Visas, Tickets... Trump: Why this World Cup feels hard to love? - The Sports Agents

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Yeah, he wasn't sorry for a lot in his speech yesterday, was he? Maybe sometimes it's good as well to just, you know, chill. That might have made him look a little bit more empathetic and human. You can't simultaneously be the organisation that, you know, has a strapline of uniting the world and float in and out of the Oval Office and hang out with heads of state and then make out, essentially, when the **** hits the fan, with just a soccer tournament. This is probably got the potential to be the best and worst World Cup that we've potentially ever seen.

0:37Adam Crafton:What on earth are Wolves doing? You've got to feel for him, haven't you? Every Middlesbrough fan in the world who's, like, celebrating, saying, ha, take that. I am never going to tell Roy Keane what to wear, but I am going to tell you not to wear shorts.

0:57Welcome to the Sports Agents. Hello, Mark. Hello, Nadim.

1:00Adam Crafton:Hi, Gabby. Hello. Look at Nadim in America, ready to go. I'm a bit jealous. Are you chilled, though? Are you chillaxed? I'm so chillaxed, you know what I mean? Like I can walk around these streets of America. To be fair, I haven't sensed that the World Cup's going on. My reference to chill was, of course, a command from Gianni Infantino that we should all just relax about referees being turned away at the door, effectively, and players being frisked and questioned for hours before they enter the country. But the Athletics' Adam Crafton will join us to talk about all of that a little bit later on.

1:33So now, be positive.

1:35Adam Crafton:Rob Edwards has been sacked by Wolves. And Kieran McKenna's walked away from Ipswich. Is this positive? I mean, that, by the way, is not a positive. I was being utterly sarcastic. Yeah, facetious, sarcastic, cynical. What on earth are Wolves doing? What are they doing? You've got a feel for him, haven't you? Walking away from Middlesbrough to the club that he's clearly got an emotional connection with. Almost at the beginning, telling us that maybe this season was, you know, he was just trying to do his very best to prepare them to come back up from the championship. And leaving behind, you know, potential Premier League football next season.

2:17It feels very, very sad for him personally, but also, as you say, not very joined up thinking. By Wolves? I think from my perspective, I'm with you from that sort of like emotional side of things. And, you know, there is another side to that coin where every Middlesbrough fan in the world is like celebrating, saying, Oh, that cartwheeling. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's a nice little boost after the way their last season finished for them. But in looking at some quotes here, the talk is like the plan and the goal is to get promoted straight away. And we understand that changes have to be made.

2:50And it's important. There isn't alignment here. And it said, if there isn't alignment here, They were dead in the water. So anything that happens in this part of the season for me, where, especially in the championship, their preseason might be starting next week, what do they disagree upon? And why could they not figure this out earlier? You know, this is what I don't understand in some ways about some managers moving on and so on at this time. Because you feel like you've had a lot of time to figure some of this stuff out. Really since Christmas, almost. You feel like you would be... You definitely say that, yeah.

3:21Because, you know, I'll be honest, I will never be a manager firstly because I'll be rubbish at it but secondly there's just a lot that goes into it because as well as preparing a team for a game on a weekend you're making plans for the future always having discussions with the board and so on and how have they only realised now that Rob Edwards isn't the right person to lead them back to potentially the Premier League when they picked him for that surely

3:41Adam Crafton:So they signed Raul Jimenez earlier this week they brought Raul Jimenez back to the club Rob Edwards said after that hopefully the fans believe more in what we're trying to do there's a lot more we've still got to do and there'll be more to come. We know things need to improve. We're working really hard to try and do that as quickly as possible. So that's what Edwin said after they signed Jimenez. They also signed Kieran Trippier from Newcastle on a free transfer. Kieran Trippier told the club's official podcast, I had a good chat with the manager and what struck me first was how passionate he was for helping the club move forward to get out of the championship next season.

4:16Adam Crafton:You just have a feeling straight away and I felt the chemistry straight away with the manager. It's awkward, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. So this is more of a knee-jerk, potentially, a reaction to something then, isn't it? This is not a long-term plan by Wolves, which going back to what I said doesn't seem to be very joined up thinking. But then go back to... Do you remember me telling you, Chappas, about what Gary O 'Neill had said when he came on and did Match of the Day about being a manager at Wolves and how he felt he was responsible for everything, like right down to personal details with the players' travel, going back home for babies and, you know, managing kind of, you know, players having a standoff with the board over.

4:57He said there was very little representation from the owners on the ground and he was very much kind of in control of everything that he didn't want to be in control of.

5:06Adam Crafton:Well, you wonder who is in control, don't you? Kieran McKenna, a slightly easier one to understand. Yeah. Is it? Is it? Question mark? Well, I don't know Kieran McKenna. I don't know the ins and outs of, say, being a manager as such. But him walking away now is the thing that I find quite strange. Because if he was potentially thinking of having this time away with the family, to focus on family life and so on, then could he not have done this at the end of the season after the promotion? What was the value of extending the time to just announce it at this stage anyway? Maybe it feels like, I don't know, I hope it's not the case, but stuff's going on at home or I don't know, maybe just as a bit of a joke, maybe he's getting himself ready for the summer holidays.

5:50You know, he needs to be available for those six weeks because usually that's prime, that's prime football pre-season time, isn't it? Being a bit cynical, is he, has he realized the limitations of that situation and where he can go as a manager and he's giving himself a bit of time to be free in the market over the next year? Where is that though? Where, like if we're, this is obviously really tough to say because we do not hire and fire people, But where do you think suits Akira McKenna, even if jobs became available in the Premier League next year? Because I can't pinpoint somewhere exactly and say that's definitely the fit.

6:22Well, obviously, Fulham was the one that he has been kind of linked with over the last few days. Would that be the kind of club, do you think, that's... Possibly, but as a definite, I'm just not sure. I'm just not sure at all. You know, that to me feels very much like, obviously, a Michael Silva club, you know, for the amount of time and stuff that he was there. a McKenna could be an option but doesn't feel like he's an obvious option to go into a place like that so again I'm not 100 % sure about it and also like you've got to be very for me anyway this is just purely emotional you've got to be very careful with your words you know when for example I need to spend some more time with my family but then the Fulham job becomes available so now I'll forget my family going to go to Fulham kind of push starts you on the wrong sort of footing for the job that you're going to be doing next because in theory like why should anyone listen to any of the words that you say turns out you're spending time with this family because they live in West london exactly yeah that could be it i didn't think about that that could be if he says i

7:17Adam Crafton:go spend more time with my family and in six months time he says right well i i do feel refreshed and i will come back now and i think if he gets a job within 12 months then compensation has to go to ipswich so if he decides six months while i do feel refreshed i'm ready to go then he's in a very strong position isn't he he's in a stronger position by leaving ipswich now than if he stayed at Ipswich and they were next to bottom, for example, if I'm doing them a disservice in December, his position would be weaker then. And I think the stat now with him leaving Ipswich is that half the Premier League teams under new management from the start of next season, I think, and there will be several who, if they don't get off to great starts, and you mentioned Fulham, Gabby, but you could probably throw Bournemouth in there.

8:11Adam Crafton:You could probably throw Crystal Palace in there. Newcastle. There's also Newcastle. If they don't get off to great starts, he's in quite a position of strength, isn't he? But would he not be in position of strength in terms of trying to keep Ipswich up, given the fact that half the managers in the league are new and half the managers appear to be under pressure? He's got a lot of currency, hasn't he, with Ipswich, of course, as well. But do you understand from any kind of personal perspective, the pressure of that of being I mean I know you said I'm not a manager but as a player that you just sometimes want to take a break I mean that's what Klopp did didn't he went step back took a break 100 % Pep's doing that right now yeah I was joking around before but that job as a manager within football is as tough as it comes because you can't ever really be off you know you're there before the training session starts you're there after training sessions are done you're speaking to media you're speaking to the board you're constantly available agents again on your case and so on and when you're in one of those places whereby there's a level of expectation like the media requests and so on are just never ending i think um so to let you know on a story so when klopp announced he was going to be leaving liverpool i think i was potentially the last person to have spoken to him so they played fulham in the league cup i think semi-final and i was there working for espn for as much as like uh espn obviously I love working for them and so on and like they're a different broadcast I apologize but in terms of foreign broadcasters in England for those games they're essentially put down quite low in terms of importance for interviews so Klopp must have spoken to every single last person left in that stadium and then there was me he looked tired he looked exhausted looked like he had nothing to do with it and here I was now about to ask him some questions asked him the questions then a day later says Klopp says this is too much this is enough for me and I don't blame man how's the 10th interview on a cold like february night enough is enough but but to go back to it i think the human side of things is is a big deal like for for those managers is so so intense like we'll see a clip of one interview they've done but they might have done 10 the amount of hours they're spending at the training ground the fact that they can't separate themselves from like football ever whereas as a player you can just disappear manager can never disappear and i think for kieran himself and given the fact he's only 40 years old which is roughly speaking what I am, roughly speaking.

10:26I think it's good to be, I think it's good to be present. And even from my side of things, like I don't, Micah Richards, good friend of ours, he does way more work than me, but I do less because I like to be present and stuff with my family. Like fair play to Micah and those that do commit to it. Hang on, hang on. Are you saying Micah doesn't want to be with his family? Is this what you're saying here on the Sports Station's podcast? You'll need to ask Micah. You'll need to ask Micah, but he's got other plans. I think he's got plans to be with his family in the next few years, given how much money he's going to be making from that work.

10:56I'm just going to be with my family and make less, I think.

10:58Adam Crafton:Mexico, South Africa gets things underway Thursday night. Gabby, you've got Canada, Bosnia on Friday evening. I have USA against Paraguay at two o 'clock in the morning. Can I just say something about, because obviously last night we got a peek, didn't we, into ITV's coverage because they showed England's final warm-up game. We're going to dissect England properly kind of next week. So we don't have to get into the performance and the win, but I thought their studio was magnificent. And we're not supposed to give compliments to the opposition, but credit where credit's due. Yeah, but we're not opposition, are we?

11:34Adam Crafton:No. I'm being slightly. I know. But everything does get billed as opposition, and it's like we all work together, so why? No, I thought that I was a little bit envious last night when I'm trekking up to Salford later. Well, just to let you know, it's absolutely pissing down here. It could well be in New York. The weather, that was the thing about last night, the reality of having an hour's extra buildup as a broadcaster hit me right there in the solar plexus. I'm thinking, gosh. Do you think I should follow Roy's example and wear shorts for one of these? I am never going to tell Roy Keane what to wear, but I am going to tell you not to wear shorts.

12:25Adam Crafton:okay i'll follow your advice i will not get my i won't get my legs out we're talking about positives for this world cup i think it's been very easy to sort of slip into just talking about the usa and their perspective and the way things are being done here but in canada and mexico you see it's a lot quieter on that front in terms of some of the issues but one thing i'll say from having lived and worked lived and played in in the us mexican football fans are some of the best that you will see the way that they sort of like travel and support their team like there are times for example if the usa plays mexico in the usa there's a good chance it'll be more mexican than it would be american they love their football and i think there's so many mexicans in the u.s as well so yeah for sure but it's still less than all the americans in the u.s but the mexicans are like they adore their football and some of the as i say the passion that's there we'll see that in this opening game and you'll see that throughout the tournament like football is everything to them so So for them to be able to host it again is going to be incredible.

13:24And for the Canadians as well. That's what an honour is for them. And I'm sure they'll be right behind their sides as well.

13:29Adam Crafton:Give me a team that are not one of the big four or five that you're really looking forward to watching. The winner of AFCON is going to be worth watching at this tournament. You decide whoever that is. This was going to be my question. Who is? Will the real winner of AFCON please stand up? You decide whoever that is. Well, in my list of matches, I have the France-Senegal game, and I am very excited about that one. But yeah, I mean, Morocco obviously are a lot of people's. Can there be a dark horse when you've been to a couple of semifinals? I don't know, really. You are a dark horse anymore, are you?

14:08Adam Crafton:The other one I'll throw in, because I do think they're going slightly under the radar at the moment, when people talk about France or Spain or Brazil or Argentina or England, not many people are talking about Portugal and you look at the Portuguese squad and you go crikey I know that Ronaldo casts a whole shadow over how he affects them if he starts or how he affects them if he's subbed or all of that kind of stuff but if you if you can and I'm not sure you really can but if you can sort of park the Ronaldo issue and just look at that squad that That has got some serious, serious talent. And a manager who's taken teams to the latter stages of these tournaments as well.

14:56For sure, Chappers, I'm with you. I'm with you, 100%. And they beat my beloved Nigeria yesterday as well. Basically pounded them into the ground in Portugal. That was an experience. So I've seen it firsthand, Chappers, and I'm with you. It's weird that the team with one of the greatest players to ever play the game is a dark horse to do well in a competition. With a midfield that just won the Champions League, but you know stranger things have happened there

15:19Adam Crafton:A midfield that just won the Champions League you know Bernardo Silva Bruno Fernandes I mean they keep coming Pedro Neto I mean they've got they've got some attacking talent Martinez has done a great job as coach but some people say is this going to be the same job he did with Belgium where people fancied him to do really well and potentially win something and then walk away in the end with nothing but just like good vibes and potential Good vibes All right, you can catch up with all our previous episodes of the Sports Agents on Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. In a moment, we're going to get down to the slightly more depressing.

16:02Adam Crafton:Basically, Adam Crafton will bring the misery next.

16:13Adam Crafton, welcome to the Sports Agents. I'm sure you're an incredibly busy man on this very exciting day. Chapa's through to you saying Adam will do all the kind of miserable stuff next because we were trying to be very upbeat. But it's been hard to avoid, hasn't it? Some of the more depressing and obviously picked up by news outlets. They want to kind of show you, you know, kind of the potential problems that are going to happen in a US World Cup. Nedim's pointed out that we mustn't forget that Canada and Mexico are involved in this as well, though. They are. no no they are and you know mexico mexico is interesting because it's what the third time they'd have hosted um a world cup which is you know obviously um great for them but it's quite unusual i mean when you think that's what three times since since england have last hosted one not to get too competitive between england and mexico but you know that that is a a pretty remarkable thing Canada obviously have never hosted um from the state's point of view I think there's a difference right between there's the there's the kind of ethical concerns which people will have but I think more than that there's been operational concerns that have become kind of the real the stories that have really taken off I would say in America which are the stories like how much it's going to cost to get a train to a stadium compared to what it would cost normally and that like the kind of ridiculous nonsense last week over fifa trying to ban you from taking a water bottle into the stadium really sort of cut through um i think those kind of two things and the peace prize are probably what most people in in america if you were to do what was the tv show that um that vernon kay used to do family fortunes right if you're still family fortunes in America and say, what do you know about FIFA?

18:05I think it would probably be those three things first and foremost, and maybe the word Messi.

18:10Adam Crafton:The dynamic ticket pricing in America, because we're constantly told that this is how America do their tickets anyhow, is that as much of a story in America, the dynamic ticket pricing, as it is elsewhere? You've had this situation where the very expensive seats that they are buying are not the seats they thought they were going to get. So all of a sudden that the category two seat, which wasn't specific, it was just category two. So you have a sense of, you know, you know it's reasonably good if it's category two. But all of a sudden they started bringing in new ones like front row category one, or the category two seemed to move around a bit, or you'd be in the worst possible category two seat.

18:52And that's what's really annoyed Americans, the feeling that they have been, they don't mind spending the money, but feeling misled over how they've spent the money. I think that's what's leading to the attorney generals in New York, New Jersey, Texas and California now all basically coming out saying they want to investigate this. Infantino spoke about this yesterday and basically said, look, we have good lawyers and we prepared and covered every base. So it certainly wasn't, I'm sorry, it was, we've got great lawyers and we're ready for you. Yeah, he wasn't sorry for a lot in his speech yesterday.

19:28No, and didn't seem to have the angle maybe on Omar Artan, who's the referee who was sent back to Somalia, that might have made him look a little bit more empathetic and human and said anything positive about him as a referee. It was certainly, I think, for a lot of people, not the response that the leader of FIFA should have been giving. No, and it's, I mean, also if you think back to Qatar or even with the development of the Club World Cup, so much of what Infantino said, and some of this I think is very reasonable, is football needs to be more global. It can't just be about six nations in Europe and a couple of nations in South America.

20:10We want to empower, we want it so that, you know, there can genuinely be 50 national teams across the world from different continents who can come to a World Cup and genuinely believe they're going to win it. so to then all of a sudden be told about the best referee in Africa that you know essentially chill and relax you know it's unfortunate let's all get on with our day that was essentially the gist of it you know we can't there's not very much we can do I think surprised people and I think he's also underestimating the level of offense far be I think he always seems to think the only people who are in his words mean to him are sort of journalists in the kind of northern Europe Germany UK and America and the reality is I think a lot of people in what in in certainly in Africa I mean you saw the response to this referee returning to his home country like people filling up a stadium um to to sort of to welcome him and giving him flowers off the plane I would say the only thing I would say out of a bit of caution is I spoke to a Democratic congressman yesterday.

21:23I was actually talking about something else, but I asked what he thought about this decision about the referee. And he said that he'd sort of made some calls and that based on conversations he'd had, that he was comfortable with the decision that had been made at the border. He seems to suggest there was something on Omar Ahtan's phone that had raised concerns at the border. But don't you think, Adam, there needs to be a bit more transparency on that then? Because if you're a fan in this country about to travel and you hear that, now you're thinking, well, what is it that is going to potentially get me sent back?

21:59Because Scotland fans have faced similar things, haven't they? They've got their thinking they've got their S disordered, they get to their border and they've been told they've got to go back. So, you know, I'm not worried for me per se, but I am concerned for people I know that if they might have liked a post that appears to be against a policy of the American government, is that enough to get you sent back? I mean you would you would hope not you would expect not I don't think I mean based on what they are saying I mean the White House yesterday was was basically suggesting it was around communications with kind of suspected terror organizations rather than any rather than specifically social media posts however that there is anxiety for people and and and none of this should be a surprise to FIFA because you know like Trump on his first day in office signs an executive order saying protecting America against invasion, right?

22:55Like this was never hidden. Listen to what he said about people from Somalia. This has been in plain sight. There's never been an attempt. So why is FIFA sending a referee? Then the question is begged, why are they sending a referee who was going to be put in that position? Well, because he was given a visa. He had a visa. He had a visa. As I understand it, it was a diplomatic visa. So the problem is something has happened between receiving a visa and getting to the border or a random check at the border now as we as you say i think we need a lot more transparency about what what these conversations or concerns were with the referee because i mean yeah this guy's reputation and career is on the is on the line over this and you know from a fifa perspective it is deeply embarrassing it's deeply embarrassing but also you know the u the u.s administration i think you know that andrew giuliani the executive director on the world cup task force has been sort of saying you know we can't let bad actors into the country but i i do think although it is the policy to not go into sort of depth over individual cases i do think in this case that there should be more

24:08Adam Crafton:detail do you think he was contradictory yesterday in fantino because he he kept going down the line of we have to respect we're not kings of the world who can rule over governments and police forces some would argue at previous tournaments they have acted like kings of the world and ridden roughshod over how countries may may do things and and imposed their i mean they impose their own tax system for hosting these tournaments. So you can't have it both ways. No, no. I mean, you can't simultaneously be the organisation that has a strapline of uniting the world, that hands out peace prizes, that goes to the Board of Peace, that has, as you say, tax breaks for itself based on a non-profit status while making sort of 11 billion in revenue from a tournament you can't do all of that you can't and float in and out of the oval office and hang out with heads of state and then make out when essentially when the shit hits the fan oh we're just we're just a soccer tournament we're basically you know we're basically the international big version of mum and dad that go and put the cones out on sunday and coach the five-year-olds right like that that seems to now be the new position how could you ever expect FIFA to do this.

25:29We can't tell a country what to do. And of course, the other stories, which I don't know if they're making as much traction or having as much traction in the US that are getting attention here, things like the difference in the way certain teams are treated when they get off the plane, being frisked on the runway, Senegalese players and the other players just kind of wandering in through customs easily. And then those images don't look great, do they, on social media? I think that's where it gets very amplified. Yeah, I mean, Nadim, you'll have travelled maybe with sort of, in more, I guess, pristine ways at times.

26:08There we go. Get it off your chest. Thank you. That's correct. Yes. Thank you.