A message, doubtless generated by AI, arrives on my Facebook feed. How would I like to subscribe to the TV channel DAZN in order to watch every single game in the upcoming Club World Cup – FOR FREE? I get all kinds of shit turning up on my increasingly rare visits to Trump’s pal Mark Zuckerberg’s increasingly post truth platform and my reaction is almost always the same: why the hell do they think I would be interested in that? Presumably, the system knows I like football so inevitably, it assumes, I would be interested in this most pointless of tournaments. Well – shock, horror! – I could not be less interested. Is it just me?
There are 63 games in this tournament and I am not bothered about any of them. I have no dog in the fight. Bristol Rovers, for some strange reason, have not been invited, neither have my boyhood club Feyenoord, nor my adopted glory-hunting armchair TV ‘supported’ club Liverpool. The golden opportunity to watch 63 games featuring teams I either don’t care about, have never heard of or actively dislike – hello Chelsea, Manchester City – has zero appeal to me.
This inaugural Club World Cup has been a hard sell for FIFA. No major TV networks have bothered to bid to show it, ticket prices have been slashed because our American cousins have shown little interest in watching Bayern Munich v Auckland City, CR Flamengo v Espérance and not even The Big One between Al Hilal v CF Pachuca. They’d just as well give up, right? Wrong.
The reality is that money is winning, or rather has already won. Most of the major leagues in Europe are dominated by one club, maybe just two. England is the exception because of the distribution of the vast sums generated by the Premier League, but if you are in Spain, it’s Barcelona or Real Madrid, in France it’s PSG, in Germany it’s Bayern Munich. It’s boring, it’s predictable and while the idea for a European Super League foundered, the concentration of vast wealth at the top clubs will one day result in an other European Super League or even a World Super League like, you know, the World Club Championship.
Many of the big clubs are owned by super wealthy individuals, corporations and even states, like Manchester City and PSG. And the middle eastern influence will only grow. How else can you explain the presence of Saudi Arabian clubs in this so called World Club Championship? Oh, guess what? DAZN, the company showing these pointless games is at least part-owned by … Saudi Arabia. Add a few Mickey Mouse American clubs to the mix and it’s blindingly obvious to see the future direction of football.
For the benefit of DAZN, who I know are avid readers of this blog, you are wasting both your time and mine contacting me about this, the most worthless of tournaments. But whatever happens, we will all be told what a stunning success it has all been and we will see you all again in Europe next year.
The game’s gone, as they say. In reality, it went when the Premier League was formed, when the European Cup became the Champions League and, crucially, when so many of us bought into it. The future is here and it’s called the World Club Cup. The beautiful game? Not any more, it isn’t.
