

like i said if the fixed location is removed we just get a re-packaged more glossy champions league which im ok with.
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #37 on: March 13, 2013, 09:37:54 am »
With Russians, Americans and Arabs buying into the world's most prestigious clubs, I've always maintained that a breakaway from FIFA/UEFA was always on the cards.

All the owners/invertors knew about it and we would be the last to know. Might sound far-fetched to suggest it as a conspiracy but I honestly believe this has always been the case.

This news comes as no shock to me. It will kill football as we know it. It's just the beginning.

UEFA will react by introducing a 64 team Champions League I suppose.

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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #38 on: March 13, 2013, 09:42:20 am »
Would it be terribly cynical of me to suggest the likes of PSG and Man City have known this for some while and are banking on this or s similar thing to effectively stick it to FFP?

 ;D



as long as the local domestic leagues remain untouched i don't see much problem

like i said if the fixed location is removed we just get a re-packaged more glossy champions league which im ok with.

Yep - exactly. We were the first British club to have shirt sponsors and now we are complaining that money is going to ruin the game?

We exist to compete with the biggest clubs for the biggest prizes. As long as we continue our participation in the domestic league then we HAVE to consider enetering a tournament which is hosting the biggest clubs.

We have far more in common with the Bayern Munichs and Boca Juniors of this world than the Readings or Wigans.
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Re: Qatari's plan football tournament....
« Reply #39 on: March 13, 2013, 09:42:32 am »
as long as the local domestic leagues remain untouched i don't see much problem

like i said if the fixed location is removed we just get a re-packaged more glossy champions league which im ok with.

Untouched? How can a league be untouched where 4 out of 20 clubs have £200M pumped into them? It would abandon all pretence of any club ever being able to break into the top echelon.

Think of the "don't touch me" performances from England players in the build up for the world cup. How much of the domestic league would be disfigured by the players saving themselves for the big money league.

Look at the impact of the IPL on cricket.