One of the living legends of the Barcelona Football Club, Gerard Piqué, retired from professional football since November 2022completely converted his image to that of the businessman’s world and in a recent interview he had strong statements for what the Spaniard considers will become the present and the future of football worldwide.
The 37-year-old former central defender who achieved sporting glory by having won everything as captain of the Barcelona Football Clubin addition to a World Cup and a European Championship as a member of the Spanish national team, expressed his dissatisfaction with some aspects of football and his statements were such that they went viral through social networks.
Creating a new project
“One of the reasons we started the Kings League is because my kids watch a soccer game and after ten minutes They are on their phones watching something else. Football competes with Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok. Football for 90 minutes is not so exciting anymore. Clubs will pay fans to go to the stadium, because the experience at home, in pajamas, is even better than going to the stadium,” he said in an interview with The Times.
In order to make his position clear and also argue for it, Piqué commented that “we have to find ways to score more goals or ensure that a match does not end in a draw. Football is afraid of change. It has a huge history, it is very traditional, but change will come, it must come. “A 90-minute match that can end 0-0 is very difficult for the new generation to understand.”
Can’t watch Barcelona games completely
Likewise, he confessed that to this day he has not finished watching a complete Barcelona game.: “I can watch Barcelona-Naples, for example, some important Champions League match, but the twenty-fifth match in a league? I do not see it. Some from Barcelona, when I can, but I don’t watch 90 minutes, maybe 30 or 40 minutes. It is a trend, it is happening, it is unstoppable and we are going to have to adapt.”
Also, Gerard commented on variants that can be applied in sport: “People choose what they want to see and those are only the important games. You can’t stop technology. The other day I put on virtual reality glasses. I was in my pajamas at home, ready to go to sleep, and I watched an NBA game from the court. Every year these products improve. There will be a moment when you put these glasses on and it will be the same as being in the stadium, except you can say: ‘Now I want to sit next to Xavi! Now I want to look from behind the lens!’”
“You have to understand where football is going, where entertainment is going. and combine them so that people remain attached to football,” concluded the former player who also played for Zaragoza in Spain and Manchester United in the Premier League.
The Kings League
Once the time came to end his career as an active player, Piqué dedicated himself full time to his role as a businessman. and together with the Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos, they founded the famous and quite followed Kings League, the Soccer 7 tournament that features former players who at the time were various figures on teams around the world.
Each game time lasts 20 minutesthere are no matches that can end in a tie and if regular time ends tied, it will be defined through a shootout from the penalty spot.
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