Revamped European Super League proposals launched, Brighton fined for breaking youth development rules
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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 McGuire. Kieran, I'm in South London. It's a very rainy, blustery day with Christmas coming up. The cat's ears were folded back. It was so windy when she went out for her morning wee. Came straight back in again, blaming me for the weather. So obviously I'm in a perky mood. But where are you, Kieran? It's quite hard to tell where you are in the city.

Well, I'm supposed to be in my apartment in Liverpool, which I was supposed to be buying yesterday. Being said, I'm in a hotel because...

somebody hasn't sent the money across i have it's gone out of my bank account um so yeah i'm it's uh it's going to be hopefully a very good day and given that i i bought the place or had the offer accepted in april 2023 so 500 days later i'm moving

It's quite encouraging, Kieran, for people like me who are, as we know, legendarily bad with money to learn that even somebody like you can casually mislay a large amount of money in quite a way. That's the sort of thing that happens to me. I'll just say it, but what do you mean it's disappeared into the ether? That bloke who gave me the cow promised me that it was...

Those six magic beans he gave me when I sent him that money, we should be fine. Until I get the keys, I've still got nervous. It's just been – I'm not going to go, it was so much easier when I was a lad, but 500 days to move. And there's been times – I've had a couple of job offers down south. I'm going, should I just go and cut my losses and take these jobs in London?

And just been off the flat and commute from, from home. And yeah, it's ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. Well, yeah, I'd love to join in the nostalgia fest of what, what buying a place was like when I was a lad, but you know,

working class South London boy, Kim, and we rented a flat. The idea of buying somewhere, you're blowing your credentials out of the water. Although I imagine Uncle Terry was probably quite handy when it came to getting a deposit for a place, I imagine. He was quite good at evicting the previous occupants as well. LAUGHTER

It was nice to second time I've seen you this week, Kieran, because we had a lovely quiz just a couple of days ago. Thank you to everyone who took part in our quiz. People accuse me of faking sincerity, because obviously, as Bob Monkhouse famously said, once you can fake sincerity, you're laughing. But that was a genuinely, I was genuinely thrilled by

Well, A, how many people took part in it. It was a lovely, good-natured evening. But it was proper nip and tuck, the last three or four rounds. It was genuinely exciting. Yeah, yeah, I think you were on the last question. It was. The very last question. The owls about that, the Sheffield Wednesday fan, was on the leaderboard, but he wasn't on top until the very last question. Fantastic stuff. Lewis and Mark out in front for 15 questions, I think.

Wanky Chomps mistimed his run. It's really interesting. We've got some big news stories, Kieran, the first of which, if I were to say to you the Unify League, Kieran, you'd probably say to yourself, sounds like the sort of thing Sky would do in July in Seattle between some bemused Crystal Palace reserves and Inter Milan 11 and two local American teams. But it's more sinister than that, unfortunately, Kieran, isn't it?

Yes, we have said on many an occasion that Super League is not dead. There is a company called A22, which just so happens to be based in Madrid.

And it's organised by a German guy who comes across as incredibly sincere, Bert. And I've asked him on the podcast to, you know, he's more than welcome to explain the benefits. But what we have now seen is the third incarnation of Super League. There was the original one, which was very poorly organised.

There was the second one, which was created by A22, and that was not merit-based. It was effectively a quasi-cartel of big clubs who would be involved, plus a few invitees, and a very strange situation.

three-tier system. I mean, to be fair, they do appear to have listened. So now it is going to be based on some form of merit in terms of domestic trophies. But one of the criticisms that the

A22 has for the existing competition. And I'm quite enjoying this Swiss model. You can see a club go up quite a few places and it does seem to be genuine jeopardy. It's that it's not understandable. Well, what they're going to suggest replacing it with is a four-tier system. So you're going to have the Star League, the Gold League, the Blue League, and the Union League. So three of them are colours and one of them isn't.

The Star League will have 16 teams, which will be split into two divisions of eight. And you will play. And it's saying, we've got an incredibly new idea to play each other home and away. And I'm going, hold on. You're claiming this is new. Isn't that what we've just replaced?

So you'll be guaranteed 14 league games. And this is where it's coming from. The big clubs don't like the idea of being potentially knocked out in the group stages of a competition. So they want to play as many home games as possible. So this will guarantee them seven home fixtures and seven away fixtures. The

The league system will start in September and end in April, as opposed to the current system, which we have the knockouts effectively from January onwards. And then the top four teams in each of the eight team divisions go through to the knockout. So you'll have a quarterfinal, a semifinal and so on.

So potentially you could have 19 games, which I think is slightly less than what you might have in the present system. So they're saying it's fewer games, but that's being very disingenuous. Far more clubs will have far more games. Then you've got these various tiers.

which have various qualification criteria. So it is more democratic in the sense that it does appear to be more merit-based. But my concern is that if you are guaranteed an extra seven home games a season and you are

Real Madrid or Liverpool or PSG. And let's face it, these are big clubs. These are big clubs to begin with. The financial advantage that it will give you over the likes of clubs at our level, Palace, Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford, and so on, you've immediately got seven fewer clubs

So therefore, that's worth four or five million pounds a pop in terms of gate receipts. It means that those clubs will automatically have such a huge financial advantage that it's just going to reinforce the existing gaps within football. So that's what they've had. And the way that they're projecting it is quite intriguing. They're saying, we've taken care of fan affordability. And I go, what?

Okay. This sounds interesting. And it says, well, we're going to have a free-to-air TV product. Yeah, with adverts.

And I'm going, okay, but hold on. What about fans that physically go to matches? They're now going to have to attend more matches. So what you're doing is you're saying that it's going to be more affordable for TV viewers. And ultimately, this is what's being driven by. The people that turn up to watch the matches, sod you lot, you have to go and attend far more matches. There's going to be some form of streaming service.

um i'm going well this sort of makes sense but then it doesn't make sense because tnt have the current rights and tnt they have adverts so you pay for your subscription and you pay for adverts um what a22 are proposing is it's free to air tv with adverts or you can have a paid for version without adverts no mention of ticket prices

So if you're talking about fan affordability, are you going to say no more than 40 euros for a ticket? Of course not. You're going to absolutely rinse those people that want to apply. It says there's going to be greater promotion of the women's game, but gives no details, i.e. what it is. It's just a sop to the women's game. It talks about self-governance.

It says, oh, the European Clubs Association, which is the European clubs, of course, they shouldn't be let near football and UEFA. They're the big bad wolves of football. They talk about self-governance, but there's no mention of how the money is going to be distributed. And ultimately, Kevin, as we know, this is purely driven by money. This is driven by Perez. They talk about solidarity payments to clubs that don't qualify.

but they don't say how much solidarity payments. It's no point me earning a million pounds and giving somebody else a fiver. Yeah, that's not going to make any difference. The reason why this is all being tripped up

is Florentino Perez, who is the president of Real Madrid, doesn't like the Premier League. And the aim of all of this is to reduce the success of individual domestic leagues and the Premier League in particular.

Premier League's very... And Perez keeps going on and on and on. You know, the Premier League, it's an unfair competition, ignoring the fact that Real Madrid have won the Champions League for five seasons in the last 10. They've won it far more than anybody else. So that's where we are with it.

La Liga, to be fair to them, within an hour, they put out a press release, which I think it's fair to say the mildest thing that I could call it is hostile. Martin Ziegler

has spoken to somebody at UEFA who describes it, and apologies to mums and dads here, has described the proposals as, and I quote, bullshit. And that was it. That was one word they got from somebody at FIFA. The Premier League, of course, I'm really disappointed with the Premier League. There has not been a response. I follow the Premier League communications Twitter account, and they've put out nothing since the 22nd of November. So...

And the people behind this, A22, said that they have spoken to many clubs who are willing to sign up, but nobody's willing, apart from Real Madrid and Barcelona, to say that they are in favour of it. I can only go back to the comments made by...

you know even offshore Jim who said effectively no no this is not acceptable when when he was first asked about it you've got similar comments coming from John Henry at FSG and we need to hold these people to those previous comments

So we don't know which clubs have been in communication with A22. Everybody's going to be acting in self-interest. And let's be honest, in terms of the self-interest for us, our clubs are going to struggle to qualify for the top competition. Still good for the smaller competitions, which is broadly where we are at present. So does it make a difference? What is going to extend the gap between clubs?

rich and poor. I don't think that's in the interests of individual leagues. We've seen what's happened in Spain. Real Madrid and Barcelona have become too dominant. I think the Premier League at present is pretty democratic in the way it distributes money, but the aim is to take away the power of the Premier League and replace it with increased money for Real Madrid.

it's interesting, Kieran, considering you say that the aim is to take away the power from the Premier League, you'd imagine the Premier League would be shouting from the rooftops about this terrible proposal, but instead they're being very quiet. And you can only imagine that's because they don't really want the press, because it's really gone under the radar here, because you can imagine they don't want the fans taking to the streets again like they did last time. You'll have to forgive me, Kieran, right at the start of that, um,

very erudite explanation. I was distracted by a phone call from my agent, which I can only assume was a pocket dial. Is this meant to be a replacement for the Champions League, Kieran, or is this to run parallel with the Champions League? Well, A22 have been very keen to put out in their press release is that following the

the court ruling, UEFA and FIFA have to take into consideration alternative competitions to their own. If a large number of large clubs sign up for it, UEFA could run a separate competition, but you've then effectively got to... Remember when darts a few years ago with the Professional Darts Council when you had the British Darts Organisation or the BDO versus the PDC, it very quickly became...

evident as to where viewers' loyalties lie. If you have a competition with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester United, PSG, Bayern Munich and so on all in it, then yes, UEFA could in theory run their own competition, but in practice that's not going to be the case. So I think it would be a replacement. It would be a takeover of the European football. There is talk...

of potentially clubs being involved in selling their own TV rights. And again, this is what the bigger clubs want to do. They don't. And I, I understand it from a business point of view. Um, Braille Madrid do not want any money going to Girona or Valencia or, or any, or any of the other clubs in the competition. They don't, in the present competition, they don't want any money going to, you know, young boys of, of, of Bern and, uh,

some of the Shamrock Rovers and so on. So they'd much rather sell their own rights. And from a business point of view, it absolutely makes sense. But what it would do, I think, for domestic leagues in European football is have a very, very negative impact because all of the focus would be on this competition. And as for the rest of them, it would be very sort of Marie Antoinette in terms of let them eat crumbs.

Do you know what, Kieran? Like you, I find myself surprisingly friendly towards the Swiss model, I have to say, this season.

Because, you know, you mentioned Shamrock Rovers. It gives teams like Shamrock Rovers and Larne, for example, more chance of picking up a big tie against one of the huge teams. And it seems to me that there are a lot more of the lesser clubs, you know, on the fringes of maybe qualifying. It all gets a bit complicated after the initial bit, but I've actually quite enjoyed it. I've not enjoyed the Champions League as much as Liverpool are enjoying the Champions League, Kieran.

Yeah, it's a weird one. I mean, I think you can probably qualify with... I know UEFA have modelled it, but you can probably qualify with eight or nine points from eight games, so it does keep it open. Looking at

Looking at A22's proposals, if you're going to have 14 league games and the top four are going to qualify, I think you're very quickly going to identify who are going to be the bottom. So you're going to end up with a couple of clubs who have got no chance. You've got some clubs at the top who will have qualified after A22.

perhaps seven or eight games. And one of the criticisms that is levelled at the present FIFA, so the present UEFA competition, is that there are matches which have relatively little meaning. And looking at this, it's taking place from September to April, but by the time you get to January and February, you'd be having more dead rubbers than a malfunctioning condom factory. And that's not good. Right.

But Liverpool, talk us through the amount of money Liverpool have already made from the Champions League, Kieran. Well, Liverpool have just ripping up trees this season. They're doing absolutely fantastically well. So they've had six victories out of six, which is an absolutely brilliant start. And they've had some great matches.

And some matches against other opposition, which are not as glamorous, but it's fantastic for the fans of those other clubs to get a club such as Liverpool to play them either home or away. The way that it works is that Liverpool would have picked up €2.1 million for each of their six victories. So that's €12.6 million. You get a participation fee of €18.6 million. So we're up to over €30 million.

If they win, and it looks like they are going to win, the 32 club league, you get a further 9.9 million. If you finish in the top eight, you get a further 2 million. And if you reach the knockout phase, you get a further 11 million. So if Liverpool win the remaining matches, that's going to be around about 62 to 63 million euros. And on top of that...

You get a payout based on how much your domestic broadcaster has paid for the Champions League rights. Well, TNT have paid more than any other broadcaster in Europe. So that's probably going to be another 20 million euros. So it looks like Liverpool are already in for around about 80 million euros. And let's be honest, they've deserved it. They have been magnificent in terms of it. So...

First of all, hats off to them. And secondly, do you need more money than that? And it's €80 million to date. And once they start to go through the remaining rounds, you could potentially be talking somewhere in the region of €150 million from a competition which does appear to have jeopardied, does appear to be attractive to many clubs. And the fact that it's a 32-club league I think is –

I was originally a skeptic, but I've been pretty impressed by it so far because it does give...

the clubs from the smaller and mid-tier European leagues the chance to participate, and if they win matches, they proceed. The proposals from A22, and again, it's what they don't say which concerns me, is that if you've got your star league of, even if it's split into two times eight equal divisions, they've not said, is there a cap on

on the number of clubs from individual countries that can be in their product. We all know that the big attraction to Super League for the big six was that they didn't have to worry about finishing fifth or sixth in the Premier League. Is there going to be something similar here? We don't know.

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Well, it also shows, Kieran, if Liverpool are guaranteed 80 million euro already, which essentially is 80 million quid, and that's before qualifying, then the Unified League are going to have to find some serious money to tempt clubs like Liverpool to say, why would Liverpool say, all right, I'll join the Unified League when they're guaranteed, probably, if they win the tournament, 200 million quid? Yes. So then the conspiracy theories start, of course.

What happens if we don't restrict this competition to just clubs from Europe? And what happens if all of a sudden a very, very generous sponsorship arrangement is created, which ultimately provides the funding for this?

and allows blubs from elsewhere to come into it. I'm not saying that there's no evidence to support that, by the way, and we're not a cynical show, as we've always said, but there's somebody driving this from a monetary point of view, and for every puppet, there's a puppet master. Could this elsewhere, Kieran, could it be somewhere very hot?

Maybe as hot as 40 degrees in the summer? Maybe somewhere that boxing matches are hosted, maybe? Well, I don't know. I've got no evidence to support that. At present, the first thing I did, I went away and did the sun. This doesn't seem to add up to me. So the idea that it's all being done for the benefit of fans is complete hogwash.

Kieran, if every time somebody in the Portsons' Arms asked me a question and I answered it, if I then had to say I have no evidence to support that, I'd be in there all day. So welcome to my world, Kieran, because most of the things I say, I subconsciously, or subconsciously in the back of my head, I've got no evidence to support this, but I'm going to say it with some conviction, and who knows, it might catch on. Now, Kieran, if you'll allow me a moment of pleasure, I'm going to ask you to complete...

the end of this next sentence and I'm going to enjoy the start of it and in fact I might I might even say the start of it twice but um this next news story uh Brighton have been fined uh I'll just in case you seem to be looking out the window there Kieran so just in case you didn't you didn't Brighton have been fined Kieran I don't care what the what the story is now I just really enjoyed saying that maybe they've been fined for losing have they been fined for losing

on Sunday? No, it's not been a great seven days to be a Brighton fan. A few months ago, Brighton self-reported themselves to the Premier League in relation to issues involving youth development. And reading between the lines, I think the phrase which we would use down the Pawson's arms would be tapping up. There was an internal investigation at the club

with a view to one of the things we're always concerned about, and I can assure you, I'm not trying to, we'll get to the Brighton issue in just a sec. Tapping up in academy football and youth football is a big thing. Proving it is another more challenging thing because if you look at the parties involved, the child involved or the young person involved isn't going to say anything because they've just moved to another club.

their parents, who may be beneficiaries of all of this, they ain't going to say anything because, A, their child, they've got their interests, and, B, the parents can – I've seen some of the benefits which have gone to parents. And the clubs aren't going to self-report themselves. So, I mean, Brighton have self-reported themselves. And this has resulted in an investigation by the Premier League, which has resulted in a suspended six-month ban on signing clubs

any players registered at other clubs or previously registered at other clubs. They've had to pay a £20,000 fine and they've had to pay the Premier League's legal costs.

So as raps across the knuckles go, it's a moderate-sized one. It would have been a more significant penalty had Brighton not self-reported themselves. And the response of the club has been to remind staff of their responsibilities and also to do some more internal training as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.

So, yeah, people say to me, you're never critical of Brighton, and there's never a negative Brighton story on the price of football. I say, well, yeah, it might be actually a pretty well-run club, but this does not reflect. Well, I mean, the only thing you can say was that as soon as they identified it, they went to the Premier League and said, you need to take this further. But I think there's a much broader issue in terms of youth development,

And I have been trying to get people involved in youth development to come onto the show. And there's been a reticence to do so. And all I would say to everybody is, as we've said to every single guest, we are, you know, you said, yeah, I'm not Paxman. I'm not going to do the Laura Koenigsberg. We're not here to catch anybody out.

We are here, A, because we're interested in the subject ourselves, and B, the feedback we get from listeners is that the broad topics that we cover are an interest to them. So we would welcome anybody from a club with their blessing to come on the show and talk about some of the challenges that exist in an industry which has got a 99% failure rate. And I was talking to somebody very senior at

at a youth development facility recently and they said we are concerned because whilst we think we're doing as much pastoral care as we can, we're conscious that these kids have made sacrifices and they've made sacrifices in two main ways. First of all, they've sacrificed their education because it's all football, football, football.

And secondly, they've sacrificed their peer group. You think about what you were doing and what I was doing, age 13, 14, 15, 16. We were being silly kids, but we were going out to the pub, even though we shouldn't have. We were going out with our mates, going clubbing, going to gigs, generally having a good time. And you were building up that bond. Yeah.

Those bonds last a long time. I still hang out with the mates, even though I lived in Manchester for a while, I still hang out with the guys that I grew up with when I was a teenager. And you sacrifice that as an academy footballer. And then if you're one of that 99% who do not get a professional contract, what have you got? You've lost your education and you've lost your friends.

And that can make it a very, very lonely place. And I think the Premier League really needs to step up here. I don't think the safeguarding from that point of view is something which is discussed. And I think the Premier League has its hands tied because it would have to put up a budget for that. And as we've seen from certain clubs, they don't like spending money on anything other than that affects them. But there's a much broader issue. And so I am trying to work to get somebody from an academy to come on and to talk about

the broader issues as well as the fantastic success stories as well. Yeah. There were 15 of us going to the Arsenal game this evening, Kieran. We were recording this Wednesday. Yes.

We're meeting in a pub called the Faltering Fallback in Finsbury Park, mainly for alliteration purposes. But of that 15, I've known four of them since I was five. And I've known the others since I was 11, pretty much. There's a few things off the back of that, Kieran. Did you say how much the fine was? £20,000. £20,000, fair enough. Yes.

No matter how well-run a club is like Brighton, you can't always make allowances for the actions of one rogue individual, basically, or one... Because this is quite possibly what it is. It's one rogue coach or one coach who didn't know the rules. And you mentioned parents. The trouble with the tapping up issue is quite often it's the parents that are tapped up. Oh, yeah. Rather than the player themselves or the player... And unfortunately, 13-year-old players have got agents. Yeah.

The other thing as well, you talk about difficulties of getting youth coaches or the head of academies to talk. I think they'd probably be more keen to talk than the clubs would be to let them talk. Because as we've discussed, there can be quite a discrepancy. And we know of a couple, there's quite a discrepancy between what clubs claim they're spending on their academy for PSR and what the academy are actually getting.

for day to day so I think it's a huge area I think we're better off I know we've been periodically trying to get hold of Tony Pulis who did this independent report into the academy system but I think we'll struggle to get somebody from a Premier League academy to come on and be able to be open and honest with us. Ipswich Town had a cracking win at the weekend Kieran and they've got a new I don't know I feel for Ed Sheeran I'm worried about him he was

It was a lovely juxtaposition when they beat Wolves, the fact that Ed Sheeran was sitting next to Robert Plante in the director's box. It was very difficult to say which of them felt more uncomfortable about that situation. But it's interesting, they've got a new shirt deal coming up.

Yes, they are. I mean, first of all, hats off to Ed Sheeran. He supported his local club. He's now a minority shareholder. He owns 14% of Ipswich Town Football Club. And he started sponsoring the club, front of shirt deals, when the club was in League One. So he's not a glory chaser. He's genuine as can be. And what he said to the club, to be fair to him, is, look, I'm absolutely delighted that we're now in the Premier League and

I'd like to sponsor us for the first year in the Premier League, which has probably cost him the thick end of £5 million or more. And he says, after that, I think you need to fly away.

Because the pressure's on him. He's an incredibly successful artist. He's rightly earned a significant amount of money, but the pressure is on him now to be able to go and match that year on year. And it could be.

that, you know, he wants to put out a jazz influence concept double album in a couple of years' time. He feels that he can't do that because he's got to put out something more popular. So I think from a personal point of view, he's been absolutely magnificent. Mark Ashton, who is the Ipswich CEO and had been on The Price of Football, said,

It was great to see the statements he came out with. He says, first of all, thanks very much to Ed. As far as I'm concerned, we are Ipswich Town. We're a community-based club, and they are. It's a great place to visit. There's no way, fan. And we're not going to go down the betting route. So that's the position there. And they've been upfront. Ipswich Town have done really well in terms of the units of merchandise sold because they

It's got that crossover between music and football. So the Ipswich Town shirts were being sold at Ed Sheeran gigs, and that association has helped to raise the profile of the club and so on. But it looks as if that nature of the relationship is coming to an end. But that's off to the club for saying...

We're going to do what we consider to be the best things and the things that you'd associate with a community-based club, and that's not to get involved with the gambling industry. While we're talking about front of shirts, Kieran, I know I've asked you this question in person, but we haven't discussed it on the pod. Why have Chelsea not got a front of shirt sponsor at the moment? From what I hear, as always, it comes down to money. Chelsea were confident that they could get a £40 million deal

for this season, even though they're only in the third tier of European football. And nobody has been willing to match the asking price. Oh, okay. Simple as that. Yeah. And how are Chelsea going to get around that? They'll probably sell another property to themselves to make sure that they comply with PSR. So it is, apart from the fact that it's an awful looking shirt, it's

It is actually nice to see a club without a sponsor. I think it's very pleasant indeed. It really is. I think Chelsea are missing a trick. Chelsea need to bring out their own version of Monopoly, where you just buy what you want. Just put as many hotels as you like and then buy them back for yourself. Our next two stories, Kieran, are about clubs that, since the very start of the pod five years ago,

we've talked about irregular intervals with varying degrees of concern. The first one is Tranmere, a club that's very close to your heart, I know, and they've issued a reassurance to fans this week. Yes, they have. I mean...

Tranmere haven't had the greatest of seasons. They're currently 19th in League 2. I went to watch Tranmere on a Tuesday night a few weeks ago. Crowds are solid as far as League 2 is concerned. Tranmere are owned by Mark and Nicola Paglios. I know Mark. I've met Mark on quite a few occasions. Mark's a very forceful individual.

He's from a finance background as well as a football background, and he's been successful in both of those particular areas. He bought...

cranberry rovers football club because he's a local lad and he's been successful as able to do so um he's not in the billionaire category so you know the amount of money you can put in the club has been linked but there has been it's fairly it's fairly open secret the club has been up for sale in fact we discussed the matter um a few a few couple of months ago i think is it rocky asap the the singer

He was involved in the potential consortium. And it's fair to say that combined with so-so results and not a lot of news coming out, fans have been getting angsty, is the phrase I would use. And fair to Mark, he says, right, okay, I'll take you on. So they arranged effectively an online conversation. And during this, he said...

The aim is still to sell the club. That has been delayed. I wouldn't go into details. My view is that – and he said the aim is to sell the club in the first quarter of 2025 –

One of the problems you're always going to have if you are selling to a consortium, if I'm selling to one person, then there's one owners and directors test. So the EFL say, okay, do you have any unspent convictions? Let's take a look at that. Do you have the money? Show us the bank accounts. Where's the money coming from?

If it's a consortium, then I don't know how many people would be involved. You could have eight, you could have 10, you could have a dozen. So all of a sudden, the work that is undertaken by the EFL is multiplied. And you only need one person in that consortium to potentially fail the owners and directors test for the whole deal to be put on hold. So it could be something as simple as that. And it does work.

sort of create its own sort of set of problems. But Mark seemed confident. The club is losing money, which is not unusual as far as lower league is concerned. And I think it's in the best interest of all parties that we get over this hurdle, which sort of reading between the lines from what the Zoom conversation was appears to be at the buying end rather than the selling side of the club. Yeah.

In that case, Kim, can you issue your own reassurance to Trammy of fans that if this sale doesn't go through in the first quarter of 2025, that doesn't indicate that Trammy will then be in serious trouble? No, no. Mark wants to leave a legacy.

And that legacy, he's always said, I'm going to make sure of two things. First of all, the club's in a better position when I leave it than when I bought it and when it was a mess when he bought it. And secondly, I'm going to undertake, sort of independently of the EFL, a look into the nature and the ambitions of the new owners. And I only sell to people who I think have got the resources and

to take the club further than I can. So, yeah, he's not going to throw his toys out of the pram and abandon ship. If he is, it will be a major 180. And Mark, I think, is a very principled man. This next story, Kieran, is a source of some...

disquiet for me, I have to say. It's about Swindon Town. First of all, I was associated with Swindon Town with Don Rogers, who was my absolute idol. I used to have ridiculous 10-year-old conversations when I tried to convince other 10-year-olds, of course, Don Rogers is better than George Best. I wouldn't have it any other way. But also because, Kieran, this was a story, Swindon Town we've been following right from the start, and it looked like it was a very poor...

there was a time when we spoke of Swindon as a real success story. We felt almost paternal because we had a tiny part in publicising this and it looked like they'd gone from deep trouble into very calm waters. And those calm waters are a long way behind now, Kieran, aren't they? Yes. There were certainly issues with the former owner, Lee Power, and Swindon,

Change is not necessarily the same as improvement, as I suspect we and most listeners can say in terms of relationships. Just because something is new doesn't necessarily mean that it's better. So Clem Morfuni came in from Australia to end the club, and he came in on a huge wave of goodwill from Swindon Town fans. And it's not worked out. Now...

I don't think communication's been particularly good. The new chief executive, or the chief executive who was appointed, he left, and Rob Angus, who has, again, been on the show, because he was one of the action groups under the former owners. He's left. I don't know the details, and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to try to quiz Rob on this, but really in between the lines of that, I think that there were...

There were transparency issues. There were honesty issues in terms of the relationship between the chief executive and the owner. And he wasn't getting the full story. So my understanding is that Swindon Town have been put up for sale.

I have been in contact, and this was admittedly a few months ago, with a prospective bidding consortium. And they asked me for certain information. I gave them certain information. Don't charge any money. You know me. You know how you sigh, don't you, when you hear of the things that I regularly do?

You should be in pay-fix, Kieran. I didn't think of any other. Yeah, I am dumb when it comes. It's not me that sighs. It's Ali that sighs because she's very used to me saying I didn't want to charge him. They haven't got a lot of money. They're only a charity. So she sighs on your behalf because you're not charging money from FIFA. I'm not charging money from a charity in Croydon. That's why she sighs. But anyway. Yeah.

When Swindon aren't having a good season, there were an altercation between Ian Holloway and the away fans a few days ago, and that got caught on social media.

As fans, we go to matches and say, yeah, sometimes we have a right old moan, don't we? We have a right old moan. And if you've just travelled 150 miles, if you've just gone and spent, you know, 40 or 50 quid on travel, you've had a few scoops, you've paid your, you know, 20, 25 quid, whatever it is to be the way you do it, I think people say, well, yeah,

I've shown an investment in this particular performance and I'm not necessarily sure I'm getting much of a return on investment. So Ian Holloway probably wasn't his greatest moment. He was involved in, fair to say, had to be separated from the fans. And sometimes fans step over the line in what they say. And I've got a lot of respect for Ian on a human level, by the way.

So we now have a fan group formed, and this goes back to Don Rogers, the spirit of 69, to reflect that when Swindon got the League Cup final and all that type of thing. And what they've done, and I think they've taken a leaf out of what the Charlton fans have done. They've taken a leaf out of our friend Ali Jones, Action for Albion, the West Brom fan. They are doing pre-match protests. So this weekend they said it's going to be peaceful.

It's going to be non-obstructive. It's going to be outside of the 90 minutes, but we are going to raise the profile of our concerns. And ultimately it comes down to money. Ben Morphoony is asking for more money than I think Swindon Town is worth.

Now, why is he asking for so much money? A, because he thinks he might be able to rent somebody, or B, he's put so much money into the club that he needs to recover what he's put in because he might have borrowed that money from somebody else himself. We don't know. But certainly when...

I saw the purported asking price, and it would not be professional to disclose what the purported asking price was. And what I considered the club to be worth, there was a noticeable gap. That happens all the time in football, I can assure you. And then you try to walk, you try to move, a bit like Barnahouse, you try to move to some sort of central ground. But it was quite a gap.

So that's the mess. We wish the fan groups well, and we would reiterate non-violent direct action. Make it humorous as well, because that's how you'll get attention. That's how you'll end up in the newspapers. But go back to all of the things that we used to do at Brighton when we had ownership issues, bringing out a record.

turning up at the owner's house and reading poems. Yeah, that was the most brightened thing you could possibly do. Lobbing tennis balls onto the... Just things which will get you a bit of attention. And it allows the local newspaper, the local radio station, it can be picked up by TalkSport and so on. This is what the fans are doing. Isn't that... They're showing themselves to be...

They're showing themselves to be proportionate. At the same time, they're showing their love and dedication and investment in Swindon Town Football Club.

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Yeah, knowing Brighton fans, I bet it was modern atonal poetry as well, wasn't it? Nothing old-fashioned like rhyming stuff. As ever, Kieran, we'll say what we always say. If anybody from the spirit of the 69 wants to come and talk to us on the pod, we'd only be too happy to talk to them. And if anybody from Swindon Town Football Club, Clem Morphoony in particular, wants to come onto the pod and talk to us, we'd only be too happy to talk to them. Perhaps they could do it together, Kieran. Perhaps we could set up the Price of Football mediation service.

Oh, wow. That'd be really cool. Yeah. Well, it would have to be you that did it, Kieran, so I'd end up taking one side or the other and taking my jacket off. Offering in the park, aren't we? Yeah. This is our third or fourth visit to Scotland, Kieran, in the last three or four weeks, but for the third or fourth time, it's not good news. No, it's not. This is Clyde Football Club. The Bully Wee is their nickname. I thought, well, that's a strange thing, and apparently...

The word bully in Victorian Scotland meant first rate. They were known as the bully week. The first rate wee, wee of course means small. As a Glasgow club, they were known as the good, small Glasgow football club, which is fantastic.

They're getting a ten-mences of about 600. Now, at the start of the season, they said, "We've got a bit of a crisis here. We're not sure we can see out the season. We're going to need 200 grand to survive." They've done pretty well in terms of donations. They've got 135. I think fans have raised another 15. So they're around about 50 to 55 grand short. And they say, "We're still concerned about do we have enough money to see out the rest of the season?"

So they've set up a GoFundMe campaign. And if you want to go to GoFundMe, you can just type in GoFundMe Clyde FC with an aim to raise a further £55,000 to help the club see through the rest of the season. I'm pleased to announce that they've already got £40,000. I was on GoFundMe this morning. So all the best.

It does appear, you know, Dunbarton, ICT, Clyde, we've historically said, and we've had these conversations with Nord Doncaster as well, that

Scottish football clubs tend to operate to a fairly tight budget. And that's why, ironically, historically, they've tended to have fewer administrations than we've seen south of the border. This is an indication that things aren't brilliant in Scotland, especially amongst the clubs in the bottom two tiers. So it is a challenge. But for those 600 people that turn up to watch Clyde on a regular basis, it's

Just as we were talking, it's a good thing to be a fan. As we're saying, you're going to a match tonight with guys that you've known for 50 years or more. And I think as blokes of a certain age, that's really good for us. And for all those people at Clyde who say the same. It's a sign, Kieran, that we've been married for a long time. You took the words out of my mouth because I was going to ask you

Exactly that, that we've kind of floated along for a long time. And mostly when we visit Scotland, it's to talk about Celtic selling photographs of their pitch or it's to talk about bigger financial issues at Rangers. But it's slightly concerning that suddenly in the past few weeks, as you say, things are getting a little bit rocky up there. And also, Celtic and Rangers, for the love of God, they can bung in 20,000 quid each, can't they?

to keep another club in. So, I mean, I'm sure there are probably league reasons why they can't do so, but they can find ways around that, surely, can't they? And then I know everybody else says, well, why do you treat a football club in the same way you don't treat your other businesses? Because it's different, basically. It is different, absolutely. It's totally different. Two more stories, Kieran, from different ends of the financial spectrum. The first one involving a Greek billionaire, Kieran.

That's right. Mr. Omarinakis, the owner of Olympiacos, who, hats off to them, they won the

Europe Conference last year, which is a fantastic achievement. Also the owner of Nottingham Forest, who, again, having an absolutely superb season. It looks as if he's going to become the new owner of Vasco da Gama in the Brazilian League, who have been owned by somebody who we've not mentioned for a while, and I'm sadly have to mention, our very good friends at 777.

who were the potential owners of Everton. And again, as I've said on many an occasion, the Premier League did a really good job on 7-7-7 because that deal, had the Premier League not found so many holes, that deal would have gone through and it would have been an absolute disaster.

777 bought Vasco da Gama two or three years ago for around about 110 million pounds. They were removed from the board of directors of Vasco da Gama in April following an investigation by a Brazilian court. And there's been a bit of a vacuum there at present.

It makes a lot of sense to me to buy into Brazilian football. If you're going to go down that MCO, that multi-club ownership model, because one of Brazil's most successful exports, as we know, is talent when it comes to football. And having a Brazilian club as part of an MCO makes a lot of sense. So if this does go ahead...

I think the only concern amongst Forest fans is where does Marinakis' loyalty slide? Okay, I'll be honest. It's with Olympiakos, I suspect. He's a Greek lad. It's his hometown club. So I think there's always a concern for clubs involved in an MCO is that, you know,

if there is 50 million euros to spend and it has to go to one of the three clubs, where's it going to go? Um, at the same time, he's, he's been a very generous owner and benevolent owner at Forrest. And he's got, certainly got plans to expand the stadium and so on, if not move the stadium. Um, so, so, so that's where we are. Um, Vasco have been one of those clubs that have got an absolutely amazing backstory in history in terms of success and then failure and then return to success. So, um, it, it,

We know that American Atlas is not an even-tempered individual. He's a colourful character. A colourful character, yes. It's just a shame that I can imagine him and John Texter having...

differences of opinion should Watafego play Vasco and that would be worth watching in its own right. You know it's interesting Kieran obviously I was going to mention John Texter because there are many questions to be asked about his part ownership of Crystal Palace and

many more questions about his disastrous ownership of Lyon. But Botafogo has been an almost unqualified success for him. They've just won the Copa Libertadores, which he's been happy to tell the world. Yes. But so all those people who say, because he's using Botafogo, so all those people who say, I don't know how to run a football club, I'm running this incredibly successful one.

in Brazil. I'd be interested to find out how much money he's making out of it because I suspect it would be far less than from his two European clubs. Well, probably more than Lyon now, but it's an interesting one because we get so obsessed with English football that we forget that there are

95% of the rest of the world, Kieran, where their football clubs are just as likely to be potentially good investments as ours are. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's that time of year, Kieran, and who doesn't love a feel-good story? It's time of year, and I'm very pleased to be able to finish with this story. Yes.

Jorley FC, a club which has never come across our radar before, which is not even a good thing, let's be honest. What a fantastic gesture this is. On Christmas Day, Jorley FC, they're opening the club facilities between midday to 3pm. And they said, if people say, why are you doing that? Our response is, why not? Because Christmas Day, for many people,

is the best day of the year. And for many other people, it's the worst because everything is amplified. For those people who have not seen people they love for whatever reasons, it can be really tough. But those people who've ended up alone, it's really tough. And this sort of really, when I read this, I was filling up. Chorley FC said, if one person turns up and he's not alone on Christmas Day because they've come to Chorley,

then it's worth opening the doors. What a magnificent thing to say. And they said, our staff who turn up, we put no pressure on. Staff have said, we want to do this. We're going to be volunteers. And I think they've asked for local businesses, anything you can donate. So they're not trying to make money out of it. People, cup of tea, a bit of turkey. And for all of those people who say, and I personally,

I will go onto social media and I will be critical of certainly some of the bigger clubs. And the very common response that you get of, it's a business, not a charity. Well, what's wrong with being a bit of both? Of course, there are many other businesses who manage to fulfil a charitable function. And the brilliant thing about this, I mean, there'll be people in Chorley who get a bit of company.

Like you said, a cup of tea, maybe a glass of sherry, a bit of hot food, which they might not have properly had for a long time. And there will be cynics who go, well, it's only 12 o'clock till 3 o'clock. But those volunteers, they'll be there at 8 o'clock in the morning.

getting stuff ready. And they'll be there at eight o'clock at night, cleaning up and, and, you know, putting everything back in order. So there are people that are giving up their own Christmas day just to help other people. And, you know, like you say, I genuinely bought a tear to my eye. I know we're both South London people.

working class men and therefore tend towards the emotional, the sentimental, Kieran. But hats off to Chorley FC for doing it. In the scheme of things, it's not a big thing to do, but for the people that benefit from that service for three hours, it's a huge thing to do. And also, if it means that Chorley get 20, 30 extra fans through the door because they go, do you know what? I'm really proud of

my local club. I'm going to repay that by going out to watch them play. Then hats off to them. And anybody out there who supports the team who's doing anything remotely similar, just let us know and we'll do a roll call of Christmas pride and I'll be very happy to do it.

Thank you to everyone who's donated to the pod via our Patreon page and everyone who's already joined the brand new Price of Football Club. If you'd like to join that club too, it does sound like a 70s chocolate biscuit ad, doesn't it? If you'd like to join our club, then you can go to our website, priceoffootball.com. If you have a question you'd like answered on our weekly question show, then email us at questions at priceoffootball.com.

Don't forget you can follow us on X Twitter and you can find us on our YouTube channel. And if you'd like to buy one of our excellent books or a Price of Football t-shirt, you can find all the details on our website, priceoffootball.com. We'll be back on... Well, we won't be back. We will be back, too. We're going on all the way through...

through Christmas, but spoiler alert, Kieran and I are going to pre-record four questions episodes. So we will be here for the next four episodes, but they'll be shorter than normal. But...

You never know. There might be a little added bonus for the people who turn up at Chorley. They say, here we go, just for the last half hour. Why are you eating the turkey? Listen to these two. Price of football. But so we will be with you in spirit over Christmas and the New Year. We'll be back properly, I think, on the 6th. So we won't say Merry Christmas now because we'll do it on the actual pod. But in the meantime, I will hand you over to Mr. Kieran Maguire for his customary farewell. Yes.

As always, thanks to everybody for the different ways they support the show. And I'd just like to reiterate what Kevin said at the start. The quiz was great fun. We had over 50 people join and people were dressed up with somebody with the weirdest beard. I

I've ever seen. That's a great move. It was amazing. Yeah. And it was, it was, it's always good to have a rapport and also to be able to show our thanks on a more face-to-face basis for all of those people that support us. The Price of Football Club, the very first episode, people who have signed up for the club, they will have now heard that or have had the opportunity to hear that. And we hope you've enjoyed it. We will continue to invest in all of the bonus episodes

in terms of we're going to have an open recording of the podcast. We'll have a Q&A. We'll have additional podcasts and no adverts and all of these things, which hopefully you will appreciate. There's another way you can support the show. We appreciate £3.99 a month may not be, A, you're able to afford it, or B, you might think it's worth it. And I absolutely understand that.

and people saying, well, we'll take the existing one. So there's another way to support the show, and that's to give us a review. That's to go onto your podcast app and say whatever you want. Get it off your chest. Get it off your chest. You can even say, you would rather have the show presented by Vernon Kay and Mr Bean. I'm not quite sure how that would go. I'm not sure who should be answering the questions or who should be asking them. But I think it would certainly be...

enough to make me want to listen to it. I'm pretty sure that Vernon would have to both answer the questions and ask them. Let's be fair to Vernon, he's had to answer a lot of questions. Bye everybody. Bye.

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