I recommend everyone to read/listen to this series. They are focusing on 1 club in each “Big 5” league - Everton, Barcelona, Inter Milan, Lyon, and Hertha Berlin.

Regarding Inter, their situation is due to a mix of factors.

• Their Chinese owner got hit by COVID and the geopolitical situation in China. They’re looking to sell and are no longer bankrolling as they used to

• They got hit hard by COVID with empty stands. Meanwhile Italian the deals have started decreasing in the last 2 tenders.

• Meanwhile their team costs a huge amount and they have been accumulating yearly losses

• However, their getting good sporting success, and that’s despite recent cuts. They are ofcourse still a massive “brand”

• The big objective is a modern stadium, something which doesn’t seem to progress as Milan authorities have protected the San Siro

Annoying that they’re not showing 7th place

Not necessarily true for individual clubs. More games means more attendance revenue. However it also means tv money is split between more teams.

In the case of France, an 18 club league brings in less revenue than a 20 club league, however each individual club makes more in an 18 club league (as two less attractive clubs don’t take a piece of the tv money).

It’s also better for clubs who play play in Europe to have 4 less domestic league games and focus on more lucrative European ones.

Angola already qualified in 2006. The best teams yet to qualify are Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. Would be cool to have a surprise East African team make it.

Loads of foreign born players in Italy.

When there is a 2 division gap, the amateur team automatically hosts.

Ligue 1 teams join with the first game post winter break - meaning their first game after a 2 week break is on a terrible half frozen pitch.

There also seems to be a favouring of smaller sides, commentators (games are on state tv) are extremely pro amateurs.

Added to that, the French cup is the largest national cup in the world with a massive amount of amateur teams participating. There are some amateur clubs who have made it a speciality of theirs to be giant killers during the cup (Quevilly and Carquefou)