Mesut Ozil

The hype is growing around The Soccer Tournament (TST) — brainchild of the folks behind the increasingly popular The Basketball Tournament (TBT) — but I don't think anyone's talking about it nearly enough.

On June 1, 32 teams will descend on WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, NC, for a four-day tournament with the winners taking home $1 million. It's certainly not your traditional soccer tournament with different rules, procedures and a collection of squads comprised of legends, professionals, up-and-coming talents, amateurs, viral street sensations and everyone in-between.

Sunday’s Intercontinental Derby between Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe featured two sides that are struggling to keep pace with the top of the Süper Lig, but it’s always a monumental occasion when the European side of Istanbul clashes with the Asian. 

The scene at Galatasaray’s NEF Stadium was electric before kick-off, with players entering the pitch to one of this season’s greatest tifos. If there’s a contest going on without a reference to Squid Game these days, did a contest really even take place?

The cat is out of the bag as 12 “leading European clubs” have thrown it all away in pursuit of securing the most gluttonous bag in the history of football. It’s difficult to see these historic institutions — Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and AC Milan among them — as football clubs at this point; they’re self-serving vehicles of greed that operate as welfare for billionaires. We should amend the “FC” abbreviation on these clubs’ names accordingly.