Neymar off to Saudi

I was thinking about the whole Saudi thing and whether the European establishment needs to be concerned or if it is only ever going to be a very well paid retirement home? Given that money talks do you think eventually Saudi teams will be given entry to Champions League?
 
PSG gonna receive about £100 mill. Hopefully all this money will start to trickle down to smaller teams.

Never really rated Neymar, I'd have Ronaldinho over Neymar any day.
 
sparkins said:
I was thinking about the whole Saudi thing and whether the European establishment needs to be concerned or if it is only ever going to be a very well paid retirement home? Given that money talks do you think eventually Saudi teams will be given entry to Champions League?
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No, why would teams like Milan, barça and Man Utd want more competition and to share their precious income with saudi teams? There’s no benefit to them, in fact it’s negative as it legitimises that status of the saudi league and means even more players will go there.
 
Neymar's talent has always been eclipsed by his ego.

Good but not great.

This could simply go the same way that initial attempts to bring "soccer" to the USA went. Lot's of has-beens on a last trip to the cash machine. Will anyone watch?

Can't say that I will.
 
BoroMart said:
No, why would teams like Milan, barça and Man Utd want more competition and to share their precious income with saudi teams? There’s no benefit to them, in fact it’s negative as it legitimises that status of the saudi league and means even more players will go there.
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I could see it happening if they massively increased the prize money which the Saudi establishment could easily do if they wanted to. The big clubs are desperate for more money. I think it would be a bad decision though as keeping the power and the viewers in the European leagues limits the legitimacy of the Saudi teams even if they sign all the best players. If a Saudi team could just own all the best players and dominate the Champions league, it would make other leagues seem less attractive to advertisers and brands.
 
BoroMart said:
No, why would teams like Milan, barça and Man Utd want more competition and to share their precious income with saudi teams? There’s no benefit to them, in fact it’s negative as it legitimises that status of the saudi league and means even more players will go there.
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Yep, I get that, but I don't see where Saudi goes without having something other than money to entice players? The top players in their prime still appear to want to play in the European competitions, so I don't see a path forward for the Saudi League unless they can get something in place. I was thinking that maybe they would pay for entry, or maybe they re-launch the Super League concept backed by Saudi money? You saw with Liv golf how in a short time and with a huge amount of money they caused cracks in the traditional order of things and eventually caused the US PGA tour to change course - could the same happen with football?
 
Seems mad at this point that PSG are still about to get what they're getting for him.

That said, I do think a lot of people underrate Neymar, particularly in this country, presumably because of his personality and how he conducts himself on the pitch sometimes, but strictly as a footballer he is, or at least was, an incredible player. He was spectacular at Barcelona and Santos, shown it in glimpses at PSG but I think he lost some of his motivation playing in France. His record for Brazil is pretty fantastic too, he's level with Pele's record as it stands, so it's fair to say he's been a bit of talisman for his country and delivered for them. I just think broadly speaking his time with PSG has sort of impacted opinion of his ability.

Funnily enough, I think his performance against PSG for Barcelona when they made that mad comeback in the Champions League might be his greatest performance.
 
Neymar was always going to go once this took off. The man is everything i hate about modern footballers - gifted as a footballer with an attitude more interested being a celeb and wanting as much money as possible. Has no desire to work hard and be the best that the younger Neymar claimed he would be.

The threat with the Saudi's its pretty clear. They have targetted maybe 90% of players who are at the back end of their career, still decent but certainly within 2-4 years of finishing off but still no doubt better than the majority of the Saudi league. They have added some players in their prime who right now will be accused of throwing their career/talent for money, similar to those that went to China a few years ago.

The difference here is, this long established superstars that are heading over.

The next step will be for Saudi to start and compete with the European Giants for players in their prime and that is when it becomes a real problem. We are already going to be able to watch games via DAZN so interest will be their and followers will grow. You have a new generation of casual football fans who follow players rather than clubs which will feed into this, its like Fifa coming to life. The final risk will be when we see a reinvention of the Champions League to allow Saudi clubs into it to stop another breakaway led by the Saudi's and the big clubs wanting to jump ship.

I dont think this will go away like Russia did and China did.
 
Lemmy_kilmister said:
Neymar transfer news: Al-Hilal agree deal with Paris St-Germain for Brazil forward - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66495833

He was already in £21m a year, God knows how much this deal is worth.
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If anyone was to go to Saudi Arabia and be the poster child for the Sportswashing Super League, I would’ve chanced it’d be Neymar. A real shame, as he would’ve been thought of 10x as highly if he’d just challenged himself in his prime, but he’ll probably have made more money than any footballer in history by the time he retires.
 
Games were being shown on Sky Sports Youtube last season. If anything the games will get less exposure as I can't imagine many people subscribe to the fees that DAZN charge for their lackluster content.
 
KDG said:
Neymar was always going to go once this took off. The man is everything i hate about modern footballers - gifted as a footballer with an attitude more interested being a celeb and wanting as much money as possible. Has no desire to work hard and be the best that the younger Neymar claimed he would be.

The threat with the Saudi's its pretty clear. They have targetted maybe 90% of players who are at the back end of their career, still decent but certainly within 2-4 years of finishing off but still no doubt better than the majority of the Saudi league. They have added some players in their prime who right now will be accused of throwing their career/talent for money, similar to those that went to China a few years ago.

The difference here is, this long established superstars that are heading over.

The next step will be for Saudi to start and compete with the European Giants for players in their prime and that is when it becomes a real problem. We are already going to be able to watch games via DAZN so interest will be their and followers will grow. You have a new generation of casual football fans who follow players rather than clubs which will feed into this, its like Fifa coming to life. The final risk will be when we see a reinvention of the Champions League to allow Saudi clubs into it to stop another breakaway led by the Saudi's and the big clubs wanting to jump ship.

I dont think this will go away like Russia did and China did.
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Think the challenge always lies in the fact like in China, the rest of that part of the world are domestically worlds away so any continental competition is fodder. Without a global competition to rival the Champions League, you will never get the Saudi league in a position where players start going to challenge themselves just as much as for the money. And that’s when it falls apart.
 
sparkins said:
Yep, I get that, but I don't see where Saudi goes without having something other than money to entice players? The top players in their prime still appear to want to play in the European competitions, so I don't see a path forward for the Saudi League unless they can get something in place. I was thinking that maybe they would pay for entry, or maybe they re-launch the Super League concept backed by Saudi money? You saw with Liv golf how in a short time and with a huge amount of money they caused cracks in the traditional order of things and eventually caused the US PGA tour to change course - could the same happen with football?
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Agreed but that’s not Uefa and it members problem to solve.

As for the LIV, comparison. People who watch golf have their fave golfers they support. They had no choice to take their support to Liv. Football is always about the teams more than any individual. Most Man Utd fans even foreign ones didn’t suddenly start supporting Madrid because Ronaldo went there and that is the problem Saudis have, no amount of money can feign history, can feign league quality. The Saudi league is still largely full of poor players, the saudi teams have no history, no fan base, there’s no intense rivalry, no Mecca of football that people want to go to, any interest in those teams is purely transitory with the player that ‘you’ liked that went there. I just can’t see them having the leverage that LIV had.
 
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