Blood Empty: How a Beloved Team Made a Deal with the Devil

to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre.

Today's episode is brought to you by DraftKings.

DraftKings, the crown is yours.

And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Right after this ad.

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead.

Treat yourself to a little luxury and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac feeding champagne and fortune alcoholic volume reported by Remy Control, USA Incorporated in Europe, New York, 1738.

Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

How's it going, man?

Yeah, I'm all right, but

you're finishing.

Is this lunch?

Granola bar.

Which technically, I guess, is lunch right now.

Yeah, I've been tracking you across the office.

I am always rushing around from thing to thing.

You seem haggard, especially lately.

It's been a stretch, dude.

You are trying to be kind to yourself by eating a kind bar.

A real luxury.

Oh, it's good.

It's good.

We'll do it.

Question.

Yeah.

Have you ever done something?

And

this will go somewhere.

Have you ever done something to someone where you ask them to do, you know, like a favor for you?

They do it.

And only then afterwards do you realize that, oh man, you just asked them to do like something absolutely wretched.

Yes.

First time I moved out of my parents' apartment,

asked a friend, can you help me move having never done it myself?

And moving in New York is basically like, would you like to would you like to be basically stuck in a set of stairs trying to maneuver a couch at like a 64 degree angle.

My buddy Juan, I am so sorry.

He got the bottom part of the couch

and I was like just steering it from the top, which is an unequal distribution of labor.

Oh, Margarita.

Yeah, I did that, which I am still living down.

I did this with my cousin Max, who lives in Germany.

We're talking on Zoom, and I looked on, you know, kind of on Google Maps, and I found out where he was at.

And I'm like, oh, dude, he's next to Borussio Dortmund.

Holland!

Hollands for Lee is beautiful beyond compare.

And at that time, they were incredible.

They had Aaron Holling, they had Christian Pulisich.

Is there any chance like

you could get me a hat?

Yeah, you're that kind of cousin.

You're like the, oh, wait, you're in Germany.

Exactly.

You got your, can I get some merch?

Can I get some merch?

And he was just like,

yeah, okay.

So, so he gets one.

And then I proudly like put the Borussio Dortmund hat on the next time we're on Zoom.

And I'm like, Max, check out my hat.

And he was like,

yeah.

He responded the way that Juan responded when I asked him to help me move a couch.

Yeah, and that's that's a good ad Bradley.

And I was like, what's up?

And he was like, well, Borussio Dortmund,

they're our enemy.

Like, we root for this team called Shalka, and we just hate Borussio Dortmund.

And I'm just like, oh.

Yeah.

I wasn't familiar with the geopolitics of intra German professional soccer clubs.

It's huge.

But apparently, Bradley, as I understand now where you're headed, yeah, this is this is a thing but then he told me like well it's it's okay it's just uh it's been a hard time to be a shulker fan and i was like

what do you mean

oh man don't ask me it's it's almost desperate to see what's going on at the moment especially no one really so of course i i asked him and he told me about this storied team of his shulka 04

one of the best in all of german football just became dead inside.

Well, fans described it as being blood empty.

That's kind of a phrase we use here.

Blood empty.

Yeah, they're standing on the field, blood empty.

It's like standing on the field and leaving a hollow impression of yourself.

Wow, that's a great phrase.

Yeah,

that's a great phrase.

Yeah, welcome to the German language.

He went on to tell me all about Shulka 04's downfall.

And as he was doing this, I realized that it was a very German story, a Faustian tale, if you will.

One that involved a deal with the devil, the selling of a soul, and a story that dropped his, like, his favorite football club out of the top division and down into

a geopolitical firestorm that our own president has said could lead us to World War III.

Right.

I have a sense now of your cousin Max.

Yep.

God bless him.

His favorite club.

But in terms of the Faustian bargain here, this deal with the devil, who is the devil in this story?

So at first, I had absolutely no idea.

So I went to Germany to find out.

Something very big is supposed to happen as early as today, Thursday, May 15th, 2025.

What you're hearing there is Russian President Vladimir Putin proposing earlier this week to quote-unquote restart peace talks directly with Ukraine, the nation he'd invaded.

And ostensibly, this would end the war that has impacted both all of Europe, certainly, as well as the United States.

And what Putin says here is that these talks should, quote, start without delay, as early as May 15th.

And look, the whims of Vladimir Putin, the whole way that his dictatorship in Russia can offer both destruction and salvation in one fell swoop, might not immediately seem like an urgent sports story to you.

But what you're about to hear today in the story of Schalka 04, this big German soccer team, is a story that's about a lot more than just Europe or international politics or our correspondent Bradley Campbell's cousin, Max.

This is a story about the strings that get attached to offers of sports salvation,

which means that this is a story about your favorite team as well.

So this is one of those stories that I green lit not because I love German soccer.

It's a story that I green lit because

There was this Faustian deal with the devil.

And so when it comes to people who are not familiar with Faust and that deal,

I mean, this is an omnipresent kind of story throughout human history.

I mean, if you've seen The Little Mermaid, that's a Faustian tale.

If you've watched Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny, right?

Also, Faustian tale.

Right?

The Little Mermaid gets to

be amongst

among us on land.

Yeah, yeah.

Tenacious D

gets to shred.

That's right.

But the original, right, which goes back centuries, 1700s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Earlier.

It's about an astrologer who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge and power.

And that story ends, I suppose, quite literally with Faust, the astrologer, in hell.

Yeah.

Which, judging from what we heard from Max and the Blood Empty Soccer Team,

is kind of where Shaka was.

I flew the overnight to Amsterdam because it's a much cheaper flight.

And then, gosh, I took a couple different commuter rails

and then got to a little West German town called Gelsenkirchen.

It felt like being on Amtrak and then going through the Alleghenies and then all of a sudden landing in Pittsburgh.

So as you look out the train window, it's Europe, but you're describing at this point a very familiar part of America.

Definitely, definitely.

It had this vibe of industry and kind of this vibe of an area that's seen better days.

It was the center of the mining region in Germany, but all the mines have been capped.

So there's no mines anymore.

They switched from coal power to natural gas.

Amid these rolling hills is a ruin that also harkens back to this time when it was thriving.

And it's full of fans with just a ton of hope and a ton of faith.

Schalker fans are notorious for illusionary optimism, basically.

And you already heard the comments on the internet, on radio, they score the goal at the weekend, which is at this point is kind of rare.

Okay, we score a goal, we can win.

If we win this game, we win the next game, we win the whole season, we get up next year.

we're going to be German champion.

This whole crazy loving fantasy of becoming the champion once again

immediately kicks in.

It's always like lottery or nothing.

But then you start like walking through Gelsenkirch and you're like,

this is a poor area.

It's a lot of working class immigrants, a lot of them coming from Turkey, and then a ton of working class Catholics.

So much that Pope John Paul II.

I mean, this is the original cool Pope.

I know the cool Pope.

He visited the area in 1987 and is also, I learned, an honorary Shalka 04 member.

So somewhere, JP2 and cousin Max are kindred spirits.

And then also my grandmother as well.

Her family owned a barge, an actual barge that they went up and down the Rhine River.

Everyone had to pitch in and work.

You know, it's kind of all hands to keep everything afloat.

And if the ship lists,

you know, you got to fix it yourself.

Right.

So this is the home of Shalka 04.

Yep.

For those like me who didn't know much about Shalka Schalka, when they clicked on this episode, what is the word you would use to describe just their sort of aesthetic, their vibe?

Old.

How old are we talking?

They formed in 1904.

Okay, so that's the 04.

That's the 04 in Schalka 04.

And, God, they're known as one of the historic clubs in Germany.

Seven-time German champions.

Although the last one was in 57, 58.

And the visuals here.

What is the visuals?

It's up on a hill.

It's right outside of town.

So you've got grass field upon grass field.

Everything just feels structured and efficient and German.

It feels like a factory.

Completely.

Completely.

And when you realize who they've produced, what this factory has

put out into the world.

So Mezet Ozil, Turkish, right?

Son of Turkish immigrants.

Yep.

One of the greatest midfielders in the world.

There's no flag this time.

And Erzil with a chance to win it.

It's Mezet Ozil.

Those creative midfielders for sure.

And then the greatest goalkeeper, many would argue.

Ever.

Manuel Neuer is from there.

The larger picture here is just that here is this factory producing this raw material and then refining it along this assembly line, exporting it out to the wider football world.

That truthfully is one of the coolest parts about Shock 04 is that it's one of these rare professional teams that look like the town.

So this team, when you look at the business of it, yeah, they're on the Forbes top 10 list alongside Bayern Munich, alongside Barcelona, alongside Manchester United.

These are the biggest brands in soccer.

The other part that I liked is they're completely owned by fans, but at times it can put them in a bind.

So the perspective I want to bring here is from Green Bay.

So Green Bay, the Packers, this is considered in America the most populist case study in how to do something like this.

Fan-owned, lots and lots and lots of members.

And I think it's Green Bay, hundreds of thousands.

In this case, Shalka is dealing with how many members?

190,000 members.

But the idea is that

there's no one billionaire owner.

It's this mess of people.

God knows that's my dream.

To own a soccer club.

But at least like to have a say in some sort of team's direction, like where they're sailing, I think would be absolutely important rather than having just like, you know, some billionaire owner's teenage sons, you know, deciding who to buy based on their Madden rating.

Yes, Brooke Johnson, not a character in this specific story.

And so as they are living your dream, as they are voting on decisions, deciding collectively how to try to proceed with this idyllic populist football vision in an era, of course, of billionaires and petrostates and oligarchs and the deepest pockets you've ever seen in the history of sports, it does raise another concern about: so, where is the money coming from, Bradley?

That's the big question.

I mean, you need massive amounts of money to compete at the highest levels of football.

Yeah, winning is correlated directly across the board here with money.

So, here begins our Faustian tale:

Enter the meat baron, a man named Clemens Tonies,

Who says, quote,

I am not a godfather.

Which is totally a thing a godfather would say.

100%.

100%.

He's like, I don't like that term.

There is no such thing as a godfather.

Again, godfather vibes.

Okay, so obviously we want to meet the godfather.

Meat Baron was like, sorry, dude.

So he never responded to any of our emails.

But we did talk to a German reporter from Reuters named Tisilo Hummel.

54321.

Who's an expert in all things meat baron?

It's a very, very fascinating character, you know.

I mean, he's originally a butcher.

He grew up in post-war Germany.

He often told the tale how

poor everybody was back then and how

much he's kind of rooted in the working class, which he truly is.

He says that Tony is transformed from butcher to

effectively running the Tyson Chicken of West Germany.

And he was a big, big, big Schalkennufe

fan for his whole life.

I mean, being a Schalker fan is something that you're born into.

It's

something that is so much part of that working class identity in that part of Germany.

And he couldn't just dump his own money into it.

There's rules preventing that.

That meat money wasn't good.

Yeah, yeah.

So what he had to do is he had to catch one of these like giant big fish sponsors that they could put across like the crest, right across the front of their jersey.

Think like crypto.com for the makers.

They need a sponsor, in other words.

It's very American, ideal.

And so

they got gas problem.

Gaz problem.

A state-owned Russian natural gas supplier, huge industrial giant.

But at that time,

no one ever really heard of that company.

I mean, their business was selling gas to kind of bulk clients to other German, like German utilities.

They didn't really have consumers.

So the brand was completely unknown.

It popped up out of the blue and suddenly it was everywhere.

They went to Shalka and they did this presentation.

This is why Gazprom is great.

So I actually found a guy in Germany who was in the room where it happened.

Yeah, I remember.

I was actually at the presentation of Gazprom with my daughter.

So yeah, it was 2007.

She was four years old.

So first time that she was in the stadium.

This is Axel Haffer.

He's the current chairman of Shaka 04.

And truthfully, Pablo, he actually saw a connection between this giant state-run natural gas supplier and this tiny mining town in Germany.

When Gazprom was presented,

they basically shot a commercial where you had Gazprom employees somewhere in Siberia that were drilling for gas.

And that was very similar to all the mining images that we all

had in our minds.

So it looked like a very good fit.

It was actually a good fit at that time.

And so Gazprom, when they saw Shalka, what were they seeing in this club?

So they were also using Shalka as marketing.

They had this really big goal of creating a second pipeline connecting Russia to Germany, even more of their natural gas called Nordstream II was the big project.

It was in the second Nordstream pipeline.

The Nordstream pipeline is one of the world's largest infrastructure projects along a carefully chosen 1,224 kilometer route to transport 55 billion cubic meters of natural gas a gear from Russia to the European Union.

They thought that sponsoring a major historic German soccer club would be a great way to get that done.

Everybody was happy.

I was, oh, this is a good deal.

This is a very big company.

It's very important.

It's a good partner.

Relationships with Russia have historically been very good

between Germany and Russia.

So in 2007, I would say absolutely fine.

So now I'm getting a sense of the devil in this story.

Well, actually, no, Pablo, I think it's important that we step back here for just a minute.

And it's kind of wild to think now, but during this period of time, Russia and Putin were considered great business partners.

And I learned this from that Reuters reporter, Tesilo Hommel.

The first thing is that, look,

Putin wasn't the devil.

He wasn't the devil for Tanyas.

He wasn't the devil for Schalker.

He was the devil for nobody in Germany 15 years ago.

That's just not how it was.

And the same thing in the U.S.

at the time.

If you remember, there was President Barack Obama, kind of all your...

Mocked that guy.

Yeah.

Mocked then, you know, mocked Senator Mitt Romney for holding, quote, antiquated views on Russia.

A few months ago, when you were asked what's the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia.

Not al-Qaeda.

You said Russia.

In the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because

the Cold War has been over for 20 years.

But Putin to the West looking like an ally, like an economic engine.

Yeah, I had admittedly, yeah, forgotten about this entirely.

I think it's important when we hear Axel from Schalka and listen to him, you got to even magnify it more because Germany, they're absolutely familiar in dealing with communist leaders and businesses in a way that I would say few, if any, other Western democracies are because their country at one point was split East and West.

Yeah, that was the whole wall thing.

Yeah.

I believe.

Culminating with arguably the greatest moment in world history.

So I like that you have power ranked all of the moments in world history and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bradley Campbell's number one slot.

Yeah, yeah, but more specifically.

I've been looking for freedom.

David Hasselhoff dancing and singing atop the Berlin Wall while it fell.

Wearing a black leather jacket, stonewashed denim.

I do not apologize for liking that a lot.

So this has now become become so much more German than I even anticipated when I green lit a story about German soccer and German soccer.

You're welcome.

So Shalka has accepted this deal with Gazprom.

And so the question, I suppose, is how much did they know that there were these strings attached?

How much Faust did they know was going to be in this bargain?

I mean, that's the nature of a Faustian bargain is you don't really know in real time how bad it will get.

We are not only getting a very good deal and getting

better money for what we are offering than with other partners.

We were not getting that for free.

So I guess the price for that was obviously

political greenwashing, if you want to say so, but also the risk that something would happen.

Something did.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead, treat yourself to a little luxury, and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Cognac, Vienna Champain, afforded to alcohol by volume, reported by Remy Control, USA Incorporated, York, New York, 1738.

Centaur design.

Please drink responsibly.

So I'm thinking about the original astrologer, Faust, who makes this deal with the devil for knowledge and power and gets it.

And it is awesome.

Awesome.

Right?

For some amount of time.

So what did that look like for Shalco 04,

the high of getting all of this power?

It was pure domination.

The first year that they did the deal with Gazprom, Schalka went second place in the Bundesliga.

But more than that, the next year they reached the quarterfinals of the Champions League.

German teams have ambushed Manchester United Champions League campaigns before, but Tradley Ferguson can hardly ask for more than a semifinal against the mid-table Bundesliga side.

And so this team that hadn't won in Germany since the 50s is now competing to the point where they make the Champions League semifinals in 2011.

They are playing Manchester United.

Again, one of the top brands, one of the top clubs in the world.

With the best players.

And things are going better than anybody could have thought.

And Gaspar, like they're living life at this point, too.

This is 2011.

They ink a deal to get Nord Stream 2 up and down.

They get their pipeline.

Exactly.

They get the sequel.

But then comes 2014, Pablo.

And that is when the story truly follows the tale of Faust.

More than 200,000 protesters gathered in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev today, furious over the government's refusal to sign a trade agreement with the European Union.

Police use tear gas and clubs to beat back demonstrators who surrounded President Viktor Yanukovych's office.

They are demanding...

Ukrainians overthrow their president in the Maidan Revolution.

Russia responds by annexing Crimea by force.

Russian troops spreading out throughout the strategic Crimean peninsula.

President Obama speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And during this hostile takeover of Crimea, a lot of Shulka fans are

pissed.

It started to be more and more controversial.

I guess from an economical perspective, it was financially still a very attractive deal.

But the discussion that we had at that time was: okay, is it worth the risk?

There is a growing international chorus slamming Russia's actions.

The British prime minister saying there is no excuse, Canada withdrawing its ambassador from Moscow.

For the EU and the U.S.,

it was clear that not really.

They imposed sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian officials linked to the Crimean takeover.

They said it was, quote, undermining the democratic process and institutions in Ukraine.

The Russian military must stand down, the aspirations of the Ukrainian people must be respected, and political dialogue must be allowed to continue.

And so this is where I am familiar with the West's view of Russia, right?

Like Obama made that joke, this is in the 80s anymore.

Turns out it is.

And now, if you're Shalka, the pressure clearly would be to cut ties with Vladimir Putin's gas giants.

Like, how can you possibly be the team with gas prom across your chest in all these ways?

It's politics, yeah.

So you have different views there.

I mean, we have 190,000 members, so you have everything from the far left to the far right.

I mean, everything there, yeah.

So in the board, some people were a bit more skeptical.

Some said, okay, it's still a good partner.

Yes, there are political problems, but we are a sports club and that's not our problem.

So for me personally, I mean, I never bought a Gazprom jersey.

So because I just thought, okay,

yeah, no,

doesn't feel right.

This is him sticking to sports, right?

This is another refrain we are familiar with in America.

And so the partnership with Gazprom continues, as Tisilohanner from Reuters told me.

Maybe that should have been the moment where people should have changed their minds and kind of updated their, they do a software update

in their strategic thinking, which Tonyas and Chalk

did not do.

And you can say that maybe from that point in time, it became really a grave mistake and it went downwards ever since.

Well, the fact that the 2018-2019 season happens, as that is happening, right?

So I'm going back to the record that I'm consulting here.

They make another run in the Champions League.

Yeah, they make it to the round of 16, but that's when they run into a club who made an even bigger deal with an even more powerful entity.

Four places in the quarterfinals of the UEFA Champions League are confirmed.

Four more will be decided this week with Manchester City and Shalka set to complete their round of 16 tie with a second round.

So Manchester City might be the prime example of what you need to take over this sport.

The deal you need to make.

So they made a deal with a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi.

And so as a matter of scale, yeah, like Shalka 04 is Fausty in bargain.

This is not rating in comparison to Man City.

I feel like there's a lesson here, you know, like no matter how rich you are.

Someone's always richer than you.

And I just got to jump in here for a second to put an even finer point on this observation.

Because as much as you might think that Vladimir Putin's favorite state-owned energy company would have more than enough in its pockets, Manchester City is indeed owned by the Abu Dhabi royal family, which bought it in 2008, 2009.

And this makes Manchester City the single richest club in the entire Premier League.

They have spent billions on buying players.

This most recent transfer window, in fact, they just outspent everybody else.

And none of this is especially close.

And so, in that pivotal round of 16 against Man City in 2019, Shalka loses 10-2 on aggregate.

At which point,

really spins out of control.

Shalka proceeds to finish in 12th place the following season.

Then the meatbear makes dumbass comments about Africans that anger the fan base, rightfully so, I would add.

And then the whole pandemic happens, meaning that Shalka's fans/slash owners can't even get into their building anymore, which cuts off the team's revenues at the knees.

And as for what is happening in front of those now empty seats, the team goes winless in its first 14 matches.

They burn through five different managers and finished the season dead last in the league by a lot.

But the worst part about finishing dead last in the league in such a way was the fact that Shalka then got relegated down to the second division.

And because it's COVID, there's no market for players.

So they just get deeper and deeper in debt.

Then a COVID outbreak hits the Meat Barons' factories.

Of course.

PR Nightmare, and the Meat Baron, after 19 years, finally steps down.

Which is all to say that the Gazprom era of Shalka 04, beyond being morally compromised by Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula,

also wasn't going great

on the pitch.

And so the meat baron, who I cannot help but think of at the end of that insane litany of events, government name Clements Tony's, the meat baron, did he get any sort of cosmic punishment for his role in this bargain for leading Shalka down this particularly crazy path?

Nah.

For Ternius personally,

not so much for the club, but for Ternius personally, the whole thing still made huge sense.

He made money in Russia.

so

i'm not even sure if he

feels like faust

himself

so he was fine um but the fans weren't and when i was in germany i talked to some and they're just like who are we and what happened to our soul and uh i guess even worse was this knowledge that They were still falling.

Their club was still getting worse and going down and down.

And they hadn't hit rock bottom yet.

It does feel like there should be a German word for that feeling.

Blood empty.

What's up, listeners?

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I certainly dreamed big.

I think when we were all kids, we dreamed big, whether we wanted to be astronauts, presidents.

Personally, I wanted to be a pitcher for the then Florida Marlins.

Now, we're dreaming of something else, like owning our own businesses.

But let's be honest, launching it is total chaos.

Websites and shipping, your cousin who wants to collab, it's a mess.

That's where Shopify comes in.

They power 10% of all e-commerce in the United States.

From brands like Mattel to your aunt's Candle Shop.

Can't design a site?

Shopify's got ready-to-go templates.

Need help writing copy or touching up pics?

AI tools.

Want customers?

Built-in email and social tools.

And if you get stuck, 24-7 support, real award-winning human beings.

Turn those dreams into

and give them the best shot at success with Shopify.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com/slash batard.

Go to shopify.com/slash batard.

Shopify.com/slash batard.

So, this this brings us now to February 2022.

And in the sports calendar, this is a familiar point.

The Winter Olympics in Sochi have just finished up.

Vladimir Putin, Russian pride.

Everyone's riding high.

And then...

Right now, there is a sound of bombardment coming from all around us, and all of the civilians from this area are fleeing.

I still remember that week.

Absolutely crazy.

So you basically had the troops starting to move.

And, you know, it was obvious that something could happen.

So again, that's Axel, who I met up with in Germany, the chairman of Shalco4.

And he was really remembering this time where it wasn't this question of, is Russia going to invade?

It was this question of when are they going to invade Ukraine?

It was highly likely that something would happen.

And so just the weekend before the invasion, we started to get enormous pressure.

Okay, you need to terminate the contract.

You need to take Gazprom off your jersey, etc.

So some fans already had, they actually put duct tape across the gas prom on the jersey so you couldn't see it, covering up that logo.

But the board that they had elected continued to kind of wait.

We're not the richest club and we will never be the richest club.

And our fans are not the richest.

But

it's a very emotional club and that's obviously what is more important than anything else.

So you need to keep the feeling of belonging and really helping each other.

That is more important than a bit more money, as long as it doesn't kill you.

That's the thing.

So that is a bind for Axel and Shalka to have to figure out.

And it's like you're trying to protect this thing that you love.

And it's like, you know, it's not just simply just cutting ties to make a statement.

Exactly.

And that was exactly the challenge that we all had was, okay,

are we willing to risk the existence of the club to do the right thing?

And how could we actually de-risk that scenario.

So they were working on Apollo 24-7, talking to Gazprom's representatives, who was actually, they were open to it because Nord Stream 2, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

So getting out of contracts was the priority, but you know, that takes time, which is something they didn't have.

So during that week, I basically did nothing else than just talking 24-7 with everybody.

Because they obviously, everybody was very nervous.

and this balance of what is exactly the right point in time where we can we can basically

manage the financial risk and still do the right thing we had to find it

the thing that they really needed was a new source of money We started discussions with actually with the with the old mining association.

So the company that used to operate all the mines is still active and has a few assets.

And we basically went to them and said listen if something happens is there anything that that we could do and they said yeah for sure we will help you um

if if you need to do it we will we will we will support you we will basically find some money and we will basically uh step in as an interim sponsor so just to recap this what axel is saying is that they go from gazprom vladimir putin' state-owned gas giant

to a local union,

which doesn't have nearly the amount of money

that they have, but it is, it's that all-hands concept again.

You know, just the whole community rallying together to step up.

But, you know, while this is happening, I want to be like, oh, it's all warm and lovely.

The Russian troops were still there.

And yeah, then we had on Thursday morning, 4 a.m., or I can't remember the exact time, it was basically before everybody got up.

Obviously, the invasion started.

Russian troops are closing in on the capital.

Their military vehicles have been filmed entering the city.

And in the last few hours, multiple explosions have been reported.

Exact figures are unknown, but there are reports of large numbers of Ukrainian casualties, both military and civilian, since the invasion began, and of Russian military deaths.

Streams of people in Carl.

And so, at this point in the story of Faust,

what happens is that he is condemned and judged for the deal he has struck.

In the middle of the night, to put the most literary sort of emphasis on this, a pack of devils carry his soul to hell, Bradley.

So is that what happens to Shalka 04 here?

Kind of, yeah.

But it's a lot slower of a death, which is in some ways a little bit crueler.

You know, without a massive sponsor in the club in disarray, they drop again back to the second division and they risk an even further drop to the third division.

And that's the devil, the devils carrying them to the netherworld.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, mean, they're struggling each week just to survive.

And for fans, it's just pure psychological torture.

They're watching this team just absolutely stink on the field.

It's so

worse than that, Pablo, is that there's a rule that if you're in the third division, you have to be financially stable.

Shalka wasn't stable.

So

if the worst comes to worst, we're actually going to be forced to drop down to the amateur level.

And so I'm not even being hyperbolic when I say, like, each week was

facing annihilation.

When it comes to identifying the devil, which is the reason you went searching in Gelsenkirchen in Germany in the first place, the devil isn't exactly Russia in our story, right?

The devil seems to be the pursuit of money.

From loss of control.

And the loss of control.

They needed to center themselves in a way and just kind of overcome these massive mistakes.

And again, they had so much debt.

So they had to be smart about it.

And, you know,

they put out

a call, I guess, or, you know, cast nets to try and find which Shaka 04 member anywhere in the world could help them out.

And who do they end up finding?

Let's go.

Let's go.

How's it going?

Good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Game day.

Game day, yeah.

Matthias Tillman.

And he's been a fan.

of Shaka since he was five years old and bought his first jersey, which is a right of any upstanding Shalka member, nearly three decades ago.

It was in 1994.

And since then, I bought one or two jerseys every year, always with a favorite player.

So I collect jerseys, so I have a lot.

So he moved back to Germany and started doing the Lord's work, man.

I'm like, I don't know if you've seen a recent photo of Daryl Moray, but...

I mean, I've seen Daryl recently, and dude, is aging.

Speaking of U.S.

presidents, he's aging like one.

I mean running a losing franchise is just absolutely brutal.

So I wake up every day at 6 a.m.

So that's the same every single day.

But I have four kids.

So yeah, you have to get up and bring them to school to kindergarten and then I drive here.

So it's like 30, 35 minute drive for me.

And then normally I arrive here.

I have one other colleague in the management board and we discuss the most important things of the day.

and um yeah then

obviously as a ceo you have a lot to manage it is truly a massive amount of work that's what it takes that's what it takes yeah which is a faustian bargain of a different kind but it's a different sort of pact a lot of people in this region They spend every penny they have on this club and spend all their time for this club.

And yeah,

that's why this club is more than just football.

So the love is genuine, but let's get real.

Dude was a former investment banker for George Bank.

He was hired to kick ass.

And that's exactly what he's doing.

He realizes that, yeah, the club's got a lot of heart, but it's time for it to get a little professional too.

But how do you do that when you're loaded down with all of this insane debt from the Gazprom meat baron era?

Five years ago, we had debt around 200 million, 220.

But we had the value of our squad was also 200 million.

Today, it's around the value of the squad is around 20 million, but we still carry 160 million debt.

So the ratio has changed.

And we are coming from a time where we had over 300 million in revenue to where we have just over 100.

What a nightmare.

200 million to 20.

It's real.

It's real.

I mean, that's an insane fall.

Yeah, yeah and i guess his big goal is just to get the debt down to 50 million dollars which uh he says is a manageable size and look he's up front with the fans he's like our football club it's gonna suck for a year or two um but with patience there will be a pathway back up to the top yeah you're describing you know trust the process which i of course personally uh have some some fondness for but you're talking about a rebuild this is an old-fashioned rebuild 100 it's a rebuild but again a rebuild with 190,000 fans voicing in on how to rebuild it.

And so, oh my God, Matthias gets absolutely pummeled in the newspapers for this process.

So what his answer was is they're going to have another separate cooperative.

that will run Velton's Arena, which is like the Madison Square Garden.

So people will be able to buy a stake in the co-op separate from Shalka 04.

And also businesses will be allowed to buy shares in this too.

That is the solution, and it's going to be run completely independently of the other club as a way to generate money.

And with that money, with this new revenue stream, what do they want to do?

Like, are they buying soccer players?

Are they improving their facilities?

What's their goal?

It's all of that.

I mean, the goal is to get back up to the top division.

And so, whatever that takes.

But I think the bigger goal than that, it's local control.

Which is also a philosophy I now understand that is

adored true to this region, for sure.

What I think is important is that you don't lose your DNA.

And I think that is in Shalke, it's

very important.

Like

what I said in the beginning, like everybody knows where we're coming from.

Our roots are here in that region,

from the coal mining.

And I think for us, it's very important to be the club of the region, for the people in the region.

And the values have not changed.

They're still the same, hardworking people.

And you have to honor that.

Yeah, look, man, they're not going to ever replicate the size or money or deep pockets of a state of a natural gas company.

But I guess you asked me earlier, when are the angels going to come?

Who are these angels?

And the simple answer is the angels are themselves.

It's like Shalka's going to...

pick Shalka back up.

Investors come and go.

They want to make money.

They have whatever their their interest is.

But people here will stay.

There's a saying here that players will come and go.

Even CEOs will come and go.

But we will stay.

It's us.

And that's why we have to determine the future and not other people.

And once you're on that trip, you feel the energy.

That's why I think when you are there in the stadium, it's a different atmosphere because people know that's our ship and we can determine the direction.

And that, I think, makes a big difference.

And so now I kind of feel like I'm on your grandma's barge or also perhaps a Bernie Sanders event.

My skepticism here is simple, though.

Like, how do you win in this era of soccer?

How do you win against the petro states and oligarchs and sovereign wealth funds and the deepest pockets in the history of sports?

I really want to say you just do it with your own.

gumption.

But I don't know, man.

After the meeting with Matthias, I walked over to Velton's Arena for a match against FC Kaiser Slauten, who happened to be nicknamed the Red Devils.

Just gets too perfect.

Something on the nose, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I got in there, and God, it was like an absolute rock concert.

Fortunately, we couldn't film there, so you just got to imagine this.

You're walking into a giant arena, and it's sold out.

There's 62,075 fans, and they are screaming their heads off before the game even starts.

I'm thinking they're gonna crush.

Well,

how does it go?

How does the crushing go?

The devil just absolutely pummels them.

Falcon can maybe

salvage some pride right now.

It's Kaiser coming forward and scything them apart as Daisuke Yokota makes it three.

They get beat three to nothing,

but someone else was in there with me.

And I had no idea, and that was cousin Max.

He was in the stadium.

He got like a last second ticket, bought it.

And so he was there watching.

I had no idea, but that feels cosmic too, though.

I know, I know.

It really does.

It really does.

And the reason why it does is because I was just thinking about a lot of things, but one of them was like, good God, how much of a dick I was.

That's really what this episode is about is you being a terrible relative.

Absolutely.

I'm like, here's this absolutely beautiful thing that was at the risk of just like

not continuing.

And here I am asking, Hey, dude,

can I get you a borisio dwarf?

Yeah, knowing nothing about anything.

Oh my god, nothing about anything.

And it's just absolutely stunning.

And I didn't even tell you, like, beforehand, they actually had a minor's choir sing a sonnet beforehand just to like warm everything up.

There's like so much to love about this community.

And

yeah,

it was just beautiful.

So what do you decide to do with these feelings now that are sloshing inside of you?

I decided to board the ship.

Babo, I'm uh

abandoning my journalistic integrity.

And so near the end here, Bradley, this video that you're playing is what?

It's me signing my name to a document that made me an official member of Shalka 04.

Right, so this is you becoming one of the 190,000 members.

190,001.

I'm also in the process of buying a share of the the co-op.

Right, which is just the most Brooklyn sht.

This whole time, you've been talking to the co-owner of a German professional soccer team, and I would add, a budding real estate magnet of Gelson Kirchen.

And so, if you are now wondering how Bradley Campbell's new soccer club is doing as its season draws to a close, I do have a bit of news here.

Schalka 04, which had been playing in the second division of German soccer this season, has spent all year trying to climb out of this hole left by Gazprom and, yes, their own generally horrible decision-making.

The prospect of being sent down to the third division was looming.

But we here at Pablo Torre Finds Out are happy to now tell you that while Shalka 04 is yet again coming down to the final match this weekend, meaning that yes, Putin's alleged peace talks and Shalka's future are once again intersecting, it does appear that they have fended off relegation this season.

And things did not look good for a while here, to be clear.

We fixed ourselves and, you know, we're marching our way back up to daylight once more.

I just got two questions before we get so truly like...

highfalutin celestial about this.

Where's the hat?

The hat.

The Barusia Dortmund hat that is responsible for why we are here doing this story.

Oh, I made amends.

Here it is.

So, okay.

So, the black and yellow familiar Borussia Dortmund logo has been has been vandalized in

what an expert way it has been painted over here.

But describe what.

Oh,

we crossed out the 09 and we put an S04 across the BBD in bright royal blue letters.

Incredible rebranding.

On that question of rebranding, my second question, my final question on the show today

is, did Shalka 04 ever get a new sponsor?

Like, what replaced Gazprom across the jersey?

What's the, what, what, what are you doing?

Oh, um, here.

Okay, so this is

a beautiful,

a beautiful blue and white.

Sun

Mini meal.

Sun mini meal.

What is sun mini meal across the chest of your jersey?

It's a Swiss granola bar.

God damn it.

This has been Pablo Torre finds out a Meadowlark Media production.

And I'll talk to you next time.