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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

The future of football then.

Lots and lots to talk about.

Four clubs at the top of the Premier League spend buckets.

The few below them can't.

Is that helpful?

We'll try and ask a more learned panel, Offense Intended Dan, about a solution to PSR.

We'll also ask Man City charges, any danger.

And then to the clubs we discussed last week, Morecambe are still a going concern, but only through the love of fans and volunteers.

Sheffield Wednesday are in danger.

We'll be the latest and ask why other fans don't really care.

There's Lasana, Diara, and FIFA possibly liable to paying compensation to thousands of players.

All that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Yes, I am one of the learned panel, Max, and I'm delighted to be here.

And now the learned panel.

Philippe O'Claire, welcome.

Bonjour, Monchell, Max.

Bonjour servant.

And from the Price of Football podcast, Kieran Maguire.

Hey, Kieran.

All good.

All good, Max.

Yeah, James says, the best podcast lineup I've ever seen.

Charlie says, I'm excited for Philippe to tell us that football has never been in a better place and that it's a future for all of us to look forward to free of corruption, sportswashing, and financial strife for lower league clubs.

There we are.

It's all fine, isn't it, Philippe?

It's magnificent.

Now let's explain why it is magnificent.

Okay, great.

Well, let's start the top and work down, if that's okay with everyone.

Jack says, with only six clubs allowed to spend money in the Premier League and their right to spend seemingly totally disconnected from performance, see Manchester United.

What's the point?

So Liverpool's pursuit of Alexander Isak will have taken them to 400 million if they buy him, about the same that Chelsea spent last summer.

This season, Chelsea Arsenal, and Man City have spent a lot.

Man City did a lot in January as well.

Last season's top four make up four of the top five spenders going into the new season.

Manchester United, the other team.

Spurs seem to have money to spend too.

You know, Gibbs White aside, you know, didn't happen.

So, Kieran, are we seeing the beginnings of a kind of breakaway league within the Premier League?

Certainly in terms of spending money, not necessarily where you finish in the league.

I don't think we're seeing the beginning.

It's very much a continuation.

I spent a couple of nights putting together a spreadsheet of the total spending.

You know how to live.

You know how to live, don't you?

If you look at the top 20 all-time spends, it's Chelsea have got eight.

Manchester City have got six.

Liverpool have got three.

Manchester United have got three.

So there's nothing has changed as far as football is concerned.

And we have seen Leeds United spend

to date.

We've seen Sunderland spend well over 100 million.

I think because they've not been what you would call marquee signings, they've been sensible.

They've been signings aimed at finishing 17th in the Premier League, which is what their objective should be.

It tends to go under the radar.

So then it's fine.

So there's no, I mean, I guess the question, this is a top PSR question.

So Philippe's first fall back and laugh.

It's kind of, we tried to solve it yesterday and failed.

This idea that there are clubs that could spend money, you know, whether we like who their owners are or not, but can't spend money.

And kind of, Philippe, have a justifiable frustration in this when they look at what happens in the window.

Justifiable?

Oh, well, I don't know, maybe not.

The thing is that PSR is very controversial.

You know, you have quite a few analyst columnists who rail and rage against it.

If you look at the case of the clubs, you cannot put all the clubs which spend a lot of money

in the same box.

For example, if you take Chelsea and Liverpool, I think you have two very different cases.

And Kieran, who has got his spreadsheet, will obviously be able to correct me if I see something wrong.

But in the case of Liverpool, what we have is a club which has been extremely profitable in the recent past.

We've got a club which has been also very successful on the pitch and which also spent close to no money.

last year when the only arrival was Kiesa, as you remember, for something like £10 million.

So they have built a huge wall chest and they're also selling players.

They're probably on the way to sell Darwin Nunez.

They basically are renewing a squad which comes at quite a high price because we're talking about replacing very, very high quality players.

You add to that the fact that there is, of course,

the fact that when you buy a player, you can amortize the purchase price of a certain number of years.

When you sell a player, all of the proceeds go into your accounts for the same year.

So it's quite virtuous.

As far as I'm concerned, when I I look at what Liverpool have done, I think I actually take my hat off and I say, well, well done, guys, because they're within the regulations.

They are not endangering the club in any way.

What they're doing is actually putting a squad which is going to carry on challenging for the top honours in England and

in Europe.

But I look at Chelsea and it's completely different

because Chelsea is genuinely spending money, which has been created out of some very interesting, quite bizarre operations,

which include things like selling their own women's team to themselves, selling hotels to themselves.

By the way, selling the women's team to themselves is also something that Everton has done.

So they are finding ways around the regulations, which, to be honest, if it was about respecting the spirit of the regulation rather than the letter, they should be laughed at and told, No, you can't do that.

And the problem as ever is about the implementation of regulations and sticking to principles which are supposed to give the rationale behind those regulations.

The same way, and we probably talk about that, that UEFA is now welcoming multi-club ownership despite saying it's against it.

We have the same thing of enabling clubs to play with those regulations and to find themselves very different situations.

I hope this is clear enough, but Chelsea is not Liverpool.

Absolutely nothing to do with that.

And I think there is a temptation to paint everybody with the same brush.

Arsenal actually can do what they're doing now, and it's not indicative of

a will to tweak the market or play with the market in ways which are not acceptable.

You might, what is really concerning is the fact that the power is concentrated within a few clubs, but that's a different question.

That's the super elite of the super elite.

That's a different question.

But I think we've got to be careful when we talk about general cases when there are actually some very, very distinct scenarios here at work.

Surely, like, like, surely there's a way.

I mean, there are a couple of things that seem really wrong, don't they?

Selling stuff to yourself, just to

your man on the street seems like, I wish I could make money this way, but it seems ridiculous.

And actually, I'll deal with that one first because the other one is about players, teams having to sell their academy products, which also seems wrong, but it's kind of part of the same mess, I guess.

Well, related party transactions, to give them their official accounting name, have to be highlighted in the club accounts.

Now, under the UEFA rules,

the sales of the real estate, the sales of the women's team,

the swap transactions that we saw in the summer of 24, all of those are prohibited.

So that's why Chelsea have fallen foul of UEFA's rules, and yet they have huge capacity within the Premier League rules.

The Premier League could have introduced a tighter set of rules, but in order to achieve that, they need 14 votes.

And because Chelsea have

satisfied the Premier League rules at the time, the reason why

there's no appetite to change the rules is it's now seen as a get-out-of-jail free card in the sense that we don't particularly want to do it, but we want to keep it in reserve.

So yeah, the rules are farcical.

When they came out, I used to teach a creative accounting course on Wall Street many years ago.

So I'm used to finding ways around the rules.

And I wrote down a dozen different ways that you could address the Premier League rules.

And I've just been ticking them off one by one ever since then.

The problem is, is that the Premier League is not independent of the clubs.

And therefore, Richard Masters, whilst he probably wants to have a set of rules which have credibility, he can't do so because he needs 14 votes in favour.

And the regulator wouldn't do anything about that.

No, it's not the regulator, it's not within the regulator's remit to set the individual terms and conditions under which clubs operate in terms of cost control.

You've got an independent UEFA who have managed to do this.

And also you've got the crazy situation that these sales of the hotels and so on are not allowed under EFL rules because when we had a spate of those in around about 2018-19, the likes of Derby, Birmingham City, Sheffield, Wednesday, Reading and so on, the other clubs did think it was a farce and therefore they voted to stop it.

So if Chelsea were relegated, they might be in breach of the EFL rules because of their historic transactions.

What's the dream, Barry?

Isn't it?

The dream is, because there's always been teams with more money than other teams, right?

There's always been a hierarchy and you know where you are in the pecking order.

But what is the dream?

That anyone can win the Premier League or that...

It's just more competitive and that, you know, teams that come up could go straight on and compete.

Teams that go down might not have a, you know, a massive advantage to come up.

Do we want socialism in football?

What do we want?

I don't necessarily want socialism.

I mean, we talk about teams that are able to spend way more money than other teams.

Those teams don't necessarily spend their money wisely.

Manchester United being a case in point, many of their very expensive acquisitions have been complete flops, an alarming number, in fact.

Okay, you've this group of clubs which I mentioned yesterday: Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Villa, Everton, who all have money they would like to spend on players but aren't allowed to because of PSR.

Take Newcastle, for example, whose owners are unspeakably rich.

Their fans are frustrated because their owners are not allowed to spend money on players that the club hasn't earned.

Well, then

find ways of earning money.

Look at Brighton.

Brighton have made fortunes scouting talent in South America or Japan or wherever that have never inched their way onto the radar of other bigger clubs, bought them for pennies and sold them on for tens or in the case of Moise Casaido and Macalester, 100 million quid.

And that gave them the funds.

to spend a lot of money last summer.

And I think Brighton are one of the most smartly run clubs on the planet, if not the the smartest-run club.

And I would see Brighton as potentially breaking that big six hegemony in the next few years.

And their owner, Tony Bloom, he's pumped money into Hartz in Scotland.

He did a Q ⁇ A the other night for Hart.

He doesn't speak publicly very often, but he did a Q ⁇ A for...

Harts fans the other night, which apparently was massively impressive.

And I was watching the Harts Aberdeen game last night, which Harts won easily.

And he was interviewed beforehand.

And he's not one for bombastic statements, but he seems to be genuinely convinced that in the next 10 years or less, Harts can win the Scottish Premier League, that can break up the Celtic Rangers' duopoly.

And I believe him.

So just if you if you're not allowed to spend money, just spend the money you are allowed to spend better.

Yeah, I don't have any problem with that.

I mean, it's always difficult for me to praise Tony Bloom given what I think about multi-club ownership.

But

it's a rare example of a virtuous version of it

because it's limited, because it's completely transparent, and because the methodology which is behind it has been proven right.

To be honest, I mean, with the case of Newcastle, it actually quite amuses me when I hear fans complaining about the fact that they can't spend money on the transfer market.

If I'm not absolutely wrong, when Eddie Howe arrived at the club and the Saudis arrived at the club, they actually spent more in net in the calendar year than any other club on the planet, including Barça, Paris-Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Inter, you name it.

They actually spent more at the time.

And if the little chickens have come home to roost, that's what's the problem with that.

And I agree with

Barry that

you have to

look at a system

that is

actually meritocratic and rewards virtuous behavior.

When virtuous behavior doesn't mean you're giving, you know, sharing your fortune with anyone, Max.

It just means keeping within certain parameters which are morally and

acceptable and also fit in the regulations.

And if they can't do it, well, sod them.

That's about it.

That's the amount of sympathy I've got for those clubs.

No, fair enough.

Ben says, hi team.

Is there any news rumor?

Has Philippe got a deep throat style leak around the Man City charges?

The new season's just around the corner.

There's still no certainty on the outcome.

Also, who's the hardest sportsman ever?

Why is it Chris Wokes?

It's a different podcast.

But yeah, what a great sight that was yesterday.

I'll go to you, Kieran.

Actually, do we know anything about the charges?

Because

it was definitely going to be last season, and now it hasn't happened yet.

No, we know nothing at all.

There are...

probably no more than four people in the country that are knowing the progress of the outcome, three of which are on the panel itself.

And somebody in the fourth person is the person who's got the really tough job of having to type up the whole thing.

So I talk to lawyers on a regular basis, and they've said nothing will be leaked out.

This is an incredibly professional operation.

Given there was, I think, 50 or 60,000 pieces of evidence at the Everton Commission, if you multiply that over a period of nine years under which Manchester City were being assessed, you've probably got 500,000 documents to review.

And then there's 130 charges through which they have to be filtered as well.

So it could last forever.

It could be forever.

There have been some rumours, Max.

There's about to be rumours.

But

it has been said,

I have heard

that

nothing before October of this year.

And

you have to think that if we hear anything in October, it doesn't mean it's the end of the road.

It means that the process will then go into another phase with appeals and things like that.

It's like Arsenal.

Which phase are we on now?

Oh, dear.

So, yeah, there is absolutely, yes, John Dice v.

John Dice and with the Etihada's bleak house.

I mean,

it's quite extraordinary,

but there's no sign that we're going to see anything anytime soon.

As I said, October 2025.

but to be honest, it's one of those, Max, you keep kicking the ball a little bit further in the long grass.

It's like your Uber Eats delivery when it says, you know, preparing your order and then, you know, he's on his way, but the bike isn't moving towards you.

And then it keeps going further and he's got three other deliveries to do.

And you're just like, this pizza's getting cold, for God's sake.

And then it gets cancelled.

And yeah, and that is the, oh, and then you can't, there's no one you can message.

You just shout at the street.

Lots of listeners are interested about multi-club ownership and you know have looked at you know

you know notting and forest have two you know maranakis owns more than one textor owns more than one or you know has shares in more than one and yet because texta didn't fill a form in at the right time palace are punished and forest aren't and it doesn't sort of fit you know in the a bit like chelsea selling stuff to themselves you know the purity or the letter of the law i don't know if that takes us any further down the good or the bad of multi-club ownership philippe uh i think in the case of multi-club ownership, anybody who had any hope that the system would actually be challenged at international level can now put those hopes aside.

You who enter here abandon all hope, here being UEFA.

It is now accepted by UEFA that

you can have clubs belonging to the same entity taking part in the same competition.

This was the case for last year, Manchester City, with Manchester City and Girona.

This could have been the case with

Nottingham Forest and Olympiakos, which is the second club owned by Marinakis, and the third one is Rio Ave in Portugal.

And they would have been able to compete.

I had they qualified for Champions League in the same competition as Olympiakos, because what they use is a system called the blind trust system

by which the owner or the controlling owner of a club passes on the management.

I'm simplifying stuff here.

The management, you know,

basically for whatever time is needed, that person no longer has direct control over his assets.

I said his because they're all men.

So

a good example is Mark Carney in Canada.

Now he's the Prime Minister of Canada.

Mark Carney, obviously, he has assets, shares, and so forth.

And being the Prime Minister of Canada, obviously he's party to information, which would be very, very valuable to actually manipulate the markets.

So what he does is that, okay, for the time that I'm a prime minister, I pass on the control of these assets to a third party.

I've got absolutely nothing to do with them.

And he genuinely does, by the way.

I have no control.

All they have to do is send me some accounts from every six months, I believe, saying this is the financial performance.

As to what they have done, he doesn't know.

He has no influence on that.

So that, let's say, Marinakis will pass on the control of Nottingham Forest.

for a period of one season when if Nottingham Forest did qualify for the Champions League and he passes on to somebody else who takes care of the club, takes care of the asset, and no problem, he has no control over it.

Just the same way, I mean, Jim Radcliffe also did it for Nice and for Lausanne

two years ago and last year.

I mean, it's a complete joke because the idea that Evangelos Marinakis has no control and no interest in the club anymore is actually a complete.

He was quite close to Morgan Gibbs White.

But maybe that was just coincidence.

Just a coincidence.

But what is extraordinary is that, so therefore, multi-club ownership

is now accepted in European football.

Isn't the issue, Kieran, I guess, you know, if you are a smaller club in a multi-club ownership, right, in a sense, you know,

the immediate thing might be successful for your club.

So like your willingness, your dream for your team to win this game might help that you are owned by Man City.

The larger dream may not exist.

And I suppose it's a bit like, you know, who your owners are, right?

Because football is this thing that we are just, that doesn't that controls us in a way that we don't sit there and go, I don't want to be part, you know, I don't want Cambridge to be part of a structure that's owned by Real Madrid because ultimately it means you won't be the championship.

I might think we might get, you know, Rodrigo on loan.

I mean, that's a ridiculous example.

But you take my point, that, that is how that's how they win because we are too focused on the next game.

You're absolutely right.

If you take a look at what's happened between Chelsea and Strasbourg this summer, Strasbourg have signed players from Chelsea.

I think they've got two or three players on loan from Chelsea as well.

That could certainly assist.

And then it's a case of

do you feel that you've lost your identity in doing so?

I think when Manchester City attempted to acquire, is it was it Breda in the Netherlands,

there was a pushback from the fans because they said, we'd rather be Breda on our own merits than as part of an MCO.

There are theoretical benefits and conceptual benefits to having an MCO, but realistically, we've never seen those put into practice.

What tends to happen is that the mothership,

the senior club within the partnership, is the major beneficiary.

And the other clubs sort of are effectively tugboats who are just assisting the success of the prime club.

Yeah, and we've had lots of questions about various specific multi-club ownerships that we can't necessarily go into detail without getting right of reply from people who don't necessarily always give you right of reply, if you understand what I mean.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

We'll be back in a second.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Rob says, Dear Football Weekly, do you have a live show coming up anytime soon?

If so, please mention it on the pod so no one misses out.

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Yes.

Thursday, September the 11th.

We're playing the Troxy in London.

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theguardian.com slash football weekly live.

Let's talk about Chevy Wednesday and Morcom.

Lots of conjecture on social media yesterday that Morcombe had ceased to exist.

Sanny Ridgevadula was there.

I messaged him and he voice messaged me back from inside the club.

The stadium manager was sitting next to him saying, No, no, we're still open, but there's no cash.

Lots of people are just keeping it going for no money at all.

We had quite a lot of questions like this: Billy said, Given what's happening at Sheffield Wednesday and Morecambe and the severe lack of mainstream coverage where outlets would rather cover transfers and friendly matches between Premier League clubs, can anything be done to highlight these cases in future?

And actually, Kieran, it's interesting.

And I don't know if this reflects on the price of football pod as well, but when we do episodes about whether Alexander Isak might might be going to Liverpool, we will get more listeners than if we do a special about the future of EFL clubs in crisis.

And obviously, you know, we need listeners, Sky Sports News needs viewers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So it's, you know, sometimes it is difficult, but lots of fans saying, look, you know, other you don't care until it's your club, basically.

I think there has been a fair amount of coverage.

The fact that, you know, Sanny's been working for Sky Sports, it has been covered on BBC.

I was on BBC One on sunday morning talking about morecom so that there it there is uh concern at the same time we all know what generates engagement and that is the the obsession that people now have with the transfer market and and sort of the the number of fans that live in reflected glory in in terms of their own self self-assessment and self-worth when their side is seen to be spending large sums of money we we we perceive ourselves to be a better and bigger person as a result of it so So I think the amount of coverage in the mainstream media has been, I think has been very fair.

There was a fantastic article by Gregor Robertson in The Times over the course of the weekend, which went into an awful lot of forensic detail about the ways and wherefores of Jason Whittingham,

the colourful owner of Morecambe Football Club.

What can they do, Gieran?

Because they say there's no money, so like volunteers and love is great.

It doesn't last forever.

The people coming in or who want to buy it, there are questions about them as well, aren't there?

Yes, if you take a look at the companies which are owned by the people connected to Panjap Warriors, they seem to have been set up in the last few years, they don't seem to be generating significant amounts of cash.

I think the one consolation is that the EFL, who have significantly upped their game since Trevor Birch took over,

did appear to have approved them under the owners and directors test.

And the big issues there is, A, do they have the money?

And B, can they show where the money's come from?

If you tick those boxes, that does give you a degree of comfort.

But ultimately, if Jason Whittingham doesn't want to sell at the price that Punjab Warriors want to buy, and with the mysterious Johnny Cato having come and gone within 48 hours, and I know who Johnny Cato actually is, and his name's ain't Johnny Cato, that's for sure.

The options are either whittingham finds some cash to support the club because it is losing money there's no doubt about that um or it goes into liquidation because i don't think you can put it into administration when you haven't got a board of directors it's an interesting thing about the fit and proper persons test philippe in the sense that you know it should one question be are you better than the current one because you know if you're if you're a morcombe fan you might go well we're not sure about these new prospective owners but they're certainly better than this guy who appears to be completely shameless And I don't know how he sleeps at night and he just doesn't care about anyone or anything to do with that football club.

Well, I'm happy to hear Kieran saying that since Trevor Birch has arrived, the EFL is a bit more thorough.

But I do think that the owners and directors test is still lacking a lot in terms of its forensic nature.

It tends to be an exercise in ticking boxes, which are, to be honest,

very easy to tick.

And I think that there is when you're thinking about the work that is going to be put on the regulator's desk when the regulator becomes a regulator for real, that would be certainly on the list.

But how do you frame the question?

Because

even

France, for example, has been quoted as a model when it comes to that because of the Direction Nationale de Control de Jession, the DNCG, the French regulator.

Well,

The DNCG has done some very great things and is much more thorough when it comes to financial analysis of clubs and much more severe and stern when it comes to people breaching the regulations.

But they've still allowed one particular person to become an owner, despite this person being a felon, right?

And

so

I'd like to see

some kind of international court of football

where actually because it's a global game, so where actually when somebody wants to become the owner of of a professional football club there is actually genuine investigation into

these people but there isn't it's it's probably because football is is ideal for

playing with money it's ideal for hiding money it's hidden ideal for laundering money it's ideal for transport taking money from one

jurisdiction to another jurisdiction.

It's going to attract an awful lot of very bad people.

Directors, I'm going around in circles because to be honest, I don't know what to do except look at the wall and bang my head very hard against it and saying it hurts, it hurts, but what else can I do?

You know,

the owners and directors' test is not fit for purpose.

That's the bottom line for it.

Absolutely not fit for purpose.

I'm very taken by Philippe's idea or call for a football equivalent of the Hague.

Yes.

But to go back to your original question, Max, I think: do

people who aren't connected with Morecambe care about Morecambe?

Or do people who aren't connected with Treffield Wednesday care about Treffie-Wednesday?

Do people who have no attachment to Crystal Palace care whether Palace are in the Europa League or not?

I think largely no.

They might look and go, oh, that's a shame.

Anyway, has my club bought a new goalkeeper yet?

Or have we got a striker yet?

I looked at Sanny's package from Morecambe yesterday and it was on social media and a load of the comments underneath it were ranged from why didn't you cover this earlier to oh I see they've still got sky sports in the clubhouse or

just general shoulder shrugs and I think that is generally the case and it's a bit of a shame but

there there's no reason why people who have no attachment to Morecambe or Sheffield Wednesday should care as much about Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday as people who do are attached to Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday.

Sure, and of course it's all part of, you know, people live lives and, you know, have other things to worry about.

And that is a good point.

Kieran?

I think to give the Premier League some credit, they did put a series of hurdles in front of 777 to stop them from acquiring Everton.

I'm certainly aware of attempts by...

scamps and scallywags to acquire clubs in the EFL.

Is that a company?

Is that a company?

Is that a company?

It's a law firm

where the EFL has made it suitably awkward for ultimately these people have walked away.

The current owners don't want the rules to be too draconian because they're saying to themselves, at some point in time, I may want to sell this club.

So therefore, why restrict the pool of potential?

buyers because I want to extract the maximum price at sale date.

So

the issue with football is everything is riven by short-term self-interest and that dictates the set of rules that we have, particularly in the Premier League.

Kieran, how do you feel about the regulator and how much faith do you have in it?

Or do you think it will be, you know, intra, just, you know, like a

reams of paper going up to the ceiling and just someone going, oh, God, I don't know how to deal with all of this.

I'm in favour of the regulator in sadness.

rather than joy in the sense that we have a football association that should be the independent regulator.

It should have the capacity to look after the interests of the whole game.

But it's shown the backbone of a jellyfish in recent years.

When you looked at Project Big Picture, when you looked at the Super League, it sort of said tut tut, that's not very nice,

and then effectively washed its hands.

So, so yeah, we shouldn't need a regulator.

It's a stain on the game that there is such a breakdown in trust of the people who are in charge that

a third party needs to to get involved.

I think in David Cogan, they've got somebody who will be combative, who won't be.

He certainly won't be a political patsy.

But the remit of the regulator is actually very, very narrow.

So could it stop another Morecambe?

No, it can't.

Because the present 92, 116 incumbents, because we've got the National League as well.

How do you weed those?

out?

It's very difficult with the state of current company law.

Could I ask Kieran or indeed Philippe, how independent do you think this independent football regulator will be?

Because

when it was being passed through the House of Lords, the Tory peers tried their damnedest to destroy it.

Karen Brady, who is obviously big cheese at West Ham and is a baroness and in the House of Lords, she alone tabled nearly 20 amendments to the regulator bill.

So I'm very I am aware it has a very narrow remit, which is worrying, but I'm also very concerned that this independent football regulator won't be independent at all.

My view is that it will be independent, having seen the people who are at the very top in terms of the chair and the proposed chief executive.

They're similar in some ways to

the governor of the Federal Reserve in the United States, who is quite happy to resist pressure

from Donald Trump in terms of the decisions that are made.

It's unfortunate that now it's become part of culture wars.

So as we saw, what was originally a cross-party agreement in terms of the future of the game and the Tracy Crouch, I think, chaired the commission very well,

has now become factionalised.

So reform are opposed to it, a significant proportion of the Conservative Party opposed to it as well.

Which makes me sound like you...

It sounds like a really good idea.

If you look at who's against it, it's always a good way of

checking, isn't it, Philippe?

Yeah, for the football regulator, and I have a check.

There is a letter which was sent by Stephanie Peacock, MP, who is the Minister for Sport, Media, Civil Society, and Youth, in response to a query by Tracy Gilbert.

And I've been sent this letter and I've been told that I could use it.

So that we are absolutely fine, Joel.

This is totally above.

I love the pre-caveats of like, I can say this.

Yeah, a classic Philippe.

Yeah, it has to be because I'm quoting from a correspondence between a minister and an MP here, which I was party to.

And it says,

I will quote from it, the independent football regulator will not intervene on sporting competition or commercial matters.

That's the sentence.

So, cannot intervene on sporting competition or commercial matters.

And you wonder, well, what can it intervene on then?

What's left?

And this was in relation to multi-club ownership.

And the response was, therefore, issues like multi-club ownership are for the football authorities to manage there are existing ufa and league rules relating to multi-club ownership blah blah blah blah blah and so basically it seems the more we know

about what the

work of the ifr

football regulator will consist of

and despite you know i'm i'm willing to to believe that David Cogan is a great appointee.

But it looks like his prerogatives, his field of prerogatives, is getting narrower and narrower because if the IFR cannot intervene on sporting competition or commercial matters, what can the IFR intervene on?

It will have a beefed up set of powers when it comes to the owners and directors test, and it will have the power of statute behind it.

Three weeks ago, the government published the annual assessment of terrorism and money laundering.

And there was a specific section in that relating to money laundering in football.

So this is something which I think has gone under the radar.

I was asked to give a talk to Interpol and Europol and the National Crime Agency about three years ago.

And I was quite excited at the time.

So I thought, you know, I'll be, you know, it's got to be Miami or Monaco or Tokyo.

And it was taking place in Warrington, which didn't quite fit

my expectations.

But I was talking to some senior law officials at the time, and they raised the issue that football transfers, along with crypto and fine arts is is one of the major opportunities for money laundering in the world so so that's something that will be addressed as well uh the the the prevention of a franchise club arising you know what happens if somebody says well yeah i want to go and move i'm going to buy morecom and we're going to relocate them to dublin uh because we think that there's a football market there well these types of things will be prevented under the regulator and also super league super league's not dead you know it's in hibernation but i can assure you it's not dead dead.

It's going to make it that much more difficult for people to be able to

jump ship and join organisations such as that.

Did I see somewhere that the football regulator will be powerless to stop the government waiving through,

say, potential state owners, as Boris Johnson did with...

the Saudi Investment Fund, who we were assured at the time would not have any part in running Newcastle United?

Well, I think the regulator has to take into consideration the broader issues of what's best for UK PLC.

So at present, there are no opportunities for the Premier League to stop a state-owned club, provided there is one individual who ultimately is deemed to have control of the club.

Then the Premier League has to go along with that.

I don't think that position will change under the regulator.

A question from Michael says, High football week, if you're longtime listener, first time caller for either this or the price of football, Kieran's made reference several times that a salary cap would be difficult to implement in football.

But when F1, which has seven out of 10 teams based in the UK and sports such as rugby league successfully implement the cap, what are the biggest barriers to bringing this to football?

Well, I think first of all, there's no desire necessarily amongst owners because the step-ups in terms of if you now qualify for the Champions League, that can be worth up to an extra £150 million a year.

Secondly, we are operating in a global market in football and we're not doing the same in rugby league.

So we saw when there was

the initial introduction of a cap in rugby union that English players started playing in France where there was no cap.

Well, you would see the same if there was a hard cap.

And then from an economics point of view, where do you set the cap?

If you set it too high, it makes no difference.

If you set it too low, you lose the best players to La Liga um and siria and so on all right that'll do for part two part three we'll begin with the lasana diara european court of justice will footballers get all their money back case

coach the energy out there felt different what changed for the team today it was the new game day scratchers from the california lottery play is everything Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

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That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

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Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Philippe, I'm not sure if I

got my words correct there at the end of of part two, but you can correct me.

Matt Hughes writing in the paper, FIFA facing a multi-billion pound compensation claim from former players.

This is to do with

the son of Diara.

You have explained it before.

Not for me.

I'm obviously still completely across it, but for listeners who might not remember it, could you, and please simplify, explain what has happened.

and where we're at.

It is impossible to give a simple version of things.

And this explains why it's taken years and years.

Lestana Diara was caught in a situation where basically he signed for a Russian club, fell out with the manager, and basically he was found to have been

in contravenance of his contract.

And he basically had to to pay an awful lot of money to the club for having breached his contract.

And he said, no, absolutely not.

That's not the case.

You know, I'm really simplifying it a great deal.

Basically, what it did is it moved the goalposts in the relationship

between the player and the club, which

was believed, thought, felt to be completely skewed in favor of the club, who had basically the right to treat the players they wanted to, the way they wanted to treat the players, and that the players were put in a situation where they're basically there to be exploited.

And La Sajara actually won his case thanks to the help, amongst others.

And this actually made Karen and myself chuckle when we were preparing this podcast.

Of course, Monsieur Dupont, the lawyer, is still involved in that.

He was involved in that.

He was involved with Bossman and he's involved in the new case.

He won't let go.

He won't let go.

So the idea,

when it comes to the new lawsuit, the idea is that footballers haven't got all the money they should have got

because of the transfer regulations.

I mean, to be honest, when I read the statement, which was the class action against FIFA, which was released yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, I thought this was nonsense.

I have to be honest with you, Max.

I thought this was nonsense.

And that there is absolutely zero chance that

a case which is trying to get compensation for thousands of players I quote whose earnings were compromised as a result of FIFA restriction restrictive rules on termination of contracts and transfer and so forth.

The idea that this legal action is going to have any kind of result, I think that makes absolutely no sense.

I mean, maybe I don't know the dossier as well as I should, but a class action of that kind in a Dutch court, good luck, guys.

I don't know which you agree with me on this, Kieran.

Did you get the feeling it was Mr.

Dupont again trying to sing a hornet's nest and couldn't resist kicking it in?

For the sake of complete transparency,

I've had quite a few phone calls with Mr.

DuPont,

mainly when he's on his bicycle cycling around Belgium, as is his wont.

He's extremely confident, and he was equally confident in the Bosman case and the Diara.

I don't think they're necessarily looking for the destruction of the transfer market as such.

But

as we have seen in certain individual cases, players have been treated poorly.

They've been made to train with the academy.

They've been marginalised.

And that does have an impact upon their longer-term earnings.

And I think in specific cases,

there is a case to answer for.

Whether we're going to have a similar to the misselling of pensions or insurance or the major issues that we've seen this week in terms of car loans, we'll have to wait and see.

But he

is a very intriguing character and very committed to the cause.

Karen, if I may interject here, in the Last Anak Jarra case, it was a very clear case because you had a club, you had a caste decision and so forth.

It was very clear.

In a class action, class action against who?

FIFA?

FIFA.

FIFA is the defendant, as are.

I think we've got five football federations in Europe.

But how can you

I'm being the devil's advocate here, but I do know DuPont a little bit as well, and I know he's not a man who's adverse to personal publicity.

Shall we, would you agree on that?

And the thing is that on the particular cases, I can understand the validity of particular cases, like Lesson Nadiara could be one.

There might be one coming with Mikhailo Mudrick

for all widow.

I don't know.

But when it comes to a class action, which refers to thousands and thousands of different cases, the validity of each case has got to be proven before the class action has achieved.

It's not quite like the NFL players instigating a class action against the NFL because of

the concussion rules and the fact that they have been the victims of complete lack of care from the NFL, which can be proved in court, medically proven and so forth.

This is not the case.

You have to prove it in every single case that this player...

suffered financially because there were restrictions put on his free movement and he couldn't choose his employer as he should have been able to

because

it was against EU competition rules.

You have to do it for each and every one of them.

Or is there a kind of meta-legal dimension where the class action can be brought just on a point of principle?

Well,

first of all, the players have to register.

with the new organization that's been set up if they feel that their earnings have been compromised.

Now, it could be then that if there's enough people in that, then the representatives, including Mr.

DuPont, could approach FIFA and say, yes, we can do this on a case-by-case basis.

Or alternatively, let's just have an overall class settlement.

You'll pay us X and we will distribute it to everybody that's registered.

I don't know, Monsieur DuPont.

I did start

reading up on this Lasana Diara potential class action yesterday, and I have to say...

It is the most boring thing I've ever read.

And I still have no idea

it's about, despite the two lads having spoken about it at length for about 10 minutes.

Can I finally, and maybe I should have asked this right at the top, and maybe it's too difficult a question to answer.

Is there one thing

in the game that sort of keeps you up at night when you think about the future of football and where it is heading?

Is there one thing that makes you think this is the thing that we need to solve?

This is the, or this is the biggest problem that we have.

I will go to you, Kieran, first.

For me, it's it's the creeping return to racism and obnoxious behavior within us as a fan base.

What was not acceptable 10 years ago is now acceptable amongst many, and it's only heading in one direction.

And I think the

use of football culture and football fans by certain groups and individuals is my main concern.

And

is that manifest in your match going experience?

Well, I'm a Brighton fan, so I'm on the receiving end of increased homophobia

when going to matches.

And

it's tedious to begin with, but it's not affecting me necessarily directly.

It's not right.

It's pretty foul, some of the stuff.

uh that you have to put up with and and we we had managed to improve things significantly but you know we saw we saw salford city take a stand um you know a couple of weeks ago in a friendly when one of their players was racially abused.

People now feel emboldened enough to say what they want.

Why do you think that is?

Because we now have a culture war where freedom of speech absolutists believe that they can say whatever they want,

and they're testing the waters on a permanent basis.

Well, it's very depressing.

It's actually interesting because I haven't had the same experience myself.

This being said, I go to the Arsenal games and I go to Arsenal women games where the atmosphere is very different from that, but really sad to hear that, Kieran.

That's horrible.

But if there's one thing that keeps me awake at night and

it has,

is that I can see the descent of professional club football, men's club football, actually women's club football as well,

into a business which is now targeted by criminals.

Maybe it's because of the type of work that I do, working, you know, sponsorships, illegal betting, corruption, all these sorts of things.

And you tend to have a slightly distorted view of the world when you do that day in, day out.

But it seems that we are now caught in this spiral where

the amount of money which is at stake here and the complete lack of international regulations, to be honest, the lack of a regulatory framework which could be applied worldwide is enabling some very, very bad people indeed to go into football.

And they can be just original.

They can be traditional criminals like drug traffickers or

people traffickers or you name it.

And they can also be the new, for me, even, I mean, perhaps even more dangerous people and all these shadowy equity funds and investment funds.

whose money

nobody knows where the money comes from.

And that this one thing, that literally, I cannot understand that,

Max.

It's the fact that you will hear such and such an investment fund has taken control of that club.

But it's not their money.

Whose money is that?

And very often you will find that this money comes from very, very dark sources indeed.

And absolutely nothing is done to fight against it.

Nothing.

I'm super worried about that because I can see football becoming the thing of those people who for me are criminals.

And actually, on that note, you do lots of work with Josima and Joshamar's future.

How is it?

Because I know you set out an appeal recently.

Yeah, the appeal was successful.

And

I'm sure there were plenty of Guardian Football Weekly listeners who've helped out by either donating or subscribing, which is the best way to support us.

And

we're so thankful because we managed to turn that corner.

It was a tight corner.

And

we really thought that the work we did in June would be the last work we did together as a magazine.

And fortunately and thankfully and thanks to our readers, we have just garnered enough resources to carry on for a while.

So

it is good news.

It's bad news for bad people.

Bad news for bad people.

That is Filippo Claire.

That should be your moniker, shouldn't it?

I'm here.

Bad news for bad people.

All right.

Well, Well, I don't know if we sold football, but it was interesting.

Can I ask, Kieran?

Right.

So you do the price of football with our friend Kevin Day, the Crystal Palace supporting comedian.

I've already had a row with him on the radio about this, but can I ask, now that he's not sitting beside you or in the room with you, maybe he is in the room with you, but I can't see him.

I think Crystal Palace just effed it up.

as far as the Europa League is concerned.

And

they're reaping what they sowed.

John Texter and Steve Parrish didn't fill in the form in time, so sorry, lads.

Well, my view is that being a bit tin pot isn't sufficient for them to lose the opportunity to play in the Europa League.

I think there were individuals who've made errors, and I think those individuals should be sanctioned rather than the club as a whole.

Crystal Palace gained nothing from the failure to fill in those forms on the pitch.

So therefore to give them an on-pitch penalty, which is effectively demoting them to the conference league, to me seems harsh.

So yeah,

I would have an internal investigation at Palace to find out why aren't you reading the emails?

I mean, it just seems such basic stuff.

I think you're being really harsh because the paperwork had to be filed in by 1st of March, right?

1st of March 2025.

Was there anybody who thought that Crystal Palace had any chance of qualifying for a European competition?

Well, nobody at Crystal Palace.

No, no.

I mean, they didn't.

I mean, just for the Palace fans' backlash, Barry's no longer on X, but you can find him on Blue Sky.

But I'm with you, Kieran.

I think you're right.

I think they should play where they should play.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Philippe.

Thank you very much, Max.

Cheers, Kieran.

Cheerio.

Thank you, Barry.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.