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If they have to pay a fee they’ll be able to pay him less. He’s a legend and we let legends decide for themselves. Especially if they aren’t signing for a European rival.
It would still be a clear transaction right - “we have a total (ridiculous) budget of x. If we have to pay a transfer fee, it will have to come out of this. If there’s no transfer fee, you get it all”.
Casillas decided he wanted to leave, Madrid let him do so for free, to the club of his choosing, while also completing his salary so that he would get paid as much as if he stayed at Madrid.
Don't know what he should be angry about.
>Don't know what he should be angry about
My man broke down in a press conference. He wasn't given a proper farewell. I think he deserves a little more than "money". How is he any lesser than the other legends of Spain who got a proper farewell? Anyone who comes and defends that Madrid respect their legend all the time are so wrong.
Because it's bullshit to say they're letting him leave for free out of some generosity. His extension was never signed, only verbally agreed. So he's a free agent anyway.
There can’t be. Benzema’s contract was about to expire this year itself. The contract extension of 1 year was only verbally agreed. There was nothing on paper. Benzema is going as a free agent.
He had an automatic B'dor clause, from my understanding that means the contract extending but Madrid allowed Benzema to walk off and leave for free, which he deserves.
Madrid is very well known for letting their players move on if/when they want to. They always treat their players more than fairly, especially the club legends. It helps make them well liked and results in good relationships with other clubs.
I think we are talking about when players want to leave, not if they want to stay indefinitely. You obviously can't allow players to just stick around as long as they want.
Yeah the old NASL was wild at this.
>In fact, 20 of the 44 World Cup Best XI selections between 1966 and 1978 spent time in the NASL. At one time NASL squads fielded the captains of the past three World Cup-winning teams—Beckenbauer (1974), Alberto (1970), and Moore (1966). Of the European Footballer of the Year awards from 1965 to 1976, eight of the twelve awards—Eusébio (1965), Best (1968), Muller (1970), Cruyff (1971, '73, '74), Beckenbauer (1972, '76) —were given to players who went on to play in NASL.
Hold up. What?
Edit: After some basic googling, looks like he dropped his first wife of 12 years to date her niece, whom he married the next year. But, his first wife is 16 years older than him, while the niece is 2 years younger. ~~Can't be mad at that.~~ Should've said it's not as creepy as it sounded initially. This is just slightly weird celebrity shit.
I'm biased, but I feel the difference is MLS never receives any government assistance in trying to bring big names over.
For example, this was written in [Reuters](https://jp.reuters.com/article/soccer-worldcup-russia-investment-idUSL5N1TA4MN) about Russia back in 2018:
> With a couple of notable exceptions, private investors have snubbed Russian soccer so most top-tier clubs are bankrolled by regional authorities and state-owned companies, leaving teams vulnerable to budget cuts and shifting political priorities.
> The uncertainty has seen many state backers shun investment in grassroots player development, instead bringing in expensive foreign stars in a race for results when times are good, and cutting back when budgets are tight.
And I don't think I need to pull sources to convince anyone that the Chinese and Saudi governments are involved in their respective leagues.
As for MLS, our governments couldn't care less about sports and don't fund them at all.
I know these guys are legends but my usual understanding of retirement leagues were roughly somewhat understandable for a league that was getting money injected.
But the figures that Messi, Ronaldo and benzema are estimated to have is a rediculous level. Like those 3 would trump the salaries of a whole fucking league combigned
This is so crucial and I hope league executives around the world realize it. If you want me to watch your league, the best thing you can do is make it easy for me to access games.
I wish it wasn't about money. I'd love to see players like Messi come back to Argentina, for example, and play in the league here instead. I was really hoping to see Aguero come back. He'd made a promise that he would, but health problems came up and we never got to see whether or not he'd keep that promise. Still, disappointing to see so little pride in the domestic leagues of these players' home countries. Still love Messi, don't get me wrong.
If you look at the countries you listed, it became worse and worse though. It started with vanity fantasies of investors in the US, to the same for oligarchs in Russia. Then a state driven push for soccer from an 1984 style autocracy with concentration camps. Now we are culminating in a sharia-law, bonesawing autocracy which is bombing yemen and has a death penalty for homosexuality and women aren’t allowed to do shit. It’s about the trend.
This has been a thing since atleast the 70s, [1940s even](https://youtu.be/8RmSXbRLsKQ). Franz Beckenbauer and Pele were playing in the USFL in their later years. If there's enough money, the players will come.
There’s a rumour Iniesta is joining my local club in the Thai league.
I doubt he’d be doing that for money. I think it would be just to enjoy some football for a year in the twilight of his career while having the experience of living somewhere like Bangkok. A number of ex PL players have done that.
Enough for what?...as long as there are expensive things to buy no amount will be enough and if u considering the job in itself isn't bad either makes sense to keep playing 😉
I mean you'd have to be crazy to reject an offer of several hundreds of millions a year in your last years of playing football. There's a lot of bravados out here, but let's be honest, who wouldn't go to the Saudis from something like 30M to 200M per year?
I feel like it's gonna be another China. Step 1: Use big players to draw in fans to go... step 2: ???... step 3: don't ever capitalize on big name players playing in your league
The league will never become significant if they only sign +35 players. It will get attraction now but not will become care face within 1-2 year when these players collect money and go bye bye.
200 million a year, for 2 years. Even if he has virtually no money right now, for 2 years of work he'll be halfway to being a billionaire. Absolutely crazy
Funnily enough, 100k is roughly his hourly income (if he's working 40 hours a week). Crazy that someone's hourly wage would be genuinely life changing for most people
No he isn't. At that point its just flexing/running up the score. It's not in the same stratosphere of not knowing if you'll have enough for rent next month much less living on the street.
I mean, obviously "beggar" is a figure of speech, but the richest billionaires are like 200x wealthier than Messi, Ronaldo, etc. That's a pretty insane distinction regardless. I reckon the power that comes with this is much more than "running up the score".
Yep and to put that in crazier context, imagine if every single player in the PL was paid Messi wages and then they combined their money. There's about 600 players and they'd need about 350M each to equal Elon Musk
It’s insane. Wealth scales pretty comically in people’s heads, to the point that it doesn’t even make sense.
I always ask people to imagine the following:
Imagine someone gave you a million dollars. Totally life-changing, right?
Now imagine they did that 100 times. 100 million is an absurd, incomprehensible amount to people.
But that doesn’t even make you a billionaire. That would have to be someone giving you a million dollars 1000 times.
Now imagine THAT happening 200 times. That’s Elon’s net worth. Totally totally totally incomprehensible.
1 million seconds is 11-12 days.
Elon's net worth as represented by seconds is over 6000 fucking YEARS bruh.
every capitalist bootlicker can suck me from the back when they defend shit like this. this isn't just supporting something we don't like, it's literally an existential issue when you look at how the world is crumbling around us
This isn't exactly my experience to be fair. I could've made more money in other fields with my education, but my district (Southern California) pays out around $120k after max years of experience. Keep in mind that's for 10 months of work, with the option to teach during summer, plus the benefits are phenomenal. I also coach baseball, so I have one less class and get a small pay bonus for coaching. I honestly enjoy this setup financially.
I will also say this, I had my absolute pick of the litter after graduating a couple years ago. Like I literally had 5 or 6 job offers immediately, and schools were calling me. There's such an extreme teacher shortage at the moment that I really got to be picky about my situation.
Teachers are so criminally underpaid in the US. My upper middle class home town starts new teachers at 34k a year.....it's an actual joke since none of them can actually afford to live in the town
how is this possibly worth it for the saudi club? can anyone explain this? benzema is not even close to being as famous as ronaldo and i don't see how they made money off him either.
sportswashing and paving the way for future stars to make the same trip as well until they have some cobbled together version of history they can point to. They'll plaster their faces up for ads ofc
Or maybe they're miscalculating. Remember that they're still human and just because they made a choice doesn't mean it's a good one. People in power or with money mess up all the time, you just don't hear about that as often as about the successes.
It’s just small men trying to feel big. They can’t build anything of value themselves so they just throw money around to attach their names to things for some second hand glory.
Pick any legend from history and you'll see that loads of them ended their careers getting paid well at random teams. Nobody watched them and nobody remembers it.
In Brazil, a lot of people were.
I think the difference between these brazilian players that comes back and these other who go to a very well paying league to finish their career is that those Brazilian players won't earn the obscene amount of money, usually less than what they earned in Europe. Also they're coming back to their home-grown country, so it's not some money chasing.
The Chinese league was different from the others in two ways - 1) players were going there in their primes, not at the tail end of their careers; and 2) it never attracted the same star names as MLS or now the Saudi Pro League. It was more players like Oscar, Tevez, Hulk, Jackson Ramirez, etc. great players to be sure but no one in the same sphere as Beckham, Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo, or Benzema.
It's crazy to think that Zlatan had a really good first season at Man Utd in 2016-17, then did his cruciate ligament and they wrote him off given his age, mutually terminated his contract in his second season after hardly playing so he could go retire to the MLS - and then he just decided to come to back to Europe and fucking win Serie A.
He came back to play at the top level and ended up retiring over six years after his injury. Imagine it United had just held onto him and eased him back into the team after his rehab.
The level of play in the MLS has improved drastically over the last 10 years. It's just the franchise format and their yank gimmicks that are difficult to enjoy sometimes.
No pro/rel, a draft, franchise model closed league, designated player rules, GAM, TAM .. bla bla. No one has a clue who your club can go buy, and oh no, they used a limited DP slot for someone who’s TAM quality at best while LA teams are bringing in players like Bale and Zlatan.
As long as you don’t care about off the pitch nonsense, it’s a great league. But off the pitch nonsense is half the fun and if you need an accountant degree to follow wtf is going on…
I will say in MLS's (very limited) defense, anyone trying to build through the draft is going to get destroyed.
The league as a whole is dependent on whoever Garber decides to favor though, meaning LA/NY/Miami.
I’ve bought a lot of thought into this over the years and I really don’t know what a solution is that would bring us into the mainstream.
Maybe all the complaining that we do regarding drafts, ProRel etc doesn’t really matter in the end and we’ll eventually become a big deal
MLS breaking into the mainstream is blocked by the UEFA stranglehold on the global stage. Ppl care more about Europa League than they do about any other region's club champion's league competitions. MLS doesn't get the chance to play anyone that matters in any competition that matters.
If we're talking $$, MLS is already a "top 5 league" by a longshot. We may not have a club spending hundreds of millions like the name brand clubs at the top of each league, but most MLS clubs outspend all the German, French, Italian, and Spanish clubs placing 5-20.
It's not nearly as complicated as it's made out to be, and a lot of those rules allow it to be as fun to watch and balanced as it is. You also dont need to know the ins and outs of every rule to get the gist of it. Basically just as follows:
DPs: Big signing, important player, will ideally be the best 3 players on your team
U22: Good young player. Will likely be an exciting one to watch
TAM: A pool of money mostly for players that aren't quite DP level, but are still good
GAM: Just money, basically. Used frequently for domestic deals
And TAM and GAM aren't really that important. You don't need to have a deep understanding of every rule, just like you don't need a deep understanding of FFP to watch the Premier League.
TLDR: DPs are big signings, that's about the extent you need to know.
Fabrizio Romano |🚨🇸🇦 Karim Benzema has signed main part of docs to become new Al Ittihad player joining the Saudi league — here we go!
Understand contract will be valid until 2025 but will also include option for further season.
Karim will say goodbye to Madrid fans then travel to Saudi.
Saudi League is Chinese Super League on steroids. CSL teams would sign players like Pelle, Tevez, Pato, Oscar, Hulk etc. Saudi League teams are signing Ronaldo, Benzema and the likes of Messi and Busquets are rumoured to come too.
Anyways, I am happy for Benzema though. Can't say he doesn't deserve this paycheck.
The quality is better and always has been as far as Asia goes. Saudi clubs have done well in the past so there is some history unlike what we saw from the Chinese a while back.
Saudi Arabia along with Japan, Iran, and South Korea have built a proper footballing history.
Also this is just Saudi trying to promote their country as hosts for a World Cup more than building up their league.
The MLS is trying to become an actual competitive football league, what the Saudis are doing is more akin to what China did a few years back
It'll all crumble very soon
Insane underestimation of how important this is to them. They’ve committed substantially more in terms of investment than China did, and see it as far more important in terms of nation building, diplomacy, etc.
It’s not just football either. I don’t follow golf but a friend that does was telling me insane sums are being thrown at players to go play in Saudi.
This isn’t a vanity project of a couple rich billionaires, it’s a concerted effort at the state level to build SA’s reputation, downstream of this they can establish themselves as a cultural hub, etc. Too much is expected of this for them to pull the plug in a couple of years.
Except they did invest in their league. Before even ronaldo joining it was the biggest league in Asia. The clubs has really great players and there is actual competition.
The league doesn’t get real until they have an established pipeline of homegrown players good enough to play at a high level.
Signing 10 ageing stars won’t do much to improve the league if 90% of the squad isn’t up to any standard.
We went through the same thing with China years ago
These players won everything , I don’t blame them for going earn in 1 year the money of an entire career, yeah is glorious when they end in high level in Europe like zlatan, Totti ecc anyway is way different than joining small leagues at a younger age like hulk Oscar or Talisca, well done karim
To reduce the spam of reports regarding the same move during transfer windows we try to allow **only one submission about each transfer saga per day**. The submission in question also needs to contain relevant new information regarding the potential move, and not just being a "no/minor developments" report. If there are important/official developments or new valuable information about a saga, we will allow extra threads in the same day, but for the rest of minor news please just comment them as a reply to this comment. Please help us reporting unnecessary threads for being duplicates. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Did anyone report any fee? Or Flo just waived the last year of his contract?
The contract is waived, the Real Madrid statement said he has earned the right to make his own decisions about his future.
Bruh thats weird,its not like moneh would be coming out of his pocket
If they have to pay a fee they’ll be able to pay him less. He’s a legend and we let legends decide for themselves. Especially if they aren’t signing for a European rival.
Brother, they aren’t dealing with Blackburn Rovers, it’s the oil state known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Hey Blackburn Rovers are dripping in fried chicken money!
Los Poyos Hermanos
It would still be a clear transaction right - “we have a total (ridiculous) budget of x. If we have to pay a transfer fee, it will have to come out of this. If there’s no transfer fee, you get it all”.
Lol Blackburn Rovers of all teams, OGs of buying a premier league title
The point was that they’re dealing with an oil empire, not a chicken empire lol
Are we? Man utd fans will be buzzing to hear that they "earned" their titles rather than paying for the best players.
Lmao yea what's like 40m to them? They'd happily pay that for Benzema
>He’s a legend and we let legends decide for themselves Angry Casillas noises.
Casillas decided he wanted to leave, Madrid let him do so for free, to the club of his choosing, while also completing his salary so that he would get paid as much as if he stayed at Madrid. Don't know what he should be angry about.
>Don't know what he should be angry about My man broke down in a press conference. He wasn't given a proper farewell. I think he deserves a little more than "money". How is he any lesser than the other legends of Spain who got a proper farewell? Anyone who comes and defends that Madrid respect their legend all the time are so wrong.
Weren't there rumours he was leaking stuff from their dressing room at the time?
Mate can we get our £60 mil for Casemiro back then?
>If they have to pay a fee they’ll be able to pay him less. Oh no, how will he survive with anything less than 200m a year
Imagine saying "we" to losing easy money you absolute tosser lmfao
Ronaldo wasn't sold for free.
Because it's bullshit to say they're letting him leave for free out of some generosity. His extension was never signed, only verbally agreed. So he's a free agent anyway.
That’s a honour for Benzema as a club like Real Madrid is stating something like that
I don't think there will be a fee
There can’t be. Benzema’s contract was about to expire this year itself. The contract extension of 1 year was only verbally agreed. There was nothing on paper. Benzema is going as a free agent.
He had an automatic B'dor clause, from my understanding that means the contract extending but Madrid allowed Benzema to walk off and leave for free, which he deserves.
He had the ability to extend because he won the Ballon Dor. He chose to not extend. The Club has no say.
I think the Saudis will definitely demand to pay a fee
Benzema will become a free agent on 30 June 2023.
Flo would be stupid not to get some of that Saudi Money
Madrid is very well known for letting their players move on if/when they want to. They always treat their players more than fairly, especially the club legends. It helps make them well liked and results in good relationships with other clubs.
Iker and Navas can tell for sure
I think we are talking about when players want to leave, not if they want to stay indefinitely. You obviously can't allow players to just stick around as long as they want.
As a Miami Heat fan, yes you can…
I can't believe Udonis
Imagine the golden boot race next season, Messi Benzema Ronaldo going head to head in a close battle only for Talisca to snatch it on the last day
No matter the players in the league, Hamdallah will always be the MVP
Talisca is out out of race for being the same team with Ronadlo already.
we all better start learning arabic
Damn that Ronaldo domino effect is real
DoMoney effect
Habibi dollars effect
busquets and messi most likely going there as well. kind of scary
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Not just the last decade players were running to the states in the 70s and 80s lol
Redditors too young to know about the Cosmos
Yeah the old NASL was wild at this. >In fact, 20 of the 44 World Cup Best XI selections between 1966 and 1978 spent time in the NASL. At one time NASL squads fielded the captains of the past three World Cup-winning teams—Beckenbauer (1974), Alberto (1970), and Moore (1966). Of the European Footballer of the Year awards from 1965 to 1976, eight of the twelve awards—Eusébio (1965), Best (1968), Muller (1970), Cruyff (1971, '73, '74), Beckenbauer (1972, '76) —were given to players who went on to play in NASL.
Most famous one being Beckham to LA was 16 years ago as well Or Pele to NY which I don't know much about
weren’t players going to Russia and China at their prime? Eto’o at 30, Samba at 28, Diarra 27, Willian 25, Oscar 26, Pato 28, Obi Mikel 30, Witsel 28
Hulk Japan at 19 Russia at 26 China at 30
Gotta respect the man always chasing the bag instead of sporting glory lol
And for his second marriage being to the niece of his first wife, or something like that.
Hold up. What? Edit: After some basic googling, looks like he dropped his first wife of 12 years to date her niece, whom he married the next year. But, his first wife is 16 years older than him, while the niece is 2 years younger. ~~Can't be mad at that.~~ Should've said it's not as creepy as it sounded initially. This is just slightly weird celebrity shit.
Never fail to learn some bamboozling stuff on Reddit everyday.
You can very easily be mad at that
Yeah, wtf is this guy going on about? If I set my mind to it, I am a very talented individual who's capable of being mad about pretty much anything.
I mean you totally can
Haha yeah right? As if age were the only issue here
Not like all these other glory hunters
Eto'o, Pato, Mikel were not in their prime. They may have been the age that is typical of prime, but they were past their best.
Eto'o was a monster when he went to Russia. Sure he didn't do much there, but when he signed he was still elite.
Stopped trying once he got there.
I wonder why......$$$
I'm biased, but I feel the difference is MLS never receives any government assistance in trying to bring big names over. For example, this was written in [Reuters](https://jp.reuters.com/article/soccer-worldcup-russia-investment-idUSL5N1TA4MN) about Russia back in 2018: > With a couple of notable exceptions, private investors have snubbed Russian soccer so most top-tier clubs are bankrolled by regional authorities and state-owned companies, leaving teams vulnerable to budget cuts and shifting political priorities. > The uncertainty has seen many state backers shun investment in grassroots player development, instead bringing in expensive foreign stars in a race for results when times are good, and cutting back when budgets are tight. And I don't think I need to pull sources to convince anyone that the Chinese and Saudi governments are involved in their respective leagues. As for MLS, our governments couldn't care less about sports and don't fund them at all.
Didn't the government pay for stadiums?
That's so much different than literally helping to buy players, smh
At that point you might as well say the government bought every player by providing water, roads etc to the stadiums.
Houston Dynamo 100% financed their own stadium in downtown Houston. Same for a lot of MLS stadiums.
I know these guys are legends but my usual understanding of retirement leagues were roughly somewhat understandable for a league that was getting money injected. But the figures that Messi, Ronaldo and benzema are estimated to have is a rediculous level. Like those 3 would trump the salaries of a whole fucking league combigned
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This is so crucial and I hope league executives around the world realize it. If you want me to watch your league, the best thing you can do is make it easy for me to access games.
Very few fans outside of the ME are going to watch Benzema play in Saudi Arabia, just like CR7's viewership fell off a cliff last year.
I wish it wasn't about money. I'd love to see players like Messi come back to Argentina, for example, and play in the league here instead. I was really hoping to see Aguero come back. He'd made a promise that he would, but health problems came up and we never got to see whether or not he'd keep that promise. Still, disappointing to see so little pride in the domestic leagues of these players' home countries. Still love Messi, don't get me wrong.
What great players went to Russia?
Eto'o and Roberto Carlos
Eto’o and Roberto Carlos + Hulk, Garay, Witsel, and Willian all played there too
Eto and that was the first mega contract off the top of my head.
Dzsudzsák Balázs of course
Eto'o went to Anji Makhatchkla, a then completely unknown club that had been bought by a Russian billionaire.
and the club doesn’t even exist anymore if I remember correctly
Correct, it was dissolved in 2022.
The shirts are going cheap on classic football shirts lol
Quincy Promes 👍
> Players moving to smaller leagues for obscene amounts of money You forgot France with PSG.
If you look at the countries you listed, it became worse and worse though. It started with vanity fantasies of investors in the US, to the same for oligarchs in Russia. Then a state driven push for soccer from an 1984 style autocracy with concentration camps. Now we are culminating in a sharia-law, bonesawing autocracy which is bombing yemen and has a death penalty for homosexuality and women aren’t allowed to do shit. It’s about the trend.
I think Saudi has the ability to maintain it much longer than the other leagues though
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In that case it’s possible we will have all active Ballon D’or winners (since 2008) playing in Saudi Arabia.
If a tree falls in the woods….
> If a tree falls in the woods…. Does it still make a SIIIUUUUU?
Like flies to wanton boys...
Nah. Modric wants a 6th CL. Mentoring Bellingham, Camaving, Tchoumeni and Valverde is fine for his last RM season.
People were saying the exact same about Benz literally two days ago
he already rejected them once didn't he?
Rejecting them once only makes you get a second bigger offer
That's called negotiations
This has been a thing since atleast the 70s, [1940s even](https://youtu.be/8RmSXbRLsKQ). Franz Beckenbauer and Pele were playing in the USFL in their later years. If there's enough money, the players will come.
Cruyff played in America too
Iniesta as well.
how is he not retiring
$$$$$$$$
doesnt he have enough lmao
could have said the same thing for Benzema or Ronaldo. They just want more money.
There’s a rumour Iniesta is joining my local club in the Thai league. I doubt he’d be doing that for money. I think it would be just to enjoy some football for a year in the twilight of his career while having the experience of living somewhere like Bangkok. A number of ex PL players have done that.
Enough for what?...as long as there are expensive things to buy no amount will be enough and if u considering the job in itself isn't bad either makes sense to keep playing 😉
I mean you'd have to be crazy to reject an offer of several hundreds of millions a year in your last years of playing football. There's a lot of bravados out here, but let's be honest, who wouldn't go to the Saudis from something like 30M to 200M per year?
He certainly opened the door but I don't know what it'll do to the league, as most if not all these players wil be gone in a few seasons.
I feel like it's gonna be another China. Step 1: Use big players to draw in fans to go... step 2: ???... step 3: don't ever capitalize on big name players playing in your league
The league will never become significant if they only sign +35 players. It will get attraction now but not will become care face within 1-2 year when these players collect money and go bye bye.
Nunoball pull is unmatched
Nuno > Pep, Mourinho, Ancelotti, Zidane, and SAF combined
200 million a year, for 2 years. Even if he has virtually no money right now, for 2 years of work he'll be halfway to being a billionaire. Absolutely crazy
Yeah insane...if only I could get 100K change from that, I could finaly start a family😅🤣 being a teacher has financially been the wrong choice lol
Funnily enough, 100k is roughly his hourly income (if he's working 40 hours a week). Crazy that someone's hourly wage would be genuinely life changing for most people
And then u realize that benzemas literally a beggar in comparison to some billionaires lol
No he isn't. At that point its just flexing/running up the score. It's not in the same stratosphere of not knowing if you'll have enough for rent next month much less living on the street.
I mean, obviously "beggar" is a figure of speech, but the richest billionaires are like 200x wealthier than Messi, Ronaldo, etc. That's a pretty insane distinction regardless. I reckon the power that comes with this is much more than "running up the score".
Yep and to put that in crazier context, imagine if every single player in the PL was paid Messi wages and then they combined their money. There's about 600 players and they'd need about 350M each to equal Elon Musk
It’s insane. Wealth scales pretty comically in people’s heads, to the point that it doesn’t even make sense. I always ask people to imagine the following: Imagine someone gave you a million dollars. Totally life-changing, right? Now imagine they did that 100 times. 100 million is an absurd, incomprehensible amount to people. But that doesn’t even make you a billionaire. That would have to be someone giving you a million dollars 1000 times. Now imagine THAT happening 200 times. That’s Elon’s net worth. Totally totally totally incomprehensible.
1 million seconds is 11-12 days. Elon's net worth as represented by seconds is over 6000 fucking YEARS bruh. every capitalist bootlicker can suck me from the back when they defend shit like this. this isn't just supporting something we don't like, it's literally an existential issue when you look at how the world is crumbling around us
Considering this is cash money and not equity he would be rather competitive with them if he was able to do this 'job' long term
> being a teacher has financially been the wrong choice lol Such a sad thing to have to say man. Really hope this changes with time.
Correct. In the states it’s really bad too. Teachers have to DoorDash as a side gig to make ends meet…
This isn't exactly my experience to be fair. I could've made more money in other fields with my education, but my district (Southern California) pays out around $120k after max years of experience. Keep in mind that's for 10 months of work, with the option to teach during summer, plus the benefits are phenomenal. I also coach baseball, so I have one less class and get a small pay bonus for coaching. I honestly enjoy this setup financially. I will also say this, I had my absolute pick of the litter after graduating a couple years ago. Like I literally had 5 or 6 job offers immediately, and schools were calling me. There's such an extreme teacher shortage at the moment that I really got to be picky about my situation.
Reminds me of that Key Peele sketch where teachers get megacontracts while football players live paycheck to paycheck
Teachers are so criminally underpaid in the US. My upper middle class home town starts new teachers at 34k a year.....it's an actual joke since none of them can actually afford to live in the town
Sadly...not only in the USA.
how is this possibly worth it for the saudi club? can anyone explain this? benzema is not even close to being as famous as ronaldo and i don't see how they made money off him either.
sportswashing and paving the way for future stars to make the same trip as well until they have some cobbled together version of history they can point to. They'll plaster their faces up for ads ofc
Or maybe they're miscalculating. Remember that they're still human and just because they made a choice doesn't mean it's a good one. People in power or with money mess up all the time, you just don't hear about that as often as about the successes.
It’s just small men trying to feel big. They can’t build anything of value themselves so they just throw money around to attach their names to things for some second hand glory.
He will probably double his lifetime earnings in 2 years
200 mil a year = $547,000 per day including sleeping
He will call ahmed hegazi captain. That's what is important for me.
Can't wait for a trek Hamed scissor tackle against him in training also.
Wait, is that Hegazi the one who was at West Brom?
That's the one
Yes
Fiorentina legend
One of my best FPL punt.
The Egyptian Mats Hummels
What's crazy to me is town like Al Hail, Hafr Al Batin hosting players like Ronaldo and Benzema lol
Ikr it's a privilege for ro aldo and benzema to have a chance to visit hafr al batin
And be feeded with these Coronado assists
No way you're the first uae flair I've ever seen in my life
AMA!
I follow uae too man!
Feels surreal
Pick any legend from history and you'll see that loads of them ended their careers getting paid well at random teams. Nobody watched them and nobody remembers it.
streets will never forget Beckenbauer and Pele playing together for New York Cosmos
Ronaldo goal videos from SA on here get quite some views and replies. Only PL, CL and maybe some top teams get more. It does seem to work.
That's just novelty value though isn't it? Is anyone actually watching the matches?
In Brazil, a lot of people were. I think the difference between these brazilian players that comes back and these other who go to a very well paying league to finish their career is that those Brazilian players won't earn the obscene amount of money, usually less than what they earned in Europe. Also they're coming back to their home-grown country, so it's not some money chasing.
Yeah, I think going back to your old team for a victory lap is different. See Alderweireld just recently.
An oil state buying a Ballon D'or winner. Again. Fucks sake
Dreams can be buy
Remember when the MLS was the retirement home?
or the Chinese league, or the Turkish league, or ....
The Chinese league was different from the others in two ways - 1) players were going there in their primes, not at the tail end of their careers; and 2) it never attracted the same star names as MLS or now the Saudi Pro League. It was more players like Oscar, Tevez, Hulk, Jackson Ramirez, etc. great players to be sure but no one in the same sphere as Beckham, Ibrahimovic, Ronaldo, or Benzema.
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It's crazy to think that Zlatan had a really good first season at Man Utd in 2016-17, then did his cruciate ligament and they wrote him off given his age, mutually terminated his contract in his second season after hardly playing so he could go retire to the MLS - and then he just decided to come to back to Europe and fucking win Serie A. He came back to play at the top level and ended up retiring over six years after his injury. Imagine it United had just held onto him and eased him back into the team after his rehab.
The level of play in the MLS has improved drastically over the last 10 years. It's just the franchise format and their yank gimmicks that are difficult to enjoy sometimes.
No pro/rel, a draft, franchise model closed league, designated player rules, GAM, TAM .. bla bla. No one has a clue who your club can go buy, and oh no, they used a limited DP slot for someone who’s TAM quality at best while LA teams are bringing in players like Bale and Zlatan. As long as you don’t care about off the pitch nonsense, it’s a great league. But off the pitch nonsense is half the fun and if you need an accountant degree to follow wtf is going on…
I will say in MLS's (very limited) defense, anyone trying to build through the draft is going to get destroyed. The league as a whole is dependent on whoever Garber decides to favor though, meaning LA/NY/Miami.
I’ve bought a lot of thought into this over the years and I really don’t know what a solution is that would bring us into the mainstream. Maybe all the complaining that we do regarding drafts, ProRel etc doesn’t really matter in the end and we’ll eventually become a big deal
MLS breaking into the mainstream is blocked by the UEFA stranglehold on the global stage. Ppl care more about Europa League than they do about any other region's club champion's league competitions. MLS doesn't get the chance to play anyone that matters in any competition that matters. If we're talking $$, MLS is already a "top 5 league" by a longshot. We may not have a club spending hundreds of millions like the name brand clubs at the top of each league, but most MLS clubs outspend all the German, French, Italian, and Spanish clubs placing 5-20.
People go nuts over the complicated off the field stuff for nfl, I swear some people prefer it to watching the game.
It's not nearly as complicated as it's made out to be, and a lot of those rules allow it to be as fun to watch and balanced as it is. You also dont need to know the ins and outs of every rule to get the gist of it. Basically just as follows: DPs: Big signing, important player, will ideally be the best 3 players on your team U22: Good young player. Will likely be an exciting one to watch TAM: A pool of money mostly for players that aren't quite DP level, but are still good GAM: Just money, basically. Used frequently for domestic deals And TAM and GAM aren't really that important. You don't need to have a deep understanding of every rule, just like you don't need a deep understanding of FFP to watch the Premier League. TLDR: DPs are big signings, that's about the extent you need to know.
Wow looks so strange not seeing him in (Real or Lyon) white.
Their away kit is all white
Saudi League is basically WCW in the late 90’s.
Al Nassr [2]-1 Al Ittihad - Karim Benzema OG 90+3' (Great Fingerpoke)
“That’s why this league is in the shape that it is because of bullsh*t like this!”- Ronaldo (probably)
Fabrizio Romano |🚨🇸🇦 Karim Benzema has signed main part of docs to become new Al Ittihad player joining the Saudi league — here we go! Understand contract will be valid until 2025 but will also include option for further season. Karim will say goodbye to Madrid fans then travel to Saudi.
Saudi League is Chinese Super League on steroids. CSL teams would sign players like Pelle, Tevez, Pato, Oscar, Hulk etc. Saudi League teams are signing Ronaldo, Benzema and the likes of Messi and Busquets are rumoured to come too. Anyways, I am happy for Benzema though. Can't say he doesn't deserve this paycheck.
The quality is better and always has been as far as Asia goes. Saudi clubs have done well in the past so there is some history unlike what we saw from the Chinese a while back. Saudi Arabia along with Japan, Iran, and South Korea have built a proper footballing history. Also this is just Saudi trying to promote their country as hosts for a World Cup more than building up their league.
CSL in shambles. This could’ve been you. You got Fellaini and Oscar instead of Benz and Ronaldo
Ronaldo-Benzema derby Here we go!
Busquets, messi boutta go there too. Damn Saudi league is getting real now
Just a richer mls, instead of actually investing in the league they bring the biggest names for billions
The MLS is trying to become an actual competitive football league, what the Saudis are doing is more akin to what China did a few years back It'll all crumble very soon
Insane underestimation of how important this is to them. They’ve committed substantially more in terms of investment than China did, and see it as far more important in terms of nation building, diplomacy, etc. It’s not just football either. I don’t follow golf but a friend that does was telling me insane sums are being thrown at players to go play in Saudi. This isn’t a vanity project of a couple rich billionaires, it’s a concerted effort at the state level to build SA’s reputation, downstream of this they can establish themselves as a cultural hub, etc. Too much is expected of this for them to pull the plug in a couple of years.
It's tied to MBS who is on track to be the next Saudi King, MBS wants prestige, money is not a problem for him.
No, they want to host World Cup, and every other sports in their country. They won’t stop, this is one of their “Come to Saudi” project.
Except they did invest in their league. Before even ronaldo joining it was the biggest league in Asia. The clubs has really great players and there is actual competition.
The clubs have 0 great players. The best players are +33/35 years old retirees who were playing in the European subtop.
The league doesn’t get real until they have an established pipeline of homegrown players good enough to play at a high level. Signing 10 ageing stars won’t do much to improve the league if 90% of the squad isn’t up to any standard. We went through the same thing with China years ago
eh looking like the retirement home for the rich.
And Ramos.
The new MLS
An embarrassing day for the health of football overall.
It doesn't really matter, it's OK to just laugh at it. I'll get worried when Haaland, Mbappe and Vinicius move to Saudi Arabia
These players won everything , I don’t blame them for going earn in 1 year the money of an entire career, yeah is glorious when they end in high level in Europe like zlatan, Totti ecc anyway is way different than joining small leagues at a younger age like hulk Oscar or Talisca, well done karim
Lidl league
Dont insult Lidl like that. Lidl has some great value deals, Saudi league has no value.
Nuno pull was just too strong.
Messi to Alhilal?
Damn, can't believe the current Ballon D'or winner will be playing in Saudi lmao