By Paul Nicholson
May 24 – Liverpool will play FC Barcelona at London’s Wembley Stadium the weekend before the start of the 2016/17 season on August 6, as part of the International Champions Cup (ICC) that is being played mainly in the US but also in four European cities – Dublin, Glasgow, London and Stockholm.
The ICC is an eclectic format that has built around facilitating money-making pre-season friendlies and tours for some of Europe’s biggest club. In its fourth season its club line-up is impressive, uneven if the tournament format lacks the cohesion of an officially recognised club competition.
If Europe’s clubs were looking to for a breakaway to UEFA’s Champions League then this could prove to be the starting point. Certainly it is a pressure point that UEFA will be looking at closely.
While the main ICC tournament has 10 teams competing in the US and Europe (titled ICC North America), from July 23 – August 13, the organisers, have also established a grip on other continents this year with standalone tournaments in both China and Australia.
Clubs participating in the Australia are Juventus., Tottenham Hotspur, Atletico de Madrid and Melbourne Victory. While in China Manchester United and Manchester City, playing the first Manchester derby to be held outside of England, with both team under their new coaches Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. They will also play Borussia Dortmund.
The format for the North America version will see each team play three matches with the club with the most points at the end of the tournament being crowned champion. One innovation of the tournament is drawn matches will go straight to a penalty shootout with the winning team receiving two points and the losing team one.
The 10 clubs in the ICC North America tournament mainly come from Europe’s Big 5 leagues: Premier League (Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester City), Serie A (AC Milan, Inter Milan), Ligue 1 (Paris Saint-Germain), La Liga (Barcelona, Real Madrid), Bundlesliga (Bayern Munich). Scottish giants Celtic make up the full list. No MLS teams are included, though the US domestic league is being played at the same time.
The PR promotion for the tournament boasts: “The ten participating teams have won a total of 190 domestic league titles, 246 domestic cup titles and 36 UEFA Champions League titles. The teams feature 18 of the 2015-2016 FIFA Ballon d’Or nominees, as well as 50 of the top 100 players in the world as chosen yearly by English magazine FourFourTwo.”
No figures have been released of how much participating clubs will earn or how the revenues will be split, but organisers Relevent Sports have sold sponsorship with the tournament being ‘presented by Heineken’ while the Wembley game between Liverpool and Barca is tagged as being ‘Connected by EE’.
That Liverpool should agree to play Barcelona at Wembley rather than as one of the opening matches of their newly extended Anfield Stadium talks more to the power of the commercial opportunity than perhaps the integrity of the competition in what is still pre-season for Europe’s clubs.
The sporting integrity will be tested by the competitiveness of the matches played. Though the gathering of so many big and proud clubs in one competition will undoubtedly focus fan attention worldwide.
Charlie Stillitano, chairman of Relevent Sports, said: “Barcelona and Liverpool are two of the biggest football clubs in the world. The ability to have these two powerhouse clubs compete is what the ICC is all about and truly an honour. Bringing these clubs and the ICC to Wembley Stadium is an incredible mark of the growth of tournament in only four years.”
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