Transfers, Euro 2025 and Sheffield Wednesday in crisis: Football Weekly Extra

25:47If you've been there recently, you'll know very easily to see that it needs a lot of TLC. The players aren't getting paid. The staff aren't getting paid. It's all completely in the air. The manager isn't there. It's a complete mess. What Sheffield Wednesday have in the favour, I know we'll talk about Morecambe later on. It's like, look, they're a huge club and they are in the EFL. there is enough people around who are interested in buying them or would be interested in buying them if they can meet the changing asking price that makes 40 million at the moment but he wants more um and they've got lots of assets there if you can get the ground as well but it is a complete mess and of course in all of this it's nothing to do with the fans it's nothing to do with them at all and you know if if Wednesday had made it to the Premier League when they were with they were that close and you know things went the other way who knows but uh it's a complete mess it needs resolution and yet again we're in the situation where if only we had an independent football regulator um but it's it's just a complete you know nightmare and Sheffield Wednesday fans are living it and what I would say to them and Morecambe fans as well you've got to keep shouting up you've got to keep getting the message out there you know as much as the oxygen gets taken by transfer stories and the Club World Cup and rightly the Women's Euros as well, it does mean there's less airtime, there's less bandwidth for the stories to come up, especially when the negative stories, we've got no negative news in the press as it is.

27:12But you've got to keep shouting, you've got to keep flagging up because if you don't, you can't get the traction to get things moving. You just don't see how they can start the season, right? What are we? Six weeks away, They've got 16 contracted players, no preseason fixtures. So with the ground sale, he did that a couple of years ago, right? And the point was, it was similar to clubs selling their assets. He was trying to get around financial regulations and he messed it up. He got the dates wrong and they got the points deduction anyway and went down to League One. So if the club was sold and there are interested parties, the ground would probably be part of it.

27:50if the club were to go into administration which is another option you could end up in a very dangerous situation where it's a separate asset because it's in a different company so a bit like mel morris did at derby a few years ago basically chan siri stays he still owns the ground and so can any prospective buyers if he doesn't like the look of them he can say well i'm going to charge you something ridiculous to rent the ground so make it impossible for them so he makes he retains control that way the playing players getting paid is an interesting one right sanny touched on it so it's the fee for regulation is two months in a row if you don't receive your salary as a player you can give 15 days notice written notice but the club can rectify that in that time basically by paying you what sheffield when they're doing i don't like to use the word smart because it's a horrible situation but they're playing some players the ones with value so the under 21s are getting paid danny rolls getting paid because they can then get the compensation for him as and when he goes.

28:46I think they're trying to sell the young Kadamateri boy. Remember Danny Kadamateri? His boys are very good footballers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think they're going to... To Man City. Yeah, I think they're going to sell him to Man City for a million and a half. But who knows where that money is going to go. So they're being quite smart. The PFA came out the other day. I think, ironically, it was at the... They run this off the pre-season training camp for out-of-contract players. And it was there where they were talking about these contracts. and there's a standard contractual clause basically for serious and persistent breaches but the problem is that is woolly right you have to prove i mean it looks like if you're not paying wages um that's probably a persistent serious breach but you need lawyers and you can you could argue that whereas the fifa regulation is uh quite clear so the whole thing is a mess they can't sign players they're under these transfer embargoes as well they've got a couple of embargoes they owe cash to hmrc who are going to want their money and they got stung a couple of years ago by Derby actually again with Mel Morris the taxpayer ended up losing out on quite a lot of money because HMRC went a little soft on them so you just don't see how Sheffield Wednesday can start in the championship in a month's time and it's such a shame because he he almost had a go he had a go when he first came in and they got close and he did he pay a couple of million Sani on a better he bought a striker last year didn't he from France for like two and a half million and he brought Stuart Armstrong in so he thought oh he's gonna have a go again and the problem he's got I reckon is that he's as all these people are they're driven by money the fact that they could get in the Premier League and the cash involved with selling the value and selling a Premier League club that's maybe what's keeping him going I don't know but it's a really messy situation.

30:23Max Rushden:Can I ask you Sonny you said there if only we had a football regulator what would a football regulator be able to do in this instance because they can't force him to sell the club. That's the big thing, isn't it? Because as with Young at Reading, when they came in, they had all the finance and had the proof. Chancery's wealth is in tuna, I believe, the family tuna canning business and tuna fishing business. And they've got quite a lot of it, but the value of that has gone down massively. Well, could they have stopped him buying him in the first place? I mean, isn't the idea that... But he has invested a load of money, Max.

31:00Max Rushden:because he's put in a couple of hundred million. So he had the money and he owns the club. They can't force him to sell it if he doesn't want to. I think they're going to have quite strong powers. I believe there's going to be various different sanctions they can put in place, financial penalties. They're going to be able to appoint people to assist running the club. They can remove the club's operating license, or they will be able to, I think, to basically, what's the value if the IFR, the independent football regulator says you actually can't operate as a football league club anymore then that the whole club completely loses money obviously that loses its value that naturally penalizes the fans um i think they'll be able to veto owners potentially putting clubs into administration um so that will be there so there will be quite strong powers and i think they will have powers to remove owners as well um they might and as these these things sort of drag on so they'll they might end up having to go to court and but because it's going to be that i think there's primary legislation and then there's going to be all these regulations underneath it the problem is you've got six weeks or four weeks to the start of the season you just wouldn't be able to sort it out in time yeah um sam can i ask you about morecambe i know it's complex but you have been looking at this what is the situation for them obviously they were relegated this season into the national league pretty bleak they basically the efl agreed to sail just before they approved a sale sorry their buyers waiting uh they pumped a load of cash into it i think they may have already paid the current owner a guy called jason whittigam they've paid him a load of money they talked about they put running costs into the club potentially as loans but we don't have uh visibility of that i do know on companies house a couple of charges were cleared so um the morecam had set up a loans facility previously and someone has basically paid that off and so those charges have been removed for company's house i think based on what the new buyers or the potential buyers are saying that might have been them so effectively they've pumped a lot of money into it yesterday they've got an independent board of directors morcombe and what's it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad but it's almost like you know on those episodes of the apprentice when they say right we're going into a negotiation i'm going to do the speaking and everyone's like yeah yeah you're going to do the speaking and you'll as a viewer you go yeah that's not going to happen is it and someone starts a speaking and then the other person jumps in and it's a race to try and get their voice in so what happened yesterday was the board said sales agreed the owner's stalling if he doesn't do it by 4 p.m we're going to put the club into administration then they extend to 6 p.m then it was overnight then the owner came out and said uh the board are talking nonsense and i'm paraphrasing here naturally i'm going to dismiss the board and which he has done uh he has got rid of now the thing is you can if you look on company's house house there's potentially no current directors you are required to have a director but any resolution to appoint a director takes effect from when it's signed so a company's house is just where you file the form so there could be a director they'll need to sort that out it may well be him anyway that's by the by in some ways they've all gone I think what happened is basically they I'm speculating in all of these transactions there's what's available publicly and then there are private shareholder agreements which are between the shareholders and they will dictate certain things one of which could have been um that he has and probably was that the owner has the power to remove the board and that's what he's done so they're in a position where the club again is a bit like sheffield wednesday not paying staff there's no one senior at the club there's just an owner there's a deal waiting to happen the board of directors who are all volunteers are on the outside of it.

34:45Again, administration is a possibility. Does Morecambe want to go into administration voluntarily? Well, the owner certainly doesn't want to. There'll be a load of creditors who basically are owed money by Morecambe. But the problem is if the creditors push through an administration basically saying they owe us a load of money, they know they'll only end up receiving pennies in the pound and what they're owed. Whereas they also know that there is a buyer ready to come in so they're probably going to hold off for a little bit and hope that deal is done but it's just it's just another example of how desperately we need that independent football regulator and how shoddy some of football ownership is.

35:26Jason Whittingham and Colin Goldring in October 2022 were disqualified to be company directors after what happened at Worcester Warriors where they were the owners and you know they ended up being liquidated so that's potentially vary going back to football regulators could they do something at that point maybe if somebody's owning a club already disqualified elsewhere then you know maybe they can get involved there all right that'll do for part two tom gary will join us from switzerland and we'll look back at the first two games of the women's euros in just a second

36:04welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly let's talk about some actual football the women's euros covered obviously brilliantly by the guardian women's football weekly it got underway yesterday um finland beating iceland in the opening game and then norway coming from behind to beat the hosts uh tom gary uh joins us from there hey tom you okay hey guys yeah i'm very well thank you lovely to chat to you um let's start with uh the switzerland norway game because it was a brilliant game right i don't know why i was supporting switzerland so vehemently i've never really cared for the swiss women's side before but i was i was gutted for them especially after that first half performance.

36:38Yeah, I thought they played really well. They'll be really encouraged by the kind of spirited performance because Switzerland are not traditionally very good at women's football at all, whereas Norway are sort of a fairly historic powerhouse of the women's game. So this was a relatively new thing for Switzerland to be getting excited about women's football. I'm based in Zurich near the England camp where the game was over in Basel, but the fan park here in Zurich was absolutely jam-packed. there was like a queue to get in that was snaking around some other bars for people to try to get in. And just generally, it was quite a nice buzz around here, even though the match wasn't being played here.

37:15And the team did respond to that national enthusiasm with quite good performance. I think they'll just be kicking themselves that they didn't get anything from the game because Norway didn't play particularly well. And yet they've still got the three points. But it was great fun. As a second half in particular, because the first game in the day had been pretty turgid and slow and a relatively painful watch. So this was a proper football game and I loved it. Yeah, no, it was great, wasn't it? I guess Switzerland, because they hit the bar, it was a great effort from Geraldine Reuteler before they scored.

37:51When they scored, the atmosphere looked sensational. You just feel that they could have taken more chances when they had the ascendancy, right? A hundred percent. They may live to regret those mischances because getting through the group now is a big ask for them. I think they were having quite a lot of success, particularly out wide. I was really impressed with Iman Benne, who's just signed for Manchester City, who was out kind of that right wing back role. They've shown they could get through, but it's just when you have a performance like that and you don't take your chances, you must be kicking yourself.

38:27Piers Sundhager looked really disappointed at the end of the game. Legendary former US and Sweden coach, of course, and Brazil. And I think she knew what a big missed chance it was. Norway, I suppose, on the other hand, despite winning, they just really frustrate me. They've got all these wonderful players like Graham Hansen, Wrighton, Mornum and Hegerberg and so on. and they just never really seemed to click. They kind of got away with one. Last night, a real sort of disgusting own goal, like a sort of horrible, sort of painful thing to see, that terrible, terrible own goal that was so unnecessary to concede kind of gifted Norway the win in the end.

39:06Yeah, and then, you know, you had quite a lot of stuff happening, right? Because Norway scored, you know, went ahead, and they got this penalty that Ada Hegelberg missed. a terrible penalty actually. I heard Izzy Christensen saying training at Lyon that she was no good at penalties at all and was quite surprised that she took it given that as you say, Wrighton's there, Graham Hansen's there as well. I would have probably gone with Mara Mielder to take the penalty. She's taken quite a lot over the years at Chelsea for example. You're right, they had like four other options. it was scuffed quite bizarrely from a former Ballon d 'Or winner and one of the greatest strikers we've ever seen in the game certainly at club level in what she's achieved that was a very strange thing to see from Hegerberg overall I thought she played relatively well obviously got the headed goal and she's got a real mixed history in this competition there were finalists Norway in 2013 when she was really young but ever since then it's been sort of an agonising disappointment for her in Euros after Euros.

40:16But they finally managed to beat a host nation. I don't know if everyone will be aware of this, but they've played the hosts in so many consecutive tournaments. They lost to New Zealand as hosts in the last World Cup. They lost in the last Euros to England by 8-0, of course. And then they also lost to the host France in the 2019 World Cup and lost to the host of the Netherlands in the 2017 Euros. So they finally managed to find a host that is inferior enough to get a win. in a major tournament. Yeah, I mean, Switzerland got a penalty straight after the Hegerberg penalty. It looked soft and then it was disallowed for the minutest toe-off sides in the build-up.

40:56Tell us just a little bit about Gemma Granger. The only English coach at the Euros is coaching Norway. How did she end up there? Well, she had a relatively good spell with Wales that seemed to be encouraging. And Wales were kind of looking towards, getting towards a major tournament, didn't quite make it to the World Cup. And I think there was massive disappointment across Wales when she then decided to go for the opportunity at Norway. I think Wales felt that they had somebody there who was a long-term plan. But no, she decided to make the move with the chance to coach this group of very top-class individual players who've never really pulled things together at a tournament.

41:37And I think she felt she could be the one to take them to that next step, to finally start to deliver. She's very well thought of amongst the English FA, for example. And I noted a couple of days ago when we had the chance to talk to Mark Bullingham, the FA CEO, and he was talking about kind of long-term, his positivity for the long-term succession options for England. He mentioned not only that Casey Stoney was a head coach at Canada, he also mentioned Gemma Granger at Norway, was hinting that that experience might put her in the frame in the very, very long term to be a future England head coach.

42:13So she's coached a lot in the English youth setup and is well thought of. But this is almost like women's football's sort of impossible job, forgive the cliche, but Norway have kind of been annoying to watch, a little bit like watching England's men in the kind of that post-Sven era, or maybe even during that Sven era where you always knew they could win something, but they could never quite make it click. And she's taken that job on. my gut feeling is they could go quite far mainly because the draws opening up for Group A you know they might get to a semi-final without having to play any of the top sides so it could really start to open up for somebody like Norway if they can keep winning Now keep your powder dry Tom because Barry has a full report on Iceland Finland has already announced that this would be his high point of the podcast Barry what did you, Tom's already called it turgid what did you make of it?

43:07Max Rushden:Yeah, it was quite turgid. Finland beat Iceland. Iceland were the favourites for this game, didn't play well at all. Not helped by the fact that they lost their best player and captain, Gladys Vigisdottir, to an injury at half time. She went down needing treatment twice in the first half, didn't come out for the second. Then, just before the hour mark, they lost Hilda Antonsdottir to Red Card. She got two bookings in, I think, a space of seven minutes and can't really have any complaints about either, I would say. Katarina Kosola, Finland's midfielder, was the best player on the pitch by a mile and it was her that scored the winning goal.

43:54Max Rushden:but Finland were never really that comfortable with their lead. Iceland in Svendis, Jansdottir have a long throw merchant in the Rory de Lapveen and she had a lot of opportunities to chuck the ball long into the box and it was a constant source of chaos that Finland never looked comfortable with at all but they always managed to just about scramble the ball clear and on another day, Iceland probably could have scored one or two. And Sven just also had a couple of good chances to equalize, but couldn't get her shots on target. So Finland just about got over the line, I would say largely due to a consummate exhibition of time wasting by their goalkeeper, Anna Koivinen, who, yeah, her game management is top class, I would say.

44:54Tom, presumably you've got nothing to add to that. Can I say one thing about the long throws? There was a moment at the end of the game that was quite agonising to watch as a neutral when in stoppage time, we'd already gone past the allocated added minutes and Jan Stottier got a long throw. And you know when you're sort of thinking, quick, take it quickly, quick, get it in the mixer. And she stopped to wipe the ball with a towel that was by the side of the pitch, which must have taken a good extra 15 seconds of the time they had just to try. And it wasn't the best of throws either, even after wiping it away.

45:27It was never going to be a great game. It was about 34 degrees locally at kickoff in turn with two relatively weak sides. And I always feared it wouldn't be the best opening fixture, but hopefully people won't judge a book by its cover because the quality sides in this tournament are all still yet to come. Yeah, I got Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal then today. What's the latest on Bon Mati? Well, the increasing whispers from the camp in Spain imply that she might play, which would be a quite remarkable turnaround from being in hospital barely a week ago. She surely won't be able to do 90 minutes.

46:05Surely they're going to have to try and look after her fitness. But she has recovered well, we're told, from viral meningitis after that scare. and generally, although we wait to see the team news, the noises that we're hearing from those closer to Spain camp is that there is optimism she might be included in the team, which would, from where we were a week ago and her whole tournament seemed in jeopardy, that's a quite positive move for the current Ballon d 'Or winner. All right, Tom. Hey, thanks for coming on and we'll chat to you soon. Real pleasure, guys. Nice to see you. Tom Gary there and of course, Guardian Women's Football Weekly is on three times a week.

46:39We'll chuck a few of their pods in our feed as well. so subscribe to that. Finally, we should welcome Robbie Savage to Forrest Green. Signed a four-year deal after a really successful season at Macclesfield. Saw them promoted. He said, I know there'll be a bit of skepticism because I've only had one year in management. I know I'll have to win fans over. I'm not scared of that. I got released from the biggest football club in the world at 19. Told I wasn't good enough. I've always proved people wrong because I've got a great work ethic. I spoke to Brendan Rodgers, Martin O 'Neill and Sean Dyche and they all said, what an opportunity.

47:10in unison i like the idea that they all said that everybody wants to help me so that goes to show i must be okay because they're willing to help uh sam you spent a bit of time in the last season yeah i went in and i was very lucky to do a behind the scenes piece where he let me in to all of it basically dressing room manager's office which is quite rare um i think it was a bit of a shock right i think this is playing out as a bit of a drama coronation street eastenders style because savage went in for people who are not aware of the story macclesfield there was that BBC documentary they're in a terrible state a guy called Rob Smithhurst who is the owner and one of or the majority owner and one of Savage's best mates basically rang him and said I bought this football club can you come in and Savage said yes and he's been there for the last three or four years and he's poured his heart and soul into it initially he was director of football and then the last guy a guy called Michael Clegg not the one who used to play for Manchester United youth team but another guy um he took him to the playoffs got to the final lost and savage basically sacked him which felt a little bit harsh and savage was installed as manager so it was his first season in management um and a couple of weeks ago he signed a two-year contract and it wasn't just that he signed a two-year contract though i can't quite work it out because he keeps saying he's never been paid anything and it's all sort of love and time and i don't know if you why you need a piece of paper to say you're going to commit your love and time to the club but he signed a contract and he's the thing is he's very big on statements right we know he likes to talk so i can't leave that dressing room i'm on the journey with them i can't leave rob what we've been through together is amazing and a couple of weeks later he's going to forest green rovers which if we look at it objectively right if you take the emotion out of it it's a league above it's a macrosby are a team going into the national league north unknown quantity albeit with a decent squad they always had a squad for a couple of leagues above.

49:07Forest Green got close to promotion back to the football league and have ambitions. And a former Wales teammate, Mark Bowen, has gone in. So things have happened very quickly. And football is one of those industries where you can't blame people for making the decision that's best for them and best for their family. But it hasn't gone down well. And Rob Smith first, they both did videos on the day of the release. And you could see how disappointed Rob Smith first was with Robbie Savage. Because Savage is also part owner, right? so that friendship may well be ruined they expected to lose him not quite this soon and then the real knife is that he's taken three of the players and they've already gone and there there there is wing backs and a center half called mendy and again mendy i went in a couple of years ago and into alex bruce was manager and alex bruce was telling me that he was having to ring mendy's boss at a restaurant where he worked because he needed some time off because he was a kitchen Porter so he's taken Mendy from there to being a professional footballer so like that that is massive but Smetha stopped short of saying it so I have to be a bit careful but in the video he basically says there are three players he wants to take and we can't stop them because Robbie knows exactly what is in the contracts and the the get out clauses and things like that the buyout clauses and so they lost those three players quite close to start the season and John Rooney brother of Wayne who I think scored 12 goals for them last year he's taken over as manager but effectively he has said he isn't going to play so they've lost four of their massive players they've lost their manager and everything that comes with it and Savage I actually really liked him I know he has this Marmite effect and maybe more one side than the other I found him sincere and quite i don't want to say genuine he talks a lot but his heart's in the right place and you could tell how much it meant to him and how much he loved it i think he's actually quite insecure and he talks a lot about i've heard him say that line before about having to always fight against it in my life and prove people wrong so he's an interesting character at his age as he turns 50 i think it would have been easy for him to sit on his radio show and talk about managers and criticize man hang on that's not easy a radio show is not easy so let's be clear about this he he has always wanted to do it he didn't need to do it yeah and he has gone in at a low level and he wants to prove himself and he does believe in himself and whether he's got delusions of grandeur who knows but he is giving it a go um so it's a really hard one i don't know how to feel about it um the guy he sacked previously michael clegg has said oh it's come out on twitter and said basically well my nan could have got that scored up with 100 points savage took over when when he knew that we built the squad.

51:53And I think he described it last year as manager is like driving a Ferrari with the passenger yanking the wheel every 10 minutes. So it's a bit of a circus. It's been a bit of a drama, but you've got to say good luck to him, right? Yeah, good luck to him. And, you know, he'll need to finish his team talk quickly to be ready for 6.06, won't he? Anyway, that'll do for today. And Barry is smiling. So there we all are. Everybody's happy. Thank you, Sanny. Thank you. Max, if you could humor me for one moment, by the way, just at the time we're at. We were used to watching a lot of host broadcasters at the moment with the Club World Cup and all that.

52:30This podcast, and there's very few outlets where you will get actual, honest criticism, where people can be honest about football. And I noticed yesterday in Robin Cowan's commentary, she did say that Norway were playing quite poorly. And I thought it struck me that very few places would be allowed to say that outright. so don't forget the value of the pod even when it might feel a bit boring barry you know there's no vested interest here you can actually say what you really think and no you're not going to get any

52:56Max Rushden:any comeuppance so yeah cheers for having us on no my problem isn't i just think it's quite sad that we are reduced to talking about these things that we shouldn't have to talk about but and that i don't feel particularly comfortable talking about because i'm not an expert in the hedge funds and takeovers and uh administration and all that sort of stuff but this is this is where we are now this is where we are um uh thank you barry yeah thank you thank you sam thank you max and given the theme as an existential point i have to remember i do this in my job as a lawyer you go looking for this company's house none of it exists none of it is real we made all this stuff up all these chains of ownership everything there is it's not real it didn't have it the whole thing is scripted purple weekly is produced by joel grove our executive producer is phil maynard will be back on monday

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