The future of football is not Saudi Arabia, but….

Saudi Arabia is rich in money and ambition and wants to achieve any result, even in sport. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says his country will be the new Europe culturally in ten years. Football is an important part of his strategy. He wants to compete in the Champions League. This is why he is investing heavily in players who have become stars in Europe. Ronaldo , Neymar and Benzema now play, earning very high sums, in Saudi, and are but the vanguard of an army of players over thirty who will follow them. In money he can do a lot, a lot.

It seems a given that the 2034 World Cup will be held in Saudi Arabia. Even though the process is still ongoing, given the Expo, we know that nothing can stop the Saudis when they want a result. FIFA's new top sponsor comes from Saudi Arabia, which is probably another indication that the organization seems to pay particular attention to money when awarding tournaments. You have to be able to afford such a project; Qatar is said to have more than $200 billion worth for the 2022 World Cup. The tournament is unlikely to cost less in eleven years, especially since 48 countries will participate instead of 32.

This all sounds familiar. Ten years ago, another country tried to pursue geopolitical interests with football. At the time, China bought older footballers from Europe for huge sums of money. Xi Jinping wanted to organize the World Cup and the General Secretary of the Communist Party had set himself the goal of becoming world champion.

From a political point of view, China is becoming more and more important, but we no longer hear about football. It only works where participation is possible for all, where commitment comes from the centre, where it creates community and is organized democratically. You don't build something like this overnight. Money and stars from abroad are not enough to reach European football. That's why I'm also skeptical about Saudi Arabia.

In Europe, however, football has been a cultural asset for a century and a half. Its roots lie in Glasgow, Sheffield, Geneva, London, Budapest, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Milan, Rome, Naples, Nuremberg and Vienna, with offshoots in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. It is historically intertwined with the labor movement. Football is the little boy kicking in a dusty yard or on the mangy neighborhood field, dreaming of becoming a star. Football is, or rather was, a proletarian game.

Then, from the masses, we need to help the professionals grow, and here the capillary network of small clubs, larger associations, local championships is important, then to grow in value, where the player slowly grows in skill, sociability, but also on the one hand it is helped to grow by that set of services that amateur sport, based on voluntarism, makes available. The great champions are important, but above all the mass of people who love, or loved, football and who help it grow are important. Even as a professional footballer I realized that it was the club that paved the way for me. Only the fact of being widespread and popular allows it to be successful.

In the USA it is becoming a mass sport

There is another example of a nation that is making huge investments to catch up with European football: the United States. I give him many more chances. In the 1970s, the New York Cosmos acquired Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Neeskens. Since then the development has been continuous.

The fan base and the number of players and coaches have grown each year, in part thanks to immigrants from Latin America. The United States hosted the World Cup in 1994 and will do so again in three years. They are collaborating with Mexico and Canada. Football is overtaking traditional American sports.

Americans know sports. Stadiums are temples. No one celebrates events better. European teams continue to travel to America to understand how merchandising and marketing works, and American owners buy European clubs to apply their techniques. . And the best role model is right on their front door: American soccer players have dominated their sport for decades.

American sport has its own identity. It's part of state education, and like many things in America, it's big business. In Europe, football is deeply linked to society, for more than a century now, it has grown with it, it has become rich by sucking its nectar, and now it is tired just like society is. The USA is recently seeing "Soccer" become mass sport, no longer something for girls, and the more it spreads, the more popular it becomes, the more it becomes rooted in its popular feeling, and the richer it becomes.

Football culture is a form of culture

Football music is still played in Europe, the Club World Cup is almost always won by European clubs. American businessmen know this and invest in the Premier League, Serie A or La Liga to learn. But a turning point could soon be reached, with the creation of giants capable of competing with Real, Man City and FC Bayern.

Europe will have to invent something – and just as well – to stand up to the comparison with the United States, if they ever manage to stand it, because the Old Continent is tired, old, with no more motivation. South America, the second most successful footballing continent after Europe, is closer to the USA and can provide an unlimited supply of players. An Argentine or Brazilian footballer would no longer have to go to Spain or Portugal, but could go to San Francisco, Atlanta or Miami. Many identify more easily with this task than with that of Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has qualified for the World Cup six times, it is the largest country in the region with over 36 million inhabitants, the population is young, there is interest in football and thousands of fans celebrated the victory of the their team over Argentina at the World Cup in Qatar. However, the political and social conditions are not yet such as to make it a great football power,

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The article The future of football is not Saudi Arabia, but…. comes from Economic Scenarios .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-futuro-del-calcio-non-e-larabia-saudita-ma/ on Tue, 05 Dec 2023 20:00:12 +0000.