Football's Multi-Club Model & What Does It Mean For Fans? | The Overlap Fan Debate

0:28But what's the idea around all this? I don't think it helps us. It's just FOMO, right? City Football Group's doing it. Red Bull's doing it. We should do it. See, that's just Ben though, isn't it? Yeah. That's just Ben. You can't do that. Which is why they do it, Rory. That's why they do it. If you let fans vote on this, I think you know what the outcome's going to be.

0:49Hello and welcome back to the Fan Debate brought to you by Skybet. Paul Scoles is back joining me once again along with the supporters. and today's episode is all about multi-club ownership. And we are pleased, I should say, to be joined by Financial Times Sport Editor and Crystal Palace fan, Josh Noble. Josh, thanks for joining us and just let us know what you're doing in Financial Times. What's the day job? Yeah, so I write about the sports business, basically, globally, but most of the time it's writing about football because that's kind of the biggest sport that we care about here, in Europe at least, probably about 80 % of my time.

1:27So we talk about ownership, investment, business models, leagues, media rights, all that kind of stuff, all the money stuff, rather than the actual what happens on the pitch. Okay, so where are we now in terms of the Premier League with multi-club? How many clubs have this type of deal now? And is it something that we're eventually going to see where almost everybody in the Premier League is part of an association with another club? Yeah, I think most, certainly more than half of the Premier League clubs have some kind of connection, some kind of shared ownership with another club elsewhere. I've got the numbers written down from UEFA from last year.

2:02So 10 years ago, there were 60 clubs in the world that were part of one of these multi-club groups. A year ago, it was over 340. That was a year ago, so it's probably gone up since then. So we're talking about hundreds of clubs, thousands of players across the world. 123 teams in top divisions across the UEFA region. That's about one in five. So one in five are the top tier clubs across Europe and are part of some kind of multi-club ownership structure. So it's really, really taken off. I think during COVID, partly, there was a lot of money looking to invest in sport. There were a lot of clubs who were short of cash.

2:34And that's when it went from being this sort of niche thing that affected maybe a few dozen clubs around the world to just hundreds, and now it's everywhere. So just explain to us, what is the benefit? What's the idea? What's the idea around all this? Yeah, I think there are a few reasons. Some of them are the reasons that the investors and owners give publicly that sort of sound a bit more palatable to fans. One of those would be player development. If you've got more clubs, you've got more places to play players, you can have more players in your whole system. So you can sort of develop talent, you have new entry points for players.

3:06You think, oh, they might be a Premier League player one day. Let's take them into our French club or our Portuguese club, train them up, see what we think, transfer them to England later on. you can also do that with coaches physios executives you know so it's ultimately football is a is a people business so it's about having more people in your organization then there's kind of commercial argument which is football clubs are quite small as businesses so if you group them together they become bigger businesses um that means you can do kind of bigger sponsorship deals you can do bigger kit deals not sure we've seen a huge amount of evidence that that's happened but it's something that people talk about a lot um then i think you have a financial stuff which is a bit kind of wonky but again if you're a bigger business you have access to borrowing you have access to different kinds of investors so one analogy might be if you own five vets practices it's a little family business if you're in a hundred vets practices that's a big business you can go and borrow lots of money against that's kind of the idea with these football clubs they're too small on their own so build build them into something bigger and then the final thing which a lot of people talk about not publicly is just FOMO right city football groups doing it football is doing it, we should do it.

4:15They don't always, some of these owners and executives don't always know why they're doing it, but they just don't want to be the last ones picking in the bargain bin for whatever clubs are left in these other leagues. So they sort of do it because they don't want to be the only ones that aren't doing it, basically. It just seems to be about money to me, and I always have this feeling you said the money side of it, it's funny, the one word you use when you mention money, and there's three or four different reasons why there's multi-club ownership, and as soon as he said money he used the word makey and that's it just feels like players getting moved about and sometimes I've seen it in England in the last few years when PSR kicked off and I just felt like certain players were getting treated like cattle people were swapping players it was like you don't believe they're going to I'm not picking on these two clubs but the reason it comes to me I remember Aston Villa and Everton moving players and there was a player who left Everton like a young striker he went to Villa and it was like you're never playing for Villa.

5:12Do you understand what I mean? I always think I never move club but you know if you move club you don't have this feeling of like oh this club wants me I'm going to get in their team. Just a number on a balance sheet aren't you? Yeah and it just didn't feel right to me. We used to have feeder clubs. Do you remember when we got to our feelings from part of the Conor Gallagher it was like nothing to do with football. It was just we bought a player from them so that they could buy a player from us. How do you feel because Chelsea are probably Liam Rossini is an example of this. We've spoken about players moving.

5:39Liam Rossini has done this. The way that I look at it, I don't want Liam Rossini to be the Chelsea manager. But imagine if you're a Strasbourg fan. We've effectively said, it doesn't matter how it's going for you. We're going to take your manager because our more potent project needs a manager and we think this is the guy to do it. Savinho is a prime example as well at City. He was at Girona doing really well and then suddenly he's at City the next season. Regardless of the impact it has on Girona. Regardless of the impact to house on Strasbourg. What's the feeling around it in Europe? I think people in the Premier League are quite anti.

6:14Do you think it's the same in Europe? It's funny, isn't it? Because the Premier League clubs are, in theory, at the top of the food chain in all of these groups, right? So they should reap the benefits. So if Premier League clubs, if the fans aren't happy, then I don't know who is. Yeah, we've seen protests across Europe, across other parts of the world. The fans don't want to be part of a multi-club group because you support a club because it's part of your identity. And if you get sucked into something broader and associated with another group of people who aren't necessarily part of your identity.

6:41I'm not quite sure why a fan would want it. And that's why I said some of the things that people talk about publicly are the player trading. It's because it sort of sounds quite nice, isn't it? Like, oh, OK, if we've got a feeder club in Brazil, it means we'll get access to all these great Brazilian players. I quite like the sound of that. I don't know, have any of you sort of enjoyed? We used to have a deal with Royal Antwerp, didn't we? Yeah, I remember that, yeah. Where we used to send Chris Eagles and all them lads down there. I don't think it was much an ownership thing though. It was, there was no ownership.

7:09It was a lot of a relationship. It doesn't make any sense for the actual teams that are like lower down in the food chain. It's just a bit unambitious for like, you're the owners of the world and stuff like that. As much as it makes sense for like the model, like the city group and stuff like that and maybe, you know, these teams do have a place in the food chain. Like I said, maybe they'll actually be elevated in a sense, but as a fan of one of them teams, I can't understand why they're too happy. As you mentioned, we've got a quote here from a Strasberg fan. He said, Strasbourg has become a feeder club without any soul of its own.

7:40Right now, the French League is being targeted, but these US owners will go for other leagues, including the UK. UEFA must ban multi-club ownership, not regulate it, not manage it, but prohibit it. Multi-club ownership is fundamentally incompatible with sporting integrity. As long as one entity can control or influence more than one club, fair competition cannot be guaranteed. it's true isn't it imagine a situation where Strasbourg are potentially imagine just Strasbourg are playing a Champions League quarter final and Chelsea have a fairly insignificant season suddenly Caicedo will move won't he Caicedo will go and play for Strasbourg in January Cole Palmer will go and play for Strasbourg wait what about our season and what about our players so you've got four or five kids in a family and one gets the light and share all the attention and that's supposed to just be normal I've picked my favourites yeah

8:38one of the things I didn't actually mention is is the regulatory arbitrage as we would call it uh in business basically what we're talking about say if you're um if you're a club in the premier league and you're hitting you're running up against psr and you've got a club elsewhere in europe you can go and stuff players there to cut your wage bill um that's something that's quite attractive for some of these clubs especially as the rules in England and the rules for the UEFA competitions get tighter they're basically like escape valves to sort of sneak round the accounting rules and I'm not sure anyone wants their club to be a kind of a dumping ground see that's just bend though isn't it that's just bend you can't do that which is why they do it Rory that's why they do it to bend the rules you're kidding the worst daddy but he doesn't want that you're usually changing your name and selling what was it selling the things So the women's team are so...

9:26The women's centre in the house. He's going to be Strasbourg and Roar next week. Adam, how are you with the... There's a bit of a thing, isn't it? With Ineos, isn't he? Yeah. Is it Lausanne? Yeah. I mean, I couldn't care less about those two clubs, to be totally honest with you. And I think... Do you think Jim Ratcliffe's the same? Probably, yeah. He doesn't care about Man United. Yeah. I think you look at that, I mean, I don't like it. I find this multi-club model a bit distasteful, to be totally honest with you, especially when you look at the ownership of players as well. It's like you say, they're almost becoming just numbers and a balance sheet.

10:05And you get this thing where clubs, I think it was Chelsea signed Buonanotti from Brighton and sent him, where did you send him? He's gone somewhere else. He was a decent Premier League player. Wasn't he at Strasbourg? Yeah, probably. He went from Chelsea straight to Strasbourg. Yeah, but he was a really good player. I remember when Fabrizio Romano tweeted it, he was in a half-Chelsea, half-Straxford. It was like Blueco have signed. Yeah, that's what they announced it has. We don't have any dealings with that club, though. It's a different association. I think we've sent Sekou Kony on loan or kind of like on a trial period to Lausanne.

10:44So I think we are starting to try and use that to develop players and younger players. I thought they weren't allowed to have any association. Yeah, Nice is pretty well kind of ring-fenced for Man United now because of their both being in UEFA competitions they sort of hived it off and as far as I understand it like you can't Man United can't really send money or it's very kind of because they didn't get Tadibo wasn't it Tadibo we got Tadibo because you couldn't sign him because you was both in Do you remember the furore around Kia Gerabchin and Carlos Tevez and Javier Masquerano and yeah why is it not the same for the clubs that are now owning two clubs like it was all like you can't have this third party ownership of players is a disgrace and all that but it's not you've got well yeah because the club should own well I say own the players but it should be they should belong to the club the players not the ownership not Bluco it should belong to Chelsea you're signing it so I don't know if this changes contracts if I sign a contract with a club as a player am I now not signing as a Chelsea player but I'm signing as a Chelsea and Strasbourg you could say that about Liam Rossini moving from Strasbourg to Chelsea as manager he couldn't really turn that down he didn't even have to re-sign a contract even if he wanted to he has no leverage in that situation because he's part of the Blue Co thing.

11:53It just feels like a conglomerate football. I think if you're the main club, it's all right, isn't it? There's a lot of advantage. There's a lot of advantage. Is that the problem? Yeah, I think that is a problem. Because you go and wreck, like Strasbourg season's probably wrecked now. The problem is, as the bigger partner of this, do we not have the responsibility to talk about its destruction? The fact that it potentially could benefit Chelsea or benefit Manchester United, it almost makes it Manchester United fans and Chelsea fans responsibility to say that this is a disgrace I believe that but all the benefits are with your club think of the younger players younger players will want them to go and develop somewhere else it's perfect for that it's not perfect for that club the players start doing well come on back you come but what Scholesy said is the benefit obviously is with the main club that's the only he's going by no clubs and even our own club Liverpool I think one of the reasons Michael Edwards has been brought back to almost gone fine another club but when you're saying the advantage with the bigger club I agree with you but is the advantage that bigger thing what are we actually you've just mentioned again oh we think we're going to get these players from Brazil what is this big advantage to put up with all this stuff in the game do you understand what I mean I don't feel like Chelsea it's something the advantage I was referring to was for the younger players no I get that so you might maybe get first dabs on this player at this younger club or you might be able to get a player on loan and put it in their fist I get that but I don't feel like it's a massive part of the game these clubs getting these players from their feeder clubs and they're making this big difference in their team I don't feel like I've seen that What could become an issue is if let's say just in this instance Strasbourg have a player now Strasbourg's financials are going to be a lot lower as a percentage to Chelsea's right they could have a player that's worth 100 million let's say they sell him to Chelsea for 10 million and that helps their PSR.

13:48Now all of a sudden Chelsea can flog in for 80 million and their PSR is boosted by that. You know what? I wanted to ask Dan because I asked you. I don't know if it's the same what I'm talking about here but maybe it's a little bit off track. But what happened with you with the Europe thing in the summer and it was the guy from Lyon. John Texter. Yeah, John Texter from Lyon. and then Forrest were pushing for you not to be in there formerly not I look at some of the stuff that goes on with his club in Brazil yeah John Texter John Texter doesn't have a formal link with Maranakis but Palace fans that is making Palace fans I got so much stick last time I come on here from Forrest fans even talking about them so apologies but we John Texter wanted Crystal Palace categorically to become part of his multi-club model, so much so that he called it Eagle Football Holdings.

14:48It's Leon Botafogo. He initially tried to buy Benfica, I think, before Palace, which is why he adopted the Eagle. And he wanted Palace to be sort of the crown jewel of this. But we didn't want any part of it. At ownership level, at fan level, I think it's categorically wrong. And even though informally we didn't want any part of it, obviously UEFA said, but he's on your board. He's part of your... And we're not part of the multi-club model. We don't do anything with Leon. We've never even signed a player from them. And you still have to prove it in a UEFA call. And that's ultimately what got us kicked out of the Europa League and down into the UEFA conference.

15:22And obviously that's a whole other conversation. But for me, the multi-club model, it may have minor upsides. But the downsides in terms of competition, in terms of feeling like you're a part of a club that's going places with an ownership that cares solely about you, it just shouldn't be allowed. I think everything about it's wrong categorically. Surely financial. Could it be outlawed? It just feels so murky and at various points bent. Could it be... What's the murky count today? Our storm's here. Do you think this is going to be allowed? I mean, it is allowed, right? There hasn't been anything really done to stop it so far.

15:58I think UEFA and the other regulatory bodies got caught a bit off guard. Everyone just went out and did it. and some of the clubs that were bought were clubs that looked like they might be in financial trouble. So you're like, well, if someone's going to step in and buy them, at least there's an owner who's going to support them. So I think it was sort of quite short term. It was like, well, let's just get through COVID, where lots of clubs didn't have money. I mean, the Palace Lyon example, it's the one that everyone talks about now. A few interesting things about it. One is, it was a not really formal multi-club group, as you said.

16:31Also, it was a multi-club group, if you want to see it that way, where it's not immediately clear which club is at the top of the food chain because you've got one of the biggest clubs in France, a Premier League team. So that's part of the tension as well, I think. But also the outcome was that split between the rule of the law, which was like this stuff had to be done by March 1st, and the spirit of the law is we don't want two clubs being owned by the same company competing against each other in the league, which was never going to happen because by the time the draw was made, the two had been completely split off.

17:02So, you know, the regulations, like, they have a goal and they have the way they've been written, and those aren't marrying up as it is, right, because of, like we saw with Palace. How you sort of unbake the cake of whatever, hundreds of clubs being owned by all these different entities, I don't think you can now. So what can you do? You can come down really, really firmly. On any example, you think, well, this is one where the sort of letter of the law, we can kick a club out. Because UEFA kicks out a couple of clubs, doesn't it? Yeah, but it wasn't just us. There were two or three. Yeah. And it was purely about whether they had decisive control over the same club and they were pulling the same strings.

17:40So, I mean, I look at the Lyon situation. We had nothing to do with them. And if we'd have come up against them, you think Palace fans or the Palace board are thinking, oh, we'll let Lyon win this one? No chance. So it's like, what are we doing? Are we in a situation where the person in charge is then telling the manager what to do in terms of who should win the game if they come up against each other?

18:06Hello and welcome back to Shot on Target, brought to you by Skybet. Here is how the game is going to work. It's Scolese and myself versus the fans. So we've got the wheel beside you. Scolese there. You're going to give it a spin. Just not yet. And whatever number it lands on. It's going ready. So you're aware of what we're doing here. So you're going to spin it. Whatever game number it lands on, we're going to provide a manager who we think has managed the closest to that many Premier League games. And the fans will also pick a player or a manager. Rory, you're the captain. I'm not Captain Material.

18:41No, I've never got you down to captain. Back yourself. OK. Back yourself. He won a guard of honour after 26. OK, and we've got our stator here. Yeah. Yeah, Angus Loughran. Right, Scalzi, give it a spin Let's go We did quite well on this actually With the players Oh Oh Wheel's broken, eh That's a spirit level Keep going 4-4-4 You stay in there What number is it? 4-4-4 Oh, wow It's a lot It's a 10 Looking 10 It's not 11 It's not Bep No. 11, 12 seasons. Not good. It's a good show. It's a good show. It's a good show. It's like 13, 14 seasons. Yeah. It's a good show. It's a good show. It's a good show.

19:37It's a good show. It's a bad show. What do you think? Big Sam? What about? He just said that. Big Sam. I don't have a big Sam. You need to get some big ones. I don't mind that. I don't know. Yeah, we all good? I don't mind. No, I like it. It doesn't mind. Rory say it so they can't I don't want Yeah yeah Launch Launch We have an answer Lock it in Say it now We have an answer Fans what you're going for Our answer is Sam Allardyce Sam Allardyce You're going to go Big Sam To the shelter Might be Yeah Might be I reckon that's bang on 4-4-4 I don't know why You say that to everyone You could look really clever at one point Absolute confidence You manifest them Manifesting it I cut them off Come on This is a joke This is taking We're taking too long Just cancel them out Come on man Where are you Where are you Pathetic refereeing What is Oh come on This is a joke Come on man You're shriveling What are we going for Cara Oh man He's going to have to go to the bar.

20:52They've done Sam Alatice. They've gone for big Sam, yeah. OK, so what was Sam? Oh, no. Oh! Come on. None of that. Come on. You can see a laptop in that as well. Look, fucking hell. Ooh. Look at this delay in it. Got screen sets on it. Ooh, Sal, I'm not that good eyesight. Chris, don't let them ref the game out. We'll have to hand this over to the fans. Can you get a grip of this game? This is a right joke. Can you get a grip of this game? Get a whistle of Sam. Ref! Come on, Grace. Give him a yellow Chris, then he'd a yellow. This is what I was doing. We lost the point, didn't we? Pick any manager.

21:26Yeah, go on. Matthews. Ooh. Nah. Poor shout. Blackburn. 2-3, actually. He's got six. He's got seven over there. Stoke. Did he do Fulham as well? Yeah, yeah. Close. I think we've walked away with that one. Imagine they've won. It might be. Is that right? Right. I can tell you. Sam Allardyce managed 538 games it's not a crap 94 off and Mark Hughes managed 466 oh

22:03yes I've never had that I've never had that it took about half an hour to answer it took two minutes to sort it It takes you long, though. It's a bit like that VAR. TikTok generation's trying to come for me there on the manager. Oh, that's 1-0. I can't believe it. I'm so happy. 1-0 to you, too. Go on again, yeah? That's a great... What happened to 4-4-4? Is it still managers, is it? We're still sitting one. Yeah, managers, yeah. Premier League games. I can't believe it. Did you get 4-4-4? Ooh. That's me. 1-2-3, 38. Ooh. 38 games. Hammer him. What? Hang on a minute. We've rushed that. No, we've not rushed it.

22:46Half of the season, half of this season. He's got 43, I reckon. He's probably close. But we could have gone to 38. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That's one season. Don't shout it. Don't give them any. Are you locking in, Amarillo? Don't believe me. That's a good guess, Amarillo. That's a good guess, Amarillo. Amarillo's not locked in yet. I don't think I'm like, he's fine. It is. No, it is. I like it. No, no, he said he's not locked in yet. No, because they're yapping. I think it's... That's a very... Ten seconds. Come on, ten seconds. He did it. I don't know. He went... Yeah, it would be more than...

23:23I'd be like, right, I need an answer. Think of it. Wait, wait, wait. Do him. Do him. No, no, no. No, he just said... I did it. Yeah, no, he was. Rory. Reuben Amory. Oh! He's got to be the club. I'm making an existing decision. I am catching that. It has to be that far. We've been... We've been... We've been 10. Matt, a promoted manager. Mate, you're terrified. Right, fans. The flipping... Lock in. You don't take the pressure. It's Amarin. Chris, you've got a award. There's still an award. No, we've given it. Ruben Amarin. Lock in Wagner. What's it in? Oh, don't you? OK, my final answer. Wagner.

24:03That's it. Oh, no, no, no. I've got one. He's got the fire, Lockie. I've got one. I've got one. I can't cope with this pressure. I've got one. I'm not playing anyone. It's Peter McKenna. Everyone's on the way. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. He doesn't even want to be captain. No, he's got Damarim first. Damarim. Peter McKenna. He came up once. I was thinking, who the fuck's that? Wagner? Oh, shit. Yeah, no, no, no, no. We didn't lock that in. We did McKenna. I can't call him. No, he's given... This is not a captain. From now on, if you want to talk to me, you talk to my conciliary first. I can't deal with...

24:38I don't want to hear any from anyone directly. I'm going to go for a Chelsea manager who did two spells Gus Hiddink I think we've got that Amarin over four or three Surely we've got that That's just a stab in the dark It's not even like a Kieran McKenna was a great shout out Kieran McKenna's the one Unfortunately we'd locked in Okay And then Amarin Amarin's locked in I can tell you that the fans who went with Ruben Amarin who managed 47 Premier League games Oh, that was a bit more than you thought, wasn't it? And then you two, 34 games. What was Karen McKenna? Karen McKenna will be starting. Oh, my God.

25:23Thanks to Skybet and we'll see you soon.

25:31Have you ever dunked a custard cream in an English breakfast tea with milk in? Has anyone ever done that? Why have they got leaf flowers? That is him! But we're doing big cool. Big Fred. Unbelievable. Gary Neville, grow a proper muzzy or shave it off your scruff.

25:51He just said 4-3-3 before that. Ça va! We're going to start Andrew on two and a half.

26:00Can't wait.

26:06That's what I've said. What are UEFA and FIFA trying to do? Obviously it looks like the horse has bolted, but what regulations are they trying to put in place to try and almost keep a lid on it? The Palace example was that they came down very harshly, I think, on Palace and the Lyon situation, which is almost a way of sending a chill through the market. This is something we're going to be really firm on. Anyone who's got a multi-club group might have to think a bit harder about how they structure it or how they run the club. I mean this March 1st deadline that Palace didn't meet that's quite weird as well because that then encourages the owners in January to be like okay well which like you said the kids which one of our kids do we want to qualify for the Champions League this year which one do we want to sort of stop paying for their piano lessons so that we can get focus on one so I feel like those decisions were a way of kind of almost like a bit of a warning sign to the people who own these multi-club groups but in terms of what you do to unravel it I mean you can't force people to sell clubs and especially in a market where there probably aren't that many buyers so I would have been for you I was feeling as a player where you're sort of coming through at a club and because of your let's say Manchester United had a theatre club or they were part of multi-club ownership that you're almost put somewhere it wouldn't feel right that as a player would you?

27:58No I wouldn't like it look the loan market does happen and I'm sure there will be benefits for them lads going over to these different places but no it's not something that I would like I say benefit there's pros and cons for it I suppose like I said before the lads who might need that bit of first team football that can't get it at Chelsea for example because there's so many players in the squad it's great for them to go and do it but on the other hand Strasbourg fans will be thinking okay this lad's doing well, we'll send him straight back. I don't think it'd be a bad thing if you could do it...

28:33Is there any laws against doing it domestically? Like a Chelsea buying a League Two club and doing it through that way? You can't have two teams, at least in Europe, you can't have two teams that sort of fall under the same FA, basically. But there was the case in the Club World Cup where a Mexican team was kicked out because there were two Mexican teams in the competition. They were both owned by the same company. So in Mexico, you can have multiple clubs playing in the same division. Do you know where it would also become a mess? You know you said there that it wouldn't be bad. So, for example, a Chelsea player goes over to play in Strasbourg and that player can benefit.

29:06And in theory, you'd say that it would be beneficial to Strasbourg because they might get a good player. Where it could get, again, very grim, is we're talking about sporting directors wielding power over clubs, talking about having potential of selection. the player that goes from Chelsea to Strasbourg is going to play isn't he potentially they're going to say he's not going to have to earn his place in the team the sporting directors are going to say we need this guy to get game time we're going to send him to Strasbourg maybe he doesn't deserve the game time maybe the geezer who's playing at Strasbourg already is good enough to keep him out that's very much the same in the low market over here another benefit to it is a young player who's doing alright at Chelsea but not getting their team and going to Strasbourg the Cromos send him in the shopping window to Strasbourg But the disadvantage to it is that when you'd usually have, I don't know, David Beckham rocking up at Preston on a loan and all these clubs kind of benefiting from the fact that bigger clubs need to send their players out on loan, all of a sudden those clubs can't even try and entertain them anymore because you're keeping them within house and you're keeping them going to your clubs and stuff like that.

30:14That's what I'm saying about Salford and the teams in League 2. We can't go to Chelsea, no. We can't go to these big teams going to get loans because they've all got these relationships with clubs abroad. I don't think it helps us thank you always at Strasbourg yeah with the loan stuff I mean under Roman Abramovich you were loaning out dozens of players a year you didn't need to send them to Strasbourg to Swansea you sent them to Palace I don't think you need to own a club in order to get the players playing but that feels fair that feels fair because the Chelsea sporting director at Chelsea can't tell the Palace sporting director what to do what you have at Chelsea is the power to tell the Strasbourg team what to do you're giving you're diluting the power of the manager and you're giving more power to the sporting directors again.

30:57Which is why their fans won't like it. Get them in the press conference. Also, when they do end up getting in the same competition, they end up, this is this whole March 1st blind trust thing, you have to put one of your two clubs, say you've got two clubs that are going to be in the Europa League or the Champions League together, you have to, by March 1st, make a decision to put one of those in blind trust. Now, I understand, legally, you're not in control of that club anymore, but come on, pull the other one. Someone is for you. You might appoint somebody. is Maranac is not pulling the strings at Olympiacos and Forrest at the same time?

31:26Like, surely. I'm not suggesting he's there making the calls, but he's not going to just give it to somebody else for a six-month period and then when they're no longer in the same competition, go, actually, I'll have that back now. It's ridiculous. Josh, you know when you're doing your pieces in the paper about multi-club ownership, do you ever get anybody from the clubs getting on to you? Not really, no. I mean, I think people at clubs, like I said about FOMO, I think there are lots of people in football who are doing it, who are setting up multi-club groups, and they don't necessarily know why they're doing it.

31:57So I don't think they're too precious about it, no. So you don't think at all about the supporters, again. That's what comes across to me with this. Here's another moment where there's a corporate or a financial world boot on the throat of football fandom. Because what football fan in the world wants your owners to own another football club and play this roulette of who's the most important at any given time. I mean, shame you mentioned before, Michael Edwards apparently, one of the reasons to tempt them back to the FSG structure at Liverpool was, you will be in charge of us getting another club.

32:32And there's been a couple of rumours and then they've gone away again and it hasn't happened. But I know from being involved in supporters, groups and supporters, board, et cetera, we don't want that to happen. And we keep bringing it up and saying, well, there was a rumour about this and the club would say, ah, it's nothing. And they don't actually talk to us about it. but we know it's there because it's already being reported but it just feels so wrong it feels like another reason to hate football basically as a football fan Well if you look at let's say some of the biggest clubs in Europe Bayern Munich Real Madrid Barcelona none of them have multi-club none of them talk about multi-club why?

33:05because they're all fan-owned clubs and if you let fans vote on this I think you know what the outcome is going to be Is this not just a case though? You look at something like Pepsi and they own like I'm pretty sure they own like KFC Pizza Hut Taco Bell you look at that that's obviously like a business model have the clubs got so big now that that's effectively what's just happened just on like a football scale they're just buying up smaller teams and feeding into this big like yeah well I think it's bigger than that if you think of say like Liverpool yeah you don't at the moment have another football team but the Boston Red Sox shared ownership like Arsenal the LA Rams like there is this sort of general move across sport to kind of create these kind of global conglomerates and if you've got and in the US it's been going on for years right You own a baseball team, you own a basketball team, you own an NFL team, and then the obvious international division is going to be the Premier League, isn't it?

33:56Because it's the biggest sports competition. Where we're at right now, is there another step where you think this will go? Because once everyone's got the... What's the next... No-one's going to stop, are they? So what's the next thing for these owners coming in? Stop moving franchises to different countries and cities. Can't do that, then. Stop trying to do that. That can't happen. I mean... It can't happen. Is it not? Was it not banned after the MK Dons thing? Was that not kind of like, was there not something put in place to stop that? Yeah, with the football regulator in England. I look at the Super League and the protest against that.

34:28If you started trying to move Manchester United to somewhere else, it's not happening. They wouldn't be able to. You mentioned that football regulator. It's part of the government who then have relationships with state owners and all these football clubs. It's like they're in bed together anyway. So even if they wanted to make it happen, they could. It feels like as a fan watching. I think instead of there being some big next step I think the sort of medium term threat really is all to domestic competitions you take the Palace example you've undermined the integrity of the FA Cup by not letting the winner of the FA Cup compete in the competition that they were supposed to compete in you undermine the integrity of domestic leagues if you're saying well actually there's a bit of a lid on ambition for this club because we've got a club in England that we want to be in the Champions League because we don't want our team in France to qualify.

35:18So let's sort of, you know, maybe keep a lid on how good they're going to be this year. I think over time, there are lots of things, lots of kind of broader forces kind of moving against the competitiveness of domestic competitions, and multi-club's just one of them.

35:37It scares me as a Spurs fan what you were mentioning about the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool, because I always feel like the end goal with Spurs moving to the stadium and obviously the NFL coming over here and being played over here two, a couple of times a year, I think. It feels like the end goal is to have a London NFL franchise that will be honed at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and then the football club then becomes a bit secondary. Because that, logistically, it could actually work when you think about if you've got teams flying over from the east coast of America or wherever, it's only five hours to London, you could fly more than that to get to another side of the country in America.

36:09So it's not logistically impossible to suggest that there could be a London-homed NFL team and then we as Tottenham Hotspur become secondary to that. I'm surprised in terms of how clued up in a way our football club has been run in terms of the revenue side of things that we haven't approached the multi-club model in a way because they're so savvy in terms of the money side. But that feels like a threat, I think, to us in terms of, it might not happen in the next five years, but it feels like the end game of doing that and building a stadium that is set for multi-sport or, you know, having concerts and that is one thing.

36:42but having another franchise that feels like it carries as much weight as what the club what the stadium actually belongs to which is the football club that's a scary thought and no one is asking for that Leeds are partnered with the 49ers San Francisco so it's already kind of in existence in the Premier League but Tottenham have built a stadium that is designed to that feels like that is an end goal whereas with Leeds I mean who knows they could move to another ground or whatever Leeds are part of the Red Bull thing it's the Red Bull thing is that where it all started with sort of Red Bull is that where it originated from well it's been sort of kicking around since the 90s I think the first one was the owner of Parma bought a team in Brazil and then there was Tottenham used to be part of this big multi-club group Rangers were part of it Rangers a few other clubs but it was this niche thing I don't think anyone paid much attention to it and the Pozzo family at Watford as well but I think it was kind of Red Bull and then City doing it, that it just sort of took off.

37:47116, that. I think you need to keep a bit tight. Let's write that down. You'll be watching this episode, mate. Yes, Red Bull and City took it mainstream, basically, and now everyone else is sort of looking at them going, oh, I guess we should do it too. So where do you see it in five years' time? Do you think there will be more regulations? Do you think clubs are just that powerful now? Do you think owners are that powerful where they can just basically, no one can stop them doing what they want to do. You know, where we mentioned the Super League before, that was something that I think supporters stopped.

38:17But do you think supporters have the power to stop the way the game's going in terms of multi-club ownership? I mean, we've seen kind of protests all over the place against multi-club ownership, haven't we? I mean, I think what might happen is a combination of maybe title regulation and a realisation that actually the benefits are pretty slim. and most football clubs, I think 90 % of football clubs in England lose money. And at some point, if you own loads of businesses and they're all losing money, maybe you think, actually, maybe I don't want five of them. Maybe I just want one of them. I don't know.

38:49At the moment, it seems to be moving in the opposite direction. There's more money coming into football. There's more people seeing football clubs as investments, as businesses. Nobody's cracked the business model yet, though. Nobody seems to be making any money out of it. So in terms of if your goal is I want an unwinding of multi-club ownership, I think, yeah, a combination of tighter regulation and people getting owners, investors getting bored of it and thinking actually it's not really working out. And losing money. Chelsea could be the catalyst, I think, for the protests against it because you're seeing unrest with their ownership.

39:22They're actually, it's working to their detriment because like he's saying, he's unhappy with Liam Rosner. Now, if they didn't have Strasbourg, would they have got him? Would they have had to then not be so lazy and go and get a quality manager rather than go, well, we own him over here. So I can see with Chelsea, with how they're being run, Chelsea fans eventually just losing it and saying, look, we don't want this. We don't want you to just keep shifting players and managers over here that just aren't good enough for Chelsea and start that protest. It's also an issue when it comes down to things like the Super League as well.

39:52If you've got one owner who owns four or five different clubs across Europe, suddenly they've got loads of votes. when it comes down to decisions with UEFA and all that kind of thing as well, I think that gets a bit polluted. How far away do you think we are from every club doing it? We're talking about Liverpool trying to do it, and there's probably other clubs, and you're almost talking that they just want to do it because everybody else is doing it. But there must be some sort of financial benefit, as we've mentioned through the episode. Do you see a place where we get to where basically every Premier League club feels like they need to be involved with another club?

40:26Yeah, I think so. I think, Dan, you might know better, I think Steve Parrish even said that with the new rules coming in, Palace might have to think about it again, because as the rules get tighter for those medium-sized clubs, just having that financial flexibility to look elsewhere, to move players to or to move costs to, whatever. Basically, if 15 clubs in the league are playing this game of moving money around, moving players around, the other five are eventually going to go, well we better at least have the option. So yeah, I think there's probably a high chance that every Premier League club has some sort of formal connection whether it's shared ownership or some sort of formal link with other clubs just kind of give them that flexibility.

41:11And that's partly an unintended consequence of tightening the financial rules to make those English clubs more sustainable. It sort of creates problems elsewhere in the broader ecosystem. Okay, Josh, thanks for coming in and giving that insight on the fan debate. Thank you. So that is another episode of The Fan Debate brought to you by Skybet.