What are your thoughts on the multi-club model? It seems a shame that community clubs become branches of the European elite. On the other hand, you have Bordeaux going bust, where the only real option to save the club seemed to be to fall under the ownership of Liverpool’s FSG. – Declan
It’s scandalous and should never have been allowed to get this far. Why should great clubs who have a proud history and identity – in Bordeaux’s case for well over a century, in which they’ve won six French league titles – become nurseries for bigger clubs? I don’t know what Bordeaux fans think, but certainly in the UK, I think a lot of fans would rather their club went bust and started again lower down the pyramid than lose their independence and their identity. I’m a Sunderland fan and would far rather we were playing in the sixth tier as ourselves than effectively as Manchester United’s fourth team. One of the great lies about fandom is that it’s about winning; far more important is being – and representing – who you are.
Under the presidency of Aleksander Čeferin, Uefa has become an dysfunctional body in a million different ways – which has been allowed to happen while everybody worried about the far more egregious faults of Fifa – but its failure to act on multi-club models is probably the worst. It’s a tacit acceptance of a quasi-franchise model, which may make sense in terms of generating revenue for those at the top, but is anathema to everything European football used to be and ought to be about.
The question really isn’t a short-term one about whether Bordeaux need this to survive, or even really about Bordeaux, who have been catastrophically mismanaged for years – and Gérard López, who took over in 2021, really hasn’t helped. It’s more about how football has got itself into a position where so many traditional clubs are in such dire financial straits that they think being taken over by a superclub is the only solution. Football is by far the most popular game in the world; what does that say about Uefa’s regulation that, with all the money there is sloshing about the game, so many are facing ruin?
There has been a craven failure to stand up for the game’s values, an unwillingness to fight the greed of the elite. And so now we have the absurd spectacle of Uefa granting dispensation to clubs who at least partially share ownership (Leipzig and Salzburg; Manchester City and Girona; Manchester United and Nice) to compete in the same competition, a clear attack on the integrity of the competition. And that’s before you get to potential shenanigans with financial fair play or profitability and sustainability regulations. The Brazilian forward Savinho, for instance, was signed by Troyes (majority owner: City Group) in 2023 and loaned to Girona (minority owner: City Group) for a season before this summer being sold to Manchester City (majority owner: City Group). How can anybody even begin to set a fair value for that transfer, to ensure that one club is not overpaying to help out a family member or that that family member is not giving them a cheap deal that would not be available to an outsider? It’s a mess and Uefa have allowed it to develop.
With Kylian Mbappé and Endrick joining Real Madrid, is there any hope for someone else to win the Champions League? – James
They’re both exceptional players but football is less about individuals than the team. Endrick is a central forward, but if he plays in his natural position, he occupies the space in which Jude Bellingham was so successful last season. Where will Kylian Mbappé play? If he plays on the left, as he has tended to prefer, that means no place for Vinícius Júnior, whose pace and movement on the break have been so important to their European successes. But if he plays in the centre, where does Endrick go? And what happens to Bellingham? Perhaps Madrid could switch from a base 4-3-3 to something more similar to the system played by France this summer, a 4-3-1-2, with Bellingham behind Vinícius and Mbappé, but that still means two players who naturally want to come in from the left on to their stronger right foot. Plus Mbappé is not the most diligent player out of possession which may create structural problems.
Carlo Ancelotti has proved adept through his career in managing egos and finding structures to accommodate multiple stars, but this feels like one of those signings where a great player joins a great team and makes them worse. That said, Barcelona are such a mess, Madrid should still win La Liga.
What do you think is the most pressing refereeing/rules concern heading into the new season? – Mel
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It’ll be VAR, as it always is these days. Semi-automated offside in the Premier League is a welcome addition and should both speed things up and make the decisions more accurate. But nobody yet has managed to find a workable definition of handball now that everything can be seen and replayed, and the confusion over when catching a player in the follow-through is a foul (see Denzel Dumfries on Harry Kane for England’s penalty against the Netherlands) is only getting worse.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition