Former Barcelona defender and Spanish Soccer player, Gerard Pique, has created his own soccer league in collaboration with other former soccer stars. The new Kings League is exclusively streaming on the live video platform, Twitch.

Just days after his retirement, Pique, alongside popular streamer, Ibai Llanos, announced their plans for their own ‘brand’ of soccer.

The two revealed that The King’s League is a soccer competition of 12 teams with the leaders being ‘presidents’ taking charge and leading the teams. The presidents consist of Twitch streamers, social media influencers, and even former soccer stars.

Teams of 12 players each play every Sunday in 40-minute matches. The first game took place on January 1, 2023. The game uses a seven-a-side format, an indoor soccer format, in which 7 players play on each side of the field except for substitutions.

Towards the end of December, The King’s League held a draft , where players would have to face a series of trials to be selected to play. At the end of the draft, with more than 11k people participating in the trials, only around 120 players were selected to play for the King’s League.

Once teams had been created, they created their own team name, uniforms, and logos, having creative control over their team branding.

The game’s kick-off is similar to water polo, where the two teams line up and race for the ball in the center. Furthermore, The King’s League introduces the addition of new rules and changes to the traditional rules of soccer.

For example, the King’s League allows teams to make unlimited substitutions, as opposed to the standard five to three subs, and offsides are not in the game. However, The League’s most unusual addition to it’s rules, however, is the five wild cards.

The five wild cards rule allows coaches at the beginning of the game to choose one card out of five cards randomly. The cards contain special rules or powerups when used, for example, one of the cards deems a goal scored in the next minute will count as two points.

“The King’s League is very different, because most of the rules that are applied in traditional soccer aren’t applied for this, and I feel like that new type of creativity that is in the King’s League would bring new viewers to the sport,” remarks Brandon Castillo, a GVHS Varsity Soccer Player.

The games are played in Barcelona, Spain where the league has gotten visits and recognition from many popular soccer players such as Manchester City striker, Sergio Aguero, former Real Madrid goalkeeper, Iker Casillas, and LA Galaxy’s Chicharito Hernandez included.

The league aims to combine traditional soccer with entertainment with the goal to attract new fans. Through the non-traditional, off-the-cuff rules, and the addition of well-known figures involved in the league, they have so far been accomplishing this goal well.

The King’s League, while fairly new, has become quite popular among viewers. According to “Stream Charts by Esports Charts” Just within the first week of its debut, the stream reached 786k simultaneous views, with each match averaging just around 423k viewers.

The King’s League is suspected to take much inspiration from The Big 3, a 3-on-3 basketball league. They include former professional players and was founded by rapper Ice Cube leading to lots of traction. However, nothing as of yet has been confirmed by Pique nor Ibai Llanos whether or not they drew inspiration from the basketball league.

With the success of the King’s League, it can be said that Soccer now has a new layer of entertainment to it and a foreseeable grand audience.