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      An M.L.S.-Liga MX Alliance: What's the End Game?

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      Wednesday’s M.L.S. All-Star Game was the latest collaboration between the top leagues in the U.S. and Mexico. Owners and executives see profit in their partnership, and say both sides can win.One could forgive the top soccer players in Mexico and the United States if they feel as if they have seen quite a lot of each other recently.When some of the best players from Mexico’s Liga MX lined up against some of the biggest stars from Major League Soccer in the M.L.S. All-Star Game on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, it was not — for a handful of them — the first time they had played an important match north of the border this summer. Whether in a series of new cross-border club competitions or in two important national team tournaments, the Nations League and Gold Cup, U.S.-Mexico matchups — in a variety of jersey colors — are now more frequent than ever.But whatever Wednesday’s exhibition lacked in stakes — the M.L.S. all-stars prevailed in a penalty shootout, 3-2, after the team played a 1-1 tie — that the game happened at all was perhaps the best demonstration yet of where the two leagues, and therefore their two countries, believe their futures lie: together.Alejandro Irarragorri, who controls the Liga MX clubs Santos Laguna and Atlas, this week described the leagues as having arrived at an inflection point at which they could continue to go their separate ways, or choose to work together.“I am sure on a stand-alone basis we will do well if we don’t do a thing together,” Irarragorri said Monday in a Zoom interview from the well-appointed home of the Seattle Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer. “I also understand if we do something together, we will be better.”But can two rivals really win at the same game, and at the same time?M.L.S. Commissioner Don Garber, right, and Liga MX President Mikel Arriola are bullish on their leagues’ collaborations.Kelvin Kuo/USA Today Sports, via ReutersCollaboration between leagues in different countries is rare in world soccer. While teams from different countries often square off in various continental competitions, rarely do the leagues themselves interact unless there is a problem that needs fixing. The collaboration between Liga MX and M.L.S., then, represents how soccer economics are being upended globally, as well as a close relationship between the U.S. and Mexico that extends well beyond soccer.“If you remember what happened in 1994, we had a soccer championship here,” said Mikel Arriola, the new president of Liga MX. “We had the World Cup here in the U.S. And also another thing happened that year, which was the execution of NAFTA,” he said, referring to the free trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada.For Arriola, whose career was mostly spent in a series of Mexican government positions, NAFTA best represents what soccer is now trying to replicate: It jump-started economic growth in Mexico, and he contends collaborations with M.L.S. will do the same for his league.Clubs from the United States and Mexico have faced each other for decades, of course, in the CONCACAF Champions League, the region’s top club competition. But in 2019 the two leagues created a new tournament, the Leagues Cup, to be contested by the best teams not to qualify for the Champions League and the Campeones Cup, another new one-off match between the winners of each league. Wednesday’s All-Star showcase in Los Angeles represented yet another increase in the rapid expansion of opportunities for players, and their two leagues, to compete against one another.Kai Wagner, left, of the Philadelphia Union and the M.L.S. all-stars, who beat a Liga MX team in a penalty shootout.Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThat kind of close collaboration will almost inevitably bring the leagues into conflict with the region’s top soccer authorities, mirroring the fights playing out around the world over breakaway ideas like Europe’s short-lived Super League and this week’s potentially explosive club-vs.-country battle over the release of top European pros for World Cup qualifiers.For now, CONCACAF, which governs soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has blessed both the Leagues Cup and the Campeones Cup. But it does not control either event in the same way it does the Champions League, and Arriola and Don Garber, the M.L.S. commissioner, were not shy about declaring how important their leagues are to the region’s soccer credibility.“Mexico, the U.S. and Canada represent 99 percent of the total value of CONCACAF,” Arriola said. But the confederation operates on a one-country, one-vote system, and power in the region has traditionally been held by Caribbean countries, the largest group of members, and one that often votes as a bloc.A Concacaf spokesman did not respond to a request for an interview with Victor Montagliani, the Canadian president of the organization.Asked what he believed Concacaf thought about the increased collaboration, Garber chose his words carefully. “The sport here has these long-established institutions going about governing the game the same way for generations, and I don’t necessarily think that that has to be the way the sport moves forward,” he said.For Liga MX, an increased presence in the United States means spurring revenue growth by tapping into a larger fan base. Mexico’s national team, through its own partnership with the M.L.S.-affiliated Soccer United Marketing, already plays more games in the United States than it does in Mexico, and Liga MX matches regularly draw higher television ratings than M.L.S. games. Arriola acknowledged that, like Mexico’s soccer federation, the Mexican clubs he represents see valuable revenue streams waiting on the northern side of the border.“We are a net exporter of football as a country because we have 60 million consumers in the U.S., and those 60 million people have a G.D.P. per capita 700 percent above ours, and they consume televised games two times compared to the Mexican consumer,” Arriola said.Garber’s bet is that aligning with Liga MX will help M.L.S. make inroads with those fans too, as well as with soccer fans in Mexico. But the most immediate benefit may be a competitive one.In continental competitions, Mexican clubs have traditionally overpowered teams from the U.S., and while that disparity has narrowed in recent years, an M.L.S. team has not lifted the Champions League trophy since 2000. Playing more games, and more consistently, against Mexican opposition may further close the gap between the leagues. And if and when M.L.S. clubs can consistently win those matchups, its credibility and global profile can only grow.Raúl Ruidiaz, a Peruvian striker signed from a Mexican club, helped Seattle become the only M.L.S. team to advance to the Leagues Cup semifinals.Stephen Brashear/Getty ImagesReorienting how the world looks at M.L.S. is Garber’s ultimate goal. The league’s last 15 all-star games have seen a team of M.L.S. stars take on top club teams from Europe, generally squads in the middle of preseason tours. But that format no longer suits the league’s purposes, or its focus, which years ago shifted to the acquisition of rising talents from Central and South America instead of aging players from Europe.In its current iteration, M.L.S. would like to be seen as the leader of a region that is quickly catching up to South America and Europe. But to do that, it first must prove it is a worthy rival to Mexican soccer. Garber said this week that he was willing to try any innovation that might make that happen.“I have always been tasked with having to answer questions about why do the Americans want to do things differently in the sport of soccer,” Garber said. But that might also mean he can get a look at where the sport should be — or is — going faster than his tradition-bound peers in South America and Europe.The obvious question is if M.L.S. and Liga MX will eventually merge. After all, they are hosting the World Cup together with Canada — which already has teams in M.L.S. — in 2026.Wouldn’t a single league made up of the best clubs across North America improve the level of play? Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, stoked such speculation earlier this year when he said such a league could be “the best league in the world.”Hanauer, the Sounders owner, was happy to entertain the question, but he also urged caution. The first time anybody can remember multiple owners from M.L.S. and Liga MX convening together, he said, was in February 2020. That meeting took place at Hanauer’s house in Cabo San Lucas, just before the pandemic shut things down.“It is a ‘walk before we run’ answer,” he said, adding, “We are at the very early stages of beginning to understand each other and get to know each other.” More

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      Paying the Price for Premier League Riches

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      The surplus players at English clubs would make fine assets for teams across Europe. The problem is that the clubs that could use them cannot afford them.The headed clearance did not quite get the requisite power, or direction. It floated, rather than fizzed, out of Brentford’s penalty area, the danger not quite clear. Two Manchester United players converged on it, sensing opportunity. The ball bounced off the turf, not too high, not too quick, and hung in the air for just a second. And that is where Andreas Pereira met it.There is a reason some Manchester United fans have come to know Pereira — with equal parts affection and admonishment — as the Preseason Pirlo. It is in the exploratory exchanges, the warm-up fixtures and the touring exhibitions, where he does his best work. Once meaning is introduced to the games, once the season gets down to business, Pereira tends to fade from sight.Perhaps that is the sort of player he is: undeniably talented, often capable of the spectacular, but too much of a luxury to fit into a tightly defined system. Perhaps it is lack of opportunity or managerial trust. Perhaps he falls — and this is no criticism — just a shade below the level required to thrive at a club as grand, and as demanding, as Manchester United.Whatever the reason, the chance against Brentford was his sort of moment. Pereira was first to the bouncing ball. He pulled his right leg back, catching the ball at its apex, and cracked a volley toward goal, where it hit the underside of the bar and dropped like a stone. Not quite half full, Old Trafford’s crowd stood, open-mouthed, to applaud.After the game, Pereira used his sudden spotlight to issue a cri de coeur. He stood ready to serve, he said. He just needed United’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, to give him a run, he said. He was ready to compete for a place, to play regularly, to show that — at age 25, almost a decade after he first moved to Manchester — he was a man, not a boy.His plea will, in all likelihood, fall on deaf ears. Even with uncertainty hovering over the future of Paul Pogba, Solskjaer has an abundance of options in his central midfield: Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay, Fred, Nemanja Matic, Donny van de Beek. Having committed more than $140 million to sign Jadon Sancho and Raphaël Varane, the club needs to balance the books. No matter how much he looks like Andrea Pirlo in the preseason, Pereira will be sold, if a suitable offer arrives.Like Pereira, left, Jesse Lingard has value but also a pricetag that makes offloading him difficult.Peter Cziborra/Action Images, via ReutersPereira is not the only player in that bind. Diogo Dalot, a Portuguese fullback, also featured in that game at Old Trafford late last month. So did Jesse Lingard. Like Pereira, Lingard spent last season out on loan. Like Pereira’s, his departure this summer from United would most likely be accepted as an economic — and to some extent sporting — necessity. Like Pereira, Lingard had a chance to play in preseason because many of Solskjaer’s first-choice players have been given extended breaks after featuring in the European Championship and the Copa América.There are more — many more — players like them across the upper echelons of the Premier League. A couple of days after United played Brentford, Arsenal hosted Chelsea in another tuneup game. Arsenal’s team included Mohamed Elneny and Sead Kolasinac; Chelsea, the European champion, introduced the likes of Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater and Ross Barkley from the bench. All of them, too, are available to the highest bidder. Or, in fact, any bidder.It is the same situation at Liverpool — where Xherdan Shaqiri, Nat Phillips and Divock Origi have been part of Jürgen Klopp’s preseason camp — and at Manchester City, where even Patrick Roberts, a wing who has spent the last five years out on loan, has managed an appearance in recent weeks. But City cannot attract bids for Riyad Mahrez or Bernardo Silva, let alone Roberts. Tottenham would like to clear the decks, too, but it has been unable to find a buyer for Serge Aurier, Moussa Sissoko or Harry Winks.Mohamed Elneny, right, was one of the Arsenal players in the shop window during a preseason friendly against Chelsea.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNone of these players, with the possible exceptions of Silva and Mahrez, are likely to feature regularly for their clubs once the season starts next weekend. They are all, to some extent, now more useful to their teams as potential sources of income — not so much as defenders or midfielders or forwards but as assets to be sold, to free up space and to raise funds.And yet, with only a few weeks left in the transfer window, they all remain firmly in place. It is not because they lack talent. It is not, necessarily, because of a shortage of suitors: There are plenty of teams for whom all of those players would be fine recruits. The problem, instead, is money: They all earn too much of it, and the teams that might desire them do not have enough of it.It is an issue that does not just apply to England. No team in Europe requires funds quite so much as Barcelona, with its stratospheric salary bill and its apparent inability to find a way to sign Lionel Messi to a new contract, while somehow staying within La Liga’s financial rules.It has attempted to shed some of its high earners, too, but with no luck so far. Samuel Umtiti, Miralem Pjanic and Philippe Coutinho and all of the others are still there, at Camp Nou, pinned down by the sheer weight of their contracts. There are plenty of clubs out there that would be delighted to have any of them. And there are some that could afford a transfer fee and their salaries. Those two groups, though, do not intersect.This is precisely the problem — albeit a scaled-up, more urgent iteration of it — facing clubs across the Premier League. Their surplus players would make fine assets for teams across Europe, but no club that wants them can afford them.The most immediate explanation for that, of course, is the coronavirus pandemic: a year of hosting games in empty stadiums, along with the rebates due to the broadcasters that have kept the game afloat, has led to purse strings being tightened and reduced budgets.But there is a deeper issue at play, too. Over the last few years, the teams of the Premier League — alongside a cadre of continental superclubs — have gloried in recruiting as many of the best players on the planet as possible. They have done so by offering them far higher salaries than they could feasibly obtain elsewhere.The on-field consequences of that trend have been clear. The Premier League stands alone as the most competitive domestic competition in the world; the rest of Europe’s major leagues have come to be seen as the private fiefs of a handful of elite clubs. It is only now, though, accelerated by the pandemic, that we can see the off-field impact.The player trading market that underpins the activities of every club in Europe — even in the Premier League, insulated from the worst of the downturn by its vast television revenues — is fundamentally fractured. The salaries on offer at English teams, and at the likes of Barcelona, are way out of step with what everyone else can afford to play.For years, that has brought an impressive reward: The Premier League has gloried in its financial potency. Now, though, the cost is becoming clear. England’s elite are able to buy, but — sufficiently detached from the rest of their peers — they are increasingly unable to sell.Riyad Mahrez could help dozens of clubs. But how many can afford him?Lee Smith/Action Images, via ReutersPereira, as one example, most likely could not earn what he does at Old Trafford if he moved to the sort of team, in Italy or in Spain, that might be interested in his services: Lazio, say, or Valencia. Even if he was prepared to accept a lower salary, and willing to join a lower-profile club, United would have to pay out the rest of his contract, as it did with Alexis Sanchez.And even then, signing Pereira — still relatively youthful at 25 — might appeal less to one of those clubs than picking up a younger, cheaper model, with greater resale value, from France, Belgium or Portugal, where prices have dropped precipitously as a result of the pandemic: the very same rationale that means selling players to other Premier League teams is not proving as easy as, perhaps, everybody thought. The unwanted reserves of the great English teams and the overpaid castoffs of the super-clubs are too old, too expensive, too much risk and too little reward.For some of those players, there will be a way out. Moves will materialize once liquidity pours into the market. Pereira may get a chance to prove his Andrea Pirlo tribute act can endure after the start of the season. More creative, lower risk deals — loans with options for future purchase, in particular, offsetting the cost — may rescue others.Still more, though, will remain where they are, stuck in limbo, not valued enough by their current employer but valued far too highly by everyone else. In doing so, they will absorb not only money but space and time in squads increasingly laden with unwanted passengers.The pattern is one that England’s teams would do well to heed, as they consider how best to exercise their financial superiority in what has become, and is likely to stay, a buyer’s market. How much of that money they can spend, of course, may define how much success they enjoy today. It is how well they spend it, though, that will define what tomorrow looks like.The Case for Buyout ClausesHas Harry Kane chased his last ball for Tottenham?Pool photo by Mike EgertonThere are two sides to the great Harry Kane debate, and each one is equally valid. One holds that, as the captain of England and one of the best strikers of his generation, he has the right to decide where he wishes to — borrowing a phrase from LeBron James — take his talents. The other points out, no less convincingly, that he has three years left on his six-year contract, and so he really does not have the right.It is easy to see why Kane might feel that Tottenham is standing in his way. It is easy to see why Tottenham feels Kane might like to come to work, given that Manchester City — his intended future employer — has yet to make an offer for his services worthy of consideration and debate. Predicting how it resolves from here would take a particularly gifted clairvoyant.The problem, as is so often the case, is that both are reasonable positions. Players should, of course, have the right to work wherever they like: Transfer fees are, when you think about it, really quite strange things. But then clubs, too, should be rewarded for the role they play in developing those players, and protected from their sudden loss.The answer, perhaps, already exists: If players’ contracts came as standard with a buyout clause, then there would at least be a little clarity. This is already the case in Spain, and it is increasingly common throughout Europe. The clubs get their protection. The players get their freedom, even if, on occasion, it tends toward the theoretical. And everyone knows where they stand.As One Rises, So Another FallsA dejected Carli Lloyd at the United States’s semifinal loss to Canada. Lloyd scored twice in the team’s bronze medal match, a victory over Australia.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesA mixed week for the national teams of the United States. For the men, the prospect of a bright future ahead, after Gregg Berhalter’s side beat Mexico to win the Gold Cup. For the women, a rather darker horizon, after defeat at the Olympics at the semifinal stage at the hands of Canada relegated them to the bronze medal game, where they beat Australia.It is hard to overestimate the men’s achievement. This was, after all, a severely weakened U.S. squad, deprived of most of its most promising talents. When it takes to the field for World Cup qualifying later this year, its lineup is likely to be starkly different. Much better, in fact: If anything, this Gold Cup win is proof of the scale of the strength in depth at Berhalter’s disposal.The United States’ Gold Cup triumph was its second win over Mexico in a final this summer.David Becker/Associated PressFor the women, though, the outlook is a little more troubling. The performances of Sweden — Canada’s opponent in the gold medal match, and easy victors over Vlatko Andonovski’s team in the group phase — and the Netherlands highlight the sense that Europe’s best teams are catching the United States at a considerable rate of knots. At the same time, the timidity of defeat to Canada indicates that perhaps the U.S. is caught between cycles.That is not to say that the U.S. women’s program will no longer be a force, or will see its star wane; when the World Cup begins in two years’ time, it will still, most likely, be the favorite. Tokyo should serve as a warning, though: Its primacy cannot be taken for granted, and that as the game grows, so does the scale of the competition.CorrespondenceDavid Alaba is a great player, but he can’t fix everything.Pool photo by Christof StacheA good point from Paul Tigan on the connections between the two elements of last week’s newsletter: players being suffocated by the pressure placed on them from outside to perform, and the case of David Alaba, who seems to have been given the job of solving all of Real Madrid’s problems.The latter part, Paul wrote, “read like a classic, thoughtful analysis of a club setting unreasonable expectations on an individual. Not just on defensive performance, but also filling the gaps in the culture of a faltering organization (by being asked to fill in the shoes of Ramos and the like).”He is right, of course: There is a link between the two cases, and one that I did not see as I was writing them. Clubs burden players with intolerable expectations, too — the final piece of the jigsaw phenomenon — and that is only heightened, as in Madrid’s case, by poor planning and lack of forethought. If Real Madrid’s struggles, by its standards, this year, Alaba may well be deemed a flop. The consequence will be personal. The cause may well be institutional.Luka Martinac raises a valid question, too. “I wonder how long before sport start rejecting social media in order to protect their stars? Apart from the commercial benefit, it’s hard to see what reason there is to be on it.”I’ve had the same thought. I suppose, first of all, we should not underestimate the commercial value. Second, I know a lot of soccer players — and I imagine this goes for other athletes — genuinely enjoy the chance to connect with fans. But most important is this: They have as much right as we do to use social media safely. If they have to withdraw because of the toxicity toward them, then what does that say about, well, us?And a question from Vincent LoVoi, who wants to know why last week’s newsletter did not make mention of the Olympic soccer tournament, but focused instead on a Dutch player who currently straddles the English and French leagues.This is entirely on me: I’m lucky enough to get to pick what I write about in this newsletter. I’m not sure I can explain my thought process any more clearly than “I thought it was interesting,” but I’ll give it a go.The Olympics move pretty quickly, so the danger of writing a column on the tournament is that, within a few hours of its publication, it might look out of date. The timings of the games have not been great for a Friday newsletter, either: The women’s final, for example, will have finished by the time many of you read this. And besides, I’m not sure anyone, currently, can say they do not have enough Olympics coverage.I hope that makes sense. It may not be satisfying, but that is the thinking behind the choice of subject. More

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      FIFA Will Share in $200 Million Payout From Justice Department

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      Soccer’s governing body and two affiliates in the Americas have been awarded millions after having been classified as victims in a corruption scandal.FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, and two other organizations in the Americas are set to receive about $200 million in compensation from the United States government after the Justice Department classified them as victims in the corruption scandal that toppled most of their senior leadership in 2015.The repayment will begin with an initial payment of $32.3 million in forfeited funds, the Justice Department said Tuesday, but prosecutors have approved a plan that could see the soccer organizations receive as much as $201 million.The return of the money comes six years after a sprawling criminal prosecution laid bare decades of corruption on a stunning scale, with millions of dollars diverted from the sport and into the pockets of global soccer officials and businessmen. It comes five years after FIFA, framing itself as corrupted but not corrupt, first began asking for a share of the money that American officials were collecting in the case. The repayments will be directed to FIFA, the sport’s governing body; CONCACAF, the organization overseeing soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean; and CONMEBOL, which governs the sport in South America. The previous leaders of those organizations, as well as those of national soccer federations across the Americas, had been implicated in the scandal in colorful detail. More than 50 people and companies have been charged in the case since 2015, and dozens have pleaded guilty.The Justice Department’s decision suggested a measure of restored faith in FIFA’s management, even as the money came with strings attached: The funds must be walled off in a foundation and directed toward developing soccer around the world, according to Tuesday’s announcement.In a statement Tuesday, FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, thanked the American authorities for their “fast and effective approach in bringing these matters to a conclusion, and also for their trust in general.” Such parameters for spending have figured into other major corruption cases, like the United Nations oil-for-food case, in which the Justice Department specifically designated restitution money for a development fund in Iraq. As American authorities announced their criminal case in 2015 and dozens of powerful officials and marketing executives pleaded guilty to charges including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, prosecutors made clear they saw the soccer organizations as victims that had been co-opted by dishonest operators.Lawyers for FIFA and the regional confederations fought further to manage the perceptions of prosecutors and the public, seeking to distance the organizations from the accused criminals; cooperate with the authorities; and solidify the sports organizations’ place as victims powerless to their top leaders’ fraud.In a court filing in 2016, lawyers for FIFA argued that the organization had lost at least $28 million paid to 20 soccer officials over 12 years, along with having suffered other incalculable costs.CONMEBOL has already recovered millions of dollars through other channels. In July, it said it had been awarded more than $1.7 million by the Swiss authorities, money that had been in a personal account of one of its former leaders. That money was in addition to the $55 million the organization said it had already clawed back from the accounts of other former officials.FIFA, under its new president Gianni Infantino, had argued it was a victim in the corruption scandal that brought down his predecessors.Michael Buholzer/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn the years since it burst into public view with raids on a luxury hotel in 2015, the FIFA case, one of the largest criminal prosecutions in America when it was announced, has moved forward even as public attention to its proceedings and to corruption in global soccer has waned.Just this week, Reynaldo Vasquez, El Salvador’s former top soccer official who was charged in 2015, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn. Earlier this year, prosecutors announced the Swiss bank Julius Baer had agreed to pay more than $79 million in penalties for its role in laundering money in the scandal.Even so, years on, key figures have still not been convicted or sentenced, and some former officials remain at large. One, Marco Polo del Nero, the former head of Brazil’s soccer federation, was recently recorded appearing to direct the federation’s affairs despite FIFA having banned him for life from working in organized soccer.In announcing the new conviction this week, American law enforcement officials telegraphed that they were still keeping tabs on the sport, and Tuesday’s announcement underscored that.“From the start,” the acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, said in a statement, “this investigation and prosecution have been focused on bringing wrongdoers to justice and restoring ill-gotten gains to those who work for the benefit of the beautiful game.” More

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      Premier League Will Not Release Players for World Cup Qualifiers

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      The decision sets up a confrontation with FIFA, which can order the players’ release, and could affect the strength of dozens of national teams.The Premier League said Tuesday that its clubs would not release any players for travel to so-called red list countries during soccer’s September international break, a brazen rejection of protocol that sets up a significant confrontation with the sport’s governing body, FIFA.The decision, a reflection of continuing public health concerns amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, will affect roughly 60 players from the 26 countries currently on the British government’s red list. Residents are warned that they “should not travel” to any of the countries on the list, and those who do face either strict quarantine conditions or outright exclusion if they attempt to return to Britain.The decision to withhold players will affect World Cup qualifying matches for the national teams of more than two dozen countries, including Argentina, Brazil and the rest of South America, and also those from coronavirus hot spots like Egypt, Mexico and Turkey. It also touches 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs, potentially affecting players like Liverpool’s Alisson and Roberto Firmino (Brazil) and Mohamed Salah (Egypt); Manchester City’s Brazilian stars Fernandinho, Ederson and Gabriel Jesus; Manchester United’s Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani; and Colombians like Yerry Mina (Everton) and Davinson Sánchez (Tottenham).Premier League clubs have today reluctantly but unanimously decided not to release players for international matches played in red-list countries next month Full statement: https://t.co/JBl6FuzUNC pic.twitter.com/EJiZaODub1— Premier League (@premierleague) August 24, 2021
      The Premier League said its decision was a result of FIFA not extending a rule that had allowed clubs to hold back players if they were required to quarantine upon their return to their clubs. Forcing teams to release players and then quarantine, sometimes for as long as 10 days when they returned, created a situation that affected league play and fair competition, the clubs and the Premier League have argued.“If required to quarantine on return from red list countries, not only would players’ welfare and fitness be significantly impacted, but they would also be unavailable to prepare for and play in two Premier League match rounds, a UEFA club competition matchday and the third round of the EFL Cup,” the Premier League said in a statement.Even after those quarantine periods, the clubs said, the players would then need more time to regain match fitness.FIFA’s international windows normally allow players to return to their home countries for two games, but the pandemic has left FIFA a compressed window to complete qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, which will open in Qatar next November.Most of the world’s top leagues and clubs had urged FIFA in a meeting this summer to work with them to find an accommodation to the scheduling crunch, which now will require national teams to play three matches instead of two in each international window.FIFA ignored those entreaties, though, and added two extra days for qualifying matches in September and October. The clubs, and their leagues, were furious, but they face sanctions if they refuse to release their players.That appears to be a risk the Premier League teams are willing to take.“Premier League clubs have always supported their players’ desires to represent their countries — this is a matter of pride for all concerned,” the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, said in a statement supporting the clubs’ decision. “However, clubs have reluctantly but rightly come to the conclusion that it would be entirely unreasonable to release players under these new circumstances.”The Premier League’s objections are also financial, and competitive. FIFA’s ruling extending the international break will most likely leave clubs in Europe and elsewhere without hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of talent for key early-season games because the new dates — and player travel — would overlap with domestic schedules.“As a governing body, FIFA should be trying to find the best solution for the entire football community,” the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for about 40 top leagues, said in a statement protesting the decision to add days to the international break. “Instead, FIFA has decided to impose the worst possible option with practically no notice. This poses an obvious governance issue which will have to be addressed.”FIFA has rejected the appeals of the clubs and the leagues to find a different solution, saying in a statement related directly to the release of South American players that its schedule allows for adequate rest. “The addition of two days will ensure sufficient rest and preparation time between matches, reflecting the longer travel distances required both to and within South America, thus safeguarding player welfare by mitigating the negative consequences of this more intense schedule, while ensuring fair competition as well as a prompter return to their clubs of the players involved,” FIFA said.FIFA made no immediate comment on the Premier League’s announcement that it would not release players. More

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      Fight Over World Cup Schedule Pits FIFA Against Leagues

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      A dispute about World Cup qualifying games has highlighted the power soccer’s governing body holds over clubs, and how little recourse they have.A meeting was called, discussions were held, and groups representing some of the world’s biggest soccer clubs and leagues were given a chance to have their say.Their concerns were immediate: Extra dates being proposed for qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup would badly affect their operations, they said, with dozens of their players from South America, including Lionel Messi and Neymar, set to miss crucial league games because of their national team commitments.FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, reassured the officials from the clubs and the leagues. Do not worry, the clubs were told, FIFA would consider the needs of all the affected groups before deciding how to squeeze in the extra dates, which were needed to accommodate matches postponed by the pandemic.But in the end, FIFA chose what worked best for FIFA. Ignoring entreaties from clubs and leagues around the world, FIFA and its regional confederation for South America, CONMEBOL, went ahead and added two extra days for qualifying matches in September and October. The clubs, not World Cup organizers, would just have to adjust.The outcome was perhaps the clearest example of the immense power FIFA wields when it comes to directing a sport for which it is the chief governing body and also the organizer of the World Cup, one of the biggest sporting events on the planet. While everyone involved agreed something needed to be done to find a spot for the games, which had been postponed earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, only FIFA had the final say on when they would take place.The rosters of top European clubs like Real Madrid are dotted with South American players.Pablo Morano/ReutersWhile the leagues, clubs and players’ unions are often given a hearing, they had little say in the matter beyond expressing impotent frustration at the outcome. That was what a lobbying group, the World Leagues Forum, did this month when it noted FIFA’s ruling would most likely leave clubs in Europe and elsewhere without hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of talent for key early-season games because the new dates — and player travel — would overlap with domestic schedules.“As a governing body, FIFA should be trying to find the best solution for the entire football community,” read the statement by the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for about 40 top leagues. “Instead, FIFA has decided to impose the worst possible option with practically no notice. This poses an obvious governance issue which will have to be addressed.”The growing tension comes amid a wider discussion about the future of soccer, with FIFA pushing for new competitions and new revenue streams and even evaluating the possibility of staging the World Cup every two years. That discussion, which officially is related to soccer’s calendar for the next decade starting in 2024, is expected to conclude by the end of this year.The talks follow perhaps the most fractious period in modern soccer history, encapsulated by a failed attempt by a group of leading European clubs to form a closed superleague and break away from the century-old structures that bind the game together.While their efforts did not ignite the revolution they had designed — their so-called Super League collapsed in a matter of days — their revolt did highlight the unequal distribution of power in global soccer: While teams and leagues invest billions of dollars in the game, they have little say over how it is run.At present, FIFA has signed so-called memorandums of understanding that provide a framework that allows players, who in the main are trained and compensated by their clubs, to play for their countries. Under the terms of that relationship, clubs are required to release players for national team duty for up to 10 days for each international window.For years, that agreement largely held firm, until the coronavirus changed everything and cut the time available to fit in matches before the World Cup at the end of 2022. Instead of two games and their accompanying travel in each window, national teams now would be scheduled for three.At a meeting on July 27, FIFA, represented by Victor Montagliani, its vice president and the head of the regional body for North and Central America, met with officials representing the leagues and clubs. All agreed that a solution needed to be found in order for South America’s qualifiers — backed up by pandemic-related cancellations — to be completed in time for the World Cup.An official from CONMEBOL, according to notes taken at the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, explained that traveling to and within South America was extremely challenging, and that the confederation required three extra days in September and October to ensure the games could be played safely.Like Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia also count on European-based pros to fill out their rosters in qualifying.Andressa Anholete/Getty ImagesA representative for the leagues said that would not be acceptable, since it would mean scores of players would be unavailable for at least one weekend of league play, and perhaps more, because of quarantine requirements upon their return to their clubs. He said the leagues could accommodate one extra day, and suggested that the games be played in a secure bubble to minimize travel. At the same meeting, a representative of the players’ union, FIFPro, reminded FIFA of the health effects on athletes of traveling long distances and playing so many games in quick succession.A few weeks later, on Aug. 7, FIFA announced its decision. In a meeting of its most senior body, the Bureau of the FIFA Council — a group made up of the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and the leaders of the six regional confederations — it was decided that the South American qualifiers in September and October would be triple match days — three matches in one international break — and clubs would be required to release players for two additional days. Only UEFA, Europe’s governing body, voted against the plan. Previously, it and CONMEBOL had worked together to oppose some of Infantino’s suggestions.“The addition of two days will ensure sufficient rest and preparation time between matches, reflecting the longer travel distances required both to and within South America, thus safeguarding player welfare by mitigating the negative consequences of this more intense schedule, while ensuring fair competition as well as a prompter return to their clubs of the players involved,” FIFA said in a statement.That hardly mollified the clubs. To make matters worse, FIFA said it had scrapped a regulation that allowed teams whose players faced quarantines upon return to withhold releasing them for national team games.“From a regulatory standpoint, this means that FIFA compels players to play for their national team even if they are restricted afterward from playing for their club for several games,” the leagues said in a letter addressed to the FIFA president. The effect, the leagues said, would be quarantine measures that would result “in the disruption or discontinuation of domestic leagues.”With the first games of the September window just over a week away, leagues and clubs are weighing their options. Under FIFA’s current regulations, they may not have many: They will be sanctioned if they refuse to release their players for the looming international window. The complaint would be brought by national soccer associations that comprise FIFA. The body that would rule on the complaints? FIFA. More

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      Gerd Müller, Soccer Star Known for His Scoring Prowess, Dies at 75

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      He scored 566 goals for Bayern Munich, helping the club to four German titles, four German Cup wins and three European Cup victories in 15 years.Gerd Müller, the German soccer scar who became known as “Der Bomber” for his scoring prowess, died on Aug. 15 in Wolfratshausen, Germany. He was 75.Bayern Munich, the club for which he played from 1964 to 1979, announced his death. Bayern did not specify the cause, but it had announced in October 2015 that Müller had had Alzheimer’s disease for “a long time” and had been receiving professional care since that February.Müller scored 566 goals for Bayern, helping it to four German titles, four German Cup wins and three European Cup victories in 15 years. He still holds the record for the most goals scored in the Bundesliga, Germany’s primary football league: 365 goals, scored in 427 league games.“Gerd Müller was the greatest striker there’s ever been,” Bayern’s president, Herbert Hainer, said in a statement.Müller made 607 competitive appearances for Bayern and was the league’s top scorer on seven occasions. He played as important a role in making Bayern Germany’s powerhouse team as his former teammates Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness.Müller’s record of 40 goals scored in the 1971-72 Bundesliga season was beaten only last season, when the current Bayern forward Robert Lewandowski scored his 41st goal in the last minute of the last game.Müller became a youth coach after his playing days ended.Andreas Rentz/Getty ImagesMüller also helped West Germany (now Germany) win the European championship in 1972 and then the World Cup two years later, when he scored the winning goal in the final against the Netherlands. Altogether he scored 68 goals in 62 appearances for West Germany, a national record not surpassed until 2014 — and Miroslav Klose, who broke Müller’s record, needed 129 appearances to match him.Müller became a youth coach at Bayern after his playing days ended.“His achievements are unrivaled to this day and will forever be a part of the great history of FC Bayern and all of German football,” Bayern’s chairman, Oliver Kahn, said.Müller was born on Nov. 3, 1945, in Nördlingen, Germany. His survivors include his wife, Uschi, and a daughter, Nicole. More

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      The Parable of Inter Milan

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      Fast money from China led a storied team back to the top of Italian soccer. Now the money has dried up, and its title-winning squad is breaking apart.This is a preview of the On Soccer With Rory Smith newsletter, which is now reserved for Times subscribers. Sign up to get it in your inbox weekly.The first alarm rang in February, a warning from thousands of miles away.Jiangsu Suning was one of the mainstays of that strange period, five or six years ago, when soccer awoke — almost overnight — to discover that China had arrived, its pockets bottomless and its ambitions unchecked, intent on inverting the world.At first, Europe saw this new horizon as it sees everything: as a market. China’s corporate-backed clubs were, as Turkey’s and Russia’s had been years before, a convenience and a curiosity, a place where they could offload unwanted players from bloated squads.And then, when the Chinese teams kept coming back, attempting to coax away not the supporting cast but the headline acts, Europe realized that this was something else: a takeover. China’s clubs were buying not just players, but things that were more valuable, things that made them a threat: interest and prestige and relevance.There was, suddenly, something of a backlash, a degree of pearl-clutching and garment-rending at the very idea that a new league could just come along and drive up prices, an approach that no European league would ever dream of adopting. There were fears that the Chinese Super League would distort the market so much that it would drive European clubs to the brink of financial destruction, a job Europe had long been capable of doing itself, thank you.Jiangsu was in the thick of that, along with all of the other names of that era: Guangzhou Evergrande, Shanghai S.I.P.G. and all the rest. It was Jiangsu that signed Ramires, a Champions League-winning midfielder in the prime of his career, from Chelsea. It was Jiangsu that outbid Liverpool to sign Alex Teixeira, a player Jürgen Klopp had identified as his first-choice reinforcement after taking over at Anfield.It proved a bubble, of course. The world’s best players never did make it to China. But, occasionally, one of the Chinese teams would try. In the summer of 2019, Jiangsu approached Real Madrid to inquire about the possibility of signing Gareth Bale. It intended to pay him, according to reports, more than $1 million a week. Bale prevaricated, and decided against the move. It proved a wise decision. Eighteen months later, in February of this year, not long after winning the Chinese title for the first time in its history, Jiangsu ceased to exist.This was the warning. Jiangsu was not the Suning conglomerate’s only soccer operation: The company had also owned a majority stake in Inter Milan since 2016, installing Steven Zhang — son of the company’s principal — as the youngest president in the club’s history. Suning’s arrival had been greeted as Inter’s salvation: a chance, at last, to restore the team to the ranks of first Italy’s, and then Europe’s, elite, to give it the financial firepower to compete with the superclubs.In February, Suning seemed set to deliver, at last, on its promise. Inter was marching toward a first Serie A title since 2010. It had the best coach in the country, Antonio Conte. It had the finest player in the league, Romelu Lukaku. It had a squad constructed with no expense spared, brimming with bright young talent and seasoned old heads.The collapse of Jiangsu, though, hinted at what was to come. Suning had cited financial difficulties as the cause of the Chinese club’s dissolution, though the suspicion remains that the decision had a political element: The company had vowed to concentrate on its “core” retail business, dispensing with other investments, in line with China’s abiding state policy.Jiangsu Suning won the Chinese Super League title in November 2020. Four months later, the club ceased to exist.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSuning had already sought a bridging loan from Oaktree Capital — an investment management firm specializing in distressed assets, a description which would not have made Inter fans especially confident — to see out the Italian season. “I hope what happened to us does not happen to Inter,” the former Italy striker Éder Martins, who had played for both clubs, said.Inter has been spared that fate, of course, but that is scant solace for its fans. It was only at the start of May that tens of thousands of Inter fans poured onto the streets of Milan, in defiance of the social distancing regulations then still in place, to celebrate confirmation of its Serie A title. Zhang, on the ground in Italy for the first time in months, vowed that his company remained committed to Inter for the “mid-to-long term.”Since then, the championship team has unraveled at lightning speed. First, Conte left, as he had tried to do last year, with ominous mention of the fact that his “project had not changed” as he did so: The club’s, it went unsaid, very much had. Then Achraf Hakimi, the player whose acquisition and performance had lifted Inter above all of its domestic rivals, was sold, the money raised earmarked not for the squad but to balance the books.That was supposed to be it: Simone Inzaghi, the man tapped to replace Conte, insisted when he was introduced as Inter’s new coach that he had been assured that nobody else would be leaving.A few weeks later, though, that reassurance was proved hollow. Chelsea paid Inter $132 million for Lukaku, the club’s great shining star. He had always wanted to play for Inter — his childhood idol had been Ronaldo, the great Brazilian striker — and he was happy in Milan and, for all the problems he had faced, in Italy. He wanted to stay. The club, though, could not afford not to sell him. And perhaps not only him: Lautaro Martínez, his strike partner, had been offered around, too, to Tottenham and Arsenal and Atlético Madrid. The protests against Suning’s continued ownership have been long and loud.Romelu Lukaku, who helped bring a title to Inter Milan, will line up for Chelsea this season.Daniele Mascolo/ReutersThis is not the future as Inter had envisaged it. Its fate, compared to that of Jiangsu, is hardly a miserable one: Inzaghi is a fine coach, and he will retain the core of the squad that won Serie A last year. The club has signed Edin Dzeko to replace Lukaku; Marcus Thuram, from Borussia Mönchengladbach, or Duvan Zapata, of Atalanta, may follow. Nicolò Barella, Marcelo Brozovic and the best defense in Italy are all still in place.But the title, won after such a long wait, no longer looks — as Zhang had promised — like the beginning of something. Rather, it has the air of a definitive end. Juventus, reunited with Massimiliano Allegri this summer, is expected to reclaim primacy as Serie A starts this weekend. Roma, under the aegis of José Mourinho, and Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli may both pose more of a threat than Inter. So, too, may A.C. Milan and Atalanta.There is a sorrow in that, of course, for Inter’s fans: a simple story about risk and reward, about cost and benefit, about the price of a dream made flesh. There is an undeniable cruelty in the proximity of the celebration and the collapse, though perhaps that is — boiled down — what sports are all about: The absence of Lukaku this year makes last season all the more special, the memories of it all the more potent.The Inter president, Steven Zhang, shooting a selfie in the good old days. Last year.Pool photo by Lars BaronFor the rest of us, though, there is a warning, one from far closer to home. What has happened, overnight, to Inter — and what happened, even more dramatically, to Jiangsu — is what happens when clubs are bought and sold not in pursuit of sporting glory or even, as distasteful as it may be to say, eventual profit. It is what happens when soccer allows itself to be used for politics and for posturing and, above all, for power.Inter is not the only club that has been bought for reasons other than love of the game, and it is not the only club whose success depends not on the decisions it makes on the field — or even off it — but on social, political and diplomatic currents that have little or nothing to do with the game itself. Inter is not the only club that should hear the alarm.The Definition of FairP.S.G. got Messi and City got Grealish, but Chelsea got the biggest prize of them all.Pool photo by Carl RecineThey are all, on the surface, sound ideas. A little more than a year since a combination of the coronavirus pandemic and the Court of Arbitration for Sport brought an end to UEFA’s first attempt at introducing the concept of fiscal responsibility into European soccer — yes, that’s right, this bit is about Financial Fair Play, but I promise it’s not boring — the outline of F.F.P. 2.0 is starting to emerge.Quite what form the regulations will take once Europe’s competing clubs and leagues and their many and varied lobbyists have had a run at them is anyone’s guess, of course, but UEFA’s ideas are certainly worth exploring.Real-time enforcement of the rules, so that teams in breach are punished immediately, rather than at some ill-defined point in a distant future. A luxury tax, borrowed from Major League Baseball, for transgressors, which would function as a solidarity mechanism more in theory than in practice. Some form of a cap on how much of a club’s revenue can be spent on its squad. This all makes sense. Some of it could work. But, even now, it is possible to say with some certainty that it won’t.Reading the proposals brought to mind a line in “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour,” the Joshua Ferris novel concerned with identity theft, religion and dentistry. “The history of making money in this country is a history of exploiting the policymakers,” one of his characters, a Wall Street billionaire who made his money shorting the market in 2008, says at one point. “Let the policymakers act, and then study the places ripe for exploiting.”This is the fundamental problem with F.F.P., whatever form it takes. No matter what the rules are, no matter how much sense they make, no matter how pure the intent or dire the punishment, none of it will have any effect if those meant to be governed by the new system set out to circumvent it.The previous iteration of F.F.P. was flawed, of course. There were considerable and meaningful problems with the “financial” part of it. But that was not what scuttled it, in the end. What brought about its demise, ultimately, was that quite a lot of clubs were much happier if things were not especially fair.All Brazil, All the TimePalmeiras breezed past São Paulo to move a step closer to returning to the Copa Libertadores final.Pool photo by Nelson AlmeidaIt is not just in Europe that competitive balance is a pressing issue. The semifinals of this year’s Copa Libertadores contain three Brazilian teams: the reigning champion, Palmeiras, as well as Atlético Mineiro and Flamengo. It could have been a clean sweep, too, if Fluminense had not lost to the Ecuadorean side Barcelona S.C. on away goals on Thursday night.That kind of one-nation dominance had never happened, but it feels as if it has been coming. Brazilian teams have won the last two editions of the tournament — Flamengo’s last-gasp defeat of River Plate in 2019 and Palmeiras’s victory in a stultifying, pandemic-delayed all-Brazilian final against Santos in July — and three of the last four.Still, the nature of the domination is troubling. Brazilian teams topped five of the eight groups this time around; Brazil had six teams in the last 16 (admittedly the same as Argentina). In the quarterfinals, Flamengo swept past the Paraguayan team Olimpia, and on home soil Atlético Mineiro made short work of River Plate. Palmeiras qualified in style, too, in a game that was a win-win, from a Brazilian perspective: Its opponent was its city rival, São Paulo.The explanation, though, is simple. Brazilian teams have access to far greater resources than the vast majority of their opponents. Only a couple of Argentina’s giants have anything like the revenues of the powerhouses from Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Pôrto Alegre and Belo Horizonte.In one sense, of course, the rude economic health of the Brazilian game is welcome. In the long term, the hope has to be that it can provide some sort of counterweight to 30 years of European domination of what is meant to be a global sport. The risk is, in the short term, that yet another of soccer’s crown jewels becomes the plaything of a small coterie of clubs.CorrespondenceKudos to all of those Liverpool fans (I presume) who noticed that Jürgen Klopp’s team did not make an appearance in last week’s swift Premier League preview. “Are you not writing them off rather early?” asked Ron Bartolini. “You didn’t mention Liverpool!” pointed out Ronak Shah, though he put it all in capitals, to let me know he was shouting at me. “You’ve already written off Liverpool as a contender?” said David Nolan.There were, needless to say, others, and they deserve an explanation. The truth is that I prevaricated, just a little, on where to put Liverpool. My instinct is that the Premier League season will play out with a cigarette-paper top four until March or so, at which point Manchester City and Chelsea will pull away, leaving Manchester United and Liverpool to the comfort and consolation of a return to the Champions League.Welcome back to the newsletter, Mohamed Salah and Liverpool.Rui Vieira/Associated PressBut at the same time, I’m aware that there is a tendency — particularly prevalent during the summer months — to assume that every transfer will prove to be a resounding success; we presume that there is a direct correlation between how much a team spends and how well it will fare over the coming season. Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United have spent a lot, and therefore their prospects are brighter than the (comparatively parsimonious) Liverpool.That is, of course, basically true in the round; in individual cases, though, it is far less accurate. Which, all in all, is a long-winded way of saying that yes, I have written off Liverpool (to emerge as champion, anyway) but that I know I am wrong to do so. With all that in mind, then, it felt safer just not to say anything.And a note from Brian T. Love, who has the sort of name that demands a middle initial. “There were no reminders of the fan protests at soccer grounds that brought down the breakaway Super League. Maybe I noticed a green scarf at Old Trafford during the Manchester United match. Four months removed, are fans placated?”There is no brief answer to that, Brian, but it is a subject worth returning to, I think, in time. More

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      Scottish Soccer’s Brexit Problem: No Way In, and No Way Out

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      Boxed in by stricter rules for imported players and rising prices for British ones, Scotland’s clubs may struggle to stay competitive.Juhani Ojala knew he would have to wait. Travel restrictions were still in place in Scotland when, in the middle of July, the Finnish defender agreed to join Motherwell, a club of modest means and sober ambitions in the country’s top division. Upon landing, Ojala knew, he would have to spend 10 days isolating in a hotel before joining his new teammates.What he did not know was quite how long his wait would be after that. Even after he completed his compulsory isolation, Ojala was still not allowed to start preseason training. Legally, for another two weeks, he was not even permitted to kick a ball. The quarantine was one thing. The bureaucracy, it turned out, was quite another.A year ago — indeed, at any point in the last two decades or so — Ojala’s move to the Scottish Premiership would have generated as little fuss as it did attention. Once Motherwell had agreed to a fee with his former club and to a contract with the player, it would have been a simple matter of “jumping on a plane and doing a medical,” Motherwell’s chief executive, Alan Burrows, said. “He would have been ready to play within 24 hours.”All of that changed in January, when — four and a half years after the Brexit referendum — Britain formally, and finally, left the European Union. As of that moment, clubs in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland no longer had the untrammeled access to players from its 26 member states (a different set of rules apply to Ireland) they had enjoyed since the 1990s.Instead, potential recruits to Britain from Europe — as well as the rest of the world — are now judged according to a points-based system that takes into account everything from their international career and the success of their club team to how much they are going to be paid. Access to Britain’s leagues is granted only to those players who can accrue 15 points or more.For the cash-soaked teams of the Premier League, that change has meant little. There are occasional administrative delays — Manchester United had to wait several days for Raphaël Varane to be granted his work visa even after it had been approved — but the vast majority of potential recruits clear the new, higher bar with ease.The effect, though, has been starkly different in Scotland. Unlike the Premier League, the Scottish Premiership is not one of Europe’s financial powerhouses. Its clubs do not habitually recruit decorated internationals, or pluck stars from one of the continent’s most glamorous leagues.Instead, their budgets dictate that they must search for lesser-known names in smaller markets. That approach, many say, has been made immeasurably more complex by the Brexit rules. With the cost of hiring players from England spiraling, too, clubs and their executives are increasingly worried about what the future of Scottish soccer may look like.“What we have seen, really, is that the markets are chalk and cheese, but we have a one-size-fits-all solution,” Motherwell’s Burrows said. “There is a premium on current international players that is outside the financial capabilities of most Scottish clubs.”Motherwell had to make a case for its signing the Finnish defender Juhani Ojala this summer. The process, a simple one when Britain was a member of the European Union, took weeks.Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA, via ShutterstockBritain’s biggest teams face no such hurdles. The current system grants an immediate work permit to any player who has featured in at least 70 percent of competitive games over the last two seasons for any one of soccer’s top 50 national teams. That means any player who has also been a regular for a successful club team in one of Europe’s better leagues is almost certain to be given a pass — or, to use the technical term, a Governing Body Endorsement. It is in these rich waters that clubs in the Premier League tend to do much of their fishing.In Scotland, though, only the country’s two dominant clubs, Rangers and Celtic, can even dream of pursuing players of that quality. The rest of Scotland’s teams tend to shop for bargains, or at least for value, every time the transfer window opens. “It’s clear to me,” Motherwell’s Burrows said, “that we would struggle to get anyone we could afford to sign to 15 points.”That was certainly the case with Ojala. To Burrows and his team, the defender represented something of a coup: not just a Finnish international, but a player who had on occasion captained his country; a veteran not only of the Danish league but with experience in Switzerland and Russia, too.But when Motherwell tallied up how many points he was worth, he did not come close to the requirements.“The Danish league is ranked in the fifth band of six by the Home Office,” Burrows said. “He got a couple of points there. We got a couple more for what his salary would be in relation to the league average. But his team had finished fourth from bottom in Denmark. It had not played in Europe. He had not played enough international games.” Ojala’s application, in the end, only mustered eight points.This is where the bureaucracy came in. Clubs in Scotland, at the moment, have access to an appeal system. They can apply to the Scottish Football Association for an exemption, making an appointment to press their case as to why a player who has fallen short would still be a worthwhile signing.That, though, is only the first step. If the authorities grant a Governing Body Endorsement on appeal, the player — assisted by the club — must then apply for a work visa: filling in an online form, followed by booking a biometrics appointment at a visa application center, run by a number of outside companies to whom the job has been outsourced by the British government. Only once that is complete is the player granted a visa, and the transfer signed off by the government.Scotland’s two biggest teams, Celtic and Rangers, have the means to support some of their ambitions. Most of their Scottish rivals do not.Russell Cheyne/ReutersThough the “largely faceless” process can be smooth, according to Stuart Baird, a partner at Centrefield Law, a firm that specializes in international sports law, clubs navigating it for the first time — increasingly the case post-Brexit — have not always found it straightforward.“One of the problems is that a lot of clubs had not needed to use the Home Office sponsorship system, because previously it was only required for non-E.U. players,” he said. “Sometimes it can depend on the right people being available to help you to get the timely responses that clubs need.”The concern for many clubs in Scotland is that the current system does not appear to take into account the type of player they can afford to sign. Many of the markets Scotland’s teams have access to — in Scandinavia and the Balkans, say — are ranked in the lower bands of the Home Office’s criteria, and few of their teams compete in the later stages of European competitions.One head of recruitment at a Scottish Premiership team has, in his rare idle moments over the summer, developed a thought exercise to work out if a theoretical target might be able to accrue 15 points.So far, even in his most fanciful scenario — signing an occasional international (no points) from the Czech league (Band 4, four points), who had featured regularly (four points) in his club’s unexpected run to the later stages of the Europa League (Band 2, four points) — he has not made the math work.The lesson, to some, is straightforward: Clubs must learn to adapt to the new rules, to find recruits in places they have not always looked for them.“If we operate like we have done previously, then that will take us nowhere,” said Ross Wilson, the technical director at Rangers. “Clubs will have to build strategies around the points system.”Rangers, for example, has started to take greater interest in players in South America, realizing that while it might no longer find it easy to sign a player from a traditional market like Scandinavia, a regular Paraguayan or Venezuelan international might sail through the application process.“The world is much smaller now,” Wilson said. “There is more data available, more advanced scouting systems, more intelligence. We can access far more markets than we could previously.”Wilson said he did not believe cost should be a barrier to having a “solid infrastructure,” pointing out that clubs of all means can use third-party platforms like Wyscout and Scout7 to look for players, but the far greater resources that Rangers — and Celtic — can dedicate to scouting dwarf those of most of their competitors in the Scottish Premiership.For those clubs, the future is troubling. Burrows has noticed Scottish teams “being squeezed at both ends.” Not only is it harder to identify players from abroad who meet the visa criteria, but clubs in England’s lower leagues are increasingly shying away from importing talent, too.That has led to a “significant inflation in domestic salaries,” he said, pricing Scottish teams out of markets in the second, third or even fourth tier of English soccer. “It is simple supply and demand,” Burrows said. “Players are a kind of commodity, and those players have become infinitely more valuable.”Worse still, this may just be the start. As things stand, the exemption system that eventually allowed Motherwell to sign Ojala this summer is set to be abolished at the end of the current transfer window. If the appeal mechanism is not retained, or the planned system is not changed, then many of Scotland’s clubs may find it all but impossible to import players.“I’m hoping that in the next four or five months, between windows, we can find a solution that is not a 15 point-style system,” Burrows said. “If that remains the bar, the market will shrink beyond all recognition, and it is going to make life very difficult not just for Scottish clubs, but for teams in England, outside the Premier League.” More