Wales leave it late and farewell to Trent Alexander-Arnold – Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

A busy pod today will start in North Macedonia.

Ellis James from his hotel bed the morning after a wild injury time, and Craig Bellamy's unbeaten record remains intact just as Wales manager.

From there to Argentina, hammering Brazil in a game that looks so beautiful just for the kits before you even get into the game.

We'll round up the latest qualifiers, ask about the implications of Iran and others qualifying for a World Cup happening partly in the US, given Donald Trump doesn't appear to want any Iranians in the country.

While we're on FIFA, Ziani's gone full Austin Powers with his prize money for the Club World Cup.

Back on the pitch, we'll look ahead to some fascinating FA Cup quarterfinals.

And then, what a result of the Emirates, Arsenal's women get Real Madrid on a proper surface and win 3-0, 3-2 in aggregate, and into the semis of the Champions League.

And then author James Montague joins us to talk about his new book, Engulfed: How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport and the World.

All that, plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly

on the panel today philippe o'claire bonjour bonjour max yes will unwin welcome hello max and hello robin cowan hi max uh we begin in north macedonia matthew says the people want an ellis voice note please yes north macedonia won wales won here is ellis james hello max

North Macedonia won, Wales won.

I don't really know what to make of it.

It's quite a hard game to process

because

you know, away from home in North Macedonia, the game seems to be heading to 0-0.

You're thinking, okay, fine, a point away from home, I'll accept that, even though we'd monopolised the ball and

dominated the game, really, but just hadn't created very many chances.

Couldn't turn that possession into chances.

And the chances we did create, we didn't take.

So, you're thinking you're trying to be reasonable about it and rational, and then obviously they score in added time, and suddenly it's a disaster.

And then we score the final kick-96 minutes, four minutes of added time, and then it's just chaos in the away end.

And psychologically, that's enormous.

It's a it's Craig Berham's eighth game, he still hasn't lost, which is just unprecedented.

This is uncharted territory for a new Wales manager.

And now

we've got Liechtenstein and Belgium in the next international break, so that that game out in Brussels is is going to be very significant for this group, I think.

Ultimately, you know, beating Kazakhstan as well at home in Cardiff on Saturday night,

the performances haven't been convincing at all.

But, you know, we've got four points on the board, which is which is good.

Brennan Johnson doesn't look comfortable at all as a striker.

I don't know what's going on there because he's not an instinctive striker at all.

He doesn't really hold the ball up.

He likes to get in behind, so we don't seem to be playing to his strengths.

So I'm curious as to what Craig Bellamy's thinking is.

I loathe criticising Joe Allen because he has been colossal in a wheel shirt and extraordinarily consistent.

Well, consistently brilliant for years, but he came on as a late sub and he was a real howler of a backpass.

He was trying to find Joe Roden, which let Macedonia in for their goal.

But, you know,

with that equaliser, David Brooks, it's considering that Bellamy's

philosophy is all about tempo and moving the ball quickly, it ended up being a very old-school goal, almost like a sort of Iwan Roberts, Craig Bellamy at Norwich in the 90s, big man, little man combo.

It's a long ball towards Kiefer Moore, his knockdown.

David Brooks pokes it home.

It seemed to take about six months to cross the line.

And there we go.

I would say

a deserved

punching of the air in front of the away end

for 2,000 weird supporters.

It's just this

for all of the incident in the game to happen in like the last four minutes.

What a sport.

You don't get that with Rugby Union.

Do you?

The slow accumulation of points.

Actually, I take that back.

Of course, it happens in Rugby Union.

Sorry, Max.

I'm tired and I'm emotional.

I also need to go because our flight is in a little bit.

I'm tired of being known as the late one in our group of six.

Because

even at 44, I'm trying to change the narrative.

I'm trying to change the narrative, Max.

I want to be respected.

You know,

I want people to think, yeah, yeah, he's going to be in the lobby at 10, like he said.

He's not going to turn up at 10.08.

This isn't Cypress Away 2015, Max.

I've changed.

Anyway,

international football.

What a buzz.

Thank you, Ellis.

Hope you made made it to the hotel lobby on time.

Some lovely photos on his Instagram of him going away with Wales.

We don't need to spend a lot of time on it.

Ellis did it perfectly.

But, Robin, the equaliser is something else, isn't it?

It's funny what pressure does.

How that ball managed to squeeze in, I have no idea.

Yeah, Ellis said it, didn't he?

It's like took six months to go in.

It really did.

It possibly should have been cleared.

But that is, this is football, isn't it?

Because you, I don't know.

Do you feel like Wales should go there?

I guess on paper you think maybe, you you know, you should be getting something.

But North Macedonia, you know, they're not bad, not a bad side at all.

And then you're thinking the absolute despair of conceding.

And when I was watching the highlights, the commentator went early on this.

He said, Wales have lost it.

They've in the in the air.

They've lost it.

That's it.

And then David Brooks pops up and it feels like a win.

It's just that you love that as a football fan, don't you?

From even

the sort of the psychological gymnastics you do on and with last-minute goals from the depths of despair to absolute ecstasy it's just it's just wonderful and the sort of uh the the if you were there and then you get craig bellamy sort of dancing with you afterwards it's just what what what great memories great memories of a one-all draw at north macedonia exactly yeah i mean just the way joe allen just started after he played that pass and then like he did he started sprinting thinking oh

shit oh no but like like he obviously wasn't going to affect it and then just how that guy managed to be nutmegged by that David Brooks shot.

Absolutely.

It sort of runs past it and through it.

But anyway,

that is Wales done.

Northern Ireland lost 5-1 away in Sweden.

Argentina beat Brazil 4-1 on Tuesday night.

Brazil captain Marquinhos apologised to fans, calling it embarrassing.

The thing is, Philippe, we sort of mentioned this as well.

I could just watch Argentina play Brazil.

Like, there was...

kicking and shoving and you know it was it was played in the worst of spirits it was exactly what i want you mean in the best of spirits, basically, then?

Yes, of course.

That plus the kits, yes,

that's pretty damn good, I must say.

I mean,

it's quite a shocking result, I must say.

I have to say, I only saw bits of the game.

That's acceptable.

Acceptable, thank you.

But was it as shithouse full as I believe it was, Max?

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, Sid tweeted out a little picture of Rodrigo, who says to Paredes, you are very bad, which is some really low-level chat on a football pitch, isn't it?

I really like that.

You are very bad, to which Paredes says, I've won two Copper Americas and a World Cup, and you haven't won anything, which is quite a good response, I think, to someone telling him he's very bad.

Anyway, Argentina are 16th points clear of seventh place Venezuela with four games to go.

So

they're in, aren't they?

That makes sense.

Yes, they are in.

The McAllister goal is lovely.

This result was always going to happen because did you see what Rafinha was interviewed before the game?

And he said, we will beat them no doubt on and off the pitch if we have to.

And, you know, cut two.

You're just like,

when will they learn?

They don't say these things pre-game.

What Rafinha seems to have forgotten, that within the Brazil match day squad is three Wolves players.

They're 17 from the Premier League.

What a world we are in where Wolves are possessing three Brazil internationals ready to go.

Yeah, Cunha was playing, wasn't he?

Lock up your glasses.

Yeah, Cunha was there.

Andre was playing.

Yeah.

And then Xiao Gomez.

I mean,

it's an incredible world where Wolves have come from.

I know Steve Bull sort of, you know, was the shining light of international football for them.

Could Andy Much have naturalised as a Brazilian back in the late 80s?

Him and Zico together.

That's what we wanted.

How about France then, Philippe?

They haven't started their World Cup qualification.

They got past the tiring Croatians on penalties in the Nations League.

You did a really good piece about the Deschamps succession plan.

Well, if there is one, which is probably

one word, Zizu.

Apart from that, the cupboard is bare.

I have to say that the first leg of

this tie against Croatia was not exactly one to inspire great confidence

in France's chances to do something great at the 2026 World Cup.

They were very disjointed.

Kieran Pape had a stinker.

But then,

in the return leg, you said, Yes, Croatia was tiring, but France created a lot.

Usman de Melis scored again.

That's absolutely extraordinary.

I don't think that.

Can you recall a player who is basically the most irritating player on the planet and who, at the age of 27, becomes one of the most thrilling players on the planet?

And for, you know, seems to everything he tries,

he succeeds in doing.

And so that will have taken the heat a bit.

But yes, there is a feeling that we don't have many coaches which can take the place of people like Didier Deschamps.

And in fact, I'm in an absolutely quite extraordinary stat when I was doing that piece, the fact that when Carlo and Celotti won the first title of the PSG era back in 2012, 2013, so there were 20 teams in Liguer at the time, and 19 of the 20 managers were French.

Carlot was the only foreigner.

And at at the moment eight out of 18 are French which is absolutely crazy.

So not only do we not have coaches coaching abroad, Patrick Gerard is the only one at Genoa at the moment, in the Big Five, not only don't we have coaches coaching abroad but we also are losing coaches in the domestic game and some of the

some of the best young

I mean best young managers that we thought they were the best young managers are either without a job or they've they've gone to Sunderland, which of course is, as we know, is

great, which we know is great.

But some others have gone to the Gulf and we seem to have lost this impetus and which is, you know, we carry on producing players, but we're certainly not producing the coaches any longer.

So that's worrying, but basically it's an avenue, it's an auto strada

for Zinetine Sidane to take over after 2026, because this time it's true, Max, Didier Deschamps will no longer be with the French national team after the 2026 World Cup, if there is a 2026 World Cup.

On parlais le sport, are they doing phonies going, ou et le

chef français, ou et le

what's manager, manageur, moranger, le manager, le coura.

Oe le manageur français, c'est un grand probleme.

If you want to be French, you should quote François Villon and where are the snows of yesteryear?

Ou son le nès d'enton.

That was the next thing that I was going to say.

Sorry, this is just on French.

Is that my four-year-old daughter, her favourite thing

is for me to read Bluey every night in French because I bought it when I went to France.

Unfortunately, I don't speak a word of French really.

But she takes great pleasure in how much agony I'm in throughout the whole thing as I sort of ham it up into a lower low fashion.

It's incredible.

I'll get Philippe Brown to do bedtime soon, maybe.

Will, just send it to Philippe, and Philippe will do the audiobook of Bluey and we'll stick it on at the bonus.

I want to hear Will's version, though, as well.

I want to hear what he's saying.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

That is very much the, you know, the reverse of the French policeman in our lower low, isn't it?

What I would expect.

In African qualification, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia, all on the verge of getting through.

Potential shocks, Dio Congo, atop of a group that includes Senegal.

Could qualify for their first World Cup since 74, where they featured Zaire.

You will remember the defender.

twatting that free kick.

Always worth reading up on the whole story around Zaire in 1974 in the World Cup because it's just a totally fascinating story that we don't really have time for right now.

Cape Verde, one point ahead of Cameroon in Group D.

Nigeria fourth in Group C behind South Africa, Rwanda and Benin.

So only the nine group winners qualify.

The four best second place sides play off for a spot as well.

Now Philippe Iran have qualified for the World Cup thanks to their 2-2 draw with Uzbekistan.

And this could affect Diar Congo as well actually.

But the senior sports editor for The Guardian in the US, Alexander Abnos, writing, writing, the country's current relations with the US, which will be hosting the bulk of the tournament's games, could make it hard, if not impossible, for Iran's fans, potentially even players and staff, to travel to the country for the games.

In a recent memo, the issuing of which was reported by Reuters, Iran was listed among 41 countries that would face partial or complete bans on citizens entering the US by Donald Trump's administration.

Iran specifically is listed among a group of 10 countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Cuba, and North Korea, that would be set for a full visa suspension.

Diar Congo also on that list.

This is a headache for FIFA.

I don't know if it's one they'll care about.

To be honest,

nobody quite saw it coming because you would have thought that just like Russia did for the 2018 World Cup, you would have a kind of

waiver for the fans that when you buy a ticket, buying a ticket is almost like buying a visa at the same time.

That doesn't seem to be the case.

And the problem is that Algeria is on the red list, but I was checking.

Venezuela is also on the red list, and Venezuela are in the playoff place, you know,

which is going to be played, by the way, the playoffs for the 2026 World Cup with representatives from various confederations.

It's going to be played in America as well.

And Venezuela is very much on the red list.

And so, yes, the question is that, will even the officials

and the fans be allowed to travel?

And there are other countries...

who are also in the so-called orange and yellow bands.

And in the yellow band, which can be upgraded to orange and in which which means that people people who come with ordinary tourist visas are actually refused access, you've got countries like Cameroon.

You know, I mean, it is an absolute headache.

It's completely,

it's never happened before in that way.

You are trying, you know, people will say, well, maybe they can try for the games from the red list countries played in Mexico or Canada, but there's actually only one spot available where you could possibly play all of your games in Mexico, I believe.

But if you go out of the group phase, you will have to play in America at some point.

So what it means for

those countries which have qualified is that basically at the moment, should, by the way, this project or this plan by the Trump administration become law or what passes for law in America these days, it means that there would be absolutely no way for anybody associated with those countries to travel to the World Cup.

And which also goes completely against the idea that the FIFA World Cup is almost like a country in itself, which moves every four years, the men's World Cup,

and

basically puts up the big top.

And it is its own country.

It's got its own rules and so forth.

In this case, you know, it won't happen.

And there hasn't been any reaction by FIFA, by the way, to that.

And we're already going to see what's going to happen, by the way, for the Club World Cup, because we might also have some interesting things happening as soon as this summer.

Yeah, well, you mentioned the Club World Cup.

They've announced the prize money for it.

A fund of $1 billion.

So it is Austin Powers.

It's set to be divided amongst the competing teams.

Group stage, you can earn a million for a draw, $2 million for a win.

This is all US dollars.

Round of 16, another $7.5 million.

13, just over 13 million, quarterfinals, 21 million for the semifinals.

The runner-up will get 30 million.

The winner will get 40 million.

So you could get $125 million, I think.

Gianni said the distribution model of the FIFA World Club Cup reflects the pinnacle of club football as he spat at the Champions League trophy and represents the biggest ever prize money for a football tournament comprising a seven-match group stage and play-off format.

In addition to the prize money for the participating teams, an unprecedented solidarity investment programme where we have a target of an additional $250 million being provided to club football across the world.

This solidarity will undoubtedly provide a significant boost in our ongoing efforts in making football truly global.

Robin, any thoughts, Robin?

Yeah, just putting my little finger up to my mouth.

I don't know.

We need Philippe.

Philippe needs to do it because you do get desensitized to not only these amounts of money because it kind of means nothing anymore, right?

I mean,

do you see what I'm saying?

Like, I don't even know how to compute it.

Yeah, well, I mean, in what's a group, you said, look, the winners of the 2023 Women's World Cup got $10.5 million.

Is that right?

Correct.

So that's an interesting comparison.

But I guess the point is, Philippe, is if you, they've looked at this competition, they've gone, no one cares.

If you throw enough money at it, suddenly, if you're Man City and you go, whoa, hang on, we can get $125 million.

That's quite useful, isn't it?

Do you remember when Ancelotti him again and did this interview in which he said, oh, the Club World Cup, we're not going to bother with that.

We're not going to play it.

And then he was quickly put back in the right lane by Florentino Perez as president at Real De Trade.

But one of the things that Ancelotti had said is that the money they propose is absolute rubbish, so there's no way we're going to do it.

And the thing is, well, is that the Club World Cup struggled for a long time to find a broadcaster, as you will remember, and miraculously at the last minute, Dazone jumped in and gave, guess what the sum was?

$1 billion.

Really?

And then what happened afterwards is that, surprise, surprise, there was a massive investment in Dazone by Saudi Arabia for

$1 billion.

So it all computes, you know.

It's a travesty.

And the other thing as well, which is going to be very interesting, talking about the Club World Cup, is that you know about the problems with Club Leon and Club Pachuca, which belong to Grupo Pachuca, the Mexican conglomerate.

And both of them have qualified, but Article 10.1 of the Club World Cup regulations prevent clubs which have got shared ownership to take part in the same competition, right?

And so finally, after doing the draw in which Club Leon and Club Pachuca were, and Club Leon actually bought James Rodriguez because of that, because they want to make a big, big thing of that Club World Cup.

So, three months after the event, FIFA turns around to them and says, Well, you know what, actually, no, only one of your two clubs can take part.

Okay, so at the moment, it looks like Club Leon is not going to take part, but to be honest, Max, we don't know what's going to happen because it's going to end in tribunal.

But can you imagine a club which has qualified for the Club World Cup,

has taken part in the draw, is then told, nah, you can't come, and then you hear $1 billion to be shared.

I think if I were the people from Group Bakhtuga, I would be well pissed off.

And I would be well pissed off as well now for...

Do you remember Inter Miami when they were brought in so that Messi could take part in the Club World Cup, despite the fact they hadn't won the right competition?

Well, what about the other MLS sites?

What are they going to say?

Say, oh, come on into Miami, could you share the money with us, please?

That's not going to happen, is it?

So that's

another can of worms in the

Jenny's bunker.

You know, it's a bit like

in The Last of Us when they suddenly found this place where people have been stacking tins and whiskey and everything.

And here, in Jenny's bunker, it's just like can of worms after can of worms after can of worms.

Yeah, well, we're going to open one in part three with James Montague, but perhaps part two will be worm-free.

We will find out in just a second.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So look, we've got the FA Gup quarterfinals, Fulham Palace, Brighton Forest, Preston, Aston Villa, and Bournemouth-Man City.

And I think everybody, Man City fans aside, is sitting there thinking, if Bournemouth can win this, is that unfair of me, Will, to be looking at it that way?

Fancy City fans have written off most of the season anyway quite like saving the money from two trips to Wembley for a semi-final and final so I suspect most are quite happy to let Bournemouth do it you know we'd all have a lot more fun in the semis if it's a different collection of teams I'm quite relaxed about it I've been to Wembley this season already God, God, God, the entitlement.

The privilege.

Yeah, exactly.

The privilege.

Pouring off you.

That's how to deal with a shit season.

It's going, don't really mind.

We've been there so many times.

But it would, like, Robin, it would be good, wouldn't it?

If that's what we hope for is just like two teams in the final that haven't won it for donkeys years or have never won it.

And like, Bournemouth can beat that.

Bournemouth have beaten Man City.

They can do it.

They can.

They haven't been on a great run recently.

And yeah, I did their previous round against Wolves and they should have done it in 90 minutes.

This is

the problem they've had in recent games is they cannot finish teams off.

You know, you go back to the, they were 2-0 up against Spurs,

ended up two all.

I've also just seen that they don't have Kirkz or Hausen for this one because they're suspended.

So that's two very big blows.

I'm not sure if there's been a better fullback actually in the Premier League.

Kirkz is an absolute machine.

He's amazing.

So yeah, when you think back to kind of, you know, that amazing result they had at St.

James's Park where Justin Clivert was kind of, you know, wafing everything in.

The finishing has sort of eluded them.

They definitely can, as you said, and the Man City City are definitely beatable still.

They still don't look right at all.

But I do think, yeah, because of those absences, it's going to be slightly trickier, perhaps, than they'd like.

Brighton Forest will.

You've seen a lot of Forest this season, haven't you?

Now, they're clearly having a brilliant season.

They beat Brighton 7-0 in the league not long ago.

And since then, Brighton have become the best team in the division.

Just on City fans, again, I'd just like to say that we're all saving our money for the Club World Cup because we just can't wait.

Okay, yeah, no, no.

Billions of dollars.

It's all they're talking about on the streets of Ancoats, I tell you.

I thought so.

Yeah, I was at that Forest E.

Brighton match, and I'm quite convinced it was the worst performance in Premier League history from Brighton.

They decided to play with no midfield, which was an odd decision, and got absolutely hammered from start to finish.

They weren't in the game.

It was genuinely embarrassing to watch.

Just looked like a Sunday League team.

They had one midfielder, I think.

It was Hinchelwood, who by himself was getting overrun hilariously.

It was pathetic.

But yeah, as you say, they've picked up.

I mean, Forrest have maintained their standards.

And I think

going there off the back of beating them 7-0, they'll be very keen.

I think

Forrest have got a slight injury worry with Chris Wood, that he went off injured against New Caledonia.

But also, the fact that he's had to travel so far for international duty as a key man, you know, I think it was 18 goals this season, something silly like that.

He's coming back for the the biggest game they've had in a while, you know, trying to get to Wembley, et cetera.

So that would be a little bit of a concern.

But they're doing so well and so confident within themselves in what they do under Nuno and had a bit of time to relax and regroup, I guess.

You know, Murillo, unfortunately, was part of that Brazil team that got hammered by Argentina.

So another one that's had a bit of travelling to do.

But if you beat a team 7-0,

you'll be so arrogant going into that game.

It'll be impressive.

But that's what football's like being arrogant, let's be honest.

They need that confidence in themselves.

It'll be interesting whether Brighton are sort of a bit nervous having seen what can be done to them or they want that revenge, you know, the old wounded animal.

But yeah, they're so good.

They've got so much quality of, you know, they drew at the Amex, so it is a, you know, that was a far tighter game and maybe the better example of the two time of the two times they've faced each other this season.

So, no, I think that'll probably be the game of the weekend, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, Fulham Palace is very hard to call Philippe, isn't it?

And not just that game, but all these games, because of the opportunity, right?

Even if he's to get through, you may avoid him in the semifinals.

Like, there is an FA Cup final just itching for one of these teams to get to.

And it could be one of these two teams.

It's a very unusual situation because normally

over the last decade or so, two decades or so, you would imagine that this competition was not an afterthought, but you you gradually became interested in it if you went past the rounds.

But even at the quarter-final stage, you were still thinking, for example, if your club was in there and you had a big Premier League meeting on which rested European qualification or going down the relegation zone, you would still prioritize the Premier League.

And I don't think that's the case this time.

at least for seven of them,

because Manchester City perhaps is in a different situation.

But for the others, I mean, it's also a little bit of an extra feather in the cap.

It's like a confirmation that there are a lot of overachievers in this draw.

Brighton is an overachiever.

Nottingham Forest is an overachiever.

Bournemouth is.

And you could say Fulham and to an extent Crystal Palace as well are.

And because nobody was expecting them to do as well as that.

And in a way, if they go through, that's a confirmation that they really have...

made a step forward.

And then there's Preston North and Aston Villa, which is basically fabulous fabulous because we're going to take a time machine, travel back to 1888, and we'll have the Invincibles of Preston against the Great Villa team of the 1890s, you know, and so forth.

So it's a trip.

That's, I mean,

I must say, when I saw that draw, I think that's the best draw I can remember for a very, very, very long time.

Well, you were at Preston's training ground yesterday.

Can I say everything?

Yeah, I jumped over the fence just to use myself.

I mean, it's pretty hard to find a particular housing estate next to it.

I got lost quite a bit.

Yeah, uh, they make a good flat white.

And I went to interview one of their players, Andrew Hughes, for something I'm doing, which will be out over the weekend.

But yeah, everyone seemed quite relaxed.

The car park was, you know, good size so I could fit in, which I was quite pleased about.

But yeah,

you know, they've had a good time off, whereas a lot of the Villa players have gone away on international duty to here, there, and everywhere.

So they were quite chilled.

They'd had time to relax and maybe not think about the game.

Even though, you know, if you're in a training every day looking forward to it for two weeks it can get on your mind you can build the nerves the whatsapp group's been silent no one's been discussing what morgan rogers is doing for england or anything like that or how emilio martinez is seeing off brazil with great ease

so yeah it was quite calm they were very chilled you know very polite everyone says hello when you're there which you don't always get at football training grounds it's uh bolton and wigan previously trained there so yeah i think with preston you speak to their fans

something I've been doing this week, they're just quite inconsistent.

You know, they've drawn 17, 18 games in the championship this season, which is, you know, shows that they're quite tight, but you know, there's games where they should have won and have not, and that's why they're 14th in the league.

If you look at the 10 years straight in the championship now, in the last nine years, they've finished between 7th and 14th every season.

You know, it's one of those they always think they can get promoted at the start of each season, but they just lack a bit of consistency, that extra bit of know-how, maybe,

or even a bit of quality, and they're just steady.

And so, everyone in Preston has been building up for this day because say they've not made it, they've not made it past the fourth round in the league or FA Cup for you know well over a decade.

These things don't come around very often.

You know, Mother's Day is cancelled in Preston on Sunday.

It's not

taking place, unfortunately, for a lot of them.

I've spoken to someone, you know, they told them, no, Sunday roast is off, it's half on at Deepdale or nothing, unfortunately.

And this is it, these games don't come around.

They're the final team outside of the Premier League in it.

We can talk about Brighton and Bournemouth, but you know, they are expected to get to these sort of stages, even though they don't that often, because you know, a lot of time they rotate the players.

Whereas Preston aren't, you know, Preston know their season is done after this, they're not going to achieve anything.

And they've got a lot of players that know this is their only chance they're ever going to get of reaching an FA Cup semi-final.

And on the upside, if they do reach Wembley, all those people that have ignored their mothers on Sunday, they can take it for a day out because it'll clear the city with 40-odd thousand at Wembley for a semi-final.

I think we should mention Jean-Philippe Matetta.

I think we'll be back for

Palace.

Wow, that's quick.

Yes.

25 stitches

wearing some sort of protective gear.

He'll be like Bain.

He'll be dressed like.

I know he's got his trademark kicking the corner flag celebration, but I do think a great flex would be him cupping his ear or his

one that used to be there.

Let's talk about Trenton Alexander Arnold.

Real Madrid in talks over finalising the signing of the Liverpool fullback.

Could he play midfield?

I always wondered that.

Anyway, on a free transfer this summer, he's 26.

He's played 350 times for Liverpool.

Been there since he was a kid.

He'll probably finish the season with another Premier League winner's medal.

Five-year deal for the biggest club in the world as he enters his peak.

Seems, Philippe, like a good idea.

Did you say biggest club in the world?

I think we're going to get an email from Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

Okay.

Well, you'll see.

I'm not sure he listens.

And if he, I think he may have have used to listen.

I suspect he doesn't anymore.

But

yeah, I mean, what do you make of this move?

It seems very sensible to me.

Yeah, it seems very sensible.

It's one of those, to be honest.

I mean, is anybody surprised this is going to happen?

Absolutely not.

I think the deal has been discussed for a very long time.

Liverpool were quite clear as to, you know, that they don't seem to think that is perhaps the best.

you know, right back that they can possibly have.

They'll be sorry to see him go.

They'll wish him good luck.

I think it's one of those that is always going to be

a win-win-win-win-win situation for absolutely everybody concerned.

Do you think so, sir?

I mean, I think Liverpool probably

don't think that because they're not getting a transfer fee and he's a brilliant footballer.

Well, if they had wanted a transfer fee, they could have woken up a little bit earlier, couldn't they?

And they didn't.

So the situation is that three of their biggest players are coming to the end of their contract in June.

They didn't do the necessary or didn't think they had to do the necessary necessary and had other plans.

I mean, given the way that Liverpool have been going on about their recruitment, I very much doubt that it was about a forgetfulness, that they simply forgot that their player was coming to the end of its contract.

No, it's not.

But once the situation was known to everybody, I think

this was the issue, the conclusion that everybody was expecting.

And in a way, I think he will probably be

perhaps feel even better in La Liga than he does

in the Premier League.

I think he fits in in as well with a certain type of profile that Realm Madrid tend to go for.

I think that the Realm Madrid defending, which has already been interesting this season, will be even more interesting next.

Unless they obviously do bring up some more reinforcements.

But, you know, I mean, it's.

Honestly, when I said, yeah, it's happening.

Everybody knew it was going to happen.

It's happening.

Good luck to everyone.

He's been dribbled past more than any other player in the Premier League this season.

He's second bottom on one-on-one jewels.

Among all defenders, only poor Ben Johnson at Ipswich is below him.

But 64 assists in the league for Liverpool.

Not this season, that's, you know, in total.

He's made since 1718, he's made more passes into the box than any player in Europe's top leagues.

But look, Conor Bradley is absolutely brilliant.

So I don't think that is an issue.

I guess it will change what they do in midfield or their midfield will have to...

you know, they will obviously miss his distribution, but it will be interesting to see.

Jim says, were arsenal guaranteed progression in the women's champions league as soon as philippe was confirmed for this pod yes he does have a real record unlike nikki uh of you know being here for great arsenal moments um 0-0 at halftime so they were 2-0 down robin from the first leg 0-0 at half-time and then absolutely stormed out the blocks in the second half it was so exciting yeah it was brilliant i mean they did batter them in the first half as well but they just couldn't finish and that's when you think is this going to be one of those nights because arsenal women have been guilty of just being really not clinical enough.

And then, yeah, it was three goals in 14 minutes: two from Russo, one from Caldente.

Alessia Russo was absolutely brilliant.

It's so great to see her evolution at Arsenal.

She had a bit of a slow start, and also, you know,

she's coming off the bench for Ellen White at Euros for

such an impact every single time.

And now she's the starting nine for Arsenal and England.

And she's now added everything to her game.

She is absolutely the complete number nine.

She also had two goals ruled out for offside.

So tight, wasn't it?

So tight.

So she was denied her hat-trick.

Also, one of them, they kicked off first and then

they pulled it back.

Hashtag

hashtag good process, yeah, for her for offside.

So a great night for Arsenal.

And do you know what?

I remember even just a couple of years ago when women's teams played at men's stadiums, it was almost seen as a sort of disadvantage because they just weren't used to it.

Arsenal women at the Emirates now, it's like another,

they are now so comfortable there.

They've had some fantastic nights there and afternoons, and they are so at home.

And I just think that's a real credit to the club for making it their second home.

Actually, I think Boreham Woods now a bit of a, you know,

they lost to Liverpool there in their FA Cup quarterfinal.

So actually, I think they're now more comfortable playing at the Emirates.

So yeah, no, great, great result for them.

And Leon up next in the semi-finals.

So yeah, not an easy one.

I I mean, Kelly, how good was she?

I mean, it was just

absolutely phenomenal.

For what she's been through, yeah.

Yeah, and I had loads of Arsenal

friends texting me until quite late last night.

One of them was at the game, and when he came home, he had to watch it again.

So I got a text at like one o'clock in the morning.

He said, I've watched it again.

It's even better.

I'm still buzzing.

And the atmosphere, according to everybody, was incredible at the Emirates.

And yes, it's become actually, for them, it's now going to become a massive asset

in the way they're going to progress.

I mean, Lyon, not too sure.

I mean, that's

stuff where I can see that you're going, as well.

It might be just a little step too far.

But the manner of this, and especially after what happened in the first, you know, the first leg on that awful pitch, that it's really sweet revenge, I must say.

Yeah, Chelsea City, tonight, City 2-0 up from the first leg.

Chelsea have beaten Man City in the league since then.

They also won the League Cup.

It's a ridiculous sort of saga that they would just never, they'll just play each other for the rest of time.

It's like that Channel Islands game that Paul Watson was talking about on

Tuesday.

Barcelona Wolfsburg, Barcelona, you know, almost certain to go through, I think, a full one up from the first leg, aren't they?

Women's Football Weekly, of course, wherever you get your podcasts, it is very good and you should listen to it.

So thank you.

And now that'll do for part two.

James Montague, our author, friend of the pod, will join us in just a second.

He's written a book called Engulfed, How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport and the World.

And we'll talk to him about that in just a second.

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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?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

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Please play responsibly.

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

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Let's say hi to friend of the pod, author James Montague.

How are you, James?

Hello.

Thank you for having me on again.

You've written another book, Engulfed, How Saudi Arabia Bought Sport and the World.

It's such a fascinating topic.

We've done quite a lot on it.

You know, Saudi moving into football, golf, boxing.

I feel like it's sort of unavoidably embedded in sort of almost every sport now.

Why did you want to write this book?

Well, funnily enough, the inspiration, well, it wasn't exactly this pod, but basically the past couple of books or two of the previous books about one of them was When Friday Comes, which is about football and politics in the Middle East, and the other one about the Billionaires Club, which is about the super rich basically taking over football.

And one thing that's absent, or one country that's absent, despite being the richest in the Middle East, a lot of that covers the golf as well and the money that goes into Manchester City and Abu Dhabi and Qatar and all that.

But there was one country that was completely absent, and that was Saudi Arabia,

which has been for most of its history since the 1930s, a kind of isolationist power, one of the richest countries in the world, the home of Islam, the custodian of the two holy mosques, as the king has kind of styled himself.

And so Saudi Arabia had kind of been out of of the game.

But as far as most people are concerned, that changes when during lockdown, it's announced that the PIF, the public investment fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, decides that they're going to buy 80 or announces they're going to try and take over Newcastle United.

And funnily enough, I got invited on this pod to talk about it.

And I was on there to talk about the kind of the political issues around Saudi Arabia and the human rights issues.

And there was a guy called Alex Hurst who has a true faith podcast in Newcastle.

And most of the discussion that I'd heard had been, you know, almost very, you know, kind of clichéd in a way in terms of how they painted Newcastle United fans.

And Alex was extremely pro-Saudi takeover.

They just wanted to get rid of Ashley.

They wanted their club back.

And, you know, there was a certain cognitive dissonance with a lot of that that I discovered over the years.

But he's very,

he was very erudite with it all.

And so I basically got in contact with him and I went to Newcastle.

And I've basically spent the past three years following fans who have been, you know, hugely in favour of it.

And also this kind of almost this insurgency that exists with this very tiny group of people who protest outside the ground, Newcastle United FC against sports washing,

and you know, kind of tracking the story of these two guys and how it and these two kind of groups and how it really fits into a lot of modern themes about

structured democracy, autocracy, disinformation,

what's real and what's not.

And it all plugs in to Saudi Arabia taking over this club as being part part of a far wider

story about not just sport, but the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, probably the most infamous assassination in history when Jama Khashoggi is murdered, how Saudi Arabia has brought itself out from isolation into the light where a very real kind of cultural revolution is taking place back home.

At the same time, it's turned into a virtually political totalitarian state.

So for me, this is the biggest story in sport,

if not in politics at the moment.

I mean,

there's not a lot of space with what Trump's doing.

But to me,

this was the story.

And I felt that not enough was being done to kind of try and tell

it.

I don't use the cliche in black and white terms, but like in black and white terms, you know,

there is this, there's this huge centre ground trying to understand what's going on because how that is changing Newcastle as a city and its fan base is also an important story about how it's kind of changing the world in a way as well.

I mean, that's such an enormous question.

Where do you even start?

Like, if you had that idea, I would just go, oh, well, that's a big idea.

I will just let someone else write that.

Well,

I started by going to,

it was Newcastle United against Wolves in 2022.

And I went up there and

I interviewed Alex.

I interviewed a guy called Peter Sagar, who was, you know, it was really his interview that made me think, you know, I've got to do something about this.

So I sat down with him.

Peter is, you know, he's a lifelong Newcastle United fan.

And he had decided that there's just no way that he could ever accept that there's saudi money coming into the club he was a human rights activist um he remembers the kind of fairs cup you know he's in his kind of early 60s he remembers the fairs cup win the last kind of like major trophy that they won until the until the uh caribou cup and

he was absolutely devastated and when i spoke to him it was it was like he he was bereaved like he'd lost he'd lost a family member and the way that he spoke like that nothing matters we don't matter and he was almost in tears and i thought this is a person's story I've really got to tell.

And I thought, this is the line through which

kind of the spine of a book or a story I could tell by telling the story of Newcastle and how that changes and how people's view of the takeover changes.

Because it was clear

when the takeover happened that there were big changes afoot, not just for the club, but for the city.

And whether those wounds could be healed.

And then around that, you can build the story of Saudi Arabia, because

the parallel story to this, of course, is that until 2015, Saudi Arabia was almost impossible to access.

I mean, I managed to get into the country once in 2008 to do a story for The Observer, funnily enough, about scuba diving.

You know, they had this very, they had this very, there's a very short window where they tried to open up, a little bit like what MBS is doing, but on a very small scale.

And I managed to get apparently the first non-Muslim tourist visa ever given to a British citizen, which is which is amazing.

And by the way, they've got 2,000 mile untapped kind of Red Sea coastline.

It was amazing.

In the end, when I came back, they just closed the door immediately.

I don't think the two were connected, but they did close the door completely.

You know, and so it was completely closed off.

You know, unless you're working in the oil industry or you're a Muslim making Umar al-Hajj, you were not going or going to, you know, going to Mecca.

You were not going into Saudi Arabia.

And then suddenly in 2015, King Salman comes, basically ascends to the throne.

And there's this whole Shakespearean story of how his favorite son, Mohammed bin Salman, outmaneuvers everybody, comes to power and then institutes this remarkable change within Saudi society.

I know you've had Lina al-Hathlul on previously, and I've interviewed her several times for the book as well.

So she tells one story, which is very true as well, about the political repression.

But on the ground that how life has changed for everyday Saudis, it culturally it's remarkable.

It was a place you wouldn't see women in public life in 2008.

You wouldn't hear music.

Music was banned.

You you see, the religious police following around everywhere, and you go you fast forward to when I managed to get back into the country, and it is women and men freely mixing at football matches, women driving.

Um, these all sound very basic rights, but you have to remember the context of Saudi in 2014, those things were deemed impossible because it was such a conservative religious nation, and suddenly that's changed overnight.

But at the same time, and as Lina Thur really, you know,

I think has expertly explained around the world, it has become less free than it's ever been in terms of political rights, criticism, civil society.

And so, this is a remarkable story of change and dictatorship that's taken place in Saudi Arabia.

And sport has become absolutely central to it because it wants to engage with the world.

It wants to bring business to Saudi Arabia.

It wants to bring tourists.

It wants to

change its reputation.

I don't like using the word sports watching.

I think I only use it once in the book.

It's much more complicated.

It's about power, the exercise of power.

But yeah, you see this huge change.

And then after the assassination and, well, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, after that, the investment in sport goes absolutely through the roof.

It's as if they put most of their chips on that and realized, well, we can engage with the world.

We can change the way the world sees who we are.

And we can repair NBS's reputation through sport.

And it started with Newcastle United.

And then it's moved on, as one writer told me on like off the record, it was like a tree, right?

It's the lowest hanging fruit of corruption.

Boxing was the lowest.

So boxing was completely taken over completely.

And I went to the Fury Usuk fight in Riyadh, which is a remarkable event to go and cover.

And then, and they're moving up the tree, depending on what, what, what, you know, how easily bought each sport is to the point now where it's almost every sport.

I mean, we've got this live golf insurgent league backed by now President Trump that's taken on the PGA tour in the US.

I mean, there was, I went to one event that was, uh, it was, I went to a snooker event, the first kind of uh official snooker event in Saudi Arabia.

They had another event as well where they brought in a golden ball.

I don't think you see this evention, so you can get a 160.

Yes, I think so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, that was that was an invention of Turkey Alal Sheikh, who's the, this kind of very cuddly figure who you see probably a lot.

He goes on talk sport a lot, talking, he's always wears shades indoors, but also one of the most powerful men in Saudi Arabia because he's one of the few people who Mohammed bin Salman listens to.

So, yeah, it's just

become vast.

It's getting bigger.

And

the entrenchment of Saudi money, not just at Newcastle, but also in every sport and almost in every kind of facet of life.

This is the start, not the end.

Even when we talk about them winning the bid to host the 2034 World Cup.

You know, when Newcastle won the Carabao Cup, it was interesting.

We talked about the ownership, but almost entirely across, you know, on the day when people are covering the game, you know, talks about who I work for or Five Live or Sky, didn't really address it.

And I suspect because it's this kind of, oh, people don't want to hear that today, you know, that's like, let's just have this, this is, you know, because it was amazing for the fans.

Of course it was.

They hadn't won a trophy for so long.

So is that a sign that it is working or not?

I think they're not scared of the Saudis, and they're more scared of Newcastle United fans getting upset with them, to be honest, because

it was such a big event.

I mean, I was there.

I was at the final.

I saw Yasset Al-Roumian, the governor of the PIF, go on the pitch.

But one of the things that's that's been quite interesting going back and forth to Newcastle is this idea.

I remember speaking to Alex about this and I asked him about the Saudi takeover 2023, I think it was.

And he was like, what have you asked about the Saudis?

Like, what Saudis?

They're not here.

Yassa Al-Roumian's playing golf with Trump.

He seems more interested in golf.

There was a moment where it felt like...

the Saudis had kind of lost interest in Newcastle because the Premier League had brought in all sorts of new PSR rules and associated party transaction rules to try to stop them doing what kind of Manchester City is accused of doing is with these kind of sponsorship contracts with kind of state-connected companies.

And so there was this very real feeling that they weren't there.

But

what's for me,

you know,

one of the people I spoke to in the book, I think, who really encapsulated it, is a guy called Professor Joseph S.

Nye.

And he's the guy, one of the leading, world-leading academics, former Deputy Secretary of State somewhere for Clinton.

Actually, he was very, he's worked for three presidents and advised the fourth.

That's it.

He, because he corrected me.

Right, okay.

We worked for four presidents.

But he's the godfather of soft power right and he and so right

sports auction doesn't cut it right

power it's about the exercise of power and soft power isn't a lesser power it's about making people do what you want but without guns and without paying people off.

You do it through attraction.

You create attraction.

People are attracted to you, attracted to your brand, attracted to the kind of direction of travel that you're going in.

And so that's the power of what Newcastle United is.

And that's the power of taking over all of these sports and bringing them to Saudi Arabia is making Saudi Arabia an attractive proposition.

And to us and to this pod, and to many listeners, and the same thing happened with the Qatar World Cup, which Professor Nye holds up and his example, a brilliant example of soft power.

To us, this sounds like we know the human rights issues, we know the contradictions.

At play, we speak to activists.

How can people have a positive attitude towards Saudi Arabia?

But outside of this bubble, which is the rest of the world, Saudi Arabia's reputation is burnished.

It looks attractive.

It attracts people.

And Professor Nye really points out to Qatar, which is like a lot of people talked about workers' rights and human rights.

And that's, you know, on the ledger, that's a negative.

But compared to the rest of the world, the rest of the Middle East, Africa, South America, it was a massive positive.

And actually, the West's reputation was damaged because we were looking like hypocrites, because we weren't standing up for the things that our governments were doing, which they see as kind of totally immoral.

So it's a very difficult corridor of moral uncertainty that is being presented to fans.

But partly

Saudi wants that as well.

The UAE wants that when they the Abu Dhabi Royal family when they buy Manchester City, when Qatar buys Paris Sanchuman.

No, they want that corridor of moral uncertainty.

They want people to be like, oh, you know, they know people can't walk away.

It's not like deleting Uber or saying, I'm not going to go on Twitter because of Musk anymore.

People don't make the same kind of moral judgments when it comes to their football teams because they're not a business.

They're something they're attached to your soul and you can't can't really walk away from it in the same way.

Let me ask about the World Cup and ask about NEOM and

the fact that you went to Saudi and your experiences being on the ground because quite a lot of people, you know, quite a lot of criticism that we get and I get is look, you're sitting in a shed in Melbourne.

How the hell do you know?

You know, you, you talk to activists, but you don't know actually what real life is like.

And then we have this sort of this mad.

sort of long-lined city that's really high off the ground and all the steel in the world has to be there and environmentally it sounds like it just sounds like a total nightmare for the poor builder that's been put in charge of it but what you're experiencing you know being there changes or does it change how you feel or does it give you a much more nuanced view i guess i mean it does in a way i mean i you know i've spent a lot of time in the middle east i lived in dubai i i i live in turkey now which isn't the middle east but it has has had a huge you know uh influence on the middle east especially saudi arabia so i've spent a lot of time in the region and you do have a more nuanced view i think i mean you you you you see people as they are you know people just trying to get through day-to-day a lot of young people you meet are very similar to young people you meet everywhere.

You know, they're teenagers.

They want to meet girls, want to meet boys.

They want to get loaded.

I don't know, you know, but just not with booze, with, you know, something else.

So it is, you do, you do, you know, see some, see it in it.

And I, you know, I would recommend going.

I mean, it went from being the least free place in the world to go as a foreign journalist to suddenly you get a visa overnight.

And I don't know how long that's going to last.

I don't know if that, you know, I don't know whether it's wise I go back, to be honest.

I'll have to give that some serious thought.

I've probably cut myself off from 10 years of work with the World Cup coming off.

But going to going to somewhere like, I mean, obviously I couldn't get into Neon because it's very secretive and it's very difficult to get into.

But I did go to Tabuk, which was the nearest city to Neom.

And there's this extraordinary story about how Neon has bought a third division football club there and it's and it's kind of rebranded it as Neon.

And they've signed loads of players that no third division got, they got promoted to the second division, changed the name of the club to Neom SC.

They signed Syed Ben Rama,

Ahmed Hijazi, who played for West Bromwich Albium.

They signed the captain of the Saudi national team.

And their project is basically they're just going to pump enough money into it until Neom are basically champions of Saudi Arabia, until they win the club World Cup.

And then they can then transplant its football team into this 100-kilometer-long line city, which is going to have a World Cup stadium at the top of it, which is going to be run by AI.

And

going to be at the height of the

Eiffel Tower.

And that's the plan.

And I went there and I walked into the stadium, and they had all these fans were singing with neon scarves.

So I've got a couple of neon scarves at home, which I think will be a great,

you know, that'll be a great thing,

souvenir to have.

And, you know, I walked into the VVIP area, which they invited me to.

And there's all like some of the most important people in Saudi Arabia there.

And they've got this five-year plan that they're going to win the Club World Cup in five years.

And we're going to transplant this team to the top of this brand new football stadium and you know suddenly they're going to build a real Madrid from nothing and it's it's extraordinary because I wouldn't have found that story if I hadn't gone to Saudi Arabia turned on the TV when I was watching

for the boxing and seen a team called Neon playing in the third division it was on it was on the TV on a repeat so I would recommend anyone who wants to cover this story, they should go.

It's definitely freer than it is.

And it does give you a perspective.

You're not going to find people on the ground criticising the government or even telling the truth about what's going on.

That's not what you're going to find.

Could you find them?

Because I know that you sort of, you gave lots of people anonymity, right, to talk to you, but how difficult was it to find people in Saudi Arabia?

Yeah, I mean, I've known people like, you know, people I've known for years.

People have contacted me after I've done previous reporting anonymously.

But the issue isn't necessarily finding them, right?

I can find them.

But going to Saudi Arabia and talking to people as a Western journalist endangers people.

And this is what a lot of Saudi activists said: like, don't go there as a white man walking around expecting to find people criticizing NBS.

That will get you 25 years in prison.

So, people are scared.

You know, I went to Washington, I met Leen Al-Haflul, I met Khalid Khalid al-Jabri, who's the son of

one of the former most important figures within Saudi intelligence, who's in exile now in Canada.

And a hit squad was basically sent to him to kill him at the same time a squad was sent to Istanbul to kill Jamal Khashoggi.

So speaking to them,

you know, it was clear, like you can't, you can't, not only

is it, don't do that, but it's also immoral to do that because you're endangering people.

And so I think I pushed it as far as I could.

But for me, it was also trying to capture the story of people who were really in favor of it, right?

Because if you think about what a young person's life was in 2015, where music was banned, where you couldn't go to a cinema, because cinemas have been banned for 40 years, where it was just austere and suffocating.

To now, when you go and there's a David Gueta concert, or I mean, which I wouldn't have gone to,

I don't know, maybe I would have done if I was Saudi, but you know, there's a, you know, there's that, you know, they're having these massive festivals.

It's almost, you know,

you know, as free, or if you look at the kind of timeout on the weekend, it's almost as much going on as there is in London, especially it's re-ad season that they have.

And I wanted also to get that story, which is like, what what is the sugar for this autocratic pill, this totalitarian pill?

And that's it.

Whether it's the ultimate bread and circuses, I don't know.

But I do know that, and this can't last forever, but I do know that in the years that this change has happened, he's brought along a huge number of young people who are, okay, like

we'll accept this for now, but they will ask for more and more and more.

And that's what the key story is going to be, I think, in the next kind of five to ten years.

You're talking about the young Saudis.

We should also talk about the young foreign workers who are coming and treated like shit, even worse than in Qatar, and dying.

And we knew it started.

There was one report of an accident, but we knew there's been loads of things happening.

We should also think about the migrants who tried to cross the border and have been shot down by machine guns, by the Saudi army.

So

there is a kind of Potemkin side to it, isn't there?

Because

you've been, I mean, what amazed me when, you know, I was at your book launch, when you talk about the freedom with which you were able to travel.

have you come in i i to a certain extent but have you come across i would say the other world the other part of saudi i mean there's not 90 migrant workers like it's in qatar it's a smaller proportion but there are still millions of them yeah i mean i look i have i've spoken to workers on the ground and i've spoken to i mean more with with my previous book the billionaires club i mean i went to bangladesh and followed the pipeline of workers from Bangladesh and this and it's a pipeline of exploitation all the way it's not just at the Saudi end I mean it's the Bangladesh government is completely dependent on remittances from these workers and is quite happy for them to be exploited as long as that money keeps coming in.

And so you saw this pipeline of

exploitation all the way, going to Qatar, going to the UAE, going to Bahrain, going to Saudi Arabia.

And then you speak to the men who come out the other side.

kind of broken by the experience.

And

there's a really big problem in Bangladesh about what to do with these men because they're often, there's huge psychological issues when they come back.

I mean after essentially being imprisoned like in forced labor

for this kind of like period of time but when you speak to them you know often they'll say thank God I wasn't in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has by far the biggest the biggest user of kafala.

It's the worst abuser of fala.

There have been some reforms in Saudi Arabia but as we know the reforms don't really mean anything if they're not they're not it's just for show they're not actually um kind of sorted out and so this is going to be the biggest issue going forward from now on is that like we don't know how many workers really are in NEON right now.

We know 20% of the entire world's steel supply is going to neon.

So the numbers there must be frightening.

There was a brilliant documentary, I think it was Kingdom Uncovered, which was on ITV, which uncovered, because one of the things I did in Bangladesh, same thing, is that you can't find...

really good information about how many people are dying there.

You can only go to the airport and count the coffins.

That's literally the only way that a lot of people can find out how many people are coming back.

And so, in this documentary,

they've got the figures for how many people are coming back.

I think it was something like 20,000 deaths already, you know, in kind of five years on this building site.

That's this entire section of the country where NEOM is being built.

Now, the Saudi government have said that figures disinformation, but

no one knows because it's almost completely sealed off to the public.

And we'll probably never know.

But this will be with the World Cup coming up and with Infantino.

And I think this is a very important point to make.

Infantino is in bed with basically, you know, every autocrat you could imagine.

He's absolutely, he's an autocrat's dream.

He loves Trump.

He loves MBS.

He's met him several times.

They've already watered down all the all the

guardrails and provisions that were put in place by FIFA after the 2022 World Cup.

So there's going to be no

monitoring,

really not realistic monitoring or nothing that

you can trust.

So, I think

it's going to get significantly worse in terms of the numbers and also in terms of the information that we get from it.

And I think it's going to get harder and harder to report on that area of what's going on in the country.

I mean, we should mention Sammy Kunti, who did a great piece for Jossimar, speaking to workers who found kind of gone on strike and kicked out of one kind of labor camp.

He's done some great reporting around that.

So, it is possible, but the consequences for getting caught

are quite severe.

So

that is always something worth bearing in mind when people say, well, why aren't you in the camps there?

I mean, you know,

it's a dangerous game.

James, look, we will obviously talk about this subject as the World Cup in 2034 approaches.

Before...

you start criticising us.

We will, of course, talk about what is happening in the US, as we already have on this pod another World Cup in 2026.

But thanks so much, James.

Really appreciate it.

The book is called Engulfed, How Saudi Arabia Brought Sport and the World.

and that'll do for today for everyone so thank you james cheers thanks for having me on thanks robin thanks max oh there's a little i just noticed a little one oh sorry there is a tiny baby you're right james there is a tiny baby it's not it's not young willie rushton he's in bed but it is uh it is young it's i presume all your children are called a barry robin of course after britain's probably fifth best tennis player of the 90s uh another barry cowan there uh will thank you cheers max thanks philippe thank you very much max Will Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.