Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Jamie Rudd. European football has drawn a line
in the grass and FIFA is standing on the other
side of it. UEFA's fifty five member associations have voted
to boycott all FIFA competitions if Jianni Infantino's plan to
bring private investors into FIFA's competitions goes ahead. That means
the dispute is no longer a statement, a leaked letter,
or a disagreement behind closed doors. UEFA is threatening to
walk away from the Men's and Women's World Cups, the
Club World Cup and every other FIFA competition covered by
its position. The reason is FIFA's proposal to create a
commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise and allow outside investors
to buy minority, non controlling stakes connected to FIFA's biggest events.
FIFA says the plan would unlock more money for development.
UEFA's answer is that the World Cup is not an
investment product. Its statement put the argument in blunt terms.
The World Cup is not for sale. That is the
sentence to remember here, because this is not just about accounting.
It is about ownership, influence and whether the people financing
the tournament eventually get a meaningful say in the way
football's biggest event is packaged and sold. The proposal needs
approval from FIFA's two eleven member associations. UEFA's fifty five
votes are not enough by themselves to block it, but
they are a huge political warning. CONQUERCAFF, representing forty one
associations in North and Central America and the Caribbean, has
also said its members rejected the proposal and objected to
what it called a lack of due process and an
artificially short deadline. The Asian Football Confederation has raised similar
concerns about the way FIFA handled the plan. That is
a remarkable coalition forming around the same complaint. The money
may be attractive, but the process has not been transparent
enough and the stakes are too high to rush. The
first serious test could arrive as early as the Women's
World Cup qualifying calendar. UEFA's position is supposed to apply
until the investment plan is abandoned, so this is not
an empty threat aimed at some distant tournament. It could
affect competitions in the near future, including women's football, which
should not be treated as a convenient bargaining chip in
a fight between administrators, and that is the uncomfortable part
of this story. Players and supporters built the value of
these competitions over generations. FIFA controls the tournaments, but it
did not create their meaning by itself. The World Cup
belongs to the teams that qualify, the countries that host it,
and the people who fill the stadiums and watch from
everywhere else. If Infantino's plan goes to a vote, UEFA
has already told the world what it will do if
it loses. Now, a sad and very different story football
has lost Franco Barezi at the age of sixty six.
Barezi was not simply a great defender. He was one
of the players who changed the way a defender could
control a match. He spent his entire senior career with
AC Milan, twenty seasons, seven hundred and nineteen official appearances,
and a level of authority that made the position look
like a command post. He captained Milan through the club's
great era under Arrigo Sacchi and Fabio Capello. Six Sera
AR titles, three European Cups, two Intercontinental Cups, four Italian
Super Cups. AC Milan retired his number six shirt, and
that tells you what the club believed he represented. Barezi's
greatness was not about being loud. It was about reading
the danger before it became danger. He could step forward,
organize the line, win the ball and start the next
attack before the opponent had processed what had happened. For
a generation of defenders, the lesson was simple. Defending was
not just about surviving, It was about taking control. Ac
Milan said their former cap had died at sixty six.
The tributes are going to focus on the trophies, and
they should, but the lasting memory is the elegance Barisi
made discipline look like artistry. Now to the pitch, where
Chelsea opened their Sydney Super Cup campaign with a ridiculous
six In this sanem At four win over Western Sydney Wanderers.
It was not a cautious preseason exercise. It was a shootout.
Chelsea's goals came from Dustan Satpaiev, Dario Esugo, Jamie Gittens
and jo O Pedro, who scored a hat trick in
a nine minute burst. That is the kind of cameo
that turns a friendly into a headline. Jacques al Pedro
did not simply find the net once and settle into
the rhythm of the match he took over a stretch
of it completely. The warning is obvious. Chelsea scored six,
but they conceded four in preseason. The result is not
the whole story. Are testing combinations, players are building fitness
and defensive structure can be a work in progress, but
conceding four still tells us something. Chelsea may be entertaining quickly,
but they are not yet giving their manager a calm afternoon.
The next Sydney Super Cup question is Chelsea against Tottenham.
Chelsea will want another attacking performance, but they will also
want a much cleaner defensive one. Tottenham, with their own
new ideas and their own need to build rhythm, should
provide a better test of whether Chelsea's movement can survive
against a more familiar level of pressure. That is the
pre season story worth watching, not whether either team lifts
a friendly trophy, but which parts of the new ideas
look repeatable when the opponent is Premier League quality. And
then there is rod Ree. Real Madrid's interest in the
Manchester City midfielder remains one of the summer's biggest transfer stories,
but the latest reports do not describe a completed deal.
Sky Sports reports that Madrid are expected to make a
bid after prolonged interest. Other reports say the club has
paused the pursuit while it deals with other priorities. So
the accurate version is also the most interesting one. Real
Madrid want Rodri, but there is no transfer to announce.
For Manchester City, the calculation is obvious. Rodri is one
of the most important midfielders in the world and losing
him would change the team's entire balance. For Madrid, the
calculation is about timing, cost and whether the right player
is available at the right moment. Until there is a bid,
an agreement, and a medical, this is a pressure story,
not a done deal. In American soccer, Lionel Messi is
back in into Miami training after Argentina's World Cup final
against Spain. ESPN has reported, citing sources, that Messi and
Rodrigo de Pol were expected to sit out Miami's next
two matches while they recovered from their World Cup involvement.
The important update is that Messi has returned to training.
The important caution is that training is not the same
thing as being ready to play. Miami will need to
manage the transition carefully. Messi's presence changes the team, but
the club also has to think beyond one match and
make sure its biggest player is actually ready to return
at full speed. And that is the day in soccer,
UEFA threatening a FIFA boycott over the proposed private investment structure,
the loss of Franco Barezi, six goals for Chelsea in Sydney,
and a transfer story about Rodriy that remains unfinished. For
the Messi Effect, I'm Jamie Rudd. Quick note This show
is produced with the help of AI