🏟️ United's new stadium

Plus: sin bins... the yellow card's big brother

February 07, 2024

GM football fans. Route One here, your daily dose of football medicine that tastes just like strawberry Calpol. Yum.

Today’s briefing is a ~4 min read:

  1. United’s new stadium 🏟️

  2. Around the world: Hong Kong fans furious about Messi 😬

  3. Sin bins… the yellow card’s big brother 🟨

Morning Brief 🗞️

Mauricio Pochettino and Thiago Silva held crisis talks after the former’s wife Tweeted calling for the Chelsea boss to be sacked.

Liverpool have been told to expect a “massive new offer” for Mohamed Salah in the coming months from Al-Ittihad, according to Teamtalk.

Premier League clubs are meeting later this week to discuss replacing Profit and Sustainability Rules with new financial fair play regulations.

Son Heung-min apologises to South Korea fans after his side suffered a shock elimination from the Asian Cup at the hands of Jordan.

UNITED’S NEW STADIUM 🏟️

Picture this…you’re sitting on a mountain of cash.

$20.6 billion to be exact.

Your boyhood club is in tatters. So you do exactly what 10-year-old you would do.

Like Tony Stark, you suit up to save the day…in other words, you buy a large stake in the poorly-run club.

You bring in a few good hires. A sporting director. A couple of new investment bankers. Results start to improve. You sit back, relax and…

“Ahh. Bliss.”

But there’s still so much more to do.

Now you turn your attention to the next biggest problem: the stadium.

Well, this is Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s life and he wants to create the “Wembley of the North”… 

Source: The Telegraph

What is the Wembley of the North and how is United going to do it?

  • SJR wants the North of England to have a world-class venue to rival London’s 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium.

  • As it stands, Old Trafford is rotting… around 25% of it is empty or unused. Eesh.

  • Expanding the current 74k capacity stadium could cost at least £800m, while a whole new ground could cost between £1.5-2b.

  • United are exploring options to attract Government funds under the “levelling up” initiative

Right now, United are weighing up their options. It’s unlikely there’ll be much movement on this project for a while…

… but things are looking better for United fans.

AROUND THE WORLD 🌍

🇸🇦 Al-Nassr and Adidas announce a 3-year sportswear deal, replacing the previous sponsors Nike. At the same time, Nike is no longer Portugal’s kit sponsor. Maybe a bit awkward for CR7?

🇮🇹 Italy’s top flight will be known as the Serie A Enilive from the 2024-25 season. Enilive has secured title sponsorship rights to the Seria A, ending a longstanding partnership with telecommunications giants TIM.

🇪🇸 Sevilla winger Lucas Ocampos had a nasty surprise when a fan poked his backside as he prepared to take a throw-in. The winger has asked La Liga to take action against the Rayo Vallecano fan.

🇬🇭 The Ghana FA is trying to persuade Manchester United midfielder Kobbie Mainoo to ditch England and represent the African nation instead.

🇨🇳 Fans in Hong Kong were furious that Lionel Messi was left on the bench for a friendly, with many fans asking for a refund on their tickets. Messi released a statement yesterday which said that “it was a shame because I always wanted to participate… but the truth is that it is a game that I was not able to participate.” Riveting stuff.

Sin Bins: Yellow Card's Big Brother 🟨

Sin bins are coming to a football match near you.

Trials for a ten-minute sin bin are set to be approved for use at next season’s FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup.

The sin bin aims to tackle player dissent, which has shown to be a great success in grassroots trials.

But… The FA want to test it on another area of the game that we’d rather them not:

Tactical fouls. AKA one of the last remaining dark arts.

This would have been a sin bin.

We can only speak for ourselves but it feels like the latest rules and technology introductions aim to add fairness but take away fun. Hear us out:

  • VAR stops europhic goal celebrations. Less spontaneity = less fun.

  • Five substitutes mean no more running out of substitutes and leaving ten men to hang on for victory with every ounce of energy they have. Less drama = less fun.

  • Sin bins mean no more wondering classic, “Is he gonna get a booking for that?” after a classic Chiellini moment (shown above). Less ambiguity = less fun.

And worst of all… 10 v 11 for ten minutes after a sin bin means attack vs defence training every time someone makes a tactical foul. Boooo!

In conclusion…

Sin bins for dissent → hell yeah!

Sin bins for tactical fouls → yawn…

EXTRA-TIME ⏱️

Football fan bases all have their quirks. Do you think this guy is spot on with his view on each fan base or is he off the mark?

Roy Keane gets a lot of credit for his leadership ability on and off the pitch. But let’s not forget how good of a passer he was… and tackler.

Kalvin Phillips might have put on a few pounds while sitting on the City bench. And the Man United fans did a good job of reminding him of that.

It’s safe to say that James from Gunner Blog doesn’t like Chris Sutton. His rant on the Arseblog podcast is one to remember.

MEME 😆

R1 REFERRAL