Manchester City's hearing for breaches of Premier League financial rules concludes, Manchester United part ways with Dan Ashworth
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Hello and welcome to The Price of Football, the show that looks at the money behind the beautiful game with me, Kevin Day, and Liverpool University's Kieran Maguire. I'm not going to laugh, I was chuckling then, because any pod that starts with Kieran saying, I think if I press this button, we should be alright. 3, 2, 1...

Go, and we didn't break the internet, so that's good. Kieran, how are you? I have to say, A, it looks even more like a hostage video than normal. B, you appear to be wearing a shirt that has five Brian O'Halby and kits on it. Well, both issues are probably correct. I'm in my office in Liverpool. This is the last podcast we record before the biggest match of the season, or one of the two biggest matches of the season.

And so we'll be professional and wait for... The good thing you know on Sunday when the match takes place, that even if Brighton are winning at 88 minutes, you ain't going to lose. Well, I was going to suggest that that shirt was professionally provocative, Kieran, but as I've got a picture behind me of Ben Teke and Philippe Mateta scoring two goals against Brighton... It's Newsday, Kieran, and...

It's not often I say this, but the first story is us. We've got some news for our lovely listeners. And basically, it's the news that Kieran and Guy have gone mad. They've gone Del Boy mad with this new special offer. I'm not normally the grinchy one, but we've been teasing you about some changes coming up and the changes are here. But these two are giving it away.

Give it away, I'll tell you. We could charge £100 a week for what we're about to offer, this new package. Because, yes, we have some exciting news. This week we are launching the brand new, get ready for this, Price of Football Club through our good friends at Supporting Cast. Now, we've beefed up... You wrote this bit, didn't you? We've beefed up...

We've beefed up our membership offering. So the benefits of signing up now include ad-free listening. You had that already if you paid for Patreon. Now, access to the full back catalogue.

Extra questions episodes. So we're going to be doing a topical questions episode once a month. You get access to that. Early access to our interviews. Early access to live tickets. A monthly Zoom Q&A. You can actually see us. A monthly Zoom Q&A. And, of course, the invitation to Zoom quizzes. I'll go over that again.

because you won't then believe the price we're offering that for. So ad-free listening, access to every single pod we've ever done, extra questions episodes, one a month, early access to interview episodes, early access to live tickets, monthly Zoom Q&A, an invitation to Zoom quizzes, and you can get all of that for £3.99 a month. £3.99 a month, or £39.99 a year,

And there's even talk of a pre-Christmas reduction, which I'm too excited already. I can't read out the potential pre-Christmas future.

extra value deduction. So that £3.99 a month or £39.99 a year. Our regular Tuesday questions episodes and Thursday news episodes will still be available for free and always will be in the existing feed. But when you sign up, you'll get access to that Price of Football Club feed, which will be totally ad-free and full of bonus content. So sign up for the Price of Football Club today by going to priceoffootball.com and following the links. Now, to all of our existing Patreon subscribers...

please feel free to cancel your existing subscription and then start a new one by following the links on the website. Our Patreon page and feed will keep running for now, but it will be turned off at the end of February.

Normally, minor celebrities like me get to turn on some Christmas lights, but all I've got this year is turning off Patreon in February. The bonus content won't appear on the Patreon feed, so make the switch today so you don't miss anything. So sign up now if you're not a member already and transfer today if you're an existing Patreon subscriber or give membership with the Price of Football Club as a gift to your loved ones this Christmas.

Thanks as always for listening and supporting the show. I'm not sure how that gift to your loved ones is Christmas works because clearly they're not listening to the pod as it happens. So whether they want to be members of the, the, the, the price of football club, I don't know. I did switch. I probably told you this kid. I was asked to switch on the lights at palace once at Christmas lights. No, I was asked to, uh, they were honest enough to say John Salarco wasn't available. Uh,

So I come down and turn on the lights. It turned out to be the Christmas lights in the club shop. And it literally involved me putting the plug in and flicking the switch. We were in a championship in those days. Let's get on to some, I was going to say hard news, Kieran, but £3.99 a month for that, that's hard news.

That's going to be in the news at 10 tonight. Idiots give away loads of content for free 99 a month. Time for the conspiracy theorists to kick into full action, Kieran, because it seems, finally, that they've got through all 115 breaches in the Man City case.

Yes. And the first thing to note is that it appears to be 130 charges. I think they managed to find some down the back of the sofa. So there are more than 115 charges. But as we've said on more than one occasion, it's broadly three things. Artificially inflating income, artificially hiding costs and not cooperating with the Premier League investigation.

So both sides have given evidence. Then they went away, probably to count some money, and then they came back for the concluding remarks by both, effectively, the prosecution and the defence, Manchester City, of course, and the defendants here. So the commission is now going to retire and consider the evidence. There are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of documents published

If I'd been working for a photocopier company, I would be a very, very rich person. In terms of the verdict, clearly you've got the three-person commission and they will be senior people from legal background. They have to go away and reflect on the evidence. They have to decide what

who has the greater weight of evidence. And then of course, they've got to give a judgment on each of the individual charges separately. So it's not going to be a rush decision. I've read some of the reports that the Premier League would like to get the verdict out as soon as possible, but the Premier League is not in a position to dictate terms.

As far as the outcome is concerned, if the Premier League is successful with all of the charges or the vast majority of the charges, then this would have to be deemed to be a major breach of Premier League rules. It's effectively fraud, and that will come with, I think, very significant repercussions, both financially, there would have to be a significant fine,

there would also be an on-pitch...

sanction and I think that would be a very significant points deduction because if we go back to the Nottingham Forest and Everton judgments that was a fairly narrow remit in terms of the charges and that resulted in point seductions but it was also noticeable I think the key thing I picked up from reading the Forest verdict was they specifically said in the commission this is a minor breach of rules and yet we're still giving you a four point deduction so

We are going to be talking double digits. We are going to be talking big double digits as well. And whether that's enough to force relegation. Now, some people have said, could this result in Manchester City being demoted to League Two?

We saw Rangers being relegated, three divisions in Scotland 10, 12 years ago. That won't be the case because Manchester City have not broken any of the EFL's rules. And given the relationships between the EFL and the Premier League are pretty hostile, there's no way that the Premier League could say,

We're going to demote you into somebody else's competition and we're going to dictate where that is. So it's likely to be a point seduction rather than a relegation, but it could be a point seduction, which is so severe that it effectively guarantees relegation. I was going to ask you to clarify the relegation issue because, um,

Even last night on Sky, they were speculating as to the outcome of this and suggesting that renegation was this. So I don't think you can say it loudly enough, Kieran, that essentially the EFL and the Premier League are separate legal entities in a way that Scottish football isn't. Scottish football is under one umbrella, so there is scope for demoting. There is no scope for renegading football.

Although, as you say, a 100-point deduction would effectively do that. But one of the sanctions that isn't available is relegation. I think people need to be aware of that. And just secondly, Kieran, on the way that the charges are scrutinised by the Free Person Commission...

Is it literally a case of going, right, number one, number two, or are they clustered together? So is like one to seven a particular charge and being guilty of one would essentially mean you're guilty of all seven, so to speak? Yes, given that the charges are in season 2011-12, you failed to correctly disclose the

sponsorship revenues from Etihad Airways. And it's likely to be in season 12, 13 and 13, 14. So I think it would be very difficult to find them guilty of one part of the cluster and not the other.

But it could be that you're guilty in terms of Anetti had sponsorship, but there's insufficient evidence to find the club guilty of another sponsorship arrangement. So that part will be separated. I think the worst case scenario for the Premier League would be if Manchester City are...

found guilty of some of the charges, but when you actually work out the financial benefit to Manchester City. So let's say that the allegation against the payments to Roberto Mancini, and the allegation is that Roberto Mancini was being paid off payroll. He was being paid by a club in Saudi Arabia. Well, sorry, in Abu Dhabi.

That's £2 million. Well, that might not actually have meant that Manchester City were in breach of FFP as it was then, now PSR. So therefore, given that they wouldn't have been over the limit, can you give the club a points deduction on that basis? So, yeah, it could get really messy. I think also, if Manchester City successfully defend the position, and there has been very much...

a lockdown in terms of what's coming out. The only thing that I've heard talking to one or two lawyers, they say they've seen the Manchester City KCs coming out who appear to be smiling a lot. It could be they're smiling a lot because they're being paid an absolute fortune and they're going...

I'm going home to look at buying an island or something like that. So I think people are trying to read so much into absolutely nothing. But Premier League's point of view, if Manchester City successfully defend these charges, it really doesn't

means that the Premier League board of directors will have to consider their positions because the legal costs are going to be somewhere in the region of £50 million to £60 million, I would imagine, per party. Having a quick look at the Premier League handbook, it looks as if each party has to

pay up for their own sets of charges. There is scope, I think, within the Commission for them to award legal costs against one of the parties. But for all we know, it could be that the Premier League and City have said, look, we're not friends, but

We're not going to double the burden on the loser. So whoever wins bears their legal costs and we just take it on the chin. Equally, the board of Manchester City, I think their position would be untenable if Manchester City lose the case because it is an accusation of fraud.

It's misrepresentation of financial data. And from a governance point of view, the people who have made statements to the commission, their reputation will be shot to bits.

Apparently, Kieran, I do a very good wry smile, or some people say sarcastic smile, Kieran. But nevertheless, when you read every single journalist saying the outcome is not expected to the new year, then you can't help but go, well, you're not winning the Pulitzer Prize with that information, are you? But you said that the Premier League, of course, are keen for this to be resolved as quickly as possible. Is that because they would look...

to impose any massive points deduction this season? Because if so, it would surely be deferred on appeal anyway, wouldn't it? Well, I think there are very limited grounds for appeal. It would effectively have to be that Manchester City's defence team can say that there was something wrong with the conduct within the commission itself. I see. So I...

But that doesn't mean slim grounds for appeal, doesn't mean zero grounds for appeal. And there's separate issues in that if Manchester City's hearing is going to be heard, we don't know what's happening in respect of Everton because there's a separate hearing apparently going to be taking place with regards to Everton's interest charges. And there is no news coming out of the Premier League about

For Chelsea and Chelsea's unusual transactions involving property sales and potentially the sale of the women's team, which would appear to me to be within the rules. The only issue is there could be some fair value issues.

observations. How much is a women's football team worth? If you've got a friendly buyer, it's a lot easier to get a big price for it. How much is a painting worth? I do think you've got a problem when you've got unique assets trying to give some form of bespoke valuation to them.

Well, we now know that a banana gaffer taped to a wall is worth $4 million, Kieran, because somebody was willing to pay $4 million in what was obviously a publicity scam. ♪

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I was at a Palace for Life Foundation meeting last week, Kieran, and somebody from the club hinted that there was some new broadcasting money coming the way of the Premier League. And then in full Hagrid fashion, I probably shouldn't have said that. But here's the news that he's absolutely right.

That's right. And you've got to give the Premier League a huge amount of credit for the ability to go into existing markets. So this has come from the Far East. And it came from a posting. Martin Ziegler wrote this in The Times. It came from, I think, the losing party, I

who was a broadcaster who were quoted on, I think it's the Thailand Stock Exchange. And they say, yeah, we bid for the rights for Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. You think, okay, they're big countries in their own right. But to get a deal, I think, is an achievement. And we'll be talking about other countries and their deals a wee bit later. It's worth $560 million over six years. It's a

for three countries. The Premier League is broadcast to 190 countries around the world. And this came from, I think, from the losing broadcaster who says, this might have an impact on us because what broadcasters have found is that

The Premier League is the product which stops people cutting the cord, stops them from cancelling their subscriptions. And football subscriptions in the main are very, very expensive. It's not like the price of a football club at the very, very reasonable price of £3.99 a month, for example. Well, if a lot of people around the world are watching the Premier League, Kieran, there's a league that very few people seem to be watching.

Yes, that is the Saudi pro league.

It turns out that this came from an analysis of French TV. I think it is Canal Plus or Canal Plus, as we might say in France, that they broadcast one of Cristiano Ronaldo's matches, which you'd expect that to be the main one. And it got viewing figures of 4,000, which is less than they're getting for the third tier TV.

of French football and no disrespect to French football the it's not like the pyramid here you know if we take a look at league one here we've got we've got big clubs we've got Birmingham we've got Wrexham Stockport you know there are there are plenty of clubs Charlton and so plenty of clubs who will get really decent um attendances and people so the the Saudi pro league had put out

a sort of a press release a few months ago to say, well, yeah, Saudi Pro League can now be seen in 160 different countries. I've asked, you know, admittedly, it's a small, you know, it's a small selection. I've asked my mates on WhatsApp groups, anybody watch anything from the Saudi Pro League? No, no. I don't know a soul that's done it. And, you know, my WhatsApp groups are all football fans. So the Saudi Pro League said, well, yeah, last year, 200 million people watched

watched Saudi Pro League and you go well hold on you know you've got you've got 12 team division you look at the number you've got 200 matches taking place over the course of the season then you've got the domestic viewings so by the time you actually work out how many people are watching matches in individual jurisdictions it

It's not going to be big. If you take a look at attendances for the Saudi Pro League, less than half the teams are getting attendances of people physically attending of more than 5,000. 5,000 is not bad, but if we're honest, that's sort of what you're expecting at League 1, League 2 level. And the lowest club, the lowest attendances, average attendances are around about 600, which is...

yeah, that is National League, not even National League itself. It would be National League North or South or even perhaps below that. So we've got this paradox as far as the Saudi Pro League is concerned in that when it comes to salaries, three of the highest four footballers

paid players in the world are playing in the Saudi pro league, but it doesn't seem to be generating global interest. So I think the, what the aim of the Saudi pro league was, um, was to try to, to build up interest in the product by, by recruiting Galactico players. So they've got, uh, they've got Benzema, they've got, uh,

Saudi and Mane, they've got Cristiano Ronaldo, of course. I think those are those three particular players. But it doesn't seem to be generating interest. Unlike, we're recording this show on...

on Wednesday, and it looks like today is going to be the coronation. It's not going to be a vote, Kevin. It's going to be a coronation for the awarding of the next two World Cups. Don Gianni, as I think he should be known, is not taking any questions with regards to the World Cup. There's not even going to be a formal vote. It's all going to be done online. As a pure coincidence, FIFA recently announced that

a global sponsorship deal with a company called Aramco for $100 million a year. That's just a coincidence. Yeah, I suppose what the Saudis could do to try and improve match day attendance is encourage women to go and own it. That 4,000-figure care, I mean, here, that 4,000-figure would officially be nought because that's not enough to even register on the RAJAR or whatever they call it now. So that's an incredible...

incredible figure. That's not why they're doing it, Kieran, as we've discussed ad nauseam, basically. The Saudis are not doing it to build up their pro league to become the best football league in the world, are they? But I was relieved, Kieran, that quite a few newspapers and news outlets this weekend said

did carry the story about the FIFA report into, as we discussed, and the fact that FIFA are refusing to pay compensation to workers killed in the building of Stadia. So I'm pleased that that has started to get some traction around the world. I'm not this going to shame Infantino into doing anything. When we first started this pod, Kieran, five years ago, when everything was free to air because there's only 20 people listening online,

I used to get excited. If I announced that a club was being bought by an American consortium, I always assumed it was good news. And then you would give me your full, yes. So I don't know if this is good news for Sheffield United fans or not. So I'm going to say it's neutral news, Kieran, for Sheffield United fans. I'm a bit more positive than that. And the reason why I say that is that Sheffield United have been in limbo.

for quite a period of time. They admit, we've been talking about Saudi pro league. Well, they probably do have Saudi ownership. I think there is a perception in this country that everybody in Saudi Arabia is, is a multi, multi, multimillionaire. That is not the case. So, so there has been, first of all, an ongoing dispute, which has now been resolved for a couple of years with relation to the prints. But, but,

Sheffield United, I think it's Kevin McCabe was the other party, and that was sorted. But the club has been up for sale for a good few years, and it now looks like we are getting closer to a deal. You always have to be careful with consortiums because I'm aware of another club which was –

subject to a bid from an American's consortium. And during the owners and directors test conducted, I'll say by the EFL, so it narrows it down to one of 72 clubs, it turns out that it looks like one of the owners or one of the prospective owners wasn't going to pass the

That meant that there was a funding gap, which meant that the deal gets delayed. So the more people you have involved in a consortium, the slower the process. But my understanding is that we are making progress in terms of FFWG United. And first of all, Wild has done a great job this season. After not exactly covering the club in glory in the Premier League,

Last year, they're looking a hell of a lot better. And they've got a good chance of going up. That will impact upon the price, obviously.

But I think the reason why I say I'm broadly positive about this is that it gives you a degree of certainty. If you've got a house which is up for sale, the last thing you're going to do is put in a new kitchen. The last thing you're going to do is give the place a lick of paint. You're going to try to cut your costs to the bare minimum, which means that it does have a negative impact.

what's available to the club fans in terms of infrastructure and also potentially on the pitch although I say that they're having a pretty damn good season this year

Yeah, it strikes me, Kieran, I mean, I say this about a lot of clubs, the way I talk to Premier League, there are about 50 clubs in it, but it does strike me that both Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday should be Premier League staples, basically, given their history, the size of their fan base, etc. So presumably this consortium would want to buy Sheffield United now while it's still a championship price rather than in May when it's likely to be a Premier League price. But what would that price be, do you think, Kieran, roughly?

Well, we have seen a significant increase in the prices which are being...

Remember we saw last year Ipswich when they were a championship club going for £100 million. Given that Sheffield United still have another year of parachute payments to come, I would say that it would be in excess of £100 million plus a potential bonus should they be promoted.

And for those conspiracy theorists, Kieran, who want the day off the Man City story, it's going to be another American-owned club in the Premier League next year. We're heading towards no relegation. Meanwhile, Kieran, the Everton takeover has gone very quiet. Now, I think in some circumstances that could be good news, but is it? I was...

in conversation with and i don't want this this is me saying these are i'm a bit itk on this i i belong chat with somebody very very recently um and i've spoken to a couple of other parties as well i think we've got a 50 50 chance of the everton deal being concluded pre-christmas so i think it should be fantastic news for everton fans um

And it also seems that the Friedkin group are acting like adults in terms of the finances. So one of the concerns that many people have with Everton is that Everton have borrowed from quite a few parties. So we've got the mysterious rights and media funding group.

which has put in, I think, around about £160 million, could be a wee bit more. You've got 777, whilst they're no longer bidders, because they've gone bust, it looks like their debt has been transferred to an organisation called ACAP. Now, from what we're hearing, and this comes from an article by David Hellyer, who writes for Bloomberg, so Bloomberg tend to have very good sources, that

Friedkin Group are wanting to consolidate all of the debt. There has been talk about JP Morgan being involved. JP Morgan were the advisors to the Glazer family. We go back to 2005. Ed Woodward came from JP Morgan as well. So sort of consolidating the loans, rescheduling payments and consolidating

just trying to make things a bit tighter. Also, Friedkin Group have lent money to Everton Football Club itself. They took over a loan from a party called MSP. There's so many people involved, it starts to get very complicated. I think it would be great from Everton's point of view if the Friedkin Group converted their loans into shares, because now that we've got this APT ruling,

coming through in January. I think if you want to convert your loans and have no interest charged, you've got to do that by, I think it's the 15th of January. So if you reduce the loans, that reduces the interest which goes into your PSR calculations. We'll have to wait and see on that. There's still an outstanding issue in the sense that nominally,

Farhad Mashiri has around about £450 million of loans

I think he simply has to write those off as part of the overall deal to hand over Everton because the club will never be in a position to repay that. And if he doesn't do that, we don't know how the Premier League can treat those loans. Again, there could be this interest cost coming through, which would be unnecessary. So, yes, I'm feeling positive.

positive um and yeah of course it's a feeling it's it's uh but um you know we are now in a position where we we do talk to people and and listen yeah that's the important thing and there certainly appears to be a positive weight of opinion that yeah we've got we've got a good 50 50 chance of coming through this before christmas

So this is actually a gigantic version of one of those consolidate all your debts into one easy loan offer that banks used to – they stopped offering me a long time ago, Kieran, obviously. But it's as simple as that. You say they're actually not adults. They're getting everything under one umbrella, and it will be one payment a month or however it works. That's right. And because the Fridkin Group are involved and they do have a good reputation –

they should be able to borrow money at a lower rate of interest because whenever anybody lends, they do a credit check and you charge people accordingly. So I do think that that is a positive. A, I think some of the debts will go down and B, lower rates of interest. My only concern is that there could be some exit clauses from the existing lenders and it's,

I remember I'm used to the fixed rate mortgage. And if interest rates went down, you'd go, well, I'd like to move to a lower fixed rate mortgage. But you read the small print, you say, well, we're going to charge you six months interest or something like that. So we don't know the minutiae of the calculations. But yeah, I think Everton are in a much better place and

They've got a new stadium coming through for next season where they'll be generating more matchday income. And I know from an Evertonian's point of view, and I was privileged to speak to the Everton shareholders group, there will be a bit of nostalgia, but we are in 2024 and it would be nice to have different facilities. And it very quickly becomes home. Of course. Move grounds. Don't be held by nostalgia. Yeah.

Although you do have to feel sorry for those many people who've been saving up for years to come and see the last ever Liverpool-Everton game at Goodison and won't be able to come back again. You mentioned, Kieran, the 7-7-7 debt being transferred to ACAP. Does that mean ACAP will have bought that debt? Will they have paid 7-7-7 the money they were owed? I think...

I think there are complications. I think 777 owed ACAP some money, so it is part of a much broader issue.

777 are a mess. But we were trying to very politely say that without being explicit. I don't want to, you know, when 777 were potential bidders, certainly the briefings we were getting from people in the world of finances, it will be an absolute disaster. You used the phrase acting like adults, Kieran, which brings us to Manchester United. Discuss that.

In another week, Kieran, this would arguably be the biggest story of the week, but I think Man United have been the biggest story of the week so often, and you're getting enough angry emails from that direction as it happens. I've rarely seen Gary Neville as angry as he was on interviews this week with the Dan Ashworth situation. I presume his...

There's no other way. It's a sacking, Kieran, isn't it? There's a chap from The Athletic who was on Match of the Day 2 on Sunday night who said you can use the phrase mutual agreement as much as you want. It's essentially a sacking. And presumably this is going to cost Man United a fortune. Yes. So just to sort of give a broader analysis of the story, Manchester United approached Newcastle United with a view to recruiting Dan Ashworth.

Newcastle said we'd like to keep Dan. Dan Ashworth made it clear he wanted to leave. So he went on gardening leave and then an agreement was reached between the two parties. Newcastle apparently were originally asking for 20 million. They didn't get that.

There are various reports going out. And this is where we get selective briefing. Manchester United are briefing, oh, we didn't pay more than £2 million to £3 million. The noise is coming out of Newcastle. Actually, it was closer to £5 million.

Manchester United's recently quarterly accounts didn't say anything. Dan Ashworth's name wasn't included in it. And yet it seems strange because they did say that sacking Ten Hag, there was a cost of 11.4 million. This was after Ineos had extended his contract a couple of months earlier. The cost of recruiting the new manager was a further 10 million, but not a dicky bird in relation to Ashworth. So, yes, I agree entirely that there was...

There is no way that this is mutually agreed. It was quite clearly where the direction of travel was concerned. And in my view, and let's be honest, first of all, we've been contacted by current and former members of staff at Old Trafford, giving us stories about the conduct of INEOS,

And look, it's not a charity as a proportion of the Manchester United fan base get very angry. The trouble is, if it's not a charity, then you can't moan about them putting up ticket prices. So be careful what you wish for.

Also, when we've had some of our live shows, they've been attended by people with magic. And the stories we've heard are horrendous. And we're not going to put them out in public. It's not our job to do so. The conduct of INEOS has...

is not what you would expect from a people-based industry. It's fine in petrochemicals in the sense that you are trying to produce a product, you're trying to produce a product as cheaply as possible, and you're going to sell that to another market. But they've got Dave Browsford's come in. I think his management style is...

He's politely described as combative. So I think he's... And his background's in cycling. So he could do for Manchester United what Clive Woodward did for Southampton when he moved from being a very successful...

rugby person to I can't remember how many trophies Southampton won with Clive Woodward around but I'm an old man my memory's not what it was well you need a spreadsheet a Southampton Woodward trophy spreadsheet perhaps I should set that up it'll be a small one

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I can't stress enough, Kieran, to those Man United fans who seem to think that we've got it in for the club. That's the opposite. We're on the side of the Man United fans here. What we're against is this bloke who doesn't... And it might be in five years' time when Man United have won the Champions League, everyone looks back and goes, well, he was a tough man, he made tough decisions and they've paid off, but...

At the moment, let's say United are right and they did pay Newcastle £2 million for Dan Ashworth's services. And let's say they've paid him £2 million to go away, and that's probably less than that's turned. But that's £4 million now.

that's not a good look in the week where you've raised the minimum ticket price to £66. And it might not seem a lot of money in the general scheme of football finance, but the other thing, and it's to Jim Ratcliffe's credit that he gave an interview to a Man United fanzine, but within that, and this was a phrase that I thought...

really summed up the situation for me. He talked about the cost of ticket prices and he said, you can't have a situation where Fulham are charging more for a matchday ticket than Manchester United.

So there's an element there of macho pride, isn't there? It's like if Fulham are charging that, we have to charge more because we're a bigger club than Fulham, which shows no indication of the economic situation of the people in that part of the world. It shows no regard for the traditional fan. It shows no interest in new young... He doesn't care who he sells his tickets to as long as he's charging more than Fulham.

Well, that's right. And also as a Chelsea season ticket holder for many years, offshore Jim will know how much prices are in London. Yeah, that did seem a strange comment. I moved to Manchester in 1980. And one of the things that I noted when I first moved there was

was that going to watch, I used to watch Manchester United and Manchester City. I'd go to the Stretford, and I was a student. I could afford to go stand in the Kipax one week and stand in the Stretford End the following week. And that was absolute beer for a football fan like me. And then on a Friday night, I'd be at Tranmere or Stockport or so on.

You know, it was football heaven. You can't do that today as a young person, that's for sure. And going back to Dan Ashworth, how is this going to be funded? And again, let's take a look at the optics. In the same week that there's going to be, and Manchester United will have to give him a settlement, you know, unless Dan Ashworth did resign, which I don't think was the case, they're going to have to give him a settlement by all accounts.

It turns out that Manchester United are scrapping the £100 Christmas bonus they give to staff and replacing that with a £40 Marks and Spencers card. What happens if you don't like shopping in Marks and Spencers? So there's savings there. The optics don't look good.

There's reports coming out that Sir Matt Busby, and if you take a look at the success of Manchester United, it comes down to two men. Sir Matt Busby and what he created and Sir Alex Ferguson and what he created to restore Manchester United to its former preeminent position. Sir Alex Ferguson has been stripped of his position as an ambassador for the club.

And it now appears that Sir Matt Busby's family, who have had season tickets since Sir Matt passed away, he passed away a long time ago. It looked like INEOS were trying to scrap those. And to Sir Alex's credit...

He said, this is a step too far. And I think they've been shifted. But we've seen Norman Whiteside be shifted. And what they're trying to do is to free up more of the expensive seats. OK, if those Manchester United fans who say it's not a charity, fine. Well, then presumably they think that Sir Matt Busby's family have done nothing for Manchester United and perhaps they should be trapped. But where do we stop in terms of...

of this dogma-driven, and that's what it is. It is dogma- and gender-driven obsession with cutting costs that works in petrochemicals, that works in certain industries, absolutely. But in an industry where motivation is a key element of performance,

if you compare the approach taken by Manchester United to other clubs that we are aware of, whereby it's very inclusive. And I think that was an issue with, with Dan Ashworth. He, he always said he's sort of the center of the heart, but he, he listens to people. Okay. Ineos aren't interested in listening because they are dogma driven that it is their way or the highway. And, and,

It just looks really ugly. If INEOS were more than happy to send three senior members of staff in three separate private jets to extend Ten Hag's contract over the course of the summer, then what appears to be cost-cutting

The cost-cutting is aimed at certain areas of the employees of Manchester United, and it's one rule for the rich and another rule for Dave and Sandra from Gorton, who've been at the club for 20 or 30 years. Can you imagine, Kieran, the owners of Liverpool saying, you know those Shankly gates? They take a lot of polishing, don't they?

It's taken us far too much money and time to get the polish for those games. We're going to replace them with just bog standard. What Man United need to realise is part of the reason that they are still one of the biggest clubs in the world is that every year you have a new generation of fans around the world who learn about the history of Man United, who learn about Matt Busby and the Busby Babes and Munich and George Best and Bobby. And that's the reason they're attracted to

to the club in the first place. The history is part of the appeal. Don't look about with Matt Busby's family. It's just, see, that was Ali storming out. She was furious to even hear me turn it. Not far, I know my geography is not brilliant, but I do know that Preston isn't far from Manchester. Their latest accounts are out, Kieran, good, bad? As expected, yes.

for a club in the championship, which means bad in the sense that on £17 million of revenue, they lost £14 million. So, you know, they had £31 million. For every £100 worth of money coming into Preston North End, £130 went out on wages, and that's actually an improvement compared to some of the recent years. And I do think this reflects...

the frightening cost of being a member of that particular club. It's not good value, like the £3.99 you can get for a monthly fee for the price of football club, for example. Yeah, being a championship club, you are losing on average between £300,000 to £400,000 a week. There was an open letter from a section of the Preston North End fan base sort of expressing grumblings of,

unhappiness i think a lot of this is directed towards peter ridsdale um rather than the hemmings family himself and um we know that trevor hemmings died a few years ago but his family have continued to put in broadly a million pounds a month yeah and that that's a subsidy yeah that that's not an investment that is a subsidy for the way that the clubs are on and i think preston are

are caught in this spiral that many other clubs of what I'd say are similar size, you know, Millwall, for example, you know, in terms of the size of the fan base, the number of people that can get coming, whereby they are being funded. They don't have enough money necessarily to be competitive towards the top end of the championship to potentially to get into a playoffs. And the fans of Millwall,

got into that sort of where do we go from here? It does appear to be they're sort of on a hamster wheel of nothing particularly exciting. And there's other clubs who have been through similar. So, yeah, I think the fans want change. I suspect these accounts were published at the behest of some of the senior members of staff at Preston North End to say, well, these are the state of the finances. What do you expect us to do?

with this degree of revenue coming in. But yeah, it's not a happy bunny. My understanding, and again, there's an element of speculation on this because I hear it from when we get contacted by Jones. My understanding is that Preston North End is up for sale. But then I could say that to probably around about 50 to 60 clubs out of the 92 at present. And

The nature of the championship, you get three or four wins on the bounce and you go from 14th to 8th and all of a sudden the enthusiasm for the club from the fan base changes. But it's very difficult for Preston to generate more fans because we spoke on the question show earlier this week. The North West, Lancashire in particular, you've got these individual towns which have modest populations and

You are effectively constrained by geographical circumstance. Yeah. With reluctance, Kieran, let's get on to this week's Reading story and another punch in the face for a club that's already on the ropes. Yes. Rob Koheg, who is the former Wickham owner, I think he tried to buy Reading

over the course of the summer and the deal fell through. Now at the, at the time he'd lent reading 4 million pounds. He, he got his money back from the Michael Elise sale to buy palace to, to buy in Munich. Um,

But it now appears that he is putting in a compensation claim for, and this is what I find strange, loss of profits. He said if the deal had gone through, I would have made some money. Now, it could be that he would have made some money from some real estate. You know, Reading does have some attractive real estate there.

But looking at Reading's most recent accounts, and that means I have to go back to 2022 because the owner, Dai Yonga, refuses to publish the 2023 accounts, that the club was losing huge amounts of money on an annual basis. I just wonder whether this compensation claim

is similar to what we saw from Rob Cohigg. And Rob's been on the show. When Derby County were in administration. Now, what the Derby County administrators were wanting to sell was a known product, all of the assets of Derby County, and that's allowed

David Klaus to come in knows exactly what he buys. And Rob Kerikovic apparently put in a compensation claim on behalf of Wickham Ronders to say that Derby had breached FFP rules and Wickham were relegated on the final day of the season to League One. So he put in a claim for compensation. Now, we've never managed to determine whether that has been settled out of court or not. It's certainly been some form of lockdown. Yeah.

Um, could this be that he's put in a 10 million pound claim, um,

to make things even more awkward for the sale of Reading Football Club by Dyer Younger because prospective buyers will not want to buy the football club. It's a bit like if you're buying – I always give a house analogy. If you're buying a house and there's a dispute with a neighbour over fences have been blown down in the most recent storm and whose responsibility is it to put it up and the neighbour's saying, well, we're going to put a legal claim against you, you want certainty.

So, is this an attempt to get an out-of-court settlement before the Reading deal goes through to make it that much easier for Dai Yonga to sell the club? Yonga's got issues in that he can't get money out of China itself. I believe he's now living with his sister.

who he did buy the club with and I think he fell out with his sister when she realised just how much money Reading was costing the pair of them. So, yeah, we hoped to have a chat, something Reading-based, later this week. So if so, if we clarify that, we'll be putting that as a separate podcast. Yeah.

Yeah, hopefully that will come through to the mutual benefit of both of us, Kieran, by which I mean the podcast and the person Reading-based that might be talking to us. If he's done this, Kieran, to make the sale of Reading more complicated and hopefully get a bit of a payoff to go, that's a very cynical move.

Is it not? Could it be a chance that the claim is that if he bought Reading, he would then have sold Wickham for a profit? Because I'd rather it was the second than the first. Because I don't... I like... We've met him a couple of times. I liked him. I don't like to think that this is just a deliberate attempt to muddy the waters even further for Reading. Well, he's a lawyer, so he will know...

the the consequences of putting in a compensation claim um we still don't know what happened in terms of wickham we do know what happened there was also a separate legal dispute between derby county and uh middlesbrough and by all accounts you know uh

If we take a look at Mel Morris, who got a fair amount of flack from me during the conduct of his ownership, I give him credit for settling that one out of court with Middlesbrough. And he took the hit on that. Yeah. I only say this, Kieran, to annoy all the lawyers I know, but when you said he's a lawyer, I assumed that stopped then because you're just implying that there's nothing evil that they're not capable of.

which is my assumption. Talking of lawyers, Kieran Charlton Athletic could find themselves in court. Yes. Charlton have been through a merry-go-round of ownership issues. There was De Chachelet, there was Thomas Sangard, and quite a few people came in potentially by mistake.

there's there's a guy called paul elliott not the footballer paul elliott i think i think paul actually made it paul it was a great player who is now saying he is owed 500 000 pounds and i think this was connected to again i think lending money to the club when he was part of a consortium that was thinking of buying the club and this was giving it working capital and

So this is going through the high court. It's going to be expensive. It's going to be messy. It's a £500,000 claim. And again, this is why you need to have everything resolved whenever there is a transaction. Certainly, I'm aware of when I used to do administration work, one of the things we were always keen on was to

exactly know what we were selling to a new party. And I remember one particular where we were told dozens of times by the old management that this asset is owned by the company. So therefore we sold that asset. Turns out that,

The paperwork, which they couldn't find, was due to the fact that the paperwork didn't exist. And we had to go and stump up to settle that deal privately. So this is why you're always trying to get certainty, because who exactly is Paul Elliott going to try to recover that money from? Is there going to be now a claim between Charlton's new owners and the old owners and more work for the lawyers? It just gets very messy.

Two more stories to go, Kieran. One funnier than the other. The first one, despite what I said about Sheffield United new owners being neither good news nor bad news, this could be finally some good news for Dunfermline fans. Yes. A guy called James Board, which is nearly... I read that as James Bond, first of all, so I did get quite excited. LAUGHTER

James Board is a former professional poker player. That's not necessarily a bad thing as a Brighton fan, given where we are. It looks like he...

could be involved. He runs a company called Short Circuit Science. So he's an entrepreneur, a tech entrepreneur, and America's tech industry is doing superbly well. It's one of the biggest drivers. I've spoken before about the success of the U.S. economy. It's growing far faster than Europe. It's growing far faster than the U.K., and that is very much on the back of tech. So he has been successful.

He's one of the interested parties. And it's a good news story from a media perspective because they like the idea of, you know, a poker player buying into a football club. If that is a success, we wish him all the best. He'd be more than welcome to come on the show. And, you know, the important thing is that we have a done, firmly and athletic to talk about because there is a limited amount of time that the administrators can run a club

because they're not paying the bills out of their own money. I think, yeah, there has been a fundraising and they did inherit a bit of cash as well. But even so, it's very messy and there have been some quite dark elements to the reasons why Dunfermline Athletic have gone into administration.

Yeah, our final story, Kieran, I mean, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to slip over just outside your own penalty box once might be considered misfortune. To do it twice. So I think we all had, you in particular, Kieran, would have had a good old chuckle at your ex-player playing now for the club you like the least, falling over twice and then dramatically gesturing at his boots. But he may regret that, Kieran.

That's right. Puma are bringing out a new range of boots. Those boots are costing 220 notes. Mark Kukurea, who is a very good footballer, his ethics are a separate discussion issue. So yes, he was at fault for those two opening goals. He then...

spectacularly threw the boots into a bin, photographed it and stuck it out on social media. But it looks like he was going to be one of the brand ambassadors. Now, how Puma are going to feel about this?

because he's effectively trashed the reputation of their new product. And they will have put a lot of work into developing that. So there is a sort of an ethics or conduct or badwill clause that you will have if you sign up with a boots deal. And I'm not sure that Mark Kukureya will be getting a check from Puma, but

um as a result of his actions because i can't see anybody wanting to buy those boots because he's quite publicly blamed the boot um rather than anything else and it could be the boots but there was something you know perhaps he'd chosen the wrong length of stud or he hadn't screwed in his stomach not the use of yeah we don't have screwing studs anymore do you on football boots um but

It does show that actions have consequences in the world of social media. And it was a funny post by him, but he subsequently deleted it. And I suspect he deleted it when his agent said, Mark, you do know how much Puma are potentially going to pay you for wearing those boots. And we've had a little whisper in our ear to say that they're not very impressed. We were before the, the Palace Man City game on Saturday in the Ports and Zones. We were,

I was going to say talking to a young person, but a young person who was older than his 30s. And we were telling him about the football boots he used to be able to buy with revolving studs. Oh, yes. Revolving studs, which he was horrified by because he's of a medical background. He's going, you've got to do your ligaments in.

But then was into it because his next question, what colour were they? What? Black. Yeah, exactly. Black. All boots were just black. Life was so much easier then. I remember when Alan Ball. Yeah, the white boots. Oh, that was a major incident at school. Tell me about it. It was a major incident for my dad. Dad was up there with Keith Weller wearing tights. That's what my dad was concerned. God rest his soul. Peter Manetti wearing gloves.

White football boots with revolving studs. Game's gone. Game's gone. Game's gone. Thanks to everyone who's donated to the pod via our Patreon page. Now, if you'd like to make a small monthly contribution to the pod, and it is small. Oh, my God, it is small. You can go to our website, priceoffootball.com, and follow the links to join the Price of Football Club.

If you have a question you'd like answered on the show, email us at questions at priceoffootball.com. Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter, X, and you can find us on our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to buy our book or see us live, you can find details on our website, priceoffootball.com. We'll be back on Tuesday with our regular questions pod. In the meantime, I'll hand you over to Stakira Maguire for his customary farewell.

As always, thanks to everybody who's been in contact, especially those people who have been chatting to me about... I managed to get hold of a Duke Le Prague football shirt, which is the home shirt. But the number of listeners to this podcast, if we did a Venn diagram of half-man, half-biscuit fans and listeners to POF...

Very significant overlap. But it was great to see that just so many people have a love for one of the world's greatest bands. But there's ways of supporting the show. And we are excited about the Football Club and that will allow us to put out more content.

We do have a backlog of questions, so help us to address that and also to answer the question. And we're also quite looking forward to doing a sort of a live Q&A. So we could be very current about whatever you've got in mind to ask us then. And we always have fun when we do the Q&A at the live shows as well. But there is another way to support the club. And, yeah, we are conscious that times are hard. So, yeah, we...

If you want to say something nice about us, that will help us as well in terms of the reputation of the club. And that's to give us a review of the podcast. Just go onto your app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and give us a review. By all accounts, it doesn't matter what you say.

So in honour of Half Man, Half Biscuit, you could even say you would rather have the show presented by Nerys Hughes and Fred Titmuss. It wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to us. Oh, there's Nerys Hughes. There you go. That's a man of a certain age sighing. That's right. And Fred Titmuss is a man of a certain age sighing. Yes. Well, I'd like to get Half Man, Half Biscuit slash Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.

vibe going, getting them to host a pod between. And that'd be, we'd, we'd three quarters of our listenership would lap that up. Okay. Wouldn't they? Yeah. Bye everyone. Bye. No offense, but your brain is a terrible place to keep your big idea. It belongs in the world, but you know that already. You have a calling, a voice that says, this is what I'm meant to do.

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