Vinicius move will be driven by Roc Nation

Arsenal signing Vinicius Jnr might sound fanciful but it’s what his agents will want now. Plus, are Liverpool cooked?

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Why Vinicius to Arsenal might happen

Let us rewind to the summer of 2018. Vinicius Junior has just turned 18 and is a generational talent with the potential to be one of the best footballers in the world. He has the pick of any club on planet earth, and naturally he picks Real Madrid. Over the next six years he wins La Liga three times and the Champions League twice.

In 2024 he has just won La Liga and the Champions League double, he is Real Madrid’s top scorer, star player and comes 2nd in the Ballon d’Or having finished 6th the season before in the Ballon d’Or and 8th in the Ballon d’Or the season before that. He is without doubt one of the planet’s super star footballers and the main man at the most historic, and at that moment, best club in world football. Then what happens?

Kylian Mbappe is signed by Real Madrid. Vinicius Junior, through no fault of his own is no longer the main man. Adjustments need to be made in the final third of the team to integrate Mbappe into the system. Real Madrid win nothing in the next two seasons and Vinicius Junior’s goals/assists output reduces. How do Roc Nation feel about their star client and most prestigious asset? Do they feel his club has let him down? Do they feel his club is managing his career in the best possible way?

With a year left on his contract it would be logical for Roc Nation to enter negotiations with Real Madrid from the position of “our client has done more for your club over the last 8 years than Mbappe and we think our client should be on parity with Mbappe financially”. Anything less than agreement from Real Madrid is likely to be considered inappropriate. This, it appears is where they are right now. Feeling under appreciated.

Along come another club. Champions of the Premier League. A league with more financial power than any league in the world. A club that eliminated Vinicius Junior from the Champions League 5 v 1 on aggregate the season before last. A club that were a whisker away from winning the Champions League last season. A club that have progressed further than Real Madrid in the Champions League the last two seasons. A club that wants to make Vinicius Junior the main man and the poster boy. A club that will offer a financial package to prove that. An offer that is superior to the one on offer at Real Madrid. A club where you have mates from your national team encouraging you to join them.

Finally, do Roc Nation stand to benefit more financially by securing a mega transfer to Arsenal or by securing a contract extension at Real Madrid? When you consider all of the above, it is easy to see the plausibility of this transfer happening. I’m not saying it will. But it bloody well could.

Naz, Gooner

READ: Five reasons for Vinicius Junior to join Arsenal rather than stay at Real Madrid

Has the transfer window shut for Liverpool?

As I watch other competitor clubs go on and sign their targets, the LFC limbo in the last few weeks have genuinely dampened my expectations for this coming season.

We just conceded 4 goals in the SH to Leeds; slice it anyway; the bottom line is that we’re alarmingly short of squad depth and apparently we have only one person handling our transfer business because all I am hearing is ‘Barcola could happen’ since weeks.

A new inexperienced yet exciting manager is a plus (Gods we suffered under Arne) but a disclaimer to my fellow LFC fans, if we are entering the season with the current squad we’ll be batting and I mean BATTLING for a top 4 finish and let’s forget the conversation of trophies.

Every other direct rival has strengthened and prepare for the mockery when we’ll be getting beaten my mid-table teams and battered by those fighting for the top prizes.

It hurts me to even say these words out loud but the people responsible for getting players in are setting the manager, the team and the fans for a mediocre season; This shouldn’t be allowed given the status Klopp left the club in; horrible management.

Anyway, not going to be shocked if I read news that we botched up essential transfers on deadline day to save 50 grand.

Disappointing.

M.Nair. Mumbai. LFC

Why don’t clubs refuse on Man City grounds?

With Chelsea’s latest transfer fine it got me thinking…

Why don’t clubs just refuse to accept any fines or sanctions based solely on the fact that Man City are still not being accountable for the 427 infringements they have outstanding for the last however many years?

There seems to be one set of rules for City and another set for the others.

Make City accountable or drop all the charges but just get it done FFS.

Jon, Cape Town

The future of football

I am loving the emails coming in to express outrage at FIFA’s latest moves and the grudgingly applause given to UEFA for its reaction.

All well and good.

So where to now?

As several people have said, Europe holds many cards – perhaps not all but not far. We have the biggest clubs, the richest leagues, we are where football makes most of its money. FIFA is rich because of Europe.

However, Europe in this sense is not necessarily what we think: it is not a harmonised union of all its national federations. European clubs are the richest. Its club leagues by extension. The English FA is rich because of City, Arsenal, United etc. Europe is rich because of Real Madrid, Barca, Bayern, PSG, Milan et all.

Think of all the star players, they are all owned really by the clubs. There is no comparison between what Mbappé and Bellingham earn from Real than what they get from playing for France and England. If the clubs want to flex their muscle and restrict or limit the availability of players to their countries, they can. And they will. Threaten them with fines, expulsion? They’ll create their own competitions.

So the real war is between FIFA and the European clubs. Those are the 2 big sides. UEFA itself is already struggling to contain the clubs, so really UEFA is a paper tiger, a mere mouthpiece of the biggest European clubs. What we will ultimately be witnessing is Infantino/Trump/Kuchner vs QSI/Silver Lake/Florentino Perez/Redbird Capital, respective owners of PSG/City/Real/Milan.

Those owners have already put their own expansion plans in place: many own teams in many leagues. Chelsea and City already own French, Italian, Spanish and Australian clubs. This expansion is only beginning. FIFA is going to war against very powerful entities.

It’s a fight that FIFA will not win. And they might realise it soon and instead, work with the clubs to create monster senseless competitions like the Club World Cup and others.

A brave new world indeed.

Mike, CFC

…Adidasmufc email had me thinking: he suggested that UEFA might counter FIFA plans by breaking away and that the Euros is a massive competition, only missing a few powerhouses like Brazil and Argentina.

What UEFA could do is augment the Euros by adding a few “invitational” spaces and inviting Brazil, Argentina and maybe a couple of others like Japan and Morocco to the Euros. Now that pretty much creates a world cup in all but name (sorry Uruguay and Mexico). There. Job done. FIFA would have nothing left.

Mike, CFC

Infantino as a failed Bernie Ecclestone

After recently listening to the excellent Acquired podcast episode on Formula 1, it struck me that Gianni Infantino seems to have reached into the Bernie Ecclestone playbook in trying to sell off the World Cup.

According to the podcast, Bernie Ecclestone first showed his value at driving commercial revenue for F1 through his influence on the Formula One Constructors’ Association, formed in 1974; prior, each team had negotiated e.g. race fees separately. He recognised they would earn far more acting collectively and thus became the architect of this strategy. In 1981, he also became a dominant figure in centralised TV rights negotiations. After Bernie’s involvement, the collective revenues went up dramatically.

He thereafter created Formula One Promotions and Administration to formally manage TV rights, promotor fees and revenue distribution, with control gradually shifting from the teams to Ecclestone’s company. Generally, the relationship seemed a mutually-beneficial one, with overall income well up and Bernie walking home with sacks full of cash.

Its easy to see the parallels with Infantino and his recent activity – expanding the Club World Cup and World Cup, finally implementing additional ad breaks, rocketing ticket prices – to demonstrate primarily to the smaller footballing nations that he can deliver them much broader revenue and therefore should have his own commercial asset to continue driving this. This culminated in his “solidarity payments”, which I’ll leave up to interpretation.

However, he failed in my view for three reasons:

First, Bernie transformed Formula One from a collection of loosely coordinated races into a commercially coherent championship. Before his involvement, apparently race promotors could not even guarantee that all the teams would turn up to all races. He brought a little more professionalism to drive a more legitimate competition, including guaranteeing all teams at all races, and effectively created a commercial market where before there wasn’t much of one. Therefore he did hold quite a considerable balance of power. Fifa, however, only gets its authority from the member federations and football associations. His calculation was probably that enough smaller footballing nations would support him due to their relatively significant increased revenue that he could still get a majority without the support of England, France and the like. Obviously this failed because the balance of power was not where Infantino thought it was.

Second, Formula One in its current form takes hundreds of millions of pounds of spend to survive. Without such commercialisation, there would not be enough money to fund the car development and carting the product around the globe. Football, in comparison, can be played with a £1 floater – when my school ridiculously banned footballs and even tennis balls in the schoolyard on safety grounds, we even played football with bits of stick or caps off Panda Pop bottles. Football does not need anything like as much commercialisation to survive as a sport.

Thirdly, even though it doesn’t need it as much, football is pretty damn good at generating revenue. It was fine before Infantino and it will be fine after Infantino. A Bernie Ecclestone-style figure and his ability to create an entirely new market for the sport is not necessary.

I say none of this to cast shade on Formula One – I enjoy it too and have been to a few races – but it is a fundamentally different competition that probably benefits from private capital and its ability to drive commercialisation. And the era of private ownership has coincided with major improvements in areas like driver safety and sustainability to name just two. But it is a good proxy for what we could have expected of football had Infantino been allowed to proceed. On pitch advertising. World cup coverage behind paywalls. Continual rule tweaks for a more entertaining product. If we can have two hydration breaks per game, why not four?

So we can be super thankful for his miscalculation, and even more thankful he won’t be laughing his way home with our cash in his pockets.

Rick, Zurich

The Ultimate PL 26/27 Preview – Totally Free!

Hello everyone, here it isn’t, but please take delight in reading my season preview, as things stand!

1. Arsenal – I always pick Arsenal and I was right last time, so I’ll stick rather than twist. Tzolis might be excellent. I noticed him a while ago. Gyokeres might/can only improve in front of goal and I think he will. Dowman is tipped to be the man – and it’ll help that he’ll definitely become a man in the relatively near future. Good luck on your GCSEs, mate. You get the feeling a marquee signing is on its way. If not two. Vinicius? That would be huge. Bruno? That would potentially be huger.

2. Chelsea – I said Rogers was a player of extremely high potential in January 2025 and I was laughed out of town. It didn’t matter because I was already out of town. In my ‘hope for England’ mental file, Rogers and a rested Cole Palmer hitting it off is a promising possibility for both Chelsea and England. Alonso is a fascinating manager and they’ve bought Emegha from Strasbourg who may prove to be an emerging star. I lose track of how many others they’ve bought, but they have signed Mark Gym AKA Marco Palestra.

3. Man Utd – Champions League consolidation. Sesko to continue to grow. Not literally. Though that would be fun. Tielemans is a top player and Santos is interesting. A fixed midfield would be a massive step forward and I believe Carrick has strength in developing players, as we saw at Boro with the wonderful Hayden Hackney. Mainoo can come good. Heaven is a player on Earth. And he might even make a push for an England place. ‘Hope for England’ file referred to again.

4. Man City – Haaland usually starts off on fire and ‘fades’ to just regular excellent striker output as the season progresses. How he’ll manage the season’s start after looking exhausted and injured at the end of the quarter-final is anyone’s guess. He’s certainly been on Instagram a lot! Still, twenty goals are guaranteed one way or another. On the basis that Rodri might well be off to Madrid and Pep is gone already, I say fourth.

5. Tottenham – it’s hard to integrate lots of players at once, but at least de Zerbi has experience with millions of players no one had ever heard of at Brighton. He must’ve barely got names. And at least the new players have Premier League knowhow and are generally bloody brilliant. Get a striker though. Maddison, the forgotten man, returns. Big jumpers.

6. Liverpool – they’ve got a nice new Jacquet. Van Dijk will continue to decline. Salah is salad. Some Benitez era Spanish re-gen signed. Wirtz has shown flashes but isn’t all that. Isak should shed his Isuk persona and come good. EkitikE will be fit and ready. But it does seem a bit over. They don’t even have the late winner left back anymore, gone like the greatest right back passer of all time.

7. Aston Villa – two key players out, two exciting players in. It won’t be as good, but Man Like Zambi caught my eye early on in the World Cup and I hope they’ve bought the right Gomes from Wolves. It just seems to me that Tottenham have bought the players they should’ve bought. I’d have had the midfielder below to replace Tielemans. Onana is out for how long? I like that guy.

8. Everton – and here he is. Good luck to the Middlesbrough Modric, Hayden Hackney. I really hope he galvanises Everton’s midfield and eventually plays for England. The first is very possible, the second is aspirational. Tarkowski and Keane have been around since the Stone Age. Will Tim Iroegbunam still wear white trousers to play? Ndiaye is an important forward who could and will move on. When, though? And to who???

9. Brighton – shiny new players. As usual I’ve never heard of any of them. But I trust them. And they trust me. But who? Costinha? Costinha arm and a leg? Zohanna? A Spurs centre back who they loaned out during last season’s abomination of a season? It’s always fun. Ninth might be a bit high, though. But they do well, don’t they? And no one below justifies ninth. Have it.

10. Crystal Palace – It might go more Southampton than Brighton if they keep selling everyone Volume 1. And they’ve got a new manager. Sarr is bloody good. Mateta is too. Strand Larsen is a donkey of high pedigree. They’ll Palace their way to safety. Wharton seems to be staying but that could change. Tenth seems very high but I’m not copying and pasting. No sir, not after previously losing Leeds.

11. Nottingham Forest – Anderson-lite but Anderson riches might contribute to quite a few more signings so you’d expect them to be okay. Does Gibbs-White want to stay having had that season and not gained a place at the World Cup. Who will they sign? Forest are the new Fulham. European flourishes then mid-table for like forever.

12. Bournemouth – Senesi, Semenyo, all of the others. Gone. Will Kroupi follow? It might go more Southampton than Brighton if they keep selling everyone Volume 2. And they’ve got one of these new managers whose name you only learn when they get sacked. See: Newcastle. Alex Scott to shine, wherever he is, if injury free. Sign some players, guys.

13. Newcastle – some new players, I don’t know about shiny. In fact, I don’t know any of them. I trust they will be good enough but there could be problems if Bruno goes. Brighton manage to change players well, but a Howeless Newcastle might struggle. Who is the manager again? I’m all for Eddie Howe to England. I like Tuchel but his touch line rave behaviour is too much. Part of me wants to copy and paste Newcastle to eighteenth. Too much effort.

14. Sunderland – I said they’d stay up. Now I’ll say they’ll struggle but not go down. A third third of the season flourish. Why is no one going in for Enzo Le Fée? Is it the transfer fée? Xhaka is very important and must stay fit. Not to be taken for Granit. They do have good players but there’s Europe to consider. It could be tougher than fourteenth. But I do think signings will follow.

15. Brentford – Thiago is one to watch again. This time for second season reasons. Sixteen goals here and he’ll fire them to safety. But can he keep doing it? Kayode is a good full back. They are due a season in which they struggle. This could be it. I’m a bit bored of Brentford to be honest and I hope they fail to meet my expectations.

16. Fulham – new players may be coming from Madrid and a lot may depend on them. They always seem organised enough to do enough to not be in trouble. They really need a striker without Jimi. Even some wingers. Kevin sounds like someone who turns up for 5 a side once in a while. Oscar Bobb is like a FIFA ‘94 player brought to life.

17. Leeds – they’ve bought a player with a long name from Italy. They are goal-dependent on another player with a long name. If Dominic Calvert-Lewin stops scoring, it could be a lot of trouble. Still, they have some good players. The midfielder? What’s his name? Stach. I checked. He’s good but, otherwise, they don’t look stacked with many other humdingers.

18. Ipswich – I want someone newish to stay up each season. It would be too much Lamps Love from the press if it was Coventry. Can’t have that. He’ll be jettisoned to England manager or PM. Meanwhile, Hull, having had the audacity to beat Boro in the playoff final, can suffer. Ipswich are on their way to buying a new team so, in theory, it could happen. But it won’t. Last season was anomalous with two staying up.

19. Coventry – I want Boro to loan Norman Bassette. A) Having a player called Norman could be fun and B) he looked quite good in flashes a few years ago. It is going to be tough for Cov. They weren’t amazing in the second half of the season in the Championship and can’t defend very well. Buying unknown Burnley players won’t keep you up.

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