The attention of the Confederations Cup is low.

The world's best teams don't care. Germany outright refused to participate in the tournament, while those national teams that participated did not send a full main line-up. Many of the world's biggest stars refused to participate in the Confederations Cup. There is their own will, after all, after a season of fatigue, they also need to rest. When it comes to their status, there are some competitions that can be completely turned down.

However, their absence is more of a meaning for those big clubs.

They don't want their star to work hard for a low-stakes competition like the Confederations Cup. Players are the most susceptible to injury when they are tired.

Those stars have been playing for a season. Especially those big superstars, who have played fifty or sixty games in a season, and players with such a game intensity are already very tired. If you play the Confederations Cup again, the players will not have the opportunity to rest at all. In such a situation of fatigue, players are most likely to get injured.

Which of these superstars is not worth tens of millions of euros, and who to reason with if they are injured.

And the current world superstars are among the giants. These giants have now formed a coalition and are starting to fight against FIFA and UEFA. They have a big disagreement with FIFA and UEFA, especially on the distribution of interests. Of course, there is also a big difference in the use of superstars.

In a tournament like the Confederations Cup, FIFA certainly wants the top superstars to participate. Because this is the only way to attract more fans. Only by attracting the attention of more fans can we raise the level of the Confederations Cup and make money with the Confederations Cup. But the giants don't want their superstars to play in such a chicken rib game.

The first thing that displeased the giants was. You FIFA play with our superstars and attract fans. And then earn money. But the benefits obtained, that is, the economic benefits, are not distributed to the wealthy at all. FIFA swallowed it all. This makes those giants dissatisfied. Why should we let our stars give you a show for your game and not give them a benefit? No matter what, the salaries of these stars are all opened by the giants themselves.

And then again, these stars don't have time to rest, what if they get injured in the Confederations Cup? Who is responsible. At the end of the day, the club is responsible for their treatment. The national team doesn't care about that at all.

This has caused a huge contradiction between the two sides.

The current giants are very powerful, and they dare to confront FIFA and UEFA. So they prevented their stars from competing in the Confederations Cup.

That's true for the stars, and it's the same for the referees. The treatment of referees in the Confederations Cup is not too bad, after all, it is organized by FIFA. FIFA wants to make a good tournament, so it's even more stingy with money. This time, in order to attract top referees, FIFA offered a condition of $30,000 per game. That's a better deal than the World Cup a year ago.

But even that doesn't attract top judges.

Because according to the Confederations Cup schedule. A referee is able to officiate two games. Or in the case of the final of enforcement, it could be three games. The final income will not exceed 100,000 US dollars, and more will only be 60,000 or 70,000 US dollars.

This remuneration is not at all attractive to top judges.

Needless to say, Corina earns more than one million euros a year. And looking at recent trends, his annual income is estimated to soon exceed two million euros. Collina is a referee who can compete with those stars. He can't afford this money at his level.

And the same is true for referees of the same level like Friesk and Merck. With UEFA raising the remuneration for Champions League, UEFA Cup, World Cup qualifiers, European Championship qualifiers and more, the income of these top referees has also increased dramatically in a year.

Like Merck, although last season's income cannot be compared with Corina and Jack, it also has more than 400,000 euros. When the young referees only earned tens of thousands of euros, the income of these top referees has become hundreds of thousands of euros. The deepening of the commercialization of football. So that the referee's income has also begun to polarize. Therefore, these top referees will not come to enforce the Confederations Cup for a little money.

The lack of superstars and the lack of top referees has resulted in a very low level of attention in the Confederations Cup.

Jack, as the referee of this Confederations Cup, can feel it on the spot. Jack officiated at the time of the World Cup. The fanaticism of the fans at the scene was something that Jack admired. At the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, those fans left a deep impression on Jack. But the Confederations Cup is different, with attendance at many matches being less than 40 per cent. The entire stadium was empty.

Fans of the host country, France, except for the match against France. There is little interest in other competitions. There is a match in France, where the fans can easily fill 90 percent of the stadium. But there was no match for France. They simply don't pay attention.

Fans in other countries are not interested in the Confederations Cup. Therefore, there are even fewer people who actually follow the national team to France to watch the Confederations Cup. Like the World Cup, many football powerhouses have tens of thousands of fans who follow the team to the scene. When you play, you don't feel like they're playing away from home.

But if a team in the Confederations Cup can have a few thousand fans to follow, it is already very powerful. The same goes for those European fans. Although it is close to France, not many fans come to watch the game.

The same is true today.

June 26, 2003, Stade Gérland, Lyon, France.

Lyon is a French giant, or the best team in Ligue 1 in recent years, having won the Ligue 1 title for several years. With a capacity of 42,000 people, the stadium is a good stadium in European football. But there were only 12,000 fans today.

The stadium was empty.

Because the attendance rate is less than 30%, it is a game with a fairly poor attendance rate in any game. Even the usual attendance in Ligue 1 is much higher than this game. It's really better to play a game like this in a small ball.

And this is no ordinary Confederations Cup group stage, but a Confederations Cup semi-final. This is the knockout stage that will determine who will make it to the Confederations Cup final. But the fans are still not interested. Attendance in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup is so low that you can imagine the attendance in the group stage of the Confederations Cup. You can also imagine the attention of this Confederations Cup.

Confederations Cup semi-finals, match between Cameroon and Columbia. One is the winner of the Africa Cup of Nations and the other is the winner of the Copa America.

For both teams, there are still some familiar stars. In particular, many of the players in the Cameroonian squad are playing in Europe. Including La Liga goalscorer Samuel Eto'o, who was born in Real Madrid's academy and has been close to Barcelona recently. Geremi, who also plays for Real Madrid, and Vivianfo, who plays for Manchester City, and so on. Colombia also has well-known stars such as Yepes and Córdoba.

It's a pity that their appeal is mediocre and they have not been able to attract fans from the host country, France.

Jack has already officiated a group stage since the start of the Confederations Cup. The Confederations Cup is very intensive. For every team, the Confederations Cup is almost a two-day match. Starting on June 18, it is only the eighth day.

But this is the thirteenth game of the Confederations Cup, which is already the semi-final of the Confederations Cup. And teams like Cameroon, Colombia, this is already the fourth game. That is, they played four games in eight days.

Very tired, very intense play.

If there are too many fans and it's too crazy, it will put a lot of pressure on the referee. It will make it more difficult to enforce the law. But again, if there are too few fans and there is no atmosphere at the scene, not only the players, but also the referees will not have much interest.

"Doodoo-"

It could have been able to officiate the semi-finals, but Jack was still happy. So far, in a real cup game, Jack has only officiated in the League Cup final. Therefore, although the Confederations Cup is not very golden, it is a world competition after all.

So there was still a bit of pressure in the semi-finals of the Enforcement Federation Cup.

But seeing the few fans on the scene, Jack didn't have any pressure in an instant. With so few fans and so little attention, they can't even get much interested. For referees, in addition to the pressure brought by the players on the field, there is also some external pressure.

Including the pressure of the fans at the scene, the pressure of media attention. There is less attention to a game, less pressure from the fans at the scene, and less pressure from the media, so there is much less pressure off the field.

Jack relaxed, and blew the whistle for the start of the game.

"The referee blew the whistle and the game began. The semi-finals of the Confederations Cup are about to begin, with Cameroon and Colombia playing against each other. (To be continued......)

PS: During the Chinese New Year, I went to Tonghua to do something some time ago. I'm so sorry.