Not content with his bonkers trophy haul, former Barcelona stalwart Gerard Pique has taken to the entertainment business to set up the King's League – but what's it all about and what do Sergio Aguero, giant dice and a tightrope walker have to do with this?
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00:00a catapult that launches dice onto the field a ball firing cannon to start the
00:08match a tightrope walker to instigate the kickoff ladies and gentlemen welcome
00:13to Gerard Piquet's Kings League the seven-a-side football tournament which
00:19features legends of the game social media stars and every daft idea you
00:24could possibly think of has become a massive hit in the Spanish-speaking
00:28world since its launch on January the first less than three months after that
00:33though it had grown so enormous that 92,522 spectators crammed into the Camp Nou
00:40to watch its first finals day this despite virtually all the players on the
00:45pitch being total unknowns and a few months later the Metropoliano was close to
00:51capacity for an eight-hour six-match epic including performances from pop stars and
00:56a penalty shootout with Iker Casillas it's all improbably the brainchild of
01:02Barcelona and Spain legend Gerard Piquet not content with a World Cup a European
01:07Championship for Champions League's nine La Liga titles the lot the 36 year old
01:12has plowed his focus into Cosmos holding the company founded in 2017 with
01:18Barcelona's shirt sponsor at the time Rakuten after controversial moves to turn
01:23tennis Davis Cup into an 18 team tournament and Spanish football Super
01:27Cup into a 14 contest played in Saudi Arabia as well as the launch of the
01:32world's first balloon World Cup the project gained some credibility when it
01:38bought FC Andorra and took them quickly from the Spanish fifth division to
01:43fighting for promotion to La Liga but it's the Kings League that has become the
01:47real story devised with help from Piquet's pal Ibrellanos Spain's most
01:52famous social media influencer with 15 million followers on Twitch the seven
01:56aside tournament has been an overnight phenomenon in Europe with fixtures
02:01streamed live on YouTube the first match day on January 1st saw a dozen games
02:06at a power league type indoor arena in Barcelona there was only a tiny stand for
02:11spectators but online it attracted a peak audience of 780,000 the second match day
02:19peaked at 945,000 when one team fielded a masked player known only as Enigma
02:26described by Piquet as a La Liga player who didn't want to reveal his true
02:31identity fevered speculation and guesswork had him identified as anyone from
02:35Isco to Denis Suarez on match day 3 viewership reached 1.3 million part of
02:43the reason for this is the league's unusual rules voted for on social media
02:47which helped to draw attention matches are two halves of 20 minutes on a
02:51small sided pitch normal league fixtures start water polo style where each team
02:56lines up on their goal line before charging towards the ball on the center
03:00spot teams can also play one secret weapon per match by picking a card at
03:05random options for those range from an immediate penalty kick to an opposition
03:10player being removed for a few minutes or even just all the goals scored by your
03:14team in the next two minutes counting double things like that La Liga chief
03:19Javier Tabas described it as a circus and a freak show but it was never aimed at
03:23him the main audience is 15 to 24 year olds and the league already has
03:28partnerships with major brands like Adidas and McDonald's as for the more
03:32traditional fan they are being courted with the involvement of legends like Ika
03:36Casillas and Sergio Aguero being the de facto president of teams in the league
03:41Aguero has even played in some matches striding on for his debut in a clown outfit
03:46before revealing his identity and while Enigma may have turned out to be ex-cadith
03:51forward Nano Mesa underwhelmingly Javier Hernandez has made a one-off
03:55appearance on launch day followed by cameos for Javier Saviola, Juan Cap de Villa,
03:59Jibril Cisse, Andrea Pirlo, Andrei Shevchenko and Ronaldinho the latter of
04:05which attracting enough eyes from South America to draw an audience of 2.1
04:09million. Piquet speaking exclusively to 442 in an outstanding feature written by
04:14our own Chris Flanagan has even said that Neymar has been in touch about
04:18owning his own team and that he can't rule out Messi himself getting involved at
04:22some point in the future although he is and this is a quote very busy at the
04:26moment. Interestingly Piquet himself hasn't made an appearance yet but has
04:31been loaded into one of the games as one of the secret weapon cards teams can use
04:36he was hidden on the sidelines ready to go but neither team drew his card in that
04:40match and that's just how it goes in the Kings League so how does it work well the
04:46Kings League follows an apueta and classura style format more popular in
04:50South America in which each season is divided into two splits the winter split and
04:55the summer split both splits have their own league stage followed by playoffs for
05:00the top ranked teams during the league stage the 12 teams play 11 match days
05:04and face every other team once the top eight teams based on their rankings at
05:09the end of the league stage advance to the playoffs each match day features six
05:1340-minute matches which are divided into two 20-minute halves all these games are
05:18then played consecutively on the same ground for the inaugural season players were
05:24given the opportunity to apply and was selected through a draft process that
05:28took place last year prospective players underwent physical and skill testing
05:32before the top prospects were then drafted each team can have 12 players on
05:36their roster and the draft involved selecting 10 players for those slots the
05:41other two and oh this is where it gets good were reserved for guest players your
05:46Agueros your Pilos your Ronaldinho's your Shevchenko's your Adam Cleary's that sort of thing
05:51these players are known as the 11th and 12th player and as well as famous
05:55footballers famous streamers and YouTube stars have appeared as well the 12th
06:00player can change on each match day while the 11th player is meant to stay with the
06:04team for the entire season the most recent final held almost unbelievably in a
06:10near sold-out Metropolitano home of Atletico Madrid so the league whittled down to
06:16El Barrio and ex-buyers team after a frankly stunning 4-4 game played out it
06:21was to be decided on penalties but of course this is the Kings League not your
06:26classic 12 yard penalties old-school MLS hockey style penalties where the
06:31attacker starts on the halfway line and then has a one-on-one with the goalkeeper
06:36deep into sudden death ex-buyers team took the win and the inaugural summer
06:41trophy for all the big names and celebrity streamers it was a young
06:45defender called Mickey Fernandez a man who admitted later he'd never really played
06:50in front of a crowd before the Kings League who scored the decisive goal
06:54there were near 50,000 people watching him do it in the stadium over 1 million
07:00have watched the highlights on YouTube and you can then double that again for
07:05the audience on Twitch that alone is a remarkable thing the challenge for the
07:11Kings League now will be finding a way to stop the novelty from wearing off
07:14throughout 2023 new rules and new stars were regularly being introduced to keep
07:19everything fresh it's not difficult to see why expansion is on the agenda
07:24specifically into South America but in theory there's no reason this can't thrive
07:29anywhere where the sport is popular and it has a switched-on engaged socially
07:34media savvy young audience this is football you see just not as we know it and
07:39that to be completely honest is the beauty of the thing sometimes people just want
07:44to have fun and if there's one thing that the Kings League is it's fun if you'd
07:49like to read more about the Kings League you can find a huge interview with PK and
07:53other notable people involved in it in 442 magazine we were very lucky to be
07:58invited out to Spain to see how it all works meet the man behind the league and
08:01hear about their expansion plans for the future the piece which has informed this
08:05video was written by Chris Flanagan and the magazine and indeed all issues of
08:09442 are available from all good news agents or via subscription in the link
08:14below until next time I've been Adam Cleary this has been the incredible story of
08:19the Kings League and I'll catch you next time goodbye