{"id":425935,"date":"2024-11-27T10:54:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T10:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=425935"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"KSI-Ronaldinho-and-Lineker-join-Baller-League","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/KSI-Ronaldinho-and-Lineker-join-Baller-League\/","title":{"rendered":"KSI, Ronaldinho and Lineker join Baller League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>YouTubers KSI and IShowSpeed have joined forces with Ronaldinho, Gary Lineker and Luis Figo to launch the British and American versions of Baller League.<\/p>\n<p>First introduced in Germany by footballers Mats Hummels and Lukas Podolski, in conjunction with entrepreneur Felix Starck, the six-a-side format is going global in 2025 with a host of stars attached to the project.<\/p>\n<p>Baller League&#8217;s unique selling point will be the involvement of social media influencers with huge reach.<\/p>\n<p>KSI, who has 24.8 million YouTube subscribers, will be president of the UK tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Streamer IShowSpeed, who has over 60 million followers across multiple platforms, was named as president of the US competition on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Miniminter and Tobi, both part of YouTube group Sidemen, plus streamer AngryGinge are set to try their hand at management in the British event.<\/p>\n<p>Former Brazil and Barcelona icon Ronaldinho, a World Cup winner in 2002, is also part of the American tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Former England captains Lineker and John Terry, as well as ex-Barcelona and Real Madrid forward Luis Figo, have been lined up as team managers in the UK.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Micah Richards, Alan Shearer, Freddie Ljungberg, Jens Lehmann and Robert Pires have also been signed up as coaches.<\/p>\n<p>Baller League UK will run from March 3 to May 19 next year, featuring matches every Monday on indoor pitches with 12 teams competing.<\/p>\n<p>Trials to find players for the event are due to take place in London and Manchester.<\/p>\n<p>Former professionals, futsal players, free agents and released academy players are among those eligible to take part.<\/p>\n<p>Each match will be live streamed, with YouTuber Chunkz hosting a weekly show.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sport is no longer as easy as just saying &#8216;look, we&#8217;re here now, come and watch us&#8217;,&#8221; Starck told the BBC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just not how sport works any more. It needs to be exciting, and it needs to be authentic. Those are the two words that we always use at Baller League.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>smg\/nf<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/imgupload\/53624dc723f9903ab82960fec268ed81.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><\/p>\n<p>YouTuber KSI will be part of Baller League&#8217;s UK&#8217;s tournament next year<\/p>\n<p>-Michael Reaves<br \/><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>YouTubers KSI and IShowSpeed have joined forces with Ronaldinho, Gary Lineker and Luis Figo to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}