What's the difference between those guys or some scum bag American investment firm trying to turn $0.01 into $0.02....
One is a private investment and the others are literal countries trying to sports wash for their own political gain. Sport is basically going to come down to one gulf state vs another gulf state.
brother, listen to yourself there's no difference between one gulf state vs another and one corporation or "private investment" or oligarch vs another it's hard to take talk about 'sport washing' in Gulf states with what is happening in Gaza right now, where many players have been punished or reprimanded for simply expressing solidarity. this is after the last two years of peace-for-Ukraine style slogans being shown during every match... banning Russian teams from Europe... Now explain to me who are the countries sports washing for their own political gain
Private investment when it comes to USA-based businesses is a very peculiar term. Strictly speaking all investments made by USA billionaires are private, but try to get in their way, and your country suddenly gets a new government silently backed up by the USA government and trying to protect the private interests of USA billionaires and hedge funds like the guys who own Milan and also Argentina or whatever South American country owes them money and is pressured by USA to pay up or else. At least the Saudis are just throwing money around. Paying for influence, not stealing it through CIA and government subversions of democratically elected governments around the world, arranging assassinations of democratically elected leaders to promote their pawns, or outright financing the opposition for democratic or military-led coups, whatever works. Democratic governments, especially in USA, get decided by private money. Some of it is oil money. Same happens in Saudi Arabia, but the money is concentrated into one family, so its one family calling the shots, not a thousand billionaire families bidding against each-other on who can democracy-wash the rest of the world. I'm not saying some other big powers are more morals, but the Americans have invented the book of control through shadow governments, the rest are just taking notes and trying to catch up.
lol there’s a huge difference You’re talking about groups that have a few billion between them and royal families with hundreds of billions. Look at Roma va Manchester City. Roma have an American billionaire and yet are no where near Man City financially. And it’s only going to grow worse. The future is Saudi Arabia vs Qatar vs UAE. If you aren’t owned by one of those countries you probably aren’t winning much.
Saudis and Iranians have been fighting proxy wars for a decade with each backing various rebel groups.
Everyone does that these days. It's not that it didn't exist before post WWII USA perfected it, but it was less global and blatant. I try to stay away from politics, but it's curious how there's so much b*tching and moaning over 2-3 countries perverting a sport, but we're all complacent about USA, China, Russia and everyone else with a bit of resources perverting the whole world for their own geo-political gains. My own country has been growing less and less independent ever since joining EU, and EU itself is growing less independent. Our choices are which empire's province we'd rather be, while pretending to have democracy and foreign policy. The microcosm of football is just a mirror to the way the world at large is becoming one big pot of underdogs and a couple of teams with too many resource and power to ever be budged from their thrones.
Just seeing who the notification is from, I knew I should expect a 0 IQ response, but you went sub-zero instead.
Couldn't have ended worse for us counting on that 5th CL spot through the coefficient. EPL total meltdown and Roma might suffer for it...
If the US state department or Xi Jinping purchased Villareal and AZ and spent infinity dollars on them to make them UCL winners everyone would be irate about that as well. Today hoping for Real Madrid! to upset Manchester City.
How? PL and Bundesliga were the only ones with realistic chances (among Italy) and England's pretty much out of the race now. That 5th spot is going to Italy and Germany. Even if Liverpool turn it around against Atalanta the chances of England getting back into top 2 are slim. If West Ham and Liverpool crash out today - a very likely scenario - I don't think it's even theoretically possible for England to surpass Italy anymore.
Maybe I got the percentages wrong, I thought that we're hoping Germany and Spain to crush and burn, so only Italy and England could get the spots.
What do you mean? Italy is already ahead of England in points as far as I know and all their teams will seemingly drop out in this round so there's no way they can overtake Italy. This is the best case scenario for us as far as I can tell. https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsl...hampions-league-who-is-in-the-european-perfo/
Pretty sure before the 1/4 finals England was 2nd, so I assumed they'd be the country to root for to eliminate the Germans and Spaniards and make 5th place great again. I don't care if it's Germany now, just make Italy's top 2 official.
Again, what’s the difference? Liverpool, Chelsea & Man Utd are all owned by American ‘private investments’ and all plough huge sums of money into their teams in the same way City does, City just have a more competent organisation Did you watch Chelsea in the last two transfer windows? Also Liverpool and Chelsea haven't had trouble winning things in the last 5 years despite competing with Gulf state money It took City like a decade to even get to this level even with all the money, PSG have also been failing at the CL for a decade and often haven't even won Ligue 1 in the last few seasons The issue is not how can Roma compete with City The issue is how can Serie A compete with the EPL Roma's big problem is FFP & the stadium, City and PSG were both bought before these rules were really enforced and both own their own stadiums If Roma were able to invest, like Friedkin giving them a golden goose Toyota sponsorship for 200 million a year, I'm sure all of us here would be happy about it I'm not saying these Gulf state investments aren't a problem in football, but lets not pretend there's a difference from any other 'private investment' (often just a euphemism for an American oligarch) other than one is American and the other is Arab American business at that level are basically mafia organisations for christs' sake
Italy will get a minimum of three points today (from Roma/Milan result and progression). For Italy to not finish top two in the relevant coefficient, England's three remaining teams would need to get 16 points AND Germany's three remaining teams would need to get 9 points (with Italy only getting those three points and not winning any other games). England's teams still have enough points available to finish first at this point, but if Liverpool and West Ham both bow out today, that would seal the deal.
Mbappe, Bellingham, Vinicius on the same team shouldn’t be legal. Feels like this is the last year to stop Madrid before they win another 3 CL in a row.
Slot to Liverpool seems to be in advanced stages. Would be pretty down as a Liverpool supporter that 9 years of Klopp got you 1 premier league trophy. Likely aren’t going to get a better manager than him for a long time. England are about to have their Bayern/Juve decade with Man City.