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Miami FC’s Silva beginning process to create ‘Americas Champions League’

Miami FC owners

 

By RYAN TOLMICH

Having worked with AC Milan since 2001, Riccardo Silva understands the glamour of Champions League soccer.

Now, the Miami FC owner is spearheading a project to bring that glamour to the Americas.

Silva, president and founding partner of media rights firm MP & Silva, revealed to SBI on Wednesday that there are wheels spinning on a potential “Americas Champions League”, a competition that would feature the best teams from North, Central and South America.

With MP & Silva, the Miami FC owner has a portfolio that includes the 2014  World Cup, Serie A, Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga among its more than 50 sports properties. Silva is now hoping to expand into the Americas, while hopefully creating the area’s premier club competition.

“With my company, MP & Silva, we have started the possibility to launch an Americas Champions League, with all of the teams playing from all the continents of America,” Silva told SBI. “Like the European Champions League, but with teams coming from South, Central and North America.

“For the U.S. teams, being able to compete in an official competition with some of the best teams in the world in Argentina and Brazil – they are some of thee best teams in the world – then it could be really something comparable to the European UEFA Champions League. I think it could really upgrade the level and the interest and the financial point of view of soccer in the U.S. I hope we will head in that direction.”

Currently, U.S. and Canadian teams feature in the CONCACAF Champions League, a tournament that features 24 teams from North America, Central America and the Carribean.

Meanwhile, South America boasts the Copa Libertadores, a competition that features South American sides along with those of Mexico.

For years, travel has been seen as a complication in uniting the two, but Silva says that precautionary measures are already being put in place to ensure teams are not worn down in the trips across continents. The plan would see teams travel cross-continent no more than two or three times each year, helping to ease the load of thousands of miles of flights.

With travel accounted for, Silva says that the next step is getting clubs on board, something that M&P Silva has begun. Having approached numerous South American clubs, Silva says that he is hoping to generate a field to match that of the UEFA Champions League while also offering comparable prize money to participants.

“We are analyzing this, working with some of the top South American clubs who are very interested in this and so we look forward to presenting the project,” Silva said. “Each team will get $5 million to participate while the prize money will be closer to the European Champions League. It will be $5 million to the participating clubs to $30 million to the winner, so something very close to the European Champions League.

“We are starting this and we think it will be feasible. We will see.”

For now, the project remains in development, as Silva says there is still more to be done in terms of working out details.

As such, Silva says there is no current time set in terms of start date, although the Italian expects the idea to prove a lasting one.

“We don’t have any timetable. We just work with the teams, and for the teams, in order to increase their revenue,” Silva said. ” In order to increase their exposure and brand of reach and when everything will be ready, we will see when it will be.

“It will probably take time, no problem, because it lets us be better and do things very carefully. We are not in a rush and I think, sooner or later, it will happen.”

Comments

  1. CONS:

    Regular season schedule conflicts

    Rostering eligibility

    Opposite climate seasons

    Insurance and player apperance contracts

    Potential media and sponsor corruption

    PROS:

    Comment noise of online articles

    Thanks, but no.

    Reply
  2. I must be missing something here. Owners of a NASL team are pushing this? A division 2 team wouldn’t even qualify if we are taking about a competition among the best teams in the Americas.

    Great idea to me to try to get a champions league format that is somewhat as prestigious as UCL. But, I’m somewhat baffled that a NASL team is pushing for it as it’s a head-scratcher to see how division 2 teams would gain entrance to the tournament.

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  3. If there is a way for this to be done properly, then I’m all for it. You have to take care of the travel, make it fit within everyone’s schedule, and of course the incentive has to be enticing enough to warrant participation. It’s not like he’s trying to start this thing next year or something. I hope they can develop this into something worthwhile over time…

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  4. Stupid proposal. The tournament will have to be short. 4 top teams from the Concacaf CL, 4 top teams from the Libertadores. Mix them up into two groups of 4. Top 2 teams of each group go into the knockouts which would be a semifinal. Loser of those two semifinal games plays in a 3rd place match, the winning 2 play in the final. Done. Only 2-3 flights required. Monetary reward of roughly 5-10 million and a guaranteed spot in the CCL or Libertadores for next year if a club makes it to the knockout round should be enough incentive. But don’t replace the CCL or the Libertadores. No one really cares about the CCL but people care about Libertadores (well, at least the sudacas).

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  5. Pretty funny when alleged fans of the world’s game are afraid of international club competition. Seems all the best SA players go to Europe to get paid, so it’s not farfetched to envision MLS and Liga MX holding their own against Boca, Corinthians, etc.

    One could also imagine any of these teams’ FO being at least as interested in picking up a cool $30 million as in insisting on refusing to evolve. (That, and it’s another means for Venezuela to try to stick it to the great cspitalist Satan USA. Everybody wins!)

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    • Sudacas are delusional if they think their teams are untouchable. They’re talented clubs in south america but the gap between MLS/Liga MX and Brazileirao/Argentine leagues is much smaller than the gap between, say MLS and the Premier League.

      While I’m not a fan of liga MX, they just had a club reach the Libertardores final and although they lost 3-0 in the second leg, it was mostly due to horrible ref bias for River since Conmebol wouldn’t want a Mexican team to win the Libertardores over one of their own.

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  6. What if for when teams that are more than 2000 miles apart and in a different country you play some where in the middle ..neutral location. NYCFC vs Boca Jr’s in Miami.

    Would that work?

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  7. I really think the Pan-Am concept is a good one for both domestic and international competitions. The 2016 Copa American, while billed as a one time thing, is almost certainly going to be successful and compel the organizers to make it a regular thing (if every four years can be considered regular).

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  8. Can anyone really take these guys seriously with this photoshop job? I mean, they are still tremendously ugly even after they budgeted a graphic designer to improve aesthetics.

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  9. As people have noted, travel makes this a ridiculous proposal, no way you have a Canadian team flying to Brazil/Argentina and back. The travel between US/Canada and southern South America is just brutal.

    Also, scheduling…so are we getting rid of the CONCACAF CL and Libertadores? If not, how the heck are you fitting this into an already crowded calendar – unless it is hosted in one place and is a “Brahma International Champions Cup” glorified pre-season tournament?

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    • probably how LIGA MX does it.

      League performers go to Libertadores

      Playoff performers go to CONCACAF Champions league

      or whatever MLS wants prioritize .

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  10. Why stop there? Europe is closer. Merge with that our Champions League too!

    I realize this guy needs money and some don’t like CONCACAF. That is their problems though, not mine.

    For the smart ones, Sounders play in a great CCL game tonight. Be there, it will be great weather and unlike LA, our field will still be green ( ish ).

    Enjoy.

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  11. Please leave our Libertadores alone just like it is . this is a tournament that is even older than the European Ch league which started in the 90’s? lets not mix things and ruin the quality and tradition..in fact lets do away with the Mexican teams too!! why did they even start having Mexican teams …its all about money right? we the SA fans don’t care about Mexican or US money . and much less for their style of play The level of play will clearly go down, Silva; listen to me …no thanks

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    • While the fans might not care about “US” money, most teams will. There is a limited revenue stream in SA, so if there is a new investment coming from foreigners, I,m sure they’ll gladly take it. I don’t think the level of play will go down when you have peruvian and bolivian teams already playing in Libertadores. Liga MX is a top 3 league in the western Hemisphere and MLS is close to being top 5. FYI the Champions league has in some way or form been present since 1955, 5 years before La Libertadores started.

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      • I prefer Peru and bolivia to mexico and MLS all day. If peru and Bolivia would hypothetically decide to go up there it would be an upgrade for you …please!! I’m not Peruvian, but you clearly do not know their history and the players they have had historically. They missed several WC but do you know that peruvians are extremely talented and exquisite players, something you don’t see up north. If peru and Bolivia where in concacaf I assure you that Mexico and and the US would have missed several WC. In other words the worst teams from our division still would do well even in UEFA or do you think Bosnia, Greece or even Portugal deserve it more than Peru??

      • LOL…looks like Roberto is afraid of Liga MX/MLS competition.

        A Mexican team just reached the final of the Libertadores this season and you’re saying Mexican and MLS teams are worse than Bolivia! That’s a good one.

        Also the European Cup started in 1956 so it’s older than the Libertadores. The current format with group stage etc and re-branding as the UCL began in 1993.

      • Roberto, I got nothing but love for you, Bro but I can’t remain silent. As a guy who followed Puervian and Bolivan domestic play (focused on Alizanza Lima and Wilster) and one of the only Yanks who has decided to torture himself over the years by supporting both Peru and Bolivia as adopted squads since about ’94

        I couldn’t DISAGREE with you more:

        If Peru and Bolivia participated in CONCACAF, I wouldn’t bet my mortgage on Peru (even more inconsistent than the US and Mexico) and good Bolivian results outside of La Paz seem to require a minor miracle at times.

        Both countries with so much talent that never quite lives up to their potential in really big matches consistently.

        So yeah, I definitely disagree.

      • ok ok thats your opinion but I got mine. and I still don’t want no changes….there are certain names brands that must remain untouched. Would you want NBA to add mexican B ball league teams or whatever? would you like Coca Cola to change their formula with a hint of Brasilian Guarana flavor? would you alter a Fender Stratocaster so that it sounds a bit more european? Fender, Coke….Copa Libertadores are things that must remain the way they have always been.

      • Roberto, I’m an old school South American soccer follower as well and I feel where you’re coming from. But there’s a lot of truth in the whole money aspect of this. It’s one of the reasons Mexico was even allowed in the Copa Libertadores to begin with.

        I agree a lot of people here are more Euro or MLS centric and don’t know about the quality of South America’s leagues, but those leagues are struggling right now financially. Brazil’s Serie A can’t even sell out their games.

        Think of it this way, this might be a way to make the whole America’s bigger and stronger from top to bottom. Tradition is hard to let go of, and I’ve felt the same type of resistance towards the changing of Copa Libertadores in the past, but ultimately this might be a good thing for everyone involved.

      • Ok, ok. I’m not tying to change your opinion. You got your and I got mine.

        That’s what makes the world less boring, right? It’s all good…

        Personally, I don’t want it to change (but for different reasons). But money often talks louder than tradition.

  12. $5 – 30 million! you could more than double your MLS salary cap just by qualifying!

    My opinion; we have the CCL and the Copa Libertadores – don’t destroy those.. I would just add a combined finals; something like top 4 from each. You could even host it in a rotating neutral venue like Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, Buenos Aries, Rio, etc. — now can you get that kind of revenue off this size of an event?

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    • But what is the competitive prize for winning the combined final? CCL winner and Copa Lib winner both get a ticket to the CWC. What’s left other than a financial prize?

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    • This is how I don’t get how it works. Will the league allow the teams to actually use that money for salary cap or will they only be able to use it for DP contracts. Although I love the competition in mls year in year out…we will struggle against the leagues in south America where they are built more like Europe and have no spending restrictions. Now we are adding 30 million to one of their budgets. I think this helps their leagues more than ours but I’d still love to watch it and pay for any ticket I could to see skc play a meaningful game against corinthians or boca

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  13. NYC to Buenos Aires: 5295 miles. Over 10hrs of flight time.

    NYC to London: 3459 miles. Over 7hrs of flight time.

    A comparison

    London to Istanbul: 1551 miles

    London to Moscow: 1552 miles

    LA to NYC: 2445 miles

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      • A very plausible Vancouver v. Fluminese (Rio de Janeiro): 6,973 miles

        Vancouver to Tokyo: 4,689 miles

        Vancouver to Barcelona: 4,957 miles

        Vancouver to Madrid: 5,223 miles

        Why not just open it up to the entire World and not call it the FIFA Club World Cup, ha?

  14. New York to Buenos Aires is the same distance from New York to London. Travel would be a nightmare no matter how you slice it.

    If they’re only flying 2-3 times a year cross-continental, this whole thing sounds like it would be a pre-season tournament or every league in this hemisphere would have to have schedule big holes to accommodate this.

    Regardless, would be awesome if this could be pulled off/taken seriously by all the teams involved.

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    • I have flown many times to both of those cities from New York and the flight to Buenos Aires is almost twice as long. I still think it’s conceivable but these are long flights.

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      • travel’s a pain but at least the time zones are close so there wouldn’t be a need for a lengthy jet lag adjustment. if the tournament would indeed provide this much cash for teams i’d imagine some planes would be chartered, smoothing out even more travelling wrinkles.

    • I was thinking about travel as well. We may as well combine into UEFA CL, most of those games would be closer. Can’t wait for the Canada-Peru two leg series.

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  15. I love the idea of an Americas Champions League. I do think the travel would be a huge obstacle, but imagine seeing the likes of a Boca Juniors vs an MLS club (even though we can’t even win a CONCACAF Champions League) in a meaningful game with millions of dollars at stake? That would definitely be worth watching.

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      • and like the article says, the format would minimize travel to only 2 or 3 cross-continent trips. I think the better idea is to replace copa sudamericana with what it replaced- the copa merconorte/copa mercosur- except this time around there would only be 3 south american countries in the norte versus 7 in the sur. To the 3 would be added CR, Mex, and USA as permanent guests from concacaf for a group stage involving 16 teams. A group stage of 16 would also be occurring in the Sur side. At the semifinal stage, then norte teams would merge with Sur teams. This is where travel would an issue, but by then it would only be maybe one or two mls teams left. As for travel during group stage, travel to colombia or ecuador or venezuela is not different then travel to guyana

  16. Interesting concept. I think that the one of the biggest reasons the UEFA champions league is so prestigious among clubs in Europe is the prize money as it can go a long way in balancing the books of non-top 5 league teams as well as some top 5 league teams that do not have the revenue streams that the elite teams do. If the prize money that was mentioned is indeed what is given, then i can see this America champions league usurping la libertadores and becoming the most prestigious competition in the Americas.

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