Laporta told him that a half-dozen teams had already committed. And, like clockwork, the grand plan would fail to materialize, the big clubs bought off by promises of more power and more money if only they would agree to stay.īut Tebas felt this new effort was more serious, more real. Like clockwork, every few years they would float a plan to group the best teams together in a single competition. It follows, then, that they should be treated to a greater slice of its income. There has long been a perception, at least among soccer’s rich and powerful teams, that since they have the most fans, they generate the bulk of the sport’s revenue.
Laporta revealed to Tebas that Barcelona was almost certainly joining a dozen or so of Europe’s most famous, most successful teams in a breakaway competition, one that would effectively unmoor its members from the game’s traditional structures and, crucially, its multibillion-dollar economy. Tebas, the outspoken, unashamedly bellicose executive in charge of Spain’s national league, wanted to be among the first to congratulate him on his victory. A few days earlier, Laporta had been elected to a second term as president of F.C. Last Thursday, Javier Tebas and Joan Laporta were supposed to be having a cordial, celebratory lunch. It lasted just two frantic, feverish days, but that was more than enough time to shake the world. How that plan came together and then spectacularly collapsed is a story of egos and intrigue, avarice and ambition, secret meetings and private lunches, international finance and internecine strife. And then, on Sunday night, it cracked, as an unlikely alliance of American hedge funds, Russian oligarchs, European industrial tycoons and Gulf royals sought to seize control of the revenues of the world’s most popular sport by creating a closed European superleague. Teams rooted in neighborhoods and based in small towns compete in domestic leagues that have existed for more than a century, competitions in which the great and the good share the field - and at least some of the finances - with the minor and the makeweight.Īn uneasy truce between the two faces of the world’s game had held for decades. They draw fans not just from England, Italy and Spain, but China, India and Australia in numbers large enough to tempt broadcasters across the planet to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights to show their games.īut while soccer is now the biggest business in sports, it remains, at heart, an intensely local affair. The elite teams of western Europe are stocked with stars drawn from Africa, South America and all points in between.
That internationalism is what has turned European soccer, over the last 30 years, into a global obsession. Chaos stalked the game’s corridors of power, unleashing a shock wave that resonated around the world, from Manchester to Manila, Barcelona to Beijing, and Liverpool to Los Angeles. Also, for extra credit, the panelists suggest their favorite health policy stories of the week they think you should read, too.LONDON - For 48 hours, soccer stood on the brink. Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner, Tami Luhby of CNN and Emmarie Huetteman of Kaiser Health News join KHN’s Julie Rovner to discuss this and more. And the Supreme Court hears a possibly precedent-setting abortion case and agrees to consider the latest case against the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, Congress and the Trump administration are scrambling to address the spread of the novel coronavirus. Bernie Sanders, each with a very different prescription for fixing the U.S.
The wide field of Democrats vying to face President Donald Trump in the fall has been reduced to two major candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen.
0 kommentar(er)
