Maheta Molango: Pay, Calendar & Injuries: The Consequences of Football’s Exploitation (Ep114)

26:53Maheta Molango:I think historically, I think the authorities have been very good at, you know, divide and conquer tactics. And they've capitalized on people sometimes being a bit selfish and think about just themselves. And I think what has changed to me is that now, even the very top players, they're seeing that certain things, you know, if you're not at the right tables, you can have as many followers as you want. You ain't going to be able to change it. And it's very powerful for me to be able to say to those guys, do you remember when I told you that we need to do stuff together? yes they've tried to do a salary cap do you think that with your millions of followers you would have been able to influence that salary cap absolutely not they've tried or they continue to try to make you play more games do you think that just by having a lot of followers on instagram you cannot change that absolutely not now if we are together first of all they cannot pick you apart and they cannot try to play the blame game just on you because we're together and second it doesn't even need to be you speaking up i'm more than happy to do that that's my job to be able to speak up on your behalf because as you said it's tricky when you're someone that makes a good living to go and complain in front of people ultimately objectively have a worse life than you no so i think it's the job of the union to be able to to be that voice which sometimes speaks about stuff that are not very comfortable that is ready to speak about stuff that maybe players just cannot or don't want to speak about does the professionalization of ownership make your life harder when we look at you know if I'm a private equity fund buying into a stake in the English Premier League like I'm not a rich local businessman and I'm sharp and I come with my team of analysts and we're hitting crunch numbers and we're working to an exit plan as well does that make your life easier or harder I think sometimes harder interesting because you know I have myself operated the club for four years and um and i think what what some of those investors are discovering is that acquiring a club actually is not is not the difficult part because ultimately if you have the resource and you really want to buy that club you're gonna end up and buying it you know but then what they're discovering is that operating that club is much more difficult because most of them are people who have had success in other industries and they're thinking come on, surely if I've made successful businesses in IT, then I went to real estate, then I went to oil, do you really think that football is so special that I'm going to be able to find a solution?

29:26Maheta Molango:Look at the current situation, the Premier League, of some of those investments, and you'll have the answer. Because this is a very tricky asset class. Because your employees happen to be the assets. Because those assets are people who are between 20 and 30 and super volatile. because you think that data is the solution, but data is only one part because we talked about 11 players here and the combination are very kind of different and the difference between a top player and an average player is not so much technically, tactically. It's here. It's the ability to make the right decisions, to make them in a consistent fashion, to be able to be very resilient and those are stuff that data struggles to capture.

30:09Maheta Molango:Lots of stuff around leadership that data struggles to capture. So a lot of those guys, I think, unfortunately, have come to football, I would say, with a bit of lack of humility and thinking, you know, I cracked the nut in other industries. Surely this is not that difficult. And you see some very, very seriously smart people and seriously successful people not being able to crack this code because this code is special. And the problem has been that historically, I think the people within the football industry have thought that because I've played the game, I know football, all you guys have no clue.

30:41Maheta Molango:That's not like this either. I think sometimes the truth is in the middle. It's not a question of being just a football guy who only thinks about football and dismisses other people's view, nor is it a question of thinking, I'm going to come there and I'm going to apply the same principle I have in oil, gas, IT or real estate to football because it's not the case. I think those who have been successful have been those who have been able to understand that you need to understand the product. You need to understand the pitch. and it is about first and foremost being successful on the pitch. Because if your product is not good, you may have the best marketing strategy, but it's about, what I don't understand about football right now is that it's like you going to the Apple board and then talking about everything but the next iPhone.

31:27Maheta Molango:It's crazy. Talking about the salespeople, talking about the location of the shop. Yeah, but any chance of talking about investing into making sure that the quality of our product is good? if quality of product is tied to business performance why is manchester united so crap on the pitch in the last few years and business performance doesn't correlate to that performance on the pitch their business performance has actually been decent and their playing performance has been terrible but you always have exceptions so i'm just intrigued why is that no because i think i think i'm not surprised because what makes football special is this religious attachment to to this brand.

32:08Maheta Molango:And that's what, that's in my view what we need to capitalize on when someone invests into football. It means that I am a Sampdoria fan. And Sampdoria are like dreadful. They've been dreadful for that. But you know what? You're genuinely a Sampdoria fan? I am. Oh wow. I'm very disappointed that you don't understand how I cannot be the fan of this fantastic team which is the best team in the world arguably. Sampdoria is like the team that you kind of pick out of the hat when you were playing FIFA. Not back in the day. Do you know what I mean? Not back in the day. Of course. In fact, Barcelona won their in this country at wembley against samdoria wow yeah yeah yeah ronald cooman scored free kick well on cooman there we go he's a manager of holland didn't he he used to be a southampton i i got you i got you it was vialli mancini all those guys yeah david platt death walker graham sooness yeah back in the day yeah legend yeah um but the point i was making is i'm not surprised by that because this is people's religion, this is people's family.

33:09Maheta Molango:And this is for me the difference between US sports and European sports. Here is tribal. It's my tribe, it's my family, it's my religion. Whereas in the US it's something different. It's entertainment. I think probably this tribal nature of European sports, you can only see that in college sports. It's the same. The equivalent to what we feel here for a club in Europe is what they feel towards their college team. It's because you can't lift up the brand of a college team and take it into another state. Exactly. In the US. LA Rams is, you know, previously in St. Louis. Exactly. So do you disagree that we're seeing the cult of personality over the cult of club?

33:49Because a lot of people, and I think you are seeing it, see Messi as a company, see Ronaldo as a company, and young fans today don't support Miami as much as they just support Messi. and they don't support Ronaldo. Also, they don't support Ronaldo's club wherever he is in Saudi. They support Ronaldo. That's why all of this point though is so key because if those guys aren't playing, the value of the product goes. But Messi and Ronaldo know exactly how powerful they are. Do you remember? Yeah, of course they do. But do you remember when Messi...

34:20Maheta Molango:That's a very valid point and I think whether we like it or not, we are heading towards a situation where my kids follow players as opposed to following clubs. And by the way, although it serves a purpose for me right now, I think it's a problem. Because that's not what football is all about. Football is about you follow this club, this badge, this anthem, those colors. And players come and go. You may have your heroes, but ultimately you are a Sampdoria fan. If we go towards individual players, individual talent, then it's something different. Then when that player retires, whereas the club never retires.

34:58Maheta Molango:In fact, I was talking to an investor recently and he was saying to me, do you know why we decided to invest into football? I said, no. He said, because tell me how many brands existed 100 years ago and are likely to exist for the foreseeable future. I said, it's a football club. Smart football club. That's the reality because it almost kind of perpetuates itself beyond the individual players. Now, what is happening with this situation about people not following players as opposed to clubs is that, to your point about, you know, the value of the players, I think the thing is, I always say, if I go and watch the concert of Rihanna, I want to see Rihanna.

35:40Maheta Molango:If there's a talented guitarist next to her, great, but I'm coming to see her, and that's what is happening in football. Therefore, the argument of rotation, for example, is flawed. Well, that's why when Messi's not playing Miami, attendance is way down. And not just that. A lot of time when they go and play those games, there's a clause saying, I will pay you X only on the assumption that this player these players are playing otherwise I will not pay you that which is taking what you want to the extreme extreme you want more power to players but that is so much power to players that the sport's not worth it if they're not there but it's like everything in life I think the extremes are never good and I think it's an ecosystem where we all need each other as in yes the players have power but you still need to have someone to invest the money to try to have good facilities to have a good stadium so so that's what i wanted to do what part of the machine do you not need what do you mean what part of the machine you know what we could do without them it's a good it's a good question i mean look i am someone who believes that that the system has its um areas of improvement but as a whole is a system that has proved to be to be a system that that has worked over the years.

36:56Maheta Molango:However, what has happened is people crossing certain lines that they shouldn't be crossing. And all of a sudden now becoming excessively keen to expand, excessively keen to go beyond what a sensible position would be. For example, you say to me, we're going to play a club world cup okay do it with a few teams 32 teams I'm going to play it every 4 years I'm going to play it every 2 years no it doesn't work like this do you understand the business logic to that no you don't understand the business you don't understand that for those 32 teams I understand the business logic the more revenue you generate the more you're able to ultimately appease people who are unhappy or being able to make people happy because you generate money that gives you a chance to say, to your training ground, to your new stadium, to your new competition.

37:54Maheta Molango:That's the way it works. It's about fight for available dates because whatever becomes available, someone else takes it. So you want to take it first before someone else takes it. And second, a lot of time, fight for votes. And players, go to a continent that you don't have fans in, make fans where you don't have them, have the chance to build partnerships with Southeast Asian travel brands, toothpaste brands who will sponsor you, build commercial partnerships. No, but I think, you know, the one thing that I discovered when there was the whole thing around COVID, which by the way was a disaster, is I watched a lot of games during COVID.

38:28Maheta Molango:I was bored to death. Yet on the pitch, it was still Juventus versus Bayern or Man U versus whatever. But I discovered that if there's no emotion in the stadium, there's no emotion back home. The only way I feel emotions on my sofa is if there is emotion in the stadium. And therefore, I need to make sure that whatever happens in that stadium is fit for purpose for the people who attend in that stadium. So, for example, it's a misunderstanding what football is to think that the fans of Crystal Palace would love to see a Bayern, Real Madrid on a Tuesday. They don't care. they'd rather see a derby between Brighton and Palace.

39:11Maheta Molango:That's what people care about. So a lot of those projects came from a misunderstanding of how football actually works. And in the end, if you're not able to create the passion in the stadium, you don't have any product. But the media companies are starting to recognize this. This is where I was interested in when you mentioned owners. And I was just thinking, you know, potentially, particularly with the institutional capital that's coming to the game, a lot of that's American. so a lot of that's going into the traditional sports systems in the US we've spoken about are they a potential ally for you?

39:40if you position this correctly you explain to them how the product is impacted by an excess of games you show them the impact that has on the players they start to understand that media companies now and to an unnamed league someone explained this to me which was very interesting they said well the latest deal of this league was down one third lost 20 billion or something off its value over a certain period of time because four of the top players in that league were not available for a third of the games that season therefore the media company attributed the value of that league based on the availability of those four players apply that to football media companies media deals now really collectively across the leagues are going down everywhere so if you're owning a premier league club let alone if you're owning a french club or any of the other european ones you're breaking it right as a business model right now because you're not your core revenue stream that's driven that club for the last 20 years is starting to disappear and if that is related to the quality of the product on the pitch not being good enough because you don't have your players do you understand mr owner that that

40:47Maheta Molango:really what we need to create here is a less is more environment yes but not just that i think it's important to understand that ultimately most clubs rely heavily on audio-visual income to the tune sometime of 80 % of your kind of P &L is TV income. And the reality is that the TV pie is not getting any bigger. If you look at the Premier League deal, the last domestic Premier League deal, what has happened is we grew 4%, but given many more games. So in the end, what we've done is dilute the value of the individual game. This is the reality. And therefore, the pie is not getting any bigger. When you have new competition coming in, when you have expanded competition kind of growing, what is happening is you're inviting a new guest to take a slice of a pie that is not getting any bigger.

41:40Maheta Molango:And what is happening is what goes to you doesn't go to you. Example, France. The local broadcaster says, whatever, I've got 400 million available, and I have to make a choice. Do I invest into the expanded Champions League or do I invest into Liga? They went for Champions League to detriment of Liga. This is what is happening. And what I'm saying to people is don't be fooled because some of them think, oh, the calendar is just about a few millionaires complaining. No, no, no, don't worry about them. They'll find the club. Don't worry about them. But worry about the next round of TV right negotiation in the EFL.

42:13Maheta Molango:Worry about the next round of negotiation in Belgium, in France, in Switzerland, in so-called less premium because the trend is towards broadcaster investing in what they consider to be more premium properties. What happens if things don't change? And what can you do to try and make them change? Well, I think it's about raising awareness of what's going on. Because the problem sometimes is that there's also a misalignment between the ownership and sometimes the executives. years. Because, because... What's the misalignment there? Help me understand that, sorry. Well, the misalignment is, you know, some people don't realise that short term, so for example, expansion of Champions League, short term for me, small club in Switzerland, happy days because there's more money being distributed.

43:09Maheta Molango:So I'm going to be able to go to my owner saying, you know, I promised you I would make 10. All of a sudden, another one or two fall from the sky, and I can almost attribute that success to myself. So short-term, expense of competition, redistribution makes sense. Long-term, not so much, because what happened is the next round of TV negotiation in my country, unfortunately for me, the money that would go to UFA will not go to me. So the problem that you see is that if the owners would go to those meetings, they'd be thinking, hold on a second, I don't care about the one two million now. If this means that the next round I'm going to fall by six or seven or eight.

43:47Maheta Molango:But obviously those who go to those meetings sometimes are people who don't have any interest in saying no, because sometimes your bonus is tied to your profits and you're going to turn a profit or better profit than you do otherwise. So there's and also I'm a great believer that we're going towards a model where you have a CEO for business and CEO for sports. I don't believe in that model. Because a lot of time, the interests of the business and the interests of the sports are not always aligned. They're not aligned. And what is happening is a lot of the very important long-term strategic decisions fall through the cracks.

44:21Maheta Molango:Because the sports people, as it is natural, want to win at the weekend. And for them, they want to spend as much as they can in winning the games. The business people, typically what they think is just selling. So who cares about the Diara decision? Who cares about the calendar? No one. Why would the commercial guy care about the calendar? No, to the opposite. Let's do more pre-season tours. Let's participate in the club World Cup because short term, it means a new market in the US. But long term, no one thinks, hold on a second. So if Cole Palmer goes fourth consecutive summer without a holiday, the business people may be thinking, ah, we won the World Cup, opportunity to sell more things.

45:01Maheta Molango:The sports people say, I've got a title. but Cole Palmer, that guy may not be able to play the 8, 10, 12 years of his career. So his career is shortened. Absolutely. Which is massively problematic long term. You mentioned that the sustainability of these businesses, a lot's made of the business of football clubs, right? And quite often sustainability is quite an entertaining topic because sustainability means how little money you lose, not how much money you can make and how much profit you can actually turn. What we've seen recently, going back into some of the earlier points we were talking about in player welfare, we've had situations this year where Sheffield Wednesday players then haven't been paid players are still playing on the pitch and that must be a really problematic thing for the PFA to have to deal with to look after the interests of those players yes and you know I'm I'm getting a bit tired of the whole story around you know this this fake idea that you know I'm forced to play those players X I'm forced to do this I'm forced to lose money listen if I earn 10 my My partner wants me to spend 12.

46:03Maheta Molango:My kids want me to spend 16. Does anyone put a gun onto my head to spend 17? No one. You know, because there's this myth about, oh, I've never seen a player coming with a gun, you know, and saying to me, you need to pay me that. You are spending what you want to spend. And if you're someone who spends 17, if you make 10, you are a failed CEO and you are a failed business. End of. this would never happen in your sector i don't know anyone you in your business and you're assessing a lot of opportunities if someone comes and says i've got this great opportunity yet the guy running it or owning it is spending consistently 20 to 30 percent more than what they earn and and that's the problem in football you know and sometimes you see the reality spending you don't spend you don't stay aligned but that's only because that's a system yeah i'm I'm sorry to say, that's a myth.

46:56But if the big clubs didn't spend, they would drop back.

46:59Maheta Molango:No, I disagree. Well, they wouldn't be able to keep their players, they wouldn't be able to keep their staff. I disagree. I think Brighton is a good example. Brentford is a good example. I can name you a lot of examples of people. But if Chelsea said, let's turn the cash tap off, we need to reduce spend by half, lose all the players. Yeah, but you need to work harder and smarter. And I think I can name you a lot of examples of clubs who have spent a fortune and have not won anything. So people want to sell us this idea that the more you spend, the more you win. I disagree with that. We in Mallorca got relegated with the second highest budget, yet got promoted back to La Liga with the 14th budget.

47:39Maheta Molango:And we beat in the final Deportivo La Coruña, who had spent 22 millions on players, when we had spent 5.5. But we've interviewed so many CEOs where basically the budgetary spend is directly correlated to their decision. As you go lower down the lead. Sorry. But it's not a question of how much you spend. It's how well you spend. So if you spend a lot and spend it well, absolutely you're going to be more successful. But the problem is that a lot of people spend a lot and don't spend it wisely. And again, I don't want to go into individual example, but you've got plenty of examples. So has City won the last few titles because they overspend the rest?

48:17Maheta Molango:You're a figures person. That's not true. Over the last two or three years, certainly people have spent more than them. Yet, in my view, they've been successful because, I mean, money has helped them, surely, but they have been successful because they've had an unbelievable sporting director in Chiqui Beguilistain. They've had a fantastic manager in Cleary in Guardiola. They've had in Soriano, Ferran in someone very steady at the helm. They've had an Omar Berrada who behind the scene have done a great job. This is why City has been successful. Has money helped at the beginning of the journey of City?

48:48Maheta Molango:absolutely it has but no one will convince me that it's just a question of the more you spend the more you win because that's not true who has spent more than City? you've got quite a few may have played in blue they may be in London but I'm asking you it's Chelsea Chelsea right Man United spent a lot Man United doing well again they have no European football this season they have one game a week really that they're focusing on right now you know back into the quality of the product their performance is elevated at a time where the players actually get a week's worth of training. The quality of their play improves.

49:22It kind of brings all of those points together. What I do think is that the spending money piece, right? What you can't have as a system, and this is where it falls into your world, you can't have a system where this whole kind of rising tide of spending is absolutely essential for every club to keep up. And then you get the situations where clubs go bust. And then the impact on the players is that we don't get paid. And that's, you know, if you're looking at your job, you're trying to protect against that. You're trying to protect the players from environments that are very obviously unsustainable.

49:58So when you look at the broader economics of football, this must be a massive concern for you.

50:03Maheta Molango:Of course, there are things that can be done better. And of course, I think, you know, certainly the system can be improved. But I think that sometimes we have tried to depict this as a completely kind of unsustainable industry. and the reality of the fact shows something a bit different because very few clubs go bust. People continue to invest into those league. Example, the Rexham owner example, the Birmingham owner. So sometimes people want to say to me, oh, this has now become a product that no one wants to invest into. I'm not sure that this is true. I think the big problem that we're having is the people who run some of those clubs and the people who own some of those clubs.

50:44Maheta Molango:and I'm saying to people, you're not convinced me that people are not attracted by English football because they are. But maybe you're attracting the wrong profile of investor. Maybe you don't have the right people running those clubs because that's the reality. I don't think that English football has a problem of income, for example. If you look at some of those clubs in the championship, even League One, I wish in the second division Spina would have had those type of income. I wish. The problem is how they spend it and they don't spend it because someone comes onto their head and force them.

51:15Maheta Molango:They spend it because some of them just don't know what they're doing. I think that's even what the regulator now is discovering. Some of them just don't know what they're doing. And they've just decided to invest in football because it sounds like a fun thing to do. But they run this in a way that doesn't make any sense. Are you for the regulator? Were you brought into the conversations when the regulator was being discussed? How was the players' side involved in that discussion? Was it involved? I think us in football not being able to find a solution to our own problem is a defeat. Because I think surely we should be able to find our own solution within football.

51:52Maheta Molango:Now, you know, if the regulator can help, in particular in my case, in the owner and director's test, this is for me something that is critical. Because clearly it has not worked in terms of the profile of people owning those clubs and the profile of people actually, you know, investing to those clubs, you know. And those who have had proper owners and proper management have been successful. and not forcibly linked to how much they spent. You can give the example of Norwich, done fantastically well over the years, went up and down and consistently kind of got back up because it's solid, you know?

52:24Maheta Molango:Example of Brentford, example of Brighton. You've got example of clubs who, listen, sometimes you go up, sometimes you go down, it's part of the thing, but they've done well and they've not forcibly spent stuff they didn't have. And other clubs were spent now years stuck in the championship, yet they spent fortunes because it wasn't that well run, you know. But again, if you take away owner financing to the majority of clubs, clubs are insolvent. But they're insolvent because it's a combination of two things. Certain clubs are in division that they just do not belong to. As in small stadium, small fan base, and I'm afraid you just don't belong to that division because there's a mismatch here.

53:11Maheta Molango:You will not be able to generate the cash sufficient to be able to stay in that division. It's just a fact. So the only way is artificially keeping you there by having owners putting the money. It's a reality. One way about this with the regulations, they're trying to control costs by putting your revenue versus your spend, right? So you can spend 50 % of your total revenue on your player budget. We've discussed salary caps, you know, and the challenges that they present previously. but you know really what we're talking about here is if you get these regulations in place you're effectively putting in salary caps you cannot just go and pay players whatever you want you can pay them in accordance with how much you as a club earn how do you view those regulations versus the discussion around implementations of things like salary caps because in my mind they're effectively the same thing packaged differently again i think it's it's um it's an approach a la carte you know so you pick what suits you so you love the idea of salary cap yet you're happy to have a free transfer market how does this work so you want to cap the player salary yet you're happy to receive whatever amount of transfer that you can get from someone else it's it's but they can't do that on a 50 50 i don't do that i don't i don't understand i don't understand how this works so but your transfer fee is in there as well right so the transfer fee is included in what you can spend at 50%.

54:35Maheta Molango:I can negotiate whatever I want. So on the one hand, I cannot spend more than X onto a player. So a player's ability to make a living is limited. Yet there's no limit as to how much I can receive for a transfer. I can receive 10, 20, 100, a billion if I want. So there's no limit as to how much I can receive as a club through a transfer. Zero limit. At the same time, the guy that is actually delivering for me on the pitch has a limit as to what he can earn or she can earn. But if the buying club can afford that in the regulations, then they're still operating within a 50-50 model. And I'll go a step further.

55:10Maheta Molango:But again, the problem is that in football, we apply principle. So on the one hand, we want to treat it as a business when it suits us, but on the other hand, we just don't want. So how can it be that a private entity has a third party deciding what they can or cannot spend? I find it mind-blowing to think that there's someone in, for example, in switzerland being a private entity subject to private law that can tell you you're gonna spend x because i want to protect you listen this is a bit if it's a if it's a business then people need to be able to spend whatever they can afford why is it unsustainable if an owner has the money and wants to invest why is it unsustainable for them to to decide to invest and being able to cover it if they have the money what is unsustainable about that i don't understand what is unsustainable if and i've had that in my york i've got good owners they do a good job they're proven to have the money yet the system prevents you from investing why should so then what then what you're doing is you are basically cementing the status quo whoever is small will stay forever small and whoever is big will stay forever because you're preventing the small ones to be able to try to grow and that's the problem i have with systems that are based on a percentage of your income And that's why we fought so hard when the Premier League wanted to change to the system of, you know, the anchor and so on.

56:29Maheta Molango:And even the switch from... So a system that allows you to have losses over three years is a system that in reality foster, in theory, the ability to take a calculated risk and the ability to probably punch above your weight during a time to see whether you can catch up on the rest. A system, however, that is based on the percentage of your income means that the small will stay small and the big will stay big because if I'm a small club with a relatively small stadium and a small fan base, even if they give me 115 % of my income, 115 of zero remains zero. You look at Newcastle now, right? And it's a situation where they've got owners who could spend whatever they want.

57:11Yet they're constantly in a position of having to be very careful about how they want to grow as a club. Yet 20 years ago, Chelsea walked in, Man City walked in, spent whatever they want, cemented their place at the top and now they're big but what that's a choice that back in the day

57:26Maheta Molango:yeah the authorities have made because in the us for example they've said no no you want to own a franchise no sovereign fund no no investment fund so yeah we have decided to let the genie out of the bottle but what i like what you did but what but again i so agree with what you just said but it kind of feels like having a cake and eating it because you just said this is a business first and foremost you shouldn't put controls on it which artificially inhibit or alter it completely agree we shouldn't put these salary caps on can you imagine having a free market business in the stock market where you put r &d spend caps on ridiculous but then if it's a business first and foremost, it makes logical business sense.

58:15One could argue to do Club World Cup in America or in a new country with a business first model.

58:24Maheta Molango:No, because this is like you having a Ferrari and say, oh, it's a great Ferrari. Now, what I'm going to do now, I'm going to drive this Ferrari every single day to work. And then one day I'm going to start taking like the bumpy roads because it's a ferrari you know it's good again again again it's a ferrari yeah it's ferrari but after two years my friend if you go to the bumpy road and you go up and down up and down up and down for as much as it's a ferrari and and the thing is we tend to forget that those are human beings you know i always say that people are here to milk the car but that cow at some stage you can put as much as hormones as you want but that car some things cannot produce more milk there is and yes fantastic they make a lot of money but those are human beings that's that's the bit that people don't understand fortunate human beings don't get me wrong themselves would say to you i'm so fortunate not lucky fortunate because it's it's a lot of soccer it's it's not easy it's a question also not the buyers then as well what's interesting about this is okay ask you the question is you know an investment hat on you're the pif you're looking at newcastle and you're going right we've got a great deal here there's an underappreciated asset we think we can get it for a good value and increase the the price by building it into one of the top premier league football clubs again you go brilliant that singular asset value great oh shit in the wider system i can't actually do what needs to be done to get it to where we believe we need to get it so that we raise that value therefore we probably can't do this deal but but why why do people just assume automatically that people do that because they want it to be sustainable.

1:00:01Maheta Molango:Some people buy a club because it's maybe for geopolitical reason and therefore it doesn't matter if we lose money or not because this is an investment. How long will it take me to position my country worldwide? A long time or probably never so. I have friends who own clubs and they say honestly the bragging rights ability to bring big, big customers alone justifies me buying the club. The club's a couple of hundred million bucks, whatever, if I can bring over a five year period billions of dollars through that ownership, makes total sense. And not just that, the power of football to open doors.

1:00:39Maheta Molango:I know people have said to me, you know what, by having a football club, it means that my hospitality becomes a very interesting business kind of center. Yeah. Because if I'm someone, for example, involved into the construction business, the building business, I build roads around the world, right? And I need to go and bid for those roads around the world. Do you think that going and bid for a road in Colombia is the same if you are Mr. No One from Europe than if you are the president of this big club? Do you think that when you go and bid for the high-speed train in Australia, is it the same to go there being this unknown business person from Europe or being the only...

1:01:16Maheta Molango:So I think we should not by default assume that people invest into a club because it needs to make business sense as in not losing money. I talk about this all the time. It's a primary and secondary value, right? People always look at sports as primary asset value. And actually, there's a huge secondary market to this. There's a real opportunity, as you said, for the people who own multiple businesses to get a huge amount of trade from that football club that they can run as a loss leader to build value over here. But the argument for that, and you appreciate it, I understand that. I'm not saying I agree with it, but the argument for that is that you then just inflate the whole system.

1:01:48And because we're an open pyramid, now that works if it's closed. If it's a closed league... But the genie is out of the bottle. Sorry, Matt, I completely agree.

1:01:55Maheta Molango:And whoever decided that in the first place made that decision again in the u.s the rules around who is an owner or not are very restrictive and the reason for that there's a reason for that you know it's a closing but you know i think i think we made the decision as in whoever made the decision for this to be a business that anyone can invest into well then that's what you've decided to do and now you just need to to get on with it it's just a reality you know what can you try to put the genie back into the bottle it's too late now what you cannot do now is to try to put the blame on on the player or try to kind of squeeze them because in the first place you made a decision which i may agree or disagree with but it's just a fact do you worry i don't want to take it away from this discussion do you worry about the idolatry that's placed on some of these players so soon in their lives like lamin yamal is so cushioned from the world and idolized and praised that, I mean, the 18-year-old thinks he can do anything.

1:03:01You know, Cole Palmer, you know, you see the amount of people around Cole and I just worry that there's so much idolatry around these people so young that it just actually destroys them in a lot of cases. Do you worry about that when you think about player well-being?

1:03:19Maheta Molango:it's um i mean call is not a good example because he's a great guy and um i really find him to be very normal to be fair like like overly overly normal he's a he's a lovely guy he's you know he's a really nice guy i'm very humble so i think i'm not saying there's a bad no because i'm not saying there's a bad guys really important addition i'm not saying they're bad people i'm saying that we idolize them so much so young that you create these environments where they it's like you're an actor in harry potter you're in a yeah macaulay culkin you're yeah laminia i mean the other day i heard i don't know lamin in person but i heard him in an interview he said you know if someone comes to you at 17 18 and says you can be the boss tomorrow would you say no well what are you supposed to do i mean you're gonna say no i don't want to be a a hero i don't want to i i think that i am frankly i'm much more concerned around them starting so early and them not being like fully developed physically emotionally um and and mentally and that's that's a concern to me so like the 16 year old arsenal yeah yeah is he fully developed well in fact because of safeguarding those kids cannot even get changed with with the rest really yeah what if you're 16 you're you're minor you're underage you cannot get changed in the same dressing room as the rest.

1:04:44Maheta Molango:So how can it be that someone that cannot get changed with the rest still is subject to the same pressures, the same schedule, the same, you know, and again... So is that wrong? Should he not be playing? He can't play, but what I'm saying is that because of safeguarding kind of regulation, there are certain things that he cannot do with the rest of the team. So is safeguarding wrong? No, no, it's good. But what I'm saying is, and I think it's fantastic that we develop those type of talents, yet we need to be conscious that they are 16, 17 and 18. And therefore, if you look at Messi, for example, he was not...

1:05:18Maheta Molango:So I think Lamine Yamal by the end of this year would have played approximately 150 games. He's 18 still. I think he played 50 plus... 40 plus the first year, 50 plus the year after. This year he's getting to another 40. So he would have close to 150 games. He's 18. So my concern is that guy when 25 comes he may be just mentally or physically drained because he comes to a stage where and then and then what you know and you've got an example of people who have started too early and also life is about drive if you achieve a lot very early will you continue that's why I admire people like Ronald and Messi who have been consistently able to have that drive all the time it's tough you'd be surprised the number of hip replacement that we that we support people with the PFA.

1:06:12Maheta Molango:I mean, you know, we have like a system of medical grants. So someone who is a PFA member can apply for a medical grant forever. So if you played one minute as a pro in England, forever you can apply for a medical grant. So it means that people wanting a knee replacement, a hip replacement, an ankle surgery, whatever. And it needs to be linked to football for us to be able to fund it. And you'd be amazed how many people, hip replacement, knee replacement. and this has an impact on your day-to-day. It means you cannot play with your son football. And you say to me, yeah, you're a millionaire, but not being able to play with your son football, not being able to walk normally, or sometimes it goes even further.

1:06:53Maheta Molango:I mean, some people, as you know, have developed stuff like dementia. So it's not all as rosy as it seems. Again, most of them will say to you, despite all this, I'll do that again because it was my passion, et cetera. but it's not I don't think that people won't start crying at first thinking look at those guys but when you start looking to the detail of what it entails it's not always as glamorous as it is on TV How much of a problem is gambling for you? When you look at the democratization in terms of access to gambling that a mobile provides that apps provide, prediction marketplaces we see more and more Couchy and Polymarkets so the two big ones for example how much of a problem is player gambling for you you need to understand the nature of the of those individuals and it's a combination of people who just like the thrill like the adrenaline like this high risk high reward that that's just that's just by nature what what they are no people who do that no uh not gambling but in general being high risk high reward people and if you couple that with the fact that the reality is that a lot of those guys cannot really have a like a normal life as in if i go out people know you you can no longer have a drink because like a normal 20 years old because someone takes a picture and all of a sudden you become someone who is just a lot of sparty when you went out once so a lot of those guys don't have really like normal life so they cannot really go out but you need to be able to offload that pressure somewhere you know you You cannot go out, you cannot have a drink.

1:08:30Even if you meet like a person,

1:08:33Maheta Molango:some of them get them to sign like release forms. I mean, come on, you know, surely that's not, because we live in a world where, you know, people see you as a target. And so you cannot have a normal life. You cannot really meet people. You're surrounded by people who just want, most of them to just milk the cow. You need to understand, I guess, those type of addiction. You need to understand the bigger context. I don't think that it's as bad as it used to be because people somehow are more educated. But if not gambling, you become addiction to video games. If you don't video games, you become snuzz somewhere.

1:09:06People is the number one addiction that you struggle with. Which one? Sorry. Snuzz. Is that the number one addiction?

1:09:11Maheta Molango:Right now, it's very widespread. Yeah. What's number two? It's difficult to say. I would say like video games are becoming a big issue. Really? Just playing too much? And long. I mean, we do people go out and have a drink and come back at two or three a.m. now those guys they no longer do that but they stay up until 2 or 3 a.m I know clubs will just cut the internet wow but you have to they cut the internet yeah to avoid people continue playing because they play online and against each other and stuff like that wow are they playing FIFA or shooting games and like all sorts of stuff everything everything that's amazing but a lot of that comes also that's a changing habit because as you said previously you wouldn't have had a camera phone on every corner so you could have gone out in the 90s and you could have gone to a casino in a bar now they've been forced inside they've been forced into different habits because they need to do it within the confines of their own walls having said that it's we live in the world of extremes right because i'm telling you that but you could i'm telling you that i've got 400 plus people registered for the pfa business school and people with like unbelievable brain unbelievable awareness i mean people like so Jude Bellingham happened to have an unbelievable kind of quality to play football.

1:10:25Maheta Molango:But that guy, you put him tomorrow to do an MBA at whatever school, he'll perform. I mean, he's like focused, understands the big pictures, understands his values, speaks well, sophisticated. I mean, Mbappe, I could name you, Saka, I mean, all those guys are very smart. You know, it's a different, so it's funny because I think. There is still a lag though in the European propensity to do business as an athlete versus the US. It's because in Europe it was always the thing about focus on your football. The rest is a distraction. And now people are saying, no, it's not. Why is it a distraction? I can have within reason kind of my other businesses or I can just hire people around me who can do the job whilst I'm playing.

1:11:07That's what Petr Cech said. Petr Cech sat there and he said, I make a choice. Instead of playing video games in my time off, I go and do something and I learn. I get the same three hours as someone else, but I choose education. and a lot of them do

1:11:20Maheta Molango:as you know you know from you know triple winner Ilkay Gundogan to Ben Davies he's great I like Gundogan to Tim Krul to Johan Wiesa who hopefully will go you know with the Congo to the World Cup to Steve McManaman to Tarkovsky to like a wide range Steve McManaman yeah he's doing the business call the old was he right back they call him old he played brilliant fielder yeah for Real Madrid and Liverpool. But he's in his 50s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, I didn't mean that badly. I mean, he's old. Very kind of interested about, you know, how can he kind of further improve and learn? But that's the great side of this, right?

1:12:01It's where we've seen huge value and it's been when those players absolutely commit to it. Not through an agent, not through someone else telling them that they need to do it. They do it off their own back. They come in, they put the work in, they get a bit of an education around it. They bring, you know, sports people have such an incredible power and network and an influence. They strike a chord with people because of what sport means that very few people can. Even if you're the most successful business person, you can't necessarily do the same as what a sports person can make you feel.

1:12:27Maheta Molango:And they've learned intuitively things on the pitch which are very valuable in business. Massively. Decision under pressure, resilience, discipline, team ethics, etc. The stuff that people, especially in the era of AI, chat GPT, what used to be soft skills, for me have become core skills and those skills are stuff that they have in them. The thing what I'm saying to them is, first of all, don't feel inferior because a lot of them feel seriously kind of, they look at people with more kind of academic accolades or so, they're very impressed. I'm like, come on, you have done stuff in your life that those guys can only dream of.

1:13:06Maheta Molango:So if you not couple those skills with a proper education, you become unbeatable in the market. Yeah, we have that conversation with some of the players in my head. They'll have, if you combine it, probably about 1500 Premier League appearances a few of them have captained their Premier League side probably over 100 times and yeah they will come in going what could I add to this I think the structures around them still prohibit them from doing stuff completely there's too many agents it's tricky you need to understand also kind of they're really a target yeah and it's very sad because a lot of times sometimes the family depends on them so they've got no interest in telling them the truth the agent some of them do a great job but others why would they tell them the truth if there's a risk of losing the client.

1:13:47Maheta Molango:You know, so it's, you know, they are surrounded by people who don't have them. If dollars are finite and there's no agent fees attached, why would a player's agent encourage them to do a deal in a startup where there's no fees attached versus another deal where there are fees? I mean, I think it's always a mistake to put everyone in the same kind of bucket and I think there are some good agents. Yeah. Those who really understand the long-term relationship, those who understand that it's about building a relationship, those who actually do care about the players. And you've got a few who do a great job.

1:14:18Maheta Molango:I think the problem is that it's still not the majority. What percent of agents are like that and great? Not the vast, not the majority. But again, like even the ones that aren't, I kind of stopped beating down on them, which we used to do a lot because the incentives are misaligned. The business of an agency, the agency model is to do deals based on commission that generally are short term. They need to get a commercial deal through. But I don't have a problem with commission. If you add value, the problem for me is whether you add value or not. But the agent isn't incentivized. It's not in his business.

1:14:53He's under pressure to get money for the player so that both him and the player in the short term can maximize the potential. The problem with what we're talking about, and when you start bringing investments into it, is it's a very long-term play. So if I'm an agent, I'm not incentivized. My business isn't incentivized. The player is, and this is where the break is. But I am not to get that deal done because a seven-year return it's not really it's not really sweet for me right now can you find a structure and this is a challenge for the whole industry you know can you find a structure which creates more value on different sides to get agents keen to understand it let's do a quick fire okay ready to rock and roll yeah okay who actually runs football today and who should Who should?

1:15:35Maheta Molango:I know, the player. Who actually run? There's a problem, no one. Or a variety of different people with conflicting interests. What's it like, and it's a serious question, what's it like when you, Mr Impotino, Mr Seferin, Mr Masters, all of these top regulators of these different bodies, what's it like when you get together and have a discussion? With some of them, it's easier than with others. with some of them I think we've earned their respect and we disagree but I think we can have a respectful constructive discussion and with some others they just want to bully their way through and then fourthly I think they've they've found an institution that that is here for the right reason and that you know if I need to be banned from football I'll do something different so it's not as if you know I think sometimes some of some of some authority are used to people who can easily be somehow bought in the sense of you know a nice trip had a nice ticket a nice hotel i'm not interested by that you know i came here i made a conscious choice to do this job because i'm passionate about helping players and i'll do whatever i think is right to do that if this means that you know you're gonna not have opportunity in football i'll go back to be a lawyer it's fine or even though that since i'm someone who has always worked for what i have i'm not the son of anyone kind of fancy all i have because i work hard so even if you put me tomorrow to clean this room i'll do it i've got no problem so i know where come from it must cost me a lot of work to get here so i'm not fussed about that and i think some of the guys are not used to that they're used to people who football is the only opportunity they have and therefore why would they pick a fight you know i i i'm not i'm not keen on having a fight for the fight of having it but i think i think sometimes people are just um you know sometimes people just insult their intelligence and sometimes i find it hard to take what have you changed your mind on in the last 12 months i i was one of those when i was the ceo of a club that thought that you know let's kind of issue new shirts every year with a different color because ultimately it's it's good because we're gonna generate more opportunities and and i was one of those who thought you know let's play at every possible opportunity because ultimately we need to give a chance to fans another part of the world to see that etc and and I've realized, I think, that maybe I was wrong.

1:17:54Maheta Molango:And sometimes protecting what works is as valuable as coming up with the idea that almost are there just to justify your job. No, you know, ultimately, this is, you know, a fantastic recipe which works and it's not being backward to protect that recipe. Because people always say just, oh, you know, staying the same is going backward. yes and no we've been eating pizza for how long years and years and years and we continue to eat pizza and guess what we'll continue eating pizza for the foreseeable future is it is it being backward no he's understanding that that that base that tomato that mozzarella works people love it then you can change the people who sell it you can change the the location of the of the restaurant but our pizza so I've become obsessed about understanding what are the secret ingredients of our pizza and in my mind, to the example I was making before about my passion for Sampdoria it is my stadium my anthem, the color of my shirt, these are for me the non-negotiable and it's not being backward to protect that, no, it's being smart the rest we can kind of adapt and change but why would we change something that has worked and I think that's what I have evolved as an executive.

1:19:15Maheta Molango:Being less obsessed about making things to justify my role and look cool and look progressive, but rather thinking, why would you change something that is working? We've highlighted the problems. How do you fix the calendar issue? I give you two years. The essence, which is the quality of the show and say, okay, since this is a question of human beings, let us have the science telling us what a special human being that is clearly above the average what is the maximum that we can squeeze those super human beings to because they make a lot of money let's squeeze them to the maximum humanly possible and if the science says which is the case those guys need at a minimum 3 or 4 weeks of break in the summer another 3 or 4 weeks of preseason Let it be this, the minimum that is required to be able to protect the quality of the show.

1:20:12Maheta Molango:Then from there on, I'm agnostic. I don't care if it's one competition over the other. I'm not against any specific competition, but I think it's a question of going back to the essence. We want to protect our product. What is required? This, let's start by that and then adapt the rest, not vice versa. What has happened is we've done everything and then we said, how can we tweak the product to make this fit? No. The product is a human being. the science says the human being can go up to that level okay those are the red line from that point on i don't care if it's this competition so let them figure it out among themselves and it's possible what a session wow meheta thank you so much for joining us i love doing this in person it's so much more special and you've been fantastic thank you so much for having not much left on the table there meheta has transformed the role of the pfa ceo since being in position.

1:21:05That came across pretty powerfully today. It is a fine balance to strike between the preservation of product and seeming out of touch with society and what it's like to work hard jobs and to be paid a quarter of what some players earn a week. I don't think the two should be compared though. It is a product at the elite end of an industry that we're talking about and it's a product that a huge number of people get immense joy from. We want to see the best football. This is a chat that looks at what it takes to provide the best football. A huge thank Thank you to Mejeta for joining us and I hope you enjoyed the show.

1:21:37Now, if you want to see more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube or any of our other social channels across Instagram or TikTok. There are more snippets to share and bite-sized chunks to consume. And whilst you're there, please do like, subscribe and follow the show. As you will hear from your other favourite pods, it makes a huge difference when bringing you the best guests and conversations from around the world of sport, which is, of course, our endless aim. Thank you again for tuning in and we'll see you next week. 25 years ago moneyball revolutionized baseball then football sporting directors learned the collect more data lesson and now mission accomplished clubs have 60 times more information than they did then but here's what nobody talks about these clubs aren't meaningfully more successful at player trading they just have more spreadsheets and departments full of analysts gemini sports is your ai powered command center that works with your existing info team and workflows.

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