THE BREAKDOWN: The Real Cost if Spurs Get Relegated, The Price of Winter Olympics Gold, Vinicius Jr Racism Storm (E07)

29:25So, you know, huge, huge differences. I'm thinking of something like my old club, Sunderland, in their first season in the Premier League, I'm told that their wage bill is about 70 to 80 million, to Spurs is 260 million, and yet Sunderland are outperforming Spurs. So this is seismic. Yeah. I mean, the big question there would be, if we're looking at this in the context of relegation, we've got to probably lay out some things that we don't know, right? Oh, yeah. And one of the key things is, are there relegation clauses? I think so. What Charlie just said there is really important, which is that there are going to be some topics that we talk about where there's a lot that we know.

30:00It's in the public domain, or it's reasonably easy to get hold of the information if you know where to look. There's various stuff to do with the business of Tottenham Hotspur, which really nobody outside of the C-suite at Tottenham would necessarily know, which you can outline. Well, one of them being, because we were talking about wages, the relegation clause that may exist in player contracts. You've highlighted that it is highly likely that a team that would class itself as a big six may not have the most secure contracts when it comes to relegation clauses. And to be clear, when we're talking about relegation clauses, we're talking about a reduction in player wages if relegation happens to occur.

30:38Quite often, I think, as we've said before, around 30 to 50 % of a player's wage. So if the player's paid 100 grand in the Premier League, they could be paid 50 grand in the championship. The reason that exists is to cover the risk that comes with a reduction in your revenue generating capability outside of the Premier League. So that would be a massive concern and a massive problem for Spurs if they didn't have those clauses in the players' contracts. It is also unclear there's been a lot of speculation. The Telegraph did an interesting article on it, but the clauses and sponsorship agreements that are dependent on Premier League participation, the media exposure that comes with it.

31:11Now, it does say that Missing Europe has eight-figure ramifications in a lot of these sponsorship contracts. Now, that's just for missing Europe. Can you imagine the ramifications of getting relegated on some of these deals, some of which are also expiring relatively soon? I mean, eye-watering. I mean, absolutely eye-watering. So they've got about£300 million a year of commercial revenue. So it's basically half of their total revenue is commercial revenue. And that's great because it's pretty diversified. You've got loads of different partners. It's annually recurring. It is sensitive to playing performance, but it's not just sensitive to playing performance because there are things you're delivering just through being part of the Premier League, just through being part of the Champions League.

31:55There are things you are delivering which you can guarantee a sponsor. So the question is, what would their commercial revenue be if they were relegated to the Championship? How many of those sponsors are coming out of contract anyway and would simply just not renew because they wouldn't want to be sponsoring Spurs in the Championship? How many of those sponsors have got clauses in their sponsorship agreements which specifically say what would happen in the event of a relegation from the Premier League? I mean, again, I'm just going to look at stuff that we do know and that has been reported. Let's say Nike pay Spurs 30 million a year, which is a reported fee.

32:28To put into context what happens if you miss your mark with some of those merchandise partners, if Man United miss out on Europe two years in a row, it's reported that they have to pay Adidas 10 million. And apply that to Spurs, where you're likely to have similar situations where Nike are going to have contingencies in place protecting themselves from poor performance. AIA, the deal that they've got on front of shirt, that lasts until the end of next season. So they'll be protected next year, as in they would still have the sponsor, unless there was a break clause at some point. Now, AIA then contracted to go onto their training kit at about 15 million a year after that until 2032.

33:01Does that contract agreement that they will have looked at as secure revenue up to 2032, does that suddenly change? if the position and status of Spurs materially changes? These are the kind of questions. I guess just as we don't know if Spurs have got relegation clauses in their playing contracts because they would have assumed that they weren't going to get relegated. And therefore, when the player's agent said, we don't want a relegation clause in the contract, which is what they always say, by the way, that's standard, right? The player's agent will say, we don't want a relegation clause. Did Spurs stand there and go, well, actually, we insist on it?

33:33Or did they actually say, well, it's not really worth arguing the point because we know we're not going to get relegated. Likewise, on the other side of the table, when Spurs were negotiating commercial contracts with partners, did the partners have the foresight to think, I know it's very unlikely, but should we just make sure there is something in there just in case? Yeah. Just in case, right? So we don't know this. These are unknowns. So let me put this to you then just to take this on. Let's say we have$600 million in revenue. So let's say by getting relegated, your broadcast goes from 160 to 50.

34:08Let's say 100 million is wiped off that. Let's just say, hypothetically, 100 million is wiped off your commercial. So let's put it down at 400 mil. Then let's have a look at maybe some other costs like match day, attendance suffering, and some merchandise, et cetera. So you get down to about 300 million. We've just mentioned that you have a wage bill of 260 million. We've mentioned the fact, I haven't actually mentioned, But if we're looking at the amortisation requirements they have likely on a number of transfers of players they've bought in, which comes to$322 million in transfer fees in recent years, I think a net of about$250 in the last year and a half, you've got big servicing agreements on those contracts.

34:46So we've got a number of issues. So just to make it clear to listeners, what we mean by that is just what we said about Leicester, which is when Spurs have been signing players, they will not have been paying all that money up front. So they've had a net transfer spend over the last couple of seasons of£250 million. They would not have paid out£250 million. Of that£250 million, probably only half of it would have been paid up until this point. So they probably got between£100 and£150 million of outstanding transfer fees to pay. So we're looking at halving our revenue, but still having huge commitments.

35:21If we're talking about getting relegated and we're looking at the big financial problems that will arise from it. We know what we'll lose. But how do you think they will look to make money? Is it as simple to go, the players will be sold? Yes. And that's not even like, that's not voluntary. There are certain players who are clearly super elite players who will knock on the door saying, we're out. And Spurs will say, sure, good. Thank God for that. You are out. You're correct. And then it's a very open process, which is how much money can we get for you. A bit of an arm wrestle, which is sometimes the club that's willing to pay the most for a player is not necessarily the same club that that player wants to go to.

36:02That's a bit of an arm wrestle sometimes, right? But nonetheless, if you look at Van de Ven, Kulik Sve, Romero, Solanke, Bergveldt, Jed Spence, these guys are not going to stick around at Tottenham in the championship, and nor should they, and Tottenham need to make sure they don't. Now, the nightmare is if one or two of them get long-term injuries, which then means they're unsalable, but Tottenham are still on the hook for their enormous salaries. Now, that is a real problem, right? But let's just assume that all of those big stars leave and that Tottenham sell them for, let's say, a couple of hundred million quid of incoming.

36:40That won't, again, all be paid up front, by the way. That'll be 100 million up front. So they use that 100 million up front to help pay their outstanding transfer payments that they owe to other clubs. And that then becomes a bit of a wash. But at the same time, those players disappearing off the wage bill means that their wage bill reduces from, let's say,$260 million down to something more like$150 million, that kind of stuff, right? Now, then you've got all their other expenses. And again, we don't know. We do not have the detail. We need to have access to somebody at the club or maybe to Daniel Levy, what it might be, to really understand what all this detail is.

37:22But broadly speaking, it looks like their cost base outside of those playing wages is $400,$450 million, something like that. So some of those things are costs you cannot reduce. The costs of cutting grass on pitches does not change because you move from one division to another division. the cost of your utilities bill for actually keeping the lights on the stadium does not change. But there are things that do change. So we can sort of assume that those operating costs might come down to, I don't know, from 400, 450 to 250, maybe 300. So let's just say for sake of argument that you've got your numbers right in terms of the revenue.

37:59And let's say that they can maintain the revenue at something like 300 million, which would be an extraordinary feat for a club that's outside of the top flight, but would nonetheless be 50 % of what they're receiving right now. So the question now is, okay, what are the costs going to be? And what's that loss rate going to be? Because don't forget, they're now coming down into a cost control regime where you're only allowed to lose£15 million a year, and where the Football League, and indeed now the Football Regulator, will be sitting down with the Spurs Finance Department saying, can you explain to us how you're going to get your losses down to 15 million pounds a year.

38:39We might give you one year of transitional grace if you show us how you're going to get there in year two, right? Now, that starts to become really challenging. I mean, that really starts to become challenging because what you then quite often say as a club is, yeah, but, you know, lay off a bit, mate, right? We're going to get promoted this season. What the regulator then says, and I've had these conversations before with EFL executives, is, well, we can't underwrite that. You might hope that, but we can't guarantee that. Look what happened to Leicester and Southampton last season. Look what happened to Sunderland.

39:11Look what happened to Sunderland, right? They went down and they went down again. So we cannot sit here and say that we're okay with you not having a plan in place to reduce your costs in this way because we're on the hook if you then don't fulfil your objectives on the pitch. Do you remember Leicester's excuse for failing their cost control mechanisms? well you know we didn't we didn't we didn't play as well as we'd hoped and we didn't do as well in the transfer market we had to sack brendan as well yeah brendan had to go had to go and we just didn't we didn't have a good window as we could have done so these things are not accepted by the regulators as being excuses for overspending and yet it's quite hard to see how even with an enormous revenue like 300 million it's quite hard to see how spurs are going to balance the books and the only thing I can imagine is that you'll basically have to get into far sell territory, right?

40:04Where pretty much not just the big stars, but pretty much everybody else, and then your best under-21s, everyone's flying out the door just to try and get cash in, both to help balance the books from a financial perspective, although the Lewis family who own and control Spurs right now might say, well, we'll help with that. It's fine. But also to demonstrate to the Football League and the IFR that you are actually genuinely committed to coming on a trajectory to getting your cost tamper ultimately i can't see if they were to stay in the championship for any length of time beyond one season i cannot see how you can operate that stadium and that training ground and that setup without having at least premier league tv revenues but more likely also european revenues as well as well as the types of commercial revenues that you naturally have when you are playing in those types of divisions.

40:58I just can't see how Spurs, medium term, can be fitted into an EFL environment. Charlie, can you imagine if Spurs got relegated and won the Champions League? That would be a very Spurs thing to do, wouldn't it? We're going to have European football just to maintain our 50 to 60 million European financial commitments, which are obviously going to help us carry through, Mr Regulator. I mean, that would be a very Spurs thing to do, wouldn't it? Well, no, winning anything is not very Spurs. Now, obviously, they did all right last season. But... Well, I guess it actually would be a more Spurs thing to do, to get through to the Champions League final and then lose it at the last minute to then put you into a whole new world of financial hurt.

41:41Maybe they bring Ange back. Well, there are all sorts of controversial former managers they could bring back. We'll come on to one later on. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I think something you touched on there is we believe, if you're looking at this, the first season isn't the disaster. The disaster, yes, of course, is this happening to a big six club, which has one of the best pieces of infrastructure in sport in this country, if not the best, putting itself outside of the top tier. That's not good for anyone. If they bounce straight back, there's probably enough mechanisms, there's enough of the broader business model which could support the 50 to 70 million, let's say, that they will generate from other activities away from football that would mean that the club wouldn't be in dire, dire straits financially.

42:26It's year two and three. It's if we start looking at it slightly longer term, if that year one doesn't create the bounce back that you would hope, that's where we look at this as a real, real issue that, if we're being honest, the EFL probably is absolutely terrified for because having a club like Spurs going into the serious problems while living in your league is not necessarily the best thing. And you mentioned what the account manager of Paul Leicester is doing. Imagine what the account manager of Spurs. Well, I think we should close this off by saying that it's still less likely rather than more likely that this happens, isn't it?

43:04Yeah. 5-1 is not 5-1 on. It's 5-1 against. It is much more likely that one of those other clubs will have a very poor end to the season or that West Ham's recent revival stops. It is much more likely that that happens rather than that Spurs do go down. They don't need to get that many more points. We're probably talking about three wins and a couple of draws between now and the end of the season. But I think it's perfectly reasonable at this point as you come towards March to raise it as being an active possibility and conceiving of the extraordinary scene financially and in regulatory terms that this thing, that over the last 20 years, the big six has accelerated so far ahead of everybody else that nobody's actually ever got their head around.

43:50Well, yeah, but what happened if they got relegated? It's not just it hasn't happened. Until last season, when Man United and Spurs were quite far down, but as you say, they were never actually in any real risk. But until that point, members of the big six had never even come close. Not within five or six points, seven points. So it was never really an active conversation even. Whereas now it's looking like it should at least be an active conversation. and it will inform, I think, some of the thinking which the independent football regulator who's currently writing or researching to write the state of the game report, which is then going to put in place the structure that governs professional football in this country going forward, including the flows of TV money and all this type of stuff.

44:32And one of the things it's meant to address is what's called the cliff edges. So these are the massive disparities in your viability, depending on what division you're in and trying to smooth out those cliff edges. It would be fascinating to understand how they are viewing that whilst writing that report and at the same time looking at this possibility of Spurs being relegated in the championship and thinking, crikey, you know, that's not even a cliff edge. That's something more dramatic than that. I think a lot of fans will also, before we move on, reference Stadium. Just a quick one on that.

45:06It supposedly costs around$1 billion to build it. they service it at 25 to 40 million a year on the debt they borrowed against it, which is reportedly around 850 million. You know, again, short term, they can manage that. Longer term, we talked about the cost of broader infrastructure last week with Leicester training facilities, big stadia. And you've got to remember, different cost controls measure different things. So when you've got a profit and sustainability cost control, that measures losses. I know it's weird because profit and sustainability, right, That's the great joke. That's the great joke because it's neither profitable nor sustainable.

45:41You're allowed to lose$105 million over three years, Premier League teams. That's class of sustainable. Yeah. So in a way, that system is very penal to this type of situation because it counts your total losses. When you go on to a percentage-based system, which the Premier League are now moving on to, that is focused on your first team spend. so you could be paying other things right you could be paying off debt on your stadium and all this type of stuff and that's not really addressed within cost control mechanisms you're allowed to invest in your stadium you're allowed to invest in your academy that's up to you this is focused on your first team spend so spurs would be okay ironically under the new not just okay they would be the gold star performance because they only spend 45 of their total revenues on their wages in the Premier League.

46:31Albeit under these regulations, you do have to include transfer spending as well. So that would balance things off quite considerably. But then you can come down to the championship. The championship is the last division that is still operating profit and sustainability rules, where it is about your loss, how much you lose overall. Well, as I say, watch this space. I've got a soft spot for Spurs. Look, you can look at me like that all you want. but that's just the bottom line I was a consultant there I was a consultant there and like you I've got a lot of friends who are Arsenal fans and it's just it's difficult to bear the gloating so I've got a soft spot for Spurs I'm glad you've only revealed this now I definitely don't want them to go down and I do at the same time want the football world to take it very seriously Schadenfreude aside I don't think anyone really does if I'm being completely honest you know you need you need your biggest clubs competing in the top it's good for everyone it's good for the system yeah so So let's hope it doesn't happen.

47:28This is still hypothetical. Very hypothetical, as has happened with a few of the other topics we've raised. They've actually happened. They then go on to happen. Yeah. Number two, happier time. Really positive because we've seen some fantastic performances. We talked about the weekend sport, and I'm actually now deeply regretting it and very sorry that we didn't mention Team GB's excellent showing over the 48 hours that saw us win two skeleton medals and our first ever medal on snow, in snowboarding. Am I allowed to say that it wasn't exactly the same as winning the men's downhill? No, of course not, Charlie, of course not.

48:07I know I'm sort of fuddy-duddy and sort of, you know, concerned about these things, but I think what was it called? It's some sort of mixed doubles version of snowboarding. Yeah, the snowboard cross. Yeah, mixed snowboard cross, big final. It sort of makes the mile at the Summer Olympics seem like a sort of small event, doesn't it? Charlie, it's a fantastic... Gold is a gold. Gold is a gold. Gold is a gold. Gold is a gold. On snow. And I think, as we'll touch on here, when we're looking at the funding that gets put into these sports, quite an extraordinary achievement when the competition that Team GB is up against in some of these sports spends so much more on...

48:42And also has, obviously, massively significant sort of natural advantages. Completely. Unless you are one of those very rare British people who happens to come from Aviemore, your access to ski slopes is limited. Anyway, for context, we thought we'd do a quick look at some of the funding that goes into the Team GB Winter Olympic operations. There was a lot of criticism as we started to lose or miss out on a few medals last week. Criticism maybe is the wrong word. No, no. Sorry, I don't think it is the wrong word. I think it was starting, the bandwagon was starting to roll, saying, well, we wasted an awful lot of money.

49:20But the bottom line is actually, It's not much. It's not much. Sorry, in the big scheme of things, I know that for you or for me to have that amount of money, to spend on a nice new car or a house, yes, it's a lot of money. We're not saying that 30 million quid over a cycle is not a lot of money. Of course, it is. But in the big scheme of our national expenditure, it's not even a drop in the ocean. The soft power that comes with it. You look at the feeling and the excitement that's been generated. That's worth the 30 million over a four years. Can you explain what we mean by funding over a cycle, Charlie?

49:48Funding over a cycle is looking at how much money we invest in our Olympic or Winter Olympic sports over a four-year period. Four years being the time in between Olympic Games. So when we talk about this, there's a total across those four. So this one's about 32 million. So we look at that as an 8 million spend per year. Now, to put that into context, we spend£330 million, or we have committed£330 million across 50 sports for LA 2028 Summer Olympic Games. So what we invest in our Winter Olympic sports is 10 % of what we invest in our summer. Now, as you've highlighted, that is absolutely expected.

50:28The UK has no natural winter sports infrastructure, really. It has a very small participation base. Often, actually, it searches other sports to get a lot of its talent, which is why we've been quite good at things like skeleton where you can have and bobsled where you can have sprinters for example come into it um you know i think also there's minimal domestic commercial market which is something that supports sport as well massively so it's it's not surprising this happens but we still treat this as we do with a lot of sports very seriously and where i've found it interesting over the last few days was really starting to look at why we are much better in some sports than others.

51:05And it's because of, I think, the identification of areas where we can be successful, where there are fewer participants. And we use the skeleton as a good example for this. Did you know Team GB is the most successful country currently in skeleton in the Olympics? So it's won five golds, one silver, and five bronzes. Skeleton is exactly the kind of thing. If you're sat here saying, and you're on the British Olympic Committee, and you're saying, right, how are we going to try and make sure we win some medals? Right, so here's a sport that we can contribute some money to and they actually spend quite a lot of money on it they spend five and a half million over four years which is not that much less than we spend on ski and snowboard which is just over seven million so we spend if you combine the figure for skeleton and bobsleigh which are two closely aligned events certainly as aligned as ski and snowboard are we actually spend more on skeleton and bobsleigh than we do on ski and snowboard that to me is very sensible because We're not going to out Norway, Norway.

52:02Or in the case of ski, out Swiss the Swiss. Or out Swiss the Swiss. So where have you got a better chance of winning? Yeah. Those ice sheets. And there's also, you can actually practice that in the UK. Yeah. So a lot of the work that's done for Skeleton is done at places like Bath in the, you know, sort of the athletics training centres there, which is done on, you know, the equivalent of a dry, of their equivalent of a dry ski slope, because so much of the training is about the start. So it's sprint training fundamentally. As you say, a lot of sprinters go into it. I mean, in bobsleigh, I think the lady who is our monobob, so that's when there's only one person in the bobsleigh, she is also one of the three leading shot putters in the country as well.

52:47Yeah. So you're talking about, again, about a power event, somebody who can push out a big, big moment of power at a certain moment in time to get something heavy moving, being reasonably easily translatable into bobsleigh because she's still then in the summers competing in the shot put. So it is a very particular type of sport. So I was actually looking and comparing it to our approach to summer games because we've actually done something similar and we may think we're amazing at lots of things, but we actually focused heavily on sports where you could look at with the same criteria, track cycling, rowing and sailing being ones I've seen as to be particularly successful in where we're not trying to outdo Kenya and Ethiopia on the track.

53:30I think cycling is the one to focus on here because rowing and sailing are things where we're the ones with the natural advantages. We're the ones with lots of big rivers where a lot of the population centres are on those big rivers and they aren't like, they're not fast running rivers. They're rivers that you actually can row on. But cycling is an interesting one because cycling is one where historically we weren't very good at it. We didn't win very much. But they decided that this is something that we could excel at if we really did put our mind to it. And obviously, the result has been quite extraordinary over the last 20 years in terms of return on investment.

54:02So dominant. Yeah. So when you actually look at this and look at some of that... It's strategic. It's a very strategic piece. You're talking about strategic funding. Completely. And this came out of an Olympics that took place maybe even the year you were born. The Atlanta Olympics, 1996. 96. 92 was Barcelona. So 96. How old were you then? Two. Two? Two and a half, yeah. So do you know how many gold medals we got in that summer Olympics? None. One. Yeah, Steve Redgrave and Matt Pinson in the rowing. That was it. And after that, there was a big sort of, you know, YOY moment and all the newspapers were so crap at everything at the time.

54:44We weren't very good at crickets either. And just the whole thing was a bit of a misery. So they then sat down and said, right. you know the national lottery was happening around the same time it was exactly around that time and part of the purpose of the lottery was to produce funds for this this kind of thing so it all happened quite serendipitously but at the same time quite strategically a mixture of performing very very badly at the summer olympics combined with lottery money coming on board has then led to strategic placement of that money over a protracted period of time i think it is important to state if there's a volatility in this model, it is the fact it's dependent on medal success.

55:21So if you stop achieving success in the sports that are getting funded, i.e. if you stop getting medals, the amount of funding you receive reduces. So it's very much something where they need to see the outputs come through. And I just actually put together a small comparison to Norway, because there were some amazing things I looked at when going through this. Firstly, unsurprisingly, massive state funding, reportedly around 100 million per cycle. So we're talking about a significant amount more money put in. Now, yes, as we know, I mean, Norwegian kids are basically born with skis on. So it is very much in their identity.

55:58These sports fit very much into their culture. And for a certain type of Norwegian boy, ski jumping is a big deal. As we know, as we know from last week, of which they have done quite well as well, I would say in the ski jumping. So no surprises there. But what I've just said was the things that I would have assumed if I had not looked at anything previous to this, I would have just said, oh yeah, you know, it's kind of very local to them. Yeah, it happens naturally. However, looking at statements, we love statements. The New York Times did an interesting piece because they were so confused at how this tiny little country, which, you know, I think they said was about the size of Minnesota, how could that possibly challenge the might of the USA?

56:33And so the Norwegian responses around their success have been quite interesting. And I just want to read out a little quote. They have been very Scandinavian. I mean, sort of, you know, charmingly Scandinavian. That's brilliant. and especially when you listen to this coming from Tor Overbo who's Norway's chief of these sports you know a lot of he said a lot of the countries visit the Olympia Toppen to figure out what a Norwegian's doing and when they come they're disappointed the facilities it's not just about lip filler and penises it's not just there's more to it than how we there's more to it than that basically very crassly summed it up last week the facilities are modest the schedule is sane the people are perfectly willing to share their secrets with anyone willing to listen the philosophy of humanistic development and joy for all you know joy for all kind of waxing lyrical about raising happy children focused athletes healthy citizens it's like sort of Heidi yodeling in the valleys I know that was Swiss but it sort of conjures up that type of wholesomeness they're very relaxed as a part Norwegian myself you know I still have Norwegian family so when still living out there now so it's not even like I'm trying to claim this just as Norway sit atop the medal table ski jumpers no not ski jumpers actually football players that makes me worried I didn't get any notes from them after last week so we'll see but you know what they do seriously say this is about enjoyment this is about kids finding a place where they can have fun and they don't actually professionalize anything or they don't really try and focus kids until they're 13 and over that's when they start getting their real dedication and should we say pathway focus towards some of these sports so if you look at you know how other countries do it you know we drill our kids from the ages of three four into some things and it's all about getting them to a level where they can compete norway have the complete reverse when it comes down to their winter sports and it looks like that's working affordable that was the other thing yeah i had one more thing i mean that's one more thing that came in there yeah it was the affordability of it they just make it accessible where grassroots early stage sport particularly in the US.

58:36It's becoming more expensive. It is going to be more accessible when the whole country is coming to snow all the time. I mean, in America, there are parts of America that do have a lot of snow, but there are equally huge tracts of America where there is no snow. So making it really, you know, saying to a kid who's growing up in Dallas, Texas, I'll tell you what, we're going to make it affordable and accessible for you to get up to Aspen on a regular basis. Not quite so straightforward, I may hazard. So I think they do have a huge natural advantage. Charlie, make the data work for you, okay? Oh, okay.

59:07I'm just trying to make this fit my narrative. But you look at how Johannes Cribo, the guy that's just won nine gold medals. Yeah, I saw that. Absolutely incredible. One of the most successful Winter Olympian now ever for people that haven't seen. I think he's still got a chance to win two more. This guy's a national. I mean, he's literally Erling Haaland level. Yeah. And any country that treats or creates personalities and profiles out of that from their sports, they're going to be doing well. It makes a big difference, doesn't it? I mean, it's rather like thinking how about other countries look at our darting success?

59:43They look at our pot-bellied heroes and go, how can we create the natural hard-drinking pub scene that you require to turn out top, top arrows men like Lutler? God, we've missed that on our past darts. The performance pathway. The performance pathway. Do we think UK sport would ever fund darts. Good day. Well, if it became an Olympic sport, if it became an Olympic sport, I mean, I think we would be to darting Olympics like the Norwegians are to ski jumping. 100%. Can you imagine? Yeah. The facilities, the training facilities we have in every water. Again, rather like you're saying with the joy and all this type of stuff, if you took the darts players out of their pubs and put them into elite training facilities, would you get the same outcome?

1:00:30I just think the definition of elite training facility slightly changes. because I mean you think that's some sort of beer warehouse some sort of beer warehouse with sort of industrial amounts of beer yeah it would be an interesting question to ask our point being here we actually think that the return on investment that comes from the success the Winter Olympics has shown is absolutely worth the investment 32 million over a four year cycle is a relatively small amount compared to how we spend money in other areas it's good value and personally I think it's been really great to see a lot of this even if we end with three and interestingly our medals target was eight going into this but we'd never won more than one gold going into a Games and we've now won three.

1:01:09So I would still imagine even if the total hasn't been hit and our curlers have been slightly disappointing. Yeah, I remember you being very keen on the curling. I'm a little bit less hyped up about it. I've been less keen this time because we haven't done as well. I just follow where the medals are. Must be your Norwegian side. It must be. Right. I live for the Winter Olympics. Speaking of serial winners. well I mean I'm guessing you're referencing Jose I'm referencing your beloved former manager Real Madrid yeah very very serious topic to cover yeah this really is important because this from when I started writing some of this to when we actually came on air I think three new things had changed so just to be very clear on the topic we're talking about here we are recording this a day after Real Madrid beat Benfica 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League knockout match.

1:02:02And during that game, Vinicius Junior scored the only goal of the match. He ran off to celebrate excessively in the eyes of, well, the referee because he got a yellow card and then Jose Mourinho later in the game. But when he came back to the centre circle, he was reportedly racially abused by Benfica player Gianluca Prestiani. And if you've seen the video, it doesn't look great in the sense that Prestiani he pulls his shirt over his mouth if you can imagine that or if you're watching that make more sense as i've just tried to replicate it and vinnie vinicius jr then runs off to the referee and clearly says something has happened at which point the referee makes the sign that he has had a racial incident reported to him and the team what goes off the pitch so it's really unfortunate this is absolutely not the first time this has happened this is also absolutely not the first time this has happened to Vinicius Jr.

1:02:52who seems to be one of the players who gets put through this ordeal more so than anyone else. He's pretty high profile isn't he? He's pretty high profile. And he's pretty good. And he's very good. Which means when he does something well it seems to be something that either fans or players. He's a centre of attention right? I mean Vinicius Jr. is a centre of attention and therefore if you are the centre of attention through no fault in fact quite the opposite of a fault through your own brilliance you are therefore going to attract other people's attention more than if you're average. Absolutely.

1:03:20So, you know, it's not to be unexpected that good and bad things happen around Vinicius Jr., which is something we're about to come on to in a moment, through no fault of his. So what happened on the pitch is awful and should never happen to a player if this did happen. And we do need to say, you know, we are talking about this at the time where it is still reported, right? So we just want to be really clear on that. And it's strongly contested. Strongly contested. It is strongly contested. I think we should read out the Benfica and Prestiani statements. So Prestiani came out after the game saying, I want to clarify that at no time did I direct racist insults to Vinny Jr., who regrettably misunderstood what he thought he heard.

1:04:02I was never racist with anyone, and I regret the threats I received from Real Madrid players. Nothing to see here. But not a staunch defense, I would say. It would be quite nice to know if he was accused of this and seriously disagreed with it. He would say, this is what I said. it has been completely misunderstood. I would like to see a stronger defence than that. Benfica then also published something quite astonishing in my eyes, up to your discretion. They said, as the image is shown, and it was accompanied, sorry, on Twitter with a video of this actually unfolding. So their tweet said, as the images demonstrate, given the distance, the Real Madrid players could not have heard what they claim to have heard.

1:04:40So, in short, rather than saying, after the terrible accusations of last night, we are reviewing and will continue to review what happened, trying to put some form of holding process in place while they're trying to establish the facts. They have very clearly come out and put a marker in the sand on this incident and certainly fallen on the side of their player. The alleged act itself, shocking, and we never want to see it in football. But the real damage that we were talking about actually came in the press conference after the game with what Jose Mourinho said. I think so. I think that's right.

1:05:17So Mourinho's comments afterwards, he said in the press conference, I told him, I told Vinicius Jr., when you score a goal like that, you just celebrate and walk back. There is something wrong because it happens in every stadium. A stadium where Vinicius plays, something happens always. Right. So what Mourinho is saying is, I don't know what did happen or didn't happen, but if it did happen, then he deserved it. You asked for it. It's victim blaming. It is victim shaming. It's saying that, you know, if you carry on behaving like that, then it is inevitable that you are going to be racially abused.

1:05:58Now, I'm going to leave aside, we are going to leave aside the actual incident itself. we've laid it out only because we want to discuss Mourinho's comments. Because Mourinho's comments are something which is more troublesome for football than one young idiotic player allegedly making a remark. This was explained to me by, in recent times I've had a couple of senior colleagues, both in my current roles at Mount Pleasant, but also Paul Elliott. at Charlton. And Paul was, still is, non-executive director at Charlton and has been for the last 30 to 40 years one of the leading exponents of the fight against racism in football.

1:06:48Dignified man, a quiet man, not a man who shouts and screams, a person who works with people to try to help improve the situation. Now, he grew up playing at a time when banana of the skins would be thrown at you on the pitch and people would shout and scream at you all sorts of things and he told me that whilst it clearly wasn't pleasant that it was the way it was at the time and if you want to be a footballer you learn to live with it it's not he's it's something he's very happy mostly does not happen anymore does sometimes but it much less than in his day but if you were to ask paul does that mean to say that there is no racism in football anymore and i don't want to put words in his mouth but i have spoken to him about it many many many many times so i don't think I am.

1:07:30Paul would say no, because actually the hardest bit of racism to iron out is the last bit, which is the bit which operates at a higher level and which is basically an unconscious bias, where even the person who is holding that instinct and that view is not even aware that they are. And yet it's guiding their underlying thought patterns and therefore their decisions. So Paul would say when asked the question, why is it that more boards do not appoint black managers, for instance, just to say one question, I'm somebody who has appointed black managers. So I'm, you know, I am very conscious. I didn't do that in any case to try and prove a point.

1:08:11It's because amongst the potential applicants, they were the strongest applicants as it happened on that particular occasion. I've also appointed many non-black managers. But Paul would say, when there is a situation where a black manager who is the most qualified the job does not get it. The reason for that is not because the person who is making that decision is, quote, a racist. It's something which is hiding a little bit behind that, which is that there is a slight remaining imprint of perception, subtle nuances of perception, which is guiding that person in tight decisions away from doing what might be called the right thing.

1:08:52Without even knowing it. And I read these comments from Mourinho and ask, is Mourinho, quote, a racist? No, I don't think he is. Mourinho would say, like many people who have been accused of racism, look at my track record, look at the black players who I promoted, look at my Chelsea teams, look at all of my teams. I have been a champion of black players, etc. But it's all moments like this that reveal that he is a man of his era as well. You know, Jose is 60. He's not 30, he's 60. and he's somebody who grew up in a different time, in a different place. Charlie, these comments seem so careless and he seems so uncareless that it almost makes me worry more because of how Mourinho is.

1:09:34He normally, I would never accuse him of not being aware of the words that come out of his mouth and this seems so careless in his delivery. It is so obvious to us reading it where the issues here lie. You cannot say that because you celebrate like this. What happens, Charlie, when somebody is deeply convinced that they are not racist? Can I add the second bit in, which I think is even worse, which is reportedly reminded, Vinicius, that Benfica's greatest club legend was Eusebio. And that's like the old thing, you know, when someone's accused of racist saying, I've got lots of black friends. It's a lack of self-awareness, is my point, right?

1:10:11So he is so clear in his own head that he's not racist, that he doesn't see the need to filter anything that he says for an imprint of underlying racism. That's why. That's why he just says what he thinks, what's on his mind at that particular point in time, because he is himself convinced, I am not racist, and therefore what I'm saying is simply the truth. But in that statement, it reveals that even though he is not quite a racist, that there are still some remaining prejudices. And the prejudice in this situation is that Vinicius Jr. needs to be careful how he behaves if he does not want to be subjected to racist abuse.

1:10:50But the two things are totally separate. He's received a yellow card for over-celebrating. That's looked after by the regulations of the game. And one might just observe, and I hope this isn't being too snarky, that if the accusation here is that certain people over-celebrate in certain moments in time, how big is the bloody glass house that Jose Mourinho's in, right? charging onto the pitch knees sliding down the touchline jumping on top of all his players while the game's still going on under those circumstances would it be entirely understandable that somebody would come up to him and say something which is totally socially unacceptable I don't think Mourinho would see it in that way I really don't what do we think about the other side of it which is how the situation played out on the pitch and the handling of this because it seems to keep happening we have punishments associated with it Vinny Junior's statement was relatively suggestive to the fact he doesn't feel it's sufficient.

1:11:41He says, you know, the first part of it, he says, racists are above all cowards. They need to put their shirts in their mouths to show how weak they are. This bit though. But they have the protection of others who theoretically have an obligation to punish them. Nothing that happened today is new in my life or in my team's life. Now, to be very clear, the punishment is a minimum of 10 games if you are found to have racially abused another player. And it's also important to say that the protocols were followed yesterday. say the referee did what he was supposed to have done he took the teams off but again we're looking at a situation that has and i hate to say it will probably happen again so are we doing enough is there enough action going around these situations where we have a sufficient deterrent in place to stop this happening on the pitch you mentioned uh paul's experience where he had fans abusing him the difference between a fan doing it from a stand and one of your peers, a player doing it on the pitch is significant.

1:12:40And the fan bit may be hard to stamp out because one idiot can always ruin that. But nonetheless, I wouldn't say it's been stamped out but my goodness me, it's been massively reduced by the use of CCTV.

1:12:55And severe punishments, let's be clear. Very severe punishments. I'm going to be really interested on this one because Presiani's saying he didn't say it. And everyone can see that if he did say it, you can't lip read because he's done it behind his shirt. Why would you pull your shirt off? Well, so if this were to go to a court of law and if the burden of proof was on Vinicius Jr. to prove that Presiani, who said he didn't say it, did say it, I don't know exactly how the law works in Spain, But in England, it's incumbent upon the person who is alleging the thing to prove it. And the defendant is innocent until proven guilty.

1:13:37How much waste do you reckon Mbappe's statement has where Mbappe said Prestiani clearly called Vinnie Jr. a monkey? It happened five times. Is that evidence enough? I think this is what Mourinho is referring to. This is what when Mourinho says, it wasn't Mourinho's statement. It was the Benfica tweet. as the images demonstrate given the distance the Real Madrid players could not have heard what they claimed to have heard I think that refers to that Mbappe statement or equivalent statements thereof because Kamavinga's standing very close to him Mbappe's a little further away and it would be I think quite difficult for them to hear that behind a shirt etc five times as well you know specific on a number I think it would be a shame if this particular situation degenerated into is Mbappe being 100 % accurate.

1:14:27I think it would be unfortunate. I think it would give a useful screen for Benfica and for Mourinho and for others to hide behind when the actual core of the matter here is we are, let's just, being asked what we're being asked to believe by Prestiani. Let's just address that for a moment. Vinicius Jr. scored a goal. He's in a moment of absolute jubilation. He's living in this amazing dream world where all his dreams are coming true and this moment of elation, we're being asked to believe that at this moment he decides to cut short all of that for reasons unknown. In his imagination, he's decided to cut short all that for no reason whatsoever and accuse a fellow player of that particular thing in that particular moment.

1:15:19Now, I'm not sure that what I'm about to say was stand up in a court of law, but it doesn't pass my smell test. It does not pass my smell test. Everything I'm looking at, from the action of lifting the shirt over here to the sudden end of elation and move into indignation, everything about that would suggest to me that he heard what he heard and he heard it pretty clearly. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Yeah, that's what it feels like to me. So the question now is, what do authorities do about it? This is not the first time that Argentine players have been accused of this. He's a young player.

1:15:51he hasn't you know i don't know how long he's been in europe but maybe it's not all that long um whatever it might be it's difficult in terms of the punishment in terms of marino's statement it's not difficult because marino has not even said there i believe he didn't say it marino basically has said well he may well have said it but actually come on what do you expect don't celebrate like that right so that for me marino is an open and shut case and an absolute indicator that at the highest levels of the game there is still significant levels of unconscious bias and for all of my you know non-african caribbean colleagues in the football industry who from time to time curl their lip and sort of arch their eyebrows when the subject comes up read those comments by mourinho read those comments by mourinho it's still absolutely there and there's still a lot of work to be done i think everything he does is deliberate and that's where i mean the careless side is most likely the answer.

1:16:48It's so damaging because it just basically creates an aura of acceptance around this stuff. And he is someone that people look up to and react to, as we all know. Not me, I have to say. No, I know, not you. Tottenham supporter. Tottenham sympathiser. Well, don't forget, he was Tottenham's manager as well. Which means you're even less likely to support him after that magnificent stint. but yes I mean this will unfold did you used to call him Agent Mourinho like some of my Chelsea friends this will important to say now likely have unfolded significantly since we're talking about it so we are talking about it within 24 hours of it happening but I think it's a really important point for us to discuss this is a issue that seriously impacts the sporting ecosystem when it comes up and especially for football you know it's something that I think is absolutely essential that they start to get a grip on.

1:17:44And with Vinicius in particular, because he does seem to receive a huge amount of this. He's one of the best players in the world. One of the best players in the world who's going to receive attention, both good and bad, but that's not his fault. And he should not be adversely affected for being a great footballer. Completely agree. Feels like we've done 15 topics today. quite an incredible revisit back of Leicester I must say you know the beginning amazing to go back and I think we should say at this point we have spoken a lot about Leicester if anybody from Leicester City wants to come on or even message us to explain to us why we're wrong that they have financial difficulties we're right here to hear that message right we're not here to sort of just move on to the next topic and just say well you know that's your bad luck etc no if there was if there is a record to be set straight and there is information which is not in the public domain but which would help to contextualize the situation, we're all ears.

1:18:46Please do. Please do. Charlie, thank you. I think, again, another amazing chat, another great deep dive in a lot of these topics and I can't wait to see what happens over the next week. Take care. I hope you get better. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Thanks. Thank you, as ever, for tuning into another breakdown. It really does feel like we covered more ground than ever before there. Hopefully you're still with us. The developments on the Leicester situation needed to be covered and hopefully things are not as bad as they're shaping up to be. This is not what anyone wants to see in elite football.

1:19:15The Spurs situation, however hypothetical, is just incredible and I'm still in the surely-it-can't-happen mindset. A big game this weekend to test themselves with. Thank you, as always, for your support and engagement. Keep the comments flowing, follow along, and we'll keep delivering the stories you most want to hear about. See you next week.