Raphael Stevens

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    Champions League: Manchester City Bends the Story to Its Will

    This season’s City might be Pep Guardiola’s coaching masterpiece: a juggernaut so fearsome that not even Hollywood writers dared suggest it could be beaten.The writers of “Ted Lasso,” the acclaimed, sugar-sweet Apple TV comedy, never particularly worried about being hidebound by reality. The world they created was, after all, based on an inherently fantastical premise: an American coach with no knowledge of soccer succeeding in the tumult of the Premier League.There would have been little point, then, in dismissing as too far-fetched the idea of a makeweight sort of a team signing a proxy for Zlatan Ibrahimovic just because its owner insulted him in the bathroom, for example, or a dog being killed by a wayward penalty kick, or West Ham being invited to take part in a global super league.It was notable, then, that there was one line the writers felt they could not cross. At the end of “Ted Lasso” — in all other aspects a determinedly romantic and uplifting show, an unabashed underdog story of empowerment and personal growth and the overwhelming power of nice — Manchester City still wins the Premier League. Even in fiction, City cannot be dislodged.City is not the villain, not really, in the Lasso Cinematic Universe. That role goes, instead, to a combination of conventional thinking and West Ham. Pep Guardiola even makes a cameo appearance in the show’s penultimate episode, offering a brief, distinctly Lassoist homily about winning being significantly less important than his players being good people.Rather than the bad guy, City serves as what the show’s eponymous hero refers to as his “white whale.” It functions as the series’ final level boss, a portrait of immutable sporting perfection, the one opponent that cannot be overcome by Lasso’s mustachioed, good-humored positivity.Even when his team eventually defeats Guardiola, the victory proves futile. The following week, City goes and wins the league anyway. Lasso, like so many others, finds that second place is the best outcome available to everyone else. “Such a shame,” one character tells Lasso in the show’s final scenes. “City are just too good.”As a piece of analysis, it is hard to top. This year, as for five of the last six, City has been far too good for anyone else in England. Even when it sat eight points behind Arsenal in the Premier League table, the season drifting to its conclusion and the distance to the finish line winnowing, it felt like City’s title to lose.From the middle of February — when a wasteful draw at Nottingham Forest prompted a full and frank exchange of views among the City players that Guardiola himself has described as the season’s pivotal moment — until the moment the title was won, City played 12 games in the Premier League and won them all. In that three-month spell, as The Independent pointed out, it found itself behind in a match only once. The unusual state of affairs was rectified after 10 minutes.Shaun Botterill/Getty ImagesThe F.A. Cup was the second leg of Manchester City’s quest for a treble.Glyn Kirk/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe Premier League trophy came first, City’s fifth title in six years.Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven as it reeled in Arsenal, Guardiola’s team had an even grander prize in its sights. It was sailing smoothly through both the F.A. Cup and the Champions League, the prospect of a treble — victories in the league, the cup and in Europe — starting to loom on the horizon.The treble is, in truth, a distinctly English obsession. Manchester United’s 1999 squad is the only English team to have won all three major trophies in the same season. Though the feat has become significantly more common in recent years — Barcelona and Bayern Munich have both done it twice in the last decade and a half — it still functions as a trump card, the ultimate claim to greatness.Its rarity is precious, to United more than anyone else. That last week’s F.A. Cup final should have pitted the two Manchester clubs against each other felt fitting: Here was United’s chance to preserve the club’s honor, to protect its proudest accomplishment. It duly held out for roughly 12 seconds. The last vestige of English soccer’s resistance melted away. City, it turned out, was just too good.Nowhere, though, has that been made more plain than in the Champions League. That it is glory in Europe that Manchester City’s power brokers and paymasters — as well as its coach — crave more than anything else has long since drifted into cliché.Winning the Champions League has become, if it has not always been, Manchester City’s animating force: its final rite of passage, its final challenge, its white whale. To some extent, it is the purpose of the whole project.Everything — the fortunes spent on players, the state-of-the-art academy, the appointment of Guardiola, the global network of clubs, the accusations of breaches of financial regulations in both the Premier League and the Champions League, the legal battles, the risk that everything it achieves may yet be tainted, the distortion of the sport’s entire landscape — will be vindicated, at least in the club’s own estimation, only if and when City can call itself champion of Europe.City has, then, attacked the Champions League with a singular determination this season. Bayern Munich was obliterated in the first leg of the quarterfinals. Real Madrid held out for a little longer in the semifinal, but was routed at the Etihad in the second leg, the reigning champion dismantled both surgically and brutally.Guardiola made an exception for that victory against Real Madrid — it was, he conceded, among the very finest of his tenure — but as a rule he tends toward the coy when presented with all of the superlatives his team attracts. Habitually, he will always insist that his Barcelona team remains the finest he has ever coached, simply because it was spearheaded by Lionel Messi. His presence alone, Guardiola believes, automatically elevates any team.Perhaps that is true: Messi did lend Barcelona a wonder, a sense of the breath being taken away, that no other player — not even Erling Haaland or Kevin De Bruyne — can hope to match. And yet, by the same token, perhaps that makes the team Guardiola has crafted at City even more impressive. From a coaching perspective, it may be that this is his true masterpiece.Pep Guardiola with his most recent Premier League winner’s medal. He’s desperate to add a Champions League version.Carl Recine/ReutersCity has, of course, provided Guardiola with the most conducive working environment in the sport. He benefits not only from a budget that, effectively, allows him to obtain whichever players he wants, but from the sort of complete, uniform institutional support that can only ever be an aspiration at most clubs.That he has used it to produce a team that does not have a single apparent flaw, though, is testament to nobody but him. Manchester City, the 2023 edition, barely concedes chances, let alone goals. It scores from set pieces and counterattacks and long spells of possession. It can hurt opponents on the ground and in the air.It does not, as previous versions might have done, have an ever so slight tendency toward profligacy, thanks to the seamless integration of Haaland into Guardiola’s side, something that — perhaps more in hope than expectation — many expected to be at least a little bit of a challenge when the Norwegian arrived last summer.But that is not the switch that defines this vision of Manchester City; Guardiola’s most significant contribution, this season, lies elsewhere.John Stones anchored a rebuilt Manchester City defense that held Arsenal, and every other opponent, at bay.Adam Vaughan/EPA, via ShutterstockLast summer, he was concerned, just a little, about his resources at fullback, a key position in his system. Oleksandr Zinchenko had left. His replacement, Sergio Gómez, had initially been pointed out to the club as an investment for the future. João Cancelo’s form was patchy and his attitude, at times, questionable.And so Guardiola invented a solution. Rather than asking one of his fullbacks to step into midfield, as he had for the last year or two, he gave the task to a central defender, John Stones, and drafted in Nathan Aké and Manuel Akanji, two of the less prominent members of his squad, to balance things out.He explained the idea relatively briefly to his players; they had a few training sessions to try to iron out any kinks. And then, a couple of weeks later, they were trying it in a game. There were one or two who felt it was a risk, but it proved worth it: Stones, as much as Haaland, has emerged as City’s key player.More than anything else, it is that change that has made City untouchable in England, and in Europe, since the turn of the year. It has already delivered two trophies; only Inter Milan, now, stand in the way of a complete set.It is curious, then, that it should also — effectively — be one of the major plotlines in the final season of “Ted Lasso”: the coach has an epiphany, and everything clicks into place. That, of course, was a mere piece of fiction. Guardiola’s success is concrete, factual, real. Both have the same ultimate conclusion, though. In the end, Manchester City wins. More

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    Champions League Final: Inter Milan Tries to Live in the Now

    Inter made the Champions League final with Italy’s oldest squad and its highest debts. Whatever happens in Istanbul cannot stop the financial squeeze to come.Barely six weeks ago, Inter Milan defender Milan Skriniar was lying in a hospital bed in France, recovering from spinal surgery. A lumbar issue had been bothering him for some time and, reluctantly, he had decided that endoscopic intervention was required. He had not played a second of competitive soccer since the early days of March, nor has he played since.Yet when Internazionale names its team for the Champions League final against Manchester City on Saturday — the club’s most significant game in 13 years — Skriniar will, in all likelihood, be among the available substitutes.His teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the veteran Armenian midfielder, has not played for three weeks after picking up an injury in Inter’s semifinal win against A.C. Milan.His treatment began immediately: His thigh strain was being addressed even as the celebrations of that victory unspooled around him. Mkhitaryan has not yet been given medical clearance to train with his teammates. Still, there is a decent chance that he will be named in the starting lineup for the biggest game club soccer has to offer.Manchester City, the overwhelming favorite to win this season’s Champions League, arrives in Istanbul best represented by Erling Haaland: a perfectly tuned, purpose-built machine, running smoothly, silently, an irresistible masterpiece of engineering.Inter, on the other hand, is best represented by the likes of Skriniar and Mkhitaryan: It is a team that is creaking, straining, pushing at the outer limits of its ability, an avatar for a patched-up, jury-rigged sort of a club that is held together, these days, by little more than bandages and hope.Joaquin Correa and Inter held off their city rival A.C. Milan to reach the Champions League final.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThere have, certainly, been less likely Champions League finalists than Inter, one of the great old names of European soccer: Bayer Leverkusen in 2002, perhaps, or Monaco a couple of years later, or even Tottenham in 2019. Few, though, made it to the game’s grandest showcase against a background of such uncertainty.It is not just that Simone Inzaghi, the club’s coach, presides over the oldest squad in Italy, a team in which the focal point of the attack — Edin Dzeko, 37 — might regard the cornerstone of the defense, the 35-year-old Francesco Acerbi, as a youthful ingénue.Nor is it simply that, for as much as half of the team, this may be the final hurrah in an Inter jersey: Skriniar is one of 11 players whose contracts will expire, or whose loan spells will end, at the close of the current season. That reality has left the club facing the prospect of having to restock its squad almost from scratch.Inter, though, has far graver concerns about its future. In 2016, Suning, the Chinese retail conglomerate, paid $307 million to take a 70 percent stake in Inter, a deal that was — at the time — seen as the spearhead of China’s sudden, lavish and state-approved investment in European soccer. The new ownership would, in theory, finance Inter’s return to the game’s head table. The team’s training facility would be upgraded. So, too, would the club’s offices. And, of course, the players would follow.Simone Inzaghi became Inter’s manager in 2021, after his predecessor quit rather than sell off his title-winning squad.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesRomelu Lukaku, right, left in that purge but has since returned. Lautaro Martínez chose to stay.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSuning’s ownership has not, on the field, been disastrous. In 2021, Inter won its first Italian title in more than a decade. Inzaghi has subsequently added the Coppa Italia, both this season and last, to the club’s honors. Inter has become something of a mainstay of the Champions League; it made the round of 16 last year, and has reached the final this time.That relative return to success, though, has come at a cost. Inter is the most indebted club in Italy; according to its most recently published accounts, its total liabilities run at around $931 million. In the last two years for which information is available, it recorded losses of almost $430 million, leading to punishment from European soccer’s governing body. It fined the club 4 millions euros (about $4.3 million) for breaching fiscal controls last year, and it has threatened a bigger penalty (26 million euros, or roughly $28 million) if it does not get its finances in order.Inter has been caught in a sort of rolling financial crisis for several years, thanks to the combined impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the dwindling support of the Chinese state for investing in European soccer and, most notably, Suning’s own troubles.In 2021, the conglomerate had to accept a $1.36 billion bailout, financed in part by local government, in the face of its spiraling debts. The same year, it permanently closed its Chinese team, Jiangsu Suning, months after it secured the title, citing the need to focus exclusively on its core retail business. Last year, Steven Zhang, the 32-year-old son of Suning’s founder who serves as Inter’s president, was held liable for $255 million of debt and defaulted bonds in a Hong Kong court.If Inter has been shielded from the worst of the fallout — it continues to exist; its players still get paid — then it has suffered at least some collateral damage. Suning has been engaged, for years, in efforts to cut costs: In 2021, Antonio Conte, the coach who delivered the Serie A title, stepped down when it became clear that many of the players who had delivered the trophy would have to be sold.Inter’s two most valuable assets, the forward Romelu Lukaku, now returned to the club on loan, and the defender Achraf Hakimi, left anyway. To save its investment, Suning secured a $294 million loan from Oaktree Capital, a California-based asset management firm, to help with the club’s running costs.Ever since, Inter’s days of plenty have receded further and further into the past. This season, it spent several months playing without a sponsor on the front of its jersey, a significant and ordinarily reliable source of income for all of Europe’s major teams, after DigitalBits, a cryptocurrency firm, failed to make scheduled payments on its $80 million agreement.Inter’s blank jerseys were a throwback look for the latter stages of the Champions League, but the reason behind them was a problem.Gabriel Bouys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn Saturday, Inter’s jerseys will instead bear the logo of Paramount+, the streaming service that broadcasts both Serie A and the Champions League in the United States. The arrangement is the product of a last-minute deal reportedly worth $4.5 million. For the same fee, Paramount’s branding will appear on the backs of Inter’s jerseys next season.That sum, though, does not begin to address Inter’s problems. The loan to Oaktree is due next May. With interest, the total sum to be repaid stands at around $375 million. The revenue from Inter’s unexpected run in the Champions League will certainly help with that, but so, too, would acquiescing to another fire sale of talent.If the club cannot meet its obligations, Suning will automatically cede control of the club to its creditor. “Paying a debt at the level of interest that the club is paying Oaktree is not sustainable,” Ernesto Paolillo, the club’s former general manager, said last month. “Steven Zhang won’t be able to export capital from China and nor will he be able to cover the debt with other resources. He will have no choice but to default on the agreement and sell the club to them.”“It’s not our plan,” Oaktree’s managing director, Alejandro Cano, said in March, when asked if the firm’s intention was to take control of the club. “We want to work as excellent partners and offer support. But who knows?”Suning reportedly has opened talks with Oaktree to extend the loan, but it has also started exploring another possibility: an outright sale. Zhang has twice denied that Inter is on the market, insisting last October that he was not “talking with any investors” and reasserting in April that he had “not had talks with anyone.”Inter’s president, Steven Zhang, with Inzaghi after the club won the Coppa Italia final in May.Daniele Mascolo/ReutersIn September 2022, though, the boutique investment bank Raine — the firm that handled the sale of Chelsea to Todd Boehly and Clearlake and which is currently overseeing the Glazer family’s efforts to divest itself of Manchester United — won the mandate to seek new ownership for Inter.Several parties have expressed an interest in buying the club, according to executives with knowledge of the talks who insisted on anonymity to discuss the sensitive discussions. A handful, largely drawn from the United States and including both private families and equity investors, have been given a tour of Inter’s facilities and a broad rundown of its accounts.So far, though, there has been one major sticking point: the cost. Suning values the club at around $1.2 billion, not coincidentally the exact amount that RedBird Capital Partners paid to buy A.C. Milan last year. Given the realities of Inter’s financial position, nobody has yet been willing to bite.That has left Inter in purgatory. In negotiations, the club remains defiant: Those who have worked on transfers with Inter in recent months have noted that at no point have its executives pleaded poverty. The club retains an undeniable, undimming appeal, too. Lautaro Martínez, its World Cup-winning striker, was presented with a chance to leave last summer but chose to reject it, so settled did he feel in the city and at Inter itself.Pride, though, does not pay the bills. There have been times when cash has been in such short supply that the club has not been up-to-date on its share of the payments for the architects and designers working on the stadium it is intending to build, together with A.C. Milan, not far from San Siro.Inter, perhaps, cannot afford to think about the future now. It arrives in the Champions League final battered and bruised, taped and strapped, aging and fading. There is a chance — slim, but a chance nonetheless — of glory in the immediate present. What it means, where it goes from here, can wait for another day. More

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    Karim Benzema Joins Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad

    The acquisition of Benzema is part of a billion-dollar project to lure global stars to Saudi Arabia’s top league and expand the kingdom’s sports profile.Karim Benzema, one of soccer’s best players and a fixture at the Spanish giant Real Madrid for more than a decade, has agreed to join the Saudi champion Al-Ittihad on a three-year contract that will make him the latest prize acquisition for a kingdom rapidly expanding its ambitions and influence in sports.The decision by Benzema, a 35-year-old French striker, to move to Saudi Arabia was confirmed by Al-Ittihad on Tuesday after days of rumors. While it is an unusual choice for a player still perceived as an elite talent in one of Europe’s best leagues, his acquisition might not be the last high-profile signing by the Saudi league, which is embarking on a billion-dollar project, backed by the seemingly bottomless wealth of the state-controlled Public Investment Fund, to turn the kingdom into a major player in world soccer.W E L C O M E ! B E N Z E M A 💪💪 pic.twitter.com/Oc9IK4OoDj— Ittihad Club (@ittihad_en) June 6, 2023
    Benzema’s arrival will come only months after a different Saudi club lured another star, the Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo, with one of the richest contracts in soccer history.Among the other marquee players said to have been targeted by the Saudi league is Lionel Messi, who led Argentina to the World Cup title in December in Qatar. The salaries offered to the players are some of the largest in sports history, according to interviews with agents, Saudi sports officials and consultants hired to execute the project. All spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private.Saudi officials are hoping that the presence of stars like Ronaldo and Benzema will persuade dozens more successful players from Europe’s top leagues to follow them to the kingdom. The signings are part of an ambitious plan, supported at the highest levels of the Saudi state and bankrolled by the Public Investment Fund, to raise the profile of the Saudi league and the country’s status in global sports, and alter perceptions of Saudi Arabia on the world stage.Similar in scale and ambition to a Saudi-financed campaign to dominate professional golf through the year-old LIV Golf series, the soccer effort is a centralized plan to turn a domestic league that has long been an afterthought into a destination for elite talent.The signing of Benzema came days after Saudi Arabia passed ownership of the Saudi Premier League’s four biggest clubs to the PIF from the government by announcing the fund had taken a 75 percent ownership stake in each team: Al-Ittihad, the newly crowned Saudi champion; Al-Nassr, which employs Ronaldo; and Al-Ahli and Al-Hilal. They are among the biggest and best followed clubs in Saudi soccer.Those four clubs are expected to be the primary beneficiaries of the PIF’s new focus on raising the league’s profile. But their common ownership by the fund is already raising questions about sporting integrity, since the rules of soccer’s global governing body, FIFA, and Asian soccer’s ruling confederation prohibit the same owner to control multiple clubs in the same competition. Saudi officials said this week that they have taken measures to ensure the PIF-owned teams comply with these regulations, but they offered no evidence that such safeguards were in place.The state’s involvement in soccer comes on the heels of a surprisingly strong performance by Saudi Arabia’s national team at last year’s World Cup, where the team’s run included a stunning victory over Argentina. The project’s stated goal is to make the country’s top division, the Saudi Pro League, one of the world’s 10 best domestic leagues. The league is unlikely to become a true rival of more established leagues in Europe and elsewhere, but the resources of the PIF could destabilize the multibillion-dollar global market for players, and drive up the price of top talents around the world.Al-Ittihad clinched the Saudi league title in May.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe plan to buy a foothold in world soccer is reminiscent of a similar one a decade ago in which China used high-profile and high-dollar acquisitions of players and European clubs. That plan, marred by broken contracts, economic implosions and the coronavirus pandemic, now appears to be in retreat.The Saudi project, government officials have said, has broader aims than just a few dozen showcase signings. The government sees sports as a promising sector as it attempts to diversify the Saudi economy, and officials also have said raising the importance of sports would help tackle the problem of obesity in the country.The Saudi plan will start on solid financial footing: The PIF already has signed 20-year commercial agreements worth tens of millions of dollars with the clubs it now controls, and it sponsors the league itself through one of the companies in its portfolio, the real estate developer Roshn.The goal is for the four biggest teams to field three top foreign players each, and for another eight players to be distributed among the remaining 12 teams in the league, according to one of the people briefed on the plans to bring foreign stars to the league, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.Critics of Saudi Arabia have labeled its heavy spending in sports as an attempt to improve the kingdom’s image abroad and divert attention away from its human rights record; Saudi officials have repeatedly rejected these allegations.It is unclear when Benzema will arrive in Jeddah, where Al-Ittihad is based, now that he has committed his future to a country that has a rich soccer history and where the sport is passionately followed.One thing is certain, however: Whenever he does, Al-Ittihad fans, known as some of the most passionate in the country and riding high after winning their latest league title, will be ready to roll out the welcome mat. More

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    Saudi Soccer League Creates Huge Fund to Sign Global Stars

    A coordinated effort financed by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund is offering huge paydays to some of the sport’s biggest stars if they join Saudi Arabia’s best teams.The lists have been drawn up and the financing secured. Saudi Arabia is looking to lure some of the world’s best known soccer players to join Cristiano Ronaldo in its national league. And to close the deals, it is relying on money, the one commodity it knows it can offer more of than any of its rival leagues.Similar in ambition to the Saudi-financed campaign to dominate golf through the new LIV series, the plan appears to be a centralized effort — supported at the highest levels in Saudi Arabia, and financed by the kingdom’s huge sovereign wealth fund — to turn the country’s domestic league, a footnote on the global soccer stage, into a destination for top talent.To make that happen, Saudi clubs are already approaching players receptive to moving to the kingdom with some of the highest annual salaries in sports history. The deals could require in excess of $1 billion for wages for some 20 foreign players.Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time world player of the year, has led the way. He joined the Saudi club Al-Nassr after the 2022 World Cup, in a deal reported to be worth $200 million per season. Last month, Al-Nassr narrowly missed out on the league championship on the penultimate week of the season, but for those running the Saudi league Ronaldo’s presence alone was a victory in that it ensured unprecedented attention on the country’s top division, the Saudi Premier League.Cristiano Ronaldo signed with the Saudi club Al-Nassr after the World Cup in Qatar.Ahmed Yosri/ReutersSince Ronaldo arrived, the Saudi league has been considering whether to centrally coordinate more big-money signings in order to distribute talent evenly among the biggest teams, according to interviews with agents, television executives, Saudi sports officials and consultants hired to execute the project, the details of which have not previously been reported. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the deals involved were private.In recent weeks, leaks about huge offers to famous players have mounted: Lionel Messi, who led Argentina to the World Cup title in December, is said to have been tempted by a contract even richer than Ronaldo’s Saudi deal; and the French striker Karim Benzema, the reigning world player of the year, has reportedly agreed to leave Real Madrid for a nine-figure deal to play in Saudi Arabia.The Saudi league’s British chief executive, Garry Cook, a former Nike executive who briefly ran Manchester City after it was bought by the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, has been tasked with executing the plans. Cook did not respond to an email seeking comment. League officials also did not respond to requests for comment about the plans.The project comes on the heels of a surprisingly strong performance by Saudi Arabia at last year’s men’s World Cup in Qatar. The team’s run included a stunning victory over the eventual champion, Argentina, which stoked pride on the Saudi streets and in the halls of power in Riyadh. The project’s goal is not so much to make the Saudi league an equal of century-old competitions like England’s Premier League or other top European competitions, but to increase Saudi influence in the sport, and perhaps boost its profile as it bids for the 2030 World Cup.But the effort also is reminiscent of a similar scheme a decade ago in which China sought to force its way into the global soccer conversation through a series of high-profile and high-dollar acquisitions. That bold plan, eventually marred by broken contracts, economic implosions and the coronavirus pandemic, is now seemingly at an end.The plans for the Saudi league to become the dominant domestic competition in Asia are similarly subject to the whims of the country’s leadership, and could yet be derailed by a sudden change of direction, or an ability to sign the kind of elite talents being pursued. The players, too, would be committing to contracts with teams that in the past have been regular attendees at arbitration hearings claiming unpaid fees and salaries.According to the interviews with people familiar with the project, the league, and not the clubs, would centrally negotiate player transfers and assign players to certain teams, in a model similar to one used by Major League Soccer as it built its global profile. Centralized signings would be a departure from what is typical in much of the rest of the world, where clubs directly acquire and trade players independently.The size of the Saudi war chest is unclear, but officials briefed on the subject say it is as hefty as the list of players the league has identified as potential recruits. Much of the money invested in the league and the clubs in recent times has come from the Public Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund chaired by the kingdom’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.The fund has signed 20-year commercial agreements worth tens of millions of dollars with the four most popular clubs in the Saudi Premier League. Those deals will require the teams, two from Riyadh and two from the port city of Jeddah, to play games at new arenas in entertainment complexes being built by PIF subsidiaries. The PIF also sponsors the league itself through one of the companies in its portfolio, the real estate developer Roshn.A fan shopping for an Al-Hilal jersey in May, after published reports that the Argentina star Lionel Messi was considering signing with the decorated Saudi club.Ahmed Yosri/ReutersAccording to one of the people briefed on the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly, the goal is for the four biggest teams to field three top foreign players each, and for another eight players to be distributed among the remaining 12 teams in the league.The move for greater centralization of the league would end a period of autonomy granted to the clubs, and is further indication of the Saudi state’s interest in using sports as part of a drive to alter perceptions of the kingdom on the global stage, and diversify its economy away from oil. Saudi Arabia has been among the biggest spenders in global sports in recent years, bringing major events to the kingdom and investing in sports properties.PIF has been the driving force behind much of that, too. Two years ago it acquired Newcastle United, an English Premier League club, and through its funding and smart recruitment helped it to achieve its best league finish in decades and a place in next season’s Champions League. The Saudi oil company, Aramco, is a major sponsor of the Formula 1 auto racing series. But perhaps the PIF’s splashiest efforts have been in golf, where it has poured billions into creating LIV, the rival competition to the established tours in North America and EuropeAll of those projects have attracted scrutiny amid claims Saudi Arabia is using its investments in sports to divert attention from its human rights record. But the golf series, in particular, has shown that Saudi Arabia’s interest in sports may not be deterred even if the promised financial bonanza does not arrive. And Saudi officials have vigorously denied “sportswashing” allegations, arguing that some of the motivations behind their push into global sports include catering to their sports-loving population and encouraging greater physical activity in a country where obesity and diabetes are common.Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, watching the King’s Cup final between Al-Hilal and Al-Wehda in May.Saudi Press Agency/via ReutersDiscussions with potential soccer recruits and their agents are underway. Saudi Arabia’s sudden and cash-soaked presence is likely to create further chaos in soccer’s typically frenzied summer trading window, which typically runs from June through August.Beefing up the four best teams may not be universally popular in the kingdom which has its own rich soccer history and where the sport is passionately followed. Teams not considered to be counted in the elite group are already expressing frustration at the prospect of being left behind.The sense of unfairness has been felt most visibly at Al-Shabab, the third-largest club in the capital, Riyadh, which has had to contend with living in the shadows of its prominent rivals Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal and their two Jeddah-based counterparts, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli.“I have buried the ‘big four’ myth with my own hands,” the Al-Shabab president Khalid al-Baltan told reporters at the end of last season, when Al-Ahli was relegated to the second division for the first time in its history. Al-Baltan’s team dominated the Saudi league in the 1990s, when it was home to stars such as Fuad Anwar Amin and Saeed al-Owairan, who led Saudi Arabia to the knockout stage in the kingdom’s first World Cup appearance in 1994.While Saudi Arabia’s ministry of sports is currently funding a major renovation of Al-Shabab stadium in northern Riyadh, al-Baltan has complained bitterly about a lack of support — while taking care to avoid criticizing the government or the PIF by name.“The gap is getting too large, the financial situation does not allow us to compete with other clubs,” al-Baltan said during a news conference last week, as he wondered aloud how Al-Shabab was supposed to compete when Ronaldo’s salary for one season is four times the size of his club’s annual budget.“Am I expected to close that huge gap myself?” he asked. “My car is a small Japanese sedan, and I’m somehow expected to race against Lamborghinis and Ferraris. If I don’t win then I’m bad? This is not logical.” More

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    Women’s Champions League: Barcelona’s Aitana Bonmatí Chases Perfection

    Aitana Bonmatí always asks the same question. Every game Barcelona Femení plays generates a flood of performance data. The team’s fitness coaches know how far each player ran, how fast, how long. There is so much information, in fact, that they need two days to download it and tabulate it and parse it. Only then is it passed back to the squad.Not every player pays much heed to that sort of feedback. Some disregard it entirely. Bonmatí is different. She does not just want the answer; she wants to see the work, too. More than anything, she wants to know the why.“After some games, you feel so fatigued, so exhausted,” she said. “But the data can be low. That’s because sometimes it is not just a physical thing. It can be to do with stress, with the nerves you had. I like to talk about it with the coaches. I want to understand why these things happen.”As far as the raw figures go, the 25-year-old Bonmatí’s season looks like this: nine goals scored, and 10 created, from midfield as Barcelona swept, yet again, to the Spanish title; five goals scored, and seven more created, in the Champions League on the way to her — and her club’s — fourth final in five years. Only Wolfsburg’s Ewa Pajor has scored more goals than Bonmatí. Nobody has more assists.The case that Bonmatí has been the most decisive, most valuable player in Europe this season is a compelling one. There is a strong body of evidence, too, to suggest that she should be considered the leading candidate for the Ballon d’Or, at least until the World Cup rolls around.Bonmatí, with striker Fridolina Rolfo, will lead Barcelona against Germany’s Wolfsburg in Saturday’s Women’s Champions League final.Joan Monfort/Associated PressThe easiest explanation for why is one that she rejects without a second thought. It is Bonmatí, the theory goes, who has emerged as Barcelona’s heartbeat in the injury-enforced absence of Alexia Putellas, the club’s captain. “She has taken a huge responsibility in midfield,” Fridolina Rolfo, Barcelona’s Swedish striker, said earlier this year. “She deserves all of the attention, in my opinion.”Bonmatí has a slightly different interpretation. “The coach is the boss,” she said. This season, that coach — Jonatan Giráldez — has asked her to play a more advanced role than in previous years, not only to mitigate the absence of Putellas but because the presence of Patri Guijarro, Ingrid Engen and Keira Walsh means the club is well-stocked with defensive midfielders. “The role has changed,” Bonmatí said. “But not because of me.”Replacing Putellas, she said, has been a collective effort. “The media always tries to find someone in the team to focus on, and now this year it is me,” she said. “But I have been having good seasons for the last few years. I am ambitious. I just want to be better, more complete, than last year.”Standing out at Barcelona is more complex than it might appear. Lucy Bronze, the English defender who moved to Catalonia last summer, perhaps captured it best. At Barcelona, she said earlier this year, she has found herself surrounded by an almost industrial quantity of prodigiously gifted players, all spooling off the academy’s production line.“There are just like clones and clones and clones of these amazing, technical, intelligent players,” she said, sounding simultaneously awe-struck and possibly just a little frightened. “There are hundreds of them.”That Bonmatí has been able to stand out from that group — even at a club that has been carefully calibrated to churn out excellence, and on a team that is packed with the world’s finest players — can be attributed to her search for completeness.Xavi Hernández, the coach of Barcelona’s men’s team and Bonmatí’s childhood idol, described her as a “perfectionist” in the prologue to the book she published last year. She puts it a different way. “I try to understand everything,” she said. “I am a very curious person.”Barcelona’s women, serial champions of Spain, have struggled to match that success in the Champions League.Lluis Gene/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCod psychology would suggest that she inherited that trait from her parents: both academics, both lecturers in Catalan literature, both sufficiently animated by the pursuit of equality that they forced a change in the law to allow Bonmatí to take her mother’s surnames, rather than a patronymic followed by a matronymic.It is a streak that Bonmatí has not lost, and one best illustrated not so much by her continuing education — she is studying sports management, already aware at age 25 of the need to prepare for a life after soccer — but by her approach to her career itself.Bonmatí is — her words — “always doing things.” “Making a schedule is quite complicated,” she said. “I need to make sure to get time for myself, because otherwise I feel like I can’t breathe.” Her teammates, she believes, consider her to be “hyperactive.”She has roles, away from the field, with the United Nations refugee agency, with the Johan Cruyff Foundation, with the Barcelona Foundation. She works with a team for female refugees.When Walsh and Bronze arrived at Barcelona, Bonmatí immediately volunteered to act as their de facto translator. If they needed anything, she told them, they just had to tell her. The gesture was rooted in kindness, but there was a payoff, too. “It means I get to improve my English,” she said. There was no ulterior motive for that — Bonmatí wasn’t hoping to parlay it into an imminent move to England or the United States. She just wanted to be better at English.Bonmatí with Barcelona’s coach, Jonatan Giráldez. “The more things that I know, the more I can apply what I know,” she said.Albert Gea/ReutersAlmost everything Bonmatí does is geared toward a process of endless improvement, of smoothing out flaws and making sure nothing has gone unconsidered. She reads, and she reads widely: Her home, she said, is full of books on nutrition, on performance, on psychology. (Even her downtime is not really downtime: The likes of Primo Levi and Viktor Frankl occupy the light reading slot.)“The more things that I know, the more I can apply what I know,” she said. “The smarter I am about those subjects, the better it is for my performance.”Then there is her kinesthetic learning: Away from Barcelona’s orbit, but with the club’s blessing, she employs her own fitness coach, nutritionist and psychologist. She questions them, too. “I want to know what I have to improve, and how to do it,” she said.It is not exactly a surprise, then, that Bonmatí is hardly satisfied by Barcelona’s achievement in reaching the Champions League final yet again. It is her, and her club’s, third in a row, and their fourth overall. This stage is so familiar that Barcelona will go in as the heavy favorite to beat Wolfsburg on Saturday.That is an achievement in itself, of course, testament to how far Barcelona’s women’s team has come, to the status it has attained, to the progress made by Bonmatí and her teammates. That is not what Bonmatí sees, though, when she looks at the data. “We have only won one of the finals,” she said. “We’ve lost two. Personally, I want to win more.” More

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    Chelsea Says Executive Accused of Bullying Has Left the Club

    A Premier League team confirmed the departure after an investigation into workplace behavior, but employees said they had received little information about its findings.Almost a year after one of England’s richest and most decorated soccer teams opened an investigation into a senior executive accused of workplace bullying so severe that several staff members said colleagues took mental health leave to escape it, the team, Chelsea F.C., confirmed that the executive has left the club.The accusations against the executive, the former Chelsea director of marketing Gary Twelvetree, were outlined in a report in The New York Times last June that detailed mounting concerns about a toxic workplace culture inside the department he led. The Times article was based on interviews with almost a dozen Chelsea employees who described how being humiliated and berated in front of colleagues had become commonplace in the club’s marketing department.Chelsea declined to comment on any aspect of its investigation but did confirm that Twelvetree no longer worked at the club. Twelvetree did not respond to telephone and text messages requesting comment.He had not returned to the team’s offices at its Stamford Bridge stadium since the allegations against him surfaced in the Times article, team employees said, but remained on the payroll for months until his exit. Several employees said the team’s failure to inform them of the findings of its investigation had only created new frustration inside the club.The pressure of working under Twelvetree’s leadership led multiple employees to quit their jobs. Others took medical leaves that in some cases lasted months. Several of the employees came forward after the death in January 2022 of a former well-liked member of the department, Richard Bignell, who killed himself after being forced out at Chelsea.While suicide is a complex issue and it is unknown if other factors played a role, Bignell’s death stunned many of his former colleagues. Speaking with family members at a memorial service for him early last year, a group of them said they were convinced that Bignell, the married father of 8-year-old twin daughters, had died because of events at Chelsea. A coroner’s report had seemed to concur, stating after Bignell’s death that he had been “deeply troubled by anxiety, depression and despair following the loss of his job.”Months after his death, Chelsea was under new ownership, with an American-led group having acquired the club from its longtime owner, the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich. In July, the new owners said the club would conduct an investigation into the accusations, led by outside lawyers, to get a clearer picture of how the marketing department of one of the world’s most well-known sports teams had become so dysfunctional and marked by unhappiness, intimidation and fear.“The club’s new board believes strongly in a workplace environment and corporate culture that empowers its employees and ensures they feel safe, included, valued and trusted,” the club said at the time. No replacement for Twelvetree was named, and in his absence the marketing operation was directed by consultants from Viral Nation, a company in which a Chelsea co-owner, Todd Boehly, is an investor.It is unclear how many people were interviewed by investigators looking into the workplace claims, or how those people were selected. Interviews began shortly after the club issued its statement in July and lasted several months. Some former staff members told The Times that they had to reach out to the club to ask to be included as part of its process. Others were contacted directly.One former club executive said she spoke with a lawyer last September and was allowed “the opportunity to say what I needed to say” without being steered in any particular direction.She declined to be identified because of concerns about future employment in the soccer industry. And while she said she was pleased to learn there had been a resolution to the matter, she also noted there had been several missed opportunities by the previous management to correct the situation.After several complaints from staff in the marketing department, for example, Chelsea’s former leadership hired outside consultants to undertake a “cultural review” of workplace practices. But the review was to be led by Twelvetree, who had been the focus of many of the complaints. That decision incensed many former employees, and several who contributed to the monthslong process said it was unclear if it was ever completed.The more recent review also dragged on for months, employees said. Beyond the departure of Twelvetree, they said little has been said about what was learned. The club declined to comment on whether the investigation had been completed or if any changes had been made as a result of its findings. Chelsea would only confirm that Twelvetree had left the club, without providing details of the terms of his exit.His quiet departure was in stark contrast to other recent high-level moves at Chelsea, many of which were marked with a statement or news release. In the last few months alone, Chelsea has heralded the arrival of a new chief executive and a new head coach — its fourth manager since the American-led takeover last year — and a redeployment of leaders in its development and recruitment departments.Away from the field, Chelsea had been in contact with Bignell’s family over compensation, but the status of those talks remains unclear. The family continues to receive bereavement counseling, according to friends, and has taken part in fund-raisers for his children. Another one is planned for next month at the stadium of Wycombe Wanderers, a lower-league team that Bignell supported.If you are having thoughts of suicide, the following organizations can help.In the United States, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.In Britain, contact Samaritans at 116-123 or email jo@samaritans.org. Calls are free and confidential. Or call Papyrus at +44 800 068 4141 (9 a.m. to midnight), or message Young Minds: text YM to 85258. You can also find a list of additional resources on Mind.org.uk. More

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    L.A. Galaxy Fire Chris Klein, a Target of Fans’ Anger

    Last in the standings and facing a boycott from fans, the Los Angeles Galaxy ousted Chris Klein.When the world’s most famous soccer player, David Beckham, came to Major League Soccer in 2007, his arrival put the league on the map and affirmed the Los Angeles Galaxy’s status as the young league’s superteam. During his tenure, the Galaxy played in three M.L.S. Cups, won two of them and exuded a Hollywood glamour that resonated around the world.So it is startling to see that the Galaxy has the worst record in the league this season, with only two wins from 14 games. In response, and after missing the playoffs in four of the past five seasons, the team on Tuesday fired its longtime president, Chris Klein, who had also played with Beckham at the Galaxy.Klein’s dismissal came after months of clamor from hard-core fans upset at the club’s direction. Several supporters groups had called for Klein’s dismissal and threatened to boycott games; some already have done so. The Galaxy’s attendance is down about 10 percent from last season, a reflection of both the team’s cratering on-field results and simmering anger among its fans.“I hope that there’s a resolution, and the supporters’ groups — who are really important to all of us, and to the players — find the right way, whatever the resolution is for them to show up,” Galaxy Coach Greg Vanney told ESPN in February. “Because it’s probably not going to be ‘Chris out.’”Now Chris is out. “We believe it is in the best interest of the club to make a change and begin a comprehensive process to seek new leadership that will return the club to the level that our fans and partners expect,” Dan Beckerman, the president of A.E.G., the team’s parent company, said in announcing Klein’s departure. Vanney will remain in his job as coach, the team said.The Galaxy’s last M.L.S. championship came in 2014, its third in four years, but it has not won anything significant since then. Last year’s playoff appearance, its first in three seasons, ended in the conference semifinals.The team that knocked out the Galaxy at that stage particularly rankles: It was Los Angeles F.C., the new club in town, which has only been a member of the league since 2018 but already has more honors in its trophy case (three) than the Galaxy have in the past decade.L.A.F.C. has twice won the Supporters Shield, awarded to the team with the best regular-season record, and last season it won its first M.L.S. Cup championship. It also has advanced to the final of this year’s Concacaf Champions League, where it will meet Club León of Mexico in a home-and-home series this week for the regional club championship.The Galaxy, meanwhile, are staggering. The team is a league-worst 2-9-3 with a minus-14 goal difference this season. Going into Wednesday night, the Galaxy have lost three straight league games without scoring a goal. After the last of those defeats, by 1-0 at home to Charlotte on Saturday, fans chanted, “We want better!”While L.A.F.C.’s Dénis Bouanga leads M.L.S. with 10 goals, the Galaxy’s scoring leader, Dejan Joveljic, has two. Among the underachieving big-name Galaxy players are the Mexico striker Javier Hernández, known as Chicharito, and Douglas Costa of Brazil, who scoreless in four appearance Costa also faces arrest in Brazil on charges of nonpayment of child support, it was revealed this week.In the aftermath of Klein’s firing, supporters groups congratulated each other on the news and vowed to return to games.Klein had his own problems late last year: He was suspended in the off-season after M.L.S. found violations in a deal to sign the Argentine wing Cristian Pavón. The sanctions also limit the moves the Galaxy can make in the international transfer market this summer. That means rebuilding the Galaxy will be a tall order. Even with their fans back on board, a return to glory may take a while. More

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    Everton Stays in the Premier League. But for How Long?

    A win on the final day of the season kept Everton in the league and relegated Leicester and Leeds. But those results may be subject to change.LIVERPOOL, England — The announcement rang out around Goodison Park before kickoff, and then again ahead of the second half. In a clear, commanding voice, it informed Everton’s fans that they were not, under any circumstances, to invade the field or throw objects at the players on it.With Everton’s long-held place in England’s Premier League hanging by a fraying thread, it was reasonable to assume that Sunday afternoon would end in one of two outcomes: ecstasy or outrage. There was no third option. All the final game of the season would decide, really, was which one materialized.In the end, the former won out. Everton beat Bournemouth, 1-0, on a single, priceless goal by midfielder Abdoulaye Doucouré, rendering the results at Leicester City and Leeds United — the two teams that were hovering, waiting for Sean Dyche’s Everton team to slip — irrelevant. Leeds lost, Leicester won; both were relegated anyway. Everton, for the second time in two seasons, clung to its place in the elite by the quicks of its fingernails.That should, really, have been cause for celebration. There were fans on the field within a couple of seconds of the final whistle ignoring the increasingly desperate pleas of the voice on the public-address system. Flags fluttered at their backs. Plumes of blue smoke trailed from pyrotechnics. Children slid on their knees on the turf.Peter Powell/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCarl Recine/ReutersEVERTON 1, BOURNEMOUTH 0 Abdoulaye Doucoure’s goal set off the celebrations at Goodison Park, and gritty defending made it hold up.Carl Recine/ReutersRelief, though, is not the same as joy. As the fans milled around the field, many drifted as if on autopilot toward the area beneath the directors’ box. Its usual occupants, Everton’s owners and executives and power brokers, were absent, as they have been since January, when they were advised to stay away for their own security.Still, this was a chance for the fans to send a message. Loudly, repeatedly, they set aside their glee to demand the removal of the club’s board. In what might have been a moment of triumph — or at least something approaching it — the thought of Everton’s fans turned almost immediately to revolt.There is a reason for that. It is not just that the current regime at Goodison Park has brought one of English soccer’s great traditional houses low, thanks to a combination of poor planning, reckless spending and good, old-fashioned witlessness.Even Dyche, brought in as a firefighter, seemed determined to point out after the game that survival should not be a source of pride. “There is still massive amounts of work to do,” he said, as if preparing the fans for the idea that there is more struggle to come. “This has been going on for two years. It is not a quick fix.”That is true, of course. The ownership of Farhad Moshiri has reduced Everton to days like these — ones filled with fear and jeopardy and dread — with ever-increasing regularity. But more damning, and more urgent, is that the club has been managed so poorly that this game, this win, may be nothing but a stay of execution.Joe Giddens/Press Association, via Associated PressMichael Regan/Getty ImagesLEICESTER 2, WEST HAM 1 Early goals and late tears, but the 2016 Premier League champions could only watch the bitter end.Michael Regan/Getty ImagesIn March, the Premier League charged Everton with failing to comply with its catchily titled Profit and Sustainability rules, the regulations formerly known as Financial Fair Play. From 2018 to 2021, the club recorded losses of almost $460 million, three times more than the amount permitted under the league’s protocols.The case is, slowly, making its way through the league’s labyrinthine quasi-judicial system. An independent panel will be appointed to investigate. Representations will be made. Appeals will, doubtless, be lodged. The whole process is dragging to such an extent that even the Premier League itself has suggested it might need to be expedited just a little.In the end, Everton’s punishment might extend beyond being forced to pay compensation to Leeds, Leicester and Southampton, the three teams relegated this season. It could face a points penalty next season. It may even have one retrospectively imposed on this campaign. As things stand, Everton has avoided relegation. But only as things stand.Regardless of the merits of the case against Everton, the fact that 38 games have been played and the table cannot quite be entered into the records should be a source of considerable embarrassment for the most popular sporting competition on the planet.The season has ended and the Premier League cannot say, for certain, which 20 teams will comprise its membership next season. Given that there is also an open case against Manchester City, champion for the last three campaigns and on the verge of a domestic and European treble, it is fair to say that everything that has happened over the last 10 months is still subject to change.Lee Smith/Action Images, via ReutersGareth Copley/Getty ImagesTOTTENHAM 4, LEEDS 1 Two goals from Harry Kane helped send Sam Allardyce and his team down to the Championship.Gareth Copley/Getty ImagesThe significance of that cannot be underestimated. If the Premier League cannot wrangle its teams to abide by the rules that they themselves have established, then it does not so much have a regulatory issue as a legitimacy one. Sports are, in effect, policed by consent. If that process is seen to be tainted, if the playing field does not appear to be level, then that consent is removed.More important, those who watch the league — the people who follow it, fund it, afford it a significance that is not inherent — cannot trust that what they are watching has any meaning. If the outcome of a game cannot be known until a legal process has been exhausted, then the game itself becomes secondary.Just after Doucouré’s goal, as Goodison Park was fizzing and bouncing and melting in euphoria, a fusillade of fireworks exploded in the sky just above the Gwladys Street Stand. They produced, in truth, more sound than light: Their sparkle and their shimmer was lost, just a little, against the bright sunlight.Still, each thud elicited a cathartic, ecstatic roar from the crowd, each one signaling a step closer to salvation. The display felt, though, a little premature. There was still a half-hour left in the game. All Bournemouth had to do was score and, with Leicester winning, everything would change.Everton survived the brush with hubris. It made it to the end unscathed. The whistle blew and the fans stormed the field and the table flashed up on the screen and the team occupied 17th place and sanctuary. And yet there was still a sense of uncertainty, a dull rumble of fear, that things were not yet settled. The fireworks have been set off, even if nobody knows for sure quite what there is to celebrate, not yet. More