From Vinicius Jr to grassroots: how can football stop abuse?

0:01Hey, it's your ceiling vent, so I'm dripping. Could be the rain, could be the upstairs bathroom. Yikes. You could hire the guy your neighbor recommended, but I'm pretty sure that's just his cousin. Do we know if he's licensed or does he just own a ladder? Listen to your home. Go with Thumbtack. Upload a photo or voice note and we'll diagnose your project and match you with the right pro for the job. Thumbtack. We know homes. Hire the right pro today. This is a Global Player original podcast. Whether it's playing Sunday League, watching a kids football match or at a Premier League round, sadly it's not uncommon to hear abuse and sometimes it's hard to call it out.

0:46You don't know the kind of support you're going to get. So we saw it obviously in the Champions League this week as Vinicius Junior alleged he was racially abused by Gianluca Prestiani. Prestiani denies it ever happened. Well, today we're joined by former England striker Emile Heskey, who's launching a new app to help fight abuse in football and make it easier to report. And this covers everything, really, from how do we stop parents from shouting at their kids at football? How can we make sure that kids, referees, coaches and fans can just enjoy the game? And can better habits be made in the women's game as that grows?

1:18Welcome to the Sports Agents.

1:28The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. How are you? Busy week? Very busy week. Yeah, I come to you actually from unfamiliar surroundings. Got home very late last night after the Champions League midweek match of the day highlight show. About four in the morning, I got to sleep finally. Woke up to find no Wi-Fi, panicked. so very kindly I'm in my neighbour's house so hi. Your children are past the age of where you just deliberately take the wi-fi out so that your kids can't go online for a while aren't you? Do you still do it for a laugh sometimes with them even though they're in their 20s?

2:09Nick Kenny's done that to me this morning so he could have my take maybe maybe that's what it was all about and I went to sleep last night Mark dreaming about the title race because Arsenal dropped points again last night at Molyneux and I'm doing Sunday's match of the day you're doing Saturday and I was kind of trying to work out where Arsenal could be by the end of the North London derby if everything conspires against them this weekend I think they could be down to a two-point lead yes it could be yeah absolutely I mean the first thing to say is you're always working even when asleep I mean that's that's that's how tragic this week's been but yes it could be two points so City play Newcastle Saturday night and then the North London Derby on Sunday afternoon and I've been talking to a couple of Arsenal fans since the Wolves equaliser and it would be fair to say they are at their lowest this is not a scientific sample this is just two friends they appear to be at their lowest since this season started.

3:11I mean, basically, their feeling is 2-0 up, away to the bottom side, who are still battling to get past the points total to stop being the worst team that there's ever been in the Premier League and to let them back in. And the semi-comical way in which they conceded the equaliser, not if you're an Arsenal fan, obviously. I mean, one of them went, oh, the title's over. I'm like, now, come on. There's still a long, long way to go. but that's how they're feeling this morning and actually I caught a bit of the post-match interview on Sky the Mikel Arteta with Patrick Davison and he did seem quite low at the end and whereas after the Manchester United defeat I thought he was brilliant Arteta you know it was a sort of you know these things happen playing a good team blah blah blah blah last night he looked he did look a bit crushed I thought my thought process was then kind of jumping ahead to the end of the season And if they don't win it, he can't stay.

4:08Can he? How can you lift that team again if they finish second again? It feels like it must be so hard to keep delivering messages. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, about managers and messages. We had Simeone last night throwing away, Atleti throwing away a lead twice against Club Brugge. And, you know, there's talk that the end of his era is upon us potentially there. I think he's been there 13 years and which is almost unthinkable. He feels like he's there forever and as much as he wants the job, really. But sometimes with head coaches and managers, the message kind of going through to players must eventually just lose its effectiveness.

4:45Well, yes, although I suppose the only thing is they do keep refreshing that squad. I suppose it's not the consistent same group from four years ago. You know, there has been a lot of churn there. So Zubamendi or Jokerez or Eberica Eza or Hincapié, for example. Do you think if they fell at every hurdle and they're left in four competitions, if they fell at every hurdle, do you think he would stay? Oh, my word. I think the noise around would be excruciating for him and the powers that be at Arsenal. If they were not to win any of them the position that they're in, the criticism that would go their way would be off the scale, I think.

5:30Having said that, though, it is a bit like be careful what you wish for, I think, in that situation. And, you know, they had 100 % record at the top of the Champions League group. They are still five points clear. They could still win four trophies. They could still win four trophies. Let's say it's a big if still. It's a big if if they weren't to win anything. But if, I don't know, if they finish second in the Premier League and lost in the final of the Champions League and the final of the League Cup and the semifinals of the FA Cup, what would you i my gut instinct would be 100 to keep him because most because where would you go where would you go how long would it take to get back to that position no i agree with you i agree with you i just feel these conversations will start to happen more if they you know throwing points away as they have been doing and if they get knocked out you know of the fa cup in the next round say and the other uh sort of big and this is a completely different gear change because it's nothing to do with the actual football really but the other big football story since we last spoke was at the game that you were at in Lisbon uh Benfica against Real Madrid and the match being stopped for 10 minutes with Vinicius Junior reporting racist abuse um from Prestiani which Prestiani Gianluca Prestiani has denied he pulled his shirt over he's denied but you know what's interesting Chappers two days now he hasn't said what he said why did you pull your top over your mouth to say something, you know, everybody will have their opinion about kind of, you know, whether he's guilty or not.

7:03We will never, you know, I don't know how this investigation is going to play out because it'll always be a he said, he said. Now there have been examples in football where that was enough to give somebody a nine match ban, you know, so he could get banned. But what's interesting is that he hasn't come out and said what he said, you know, and he hasn't leapt to his own defence in that respect. And, you know, we were building this up, obviously, as hopefully something that could replicate the incredible 4-2 where the two teams had met just a couple of weeks before. And we ended up discussing one of the most depressing issues that there is to discuss, that that abuse can happen on a football pitch.

7:40And I was working with Clarence Sudorf, who turned out to be an absolute godsend because he was on the steering committee that set up two years ago this new FIFA body, which came up with the referee's salute, you know, the salute, sorry, the symbol where the referee crossed his... Yes. That was designed, pause a game, while an allegation of abuse had been made. And this could come from the fans, it could come from the players, it can come anywhere in the football ground. And what was interesting for Clarence when he was observing this live was the fact that Vinny knew this. He knew he had this power, and that's what they want players to feel empowered.

8:15Because Clarence's main takeaway, and he managed to get himself onto the Real Madrid bus afterwards because he wanted to talk to Vinny. and Clarence being Clarence somehow sweet-talked a few UEFA people, got himself under the bus. He was late getting back to our car to go to the hotel. I said, where have you been? He said, I've been chatting to Vinny. How? Because he said, I want him to know that this is not his fight. He doesn't have to do this on his own. And obviously, we haven't got time to go into some of the things that were said afterwards, which were quite disgraceful by certain senior figures in football.

8:46Jose Mourinho kind of trying to conflate his own responsibility and how fans react to him. But what Clarence is trying to say is that if players know that they have this power to get the referee to stop the game, I think that he feels that was an enormous step forwards. He was kind of delighted that Vinny did that, that he gave the referee that power, if you like. Yeah, because one of the things that I've discussed over the last couple of days when dealing with this story is you don't want all of the pressure to be on the victim. It's not down to the victim to decide whether a match should continue because they're already dealing with what they have been on the end of.

9:32Yeah, so it's what happens next, isn't it? Yes, so it's what happens next. And the other thing here at the moment, and I'm not sure whether you would have got any sense of this from Clarence being part of the committee that set these processes up, what's slightly unusual here is that they're going to meet again. A week on from when it happened, they're going to meet again in Madrid. Here's an interesting thing, because obviously Jose Mourinho clearly came out and said what he said and defended his player and defended his club. But what Wayne Rooney contributed to this discussion was that when he was managing in America, there was an example of this happening and they then came up with this protocol that the player who was accused would be removed from the story.

10:18effectively so that the game could go on. He was involved in a match where it looked like it was going to be abandoned because the players left the pitch because of abuse that was alleged. After that, it was decided that the player who was accused would be removed from the fixtures for the foreseeable until this was sorted out and he had been given his punishment. That would take it out of Jose Mourinho's hands and he wouldn't have to make a comment. He shouldn't have had to feel he had to make a comment the way he did anyway. He could have easily got away couldn't he from that press conference and from his interviews just saying i disagree with all racism i will leave this to those you know kind of people who are well that was i was talking to piara power last night who's chief is a fair which is the sort of european version of kick it out and that was it really all benfica or marina had to do was look you know we are we are you know against all forms of racism or discrimination our player maintains his innocence and we will let the investigation take its due course.

11:19If you move Gianluca Prestiani from the picture and say he's suspended until this is finished, this process is finished, then he doesn't have the responsibility, does he? The manager doesn't have the responsibility of taking a side there. That was Wayne's experience and contribution to the discussion. And there were lots of other, I don't know whether your conversations have led to this as well. Should players in the middle of a game be banned from talking into their shirts in their hands. I know they do it all the time post-match. They do it all the time pre-match. But if you're in the middle of a game, what are you hiding?

11:50I had James Horncastle, I think, the football journalist who specialises in Italian football, saying last night, you know, how can you mic up the game better, really? You know, I don't think you could get away. And he cited the NFL as an example. You can't really get away with anything in the NFL because there are microphones everywhere and microphones in helmets and this, that and the other. Be a little bit harder to do, I would have thought in football, but in an era of technology and so on and so forth, maybe there is a way. But the footballing authorities, of course, are very afraid of microphones being everywhere, which kind of says it all, really.

12:31It does, doesn't it? And I think culturally, that would be a very big change for football. You know, American sport's very different, isn't it? And, you know, they have cameras in the locker room you know and people can go and interview people while they're half dressed and it's a very different level of um access to and their rights almost assigned away in that respect aren't they it's it's opened up a lot of um a lot of conversations though about how we might see the game moving forwards in that respect hasn't it absolutely so next up you're going to hear an interview uh with former england striker emil heskey which we recorded on the tuesday morning before the game.

13:09So Gabby was in Lisbon, in a Lisbon hotel, and Emil Heskey joined us. So this interview is before everything that happened. So obviously we don't talk to him about the abuse that Vinicius Junior received because it hadn't happened at that point. But what we did do with Emil was talk about his work to help fight abuse in football. Looking at the grassroots level, we're looking at the growth of the women's game with Emil as well. and we also talked to him about being the dad of two sons who are hoping to follow in his footsteps so that chat is next the sports agents thumbtack presents uncertainty strikes i was surrounded the aisle and the options were closing in there were paint rollers satin and matte finish angle brushes and natural bristles there were too many choices what if i never got my living room painted what if i couldn't figure out what type of paint to use what if i just used thumbtack i can hire a top rated pro that knows everything about interior paint easily compare prices and read reviews thumbtack knows homes download the app today the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman emil thank you very much for joining us let's start with what you're helping to roll out at the moment and then we'll come on to lots of other things that you're involved in but the the football safety app, what is it?

14:33And the follow-up is, is it impossible trying to make football safer? Possibly, but you've got to start somewhere, haven't you? Obviously, this comes born out of having kids in the game and friends wanting to come and watch me play, family wanting to come and watch you play, and you just want them to have an enjoyable day because everyone knows a real good, enjoyable day at football you can't beat, really. At times, people come into stadiums and believe that they can say and do as they please, but there's no real instant way of reporting this. And this is basically a reporting app that goes directly to a centre that sieves through everything and works with all the different stakeholders to try and eliminate as much as possible.

15:15When you report on this app, does the person that you're reporting know you're reporting them? No, it could be done anonymously. You can take a picture and send it through. you can do videos and send it through it doesn't have to have your name attached to it because a lot of the times that's the problem with people not wanting to know that they've actually reported and it might be even a friend or a colleague or whatever that you're reporting so it can be done anonymously when you're in the app and say you're at a game and you're reporting from a game because this can be done at a train station as well as we know football just doesn't start from the first whistle it starts from you leaving your house and going on the train, on the bus, etc.

15:56So things like that, you can report that as well. But when you're in a stadium, you have a location and it will know exactly where you are and it can pinpoint that as well. There are two things with this. When you are at a football match and somebody is behaving in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, it is very hard to call someone out. It is very, very hard to call someone out because you actually don't know what kind of support you're going to get. Whether that be from the people around you or stewards or so it is, it's really intimidating. It is. And again, like you're saying, you might want to call someone out on that, but then what is everyone else going to do around you to help you?

16:39And everyone else is feeling the actual same way, but no one wants to actually say anything. This is where this could possibly help. And this is where we're pushing that. I suppose what we all would really like is people to take responsibility for their own behaviour, isn't it? Very difficult. Well, for there to be a cultural shift. And, you know, what are the repercussions of the app? Because there has, you know, if you reported, what happens next? Well, like I said, we're going to have all stakeholders, police, with the transport police. We're working with the local police regions as well. That will help when it comes to that part, that they do their part as well.

17:11The clubs, we're in at Cambridge at the minute, so we're kind of tailor making it for them, that they can do their part as well. Because there's so many different stakeholders when it comes to different sorts of abuse. And it's not just one type of abuse, it's everything. I worked within the women's game. That's just opening up now as well. More and more fans are going. You see a bit of what people will class as banter going on in there, but it's not. Jo, that's happening in my experience. That's getting worse at grassroots level with girls football. So with my youngest, when she first started playing four or five years ago, the atmosphere was noticeably nicer than it is now and I don't know whether that's age as they you know as as they all get older but I have a sense it's more to do with the parental behavior that has been there in boys football the stakes are getting higher aren't they chap I've noticed this with women's football that once the money increases once the possibility of a child having a professional career and the family's involvement, you know, becomes a bit more intense.

18:22You can kind of see that and then the fans think they have somehow a kind of a right to be more vociferous in what they feel. It's definitely changed. If we could attack them at that sort of level as well, because this is something that we're looking at as well, that it's not just professional football, it's grassroots as well. If we can attack at that sort of level, it helps going forward because it shows how you're supposed to behave at a football match. We're having football matches up and down the country, grassroots football matches, 9s, 10s being cancelled because of what parents are doing, which is crazy.

18:59I can vividly remember being at my son's game of football at least a decade ago and the parents on both sides and coaches giving the referee a whole load of stick. okay and the referee would have been 16 maybe 15 16 doing his best and stuff and and loads of people having to go at him and at the end of the game unbeknownst to a lot of the parents but i'd clocked this earlier the referee's dad had been had been watching him in the same way that you would watch your own kid play football he'd come to watch his son referee and it was absolutely honestly it was heartbreaking at that moment it was heartbreaking well you you must have experienced Emil having two sons who are now in the professional game throughout their lives I'm sure you experienced moments where you as a parent watching them felt horrified at the kind of things you've been hearing it's an interesting one you ask that I used to stand well well well well away because obviously you don't want to get involved engrossed in anything I always wanted to just enjoy them playing I love watching them I even now just go out and enjoy playing the game of football i don't want to be hearing people criticizing my son someone else's son someone else's daughter it's got nothing to do with that i just want them to have a smile on their face and go and enjoy it especially at grassroots level that's what it's all about you go out there and have fun you go out there and make friends that's one of the key things that you do you go out and make friends you go and enjoy something play something that you enjoy when you get to 16 17 18 it gets a bit more serious but that anything below that is just about enjoyment and i used to stand well well away from parents because of that i do i all three of mine when they do sport whether it be football or cricket or netball i try to be as far away from parents as possible my kids think it's because i'm anti-social but i i what are you laughing at but there is there is there is a joyous peace isn't there in standing completely away and then occasionally your kid will look round at you and all i ever used to do was do a thumbs up that was it and still the thumbs up and that's it but even that now uh i used to say i used to stand that far away that i didn't know i was there right but it's good because you're saying like your son does the phone looks like he's yeah there's kids that keep looking over at their parents oh yeah and that for a coach must be a nightmare because you're not concentrating you're not concentrating on what he's what he wants you to do and you keep giving it's for the coach to give him the reassurance not for me i always um I always remember Kenny giving some prizes at an under 14s tournament in Kent or somewhere one Sunday.

21:36And there was this one dad who screamed his rugby, screamed at his son for the whole game, like just screamed at him. And at the end, he was obviously quite a decent player. At the end, he came up to Kenny and said, what else do you think? You know, my son was the 15 today. What do you think I can do? And he said, where do you work? And he said, I'll work in the city. He said, does anybody come up to your desk on a Monday morning and scream at you from nine o 'clock to five o 'clock? and does it help you when you're and he looked kind of chastened and he said stop shouting at him let him play rugby let him get on and enjoy the sport otherwise you'll find he's not playing the sport in two years time and this guy looked really kind of um well he'd been told off he'd been ticked off right and and i think that was a real kind of you know for me because that time we didn't have kids about you know kind of how parents think they're doing that's the thing i think there's well-meaning isn't it they want to give their kids this kind of support and encouragement and let's talk about your kids and how you managed to kind of walk that line between everything that you know emil and then letting them go on their own journey they're 18 and 20 now aren't they made their manchester city senior debuts together and came through the academy you know together well obviously a couple of years apart it must have been very tempting to to kind of heap information on them on a daily basis information isn't bad but uh pressure and too much forcing them to do what I want them to do as opposed to what the manager wants them to do and the club wants them to do you have to find that balance like I said I didn't push them I didn't do anything I actually I've even said that I probably didn't want them to play football because of the pressures that come with football and etc you're like do I really want my kids to go through that but then at four he was really good the eldest one and then he's just watching me like oh well he's on his own path now I'll just leave him and let him enjoy it.

23:25It's a great journey, and I could actually watch them make that progression. Arguably one of the best academies out there in Man City that bring through, if you actually look at the Premier League and championships, how many players have come through Man City and Chelsea, et cetera, they're the two of the best academies out there. So they've had brilliant grounding. I wouldn't get involved in that sense of coaching and stuff like that because they've got good coaches. I would ask questions of them to see what their answers is half of the time they're giving me good answers that I can take to them because I was still playing right at the back end of my career so I was like taking a bit of information from them because they know so much when I came through I came through, I made my debut at 17 and I was still learning on the job, I was still learning but they know everything because of the amount of work they put in and it's great to see now they're progressing through Jadon's at Sheffield Wednesday finding it tough but but what an education I mean without sounding like a patronising dad what an education for him brilliant for him because he's now having to learn that everything isn't just nice sometimes you have to roll your sleeves up and battle sometimes you might not touch the ball and you're heading it more times than you're kicking it but this is football at times you're not always going to have 70-80 % of the possession and not give the ball away when for your lads when they were going through the academy me did it become more than when's it turn into a career and actually when should it turn into a career when you when you're going into the scholarship and probably even past the scholarship that's when it's turning into a career 16 16 17 I actually played a pre-season game at 16 and even then I was like didn't know if that was a career or not it wasn't until I'd played 15 20 games now and then you know you're a regular starter, but this is a career.

25:21And that's what my son's going through, especially the oldest one now, he's obviously on loan. Do you think there's quite a lot of examples in sport generally, Mark, isn't there, of sons and fathers and daughters and fathers across other sports? Do you think it's help or hindrance overall? Do you think it's... Both, because first and foremost, the help is, oh, he's got that name. Oh, yeah, bring him in. He must have something. And then they start to mould him. and then you get a bit older and it becomes not a hindrance but it's always hanging over you oh you haven't done what your dad's done you haven't done this I made my debut at 17 they made it 17 and 19 no 17 and 20 but Al's playing regular now he's playing regular football so they're always going to have that comparison but it's his own career when you say mould them as in they know that they are your sons and therefore mould them into the same position that you play or just mould them in what way?

26:17He mould them into a professional football in the sense of his dad was a centre forward so what made them? Actually the oldest one did play centre forward and now he plays midfield the younger one is a winger he can play centre forward but he likes to receive the ball and he's very good at dribbling He's a winger and he's scored that many goals last season This is the thing with football now who's getting all the goals it's the wingers that are all getting all the goals now Now a while ago someone asked me about Mo Salah, would I love to play with Mo Salah? I said, well, I'd probably prefer to play with Trent because Mo's not going to cross the ball for me.

26:50Yeah, yeah. And the other thing, just on the final thing with your sons, is how sort of, not embarrassed, but how conscious are you of the surname? Because it immediately adds pressure, doesn't it, to your kids. And the example I give, and we've mentioned this before, Gabby, I think, Michael Atherton's son is a really good batsman. When he was coming through at Middlesex, and I think he still has actually has his mother's surname takes his mother's surname so he doesn't have the Atherton kind of lineage I suppose, or pressure I'm guessing there is pressure but they've dealt with that so well there will always be pressure with that name but again it gives you a massive lift as well Regan recently was at the under 17s World Cup and it was great to see him doing really well, everyone wants to do interviews with him, he scored, I think it was like five goals, I think, in that tournament and everyone wants to do interviews with him that name carries you a little bit further, it was a weird one for me because I'm sat in the stand and everyone's saying, Hesky, Hesky, Hesky and they're not talking to me so it was a little bit weird in that sense I'm turning around, they're not even looking at me You're going to be Regan's, you're Regan's that now, you're gone then, yeah exactly that's what I'm turning into now, I'll give you a funny one, I was in Africa Botswana I was in and I landed in Botswana and then someone saw me, took a picture and then there was a group of footballers, the kids that were probably being about 16, 17, maybe 17 and they asked who I was and then they said, oh, blah, blah, blah.

28:27So they told him and he goes, one come up to me and ask me if I know Regan.

28:34That's brilliant. That's where I'm at now. That's where I'm at. And your involvement, of course, with Leicester City's women as well as head of development there. What did you notice were the differences between the men's and the women's game? I was there for three. I kind of became an ambassador first and then joined coaching and then kind of went upstairs a little bit just to do with development of the Leicester City women's itself. Differences, you've got to remember, like we talk about my kids, my son was four, Regan would have been two when they first got into the pre-academy. these girls are not getting coached until they're 14 or 15 so i went in there with general terminology that men just use and no one's known what i'm talking about um no one's known about opening up your body back foot blah so you're using so you have to go really back to basics but what i did like was they listen more they listen more they they're attentive to everything and they want more detail on how to do stuff and whereas the boys will just like go out and just do so you'll say oh we're going to do this today and the boys go okay do it where the girls will want more detail on why we're doing it do you think that's because they feel like they're playing catch-up because they're i'm not sure i just think they just they they want they like the information they're just the way they learn yeah they like the information they like to know everything about what they're doing where the boys just want to kick the ball generally i i think there is though isn't there there is still a historic i mean obviously a historical catch-up but even even Even in the, I don't know, Gabby, you may have a theory here as well, but I sort of look at it a little bit of pre-COVID and post-COVID here.

30:12So my daughter's 18. She's played a little bit of football, but had nothing between the ages of 5 to, I don't know, 12 or 13. Whereas my youngest, who's about to turn 12, she was playing from 6. Even in those sisters who are 6, 7 years apart, 6 and a half years apart, there is a historical catch-up. there and that's kind of what you would have still been dealing yeah we were dealing with that and then obviously the pool of players yeah so when you think about the like what you're saying so if you have a uh from your youngest one who's probably starting from five now come to 18 there's more there'll be a bigger pool of players playing and playing together playing with boys as well because the it's good to play with them because the speed difference and everything it gives them I've watched a lot of the women who grew up with boys and playing with boys they deal with things a lot better the pace of the game, the physicality everything, they know how to challenge themselves Do you think there's an argument to keep girls and boys playing together until I would like to see it but you do have to be careful as well there's a time frame where you just don't put them together but yeah I would like to see it because you see the ones who actually progress very quickly who have played with the boys.

31:30There's a lot of American girls that come over and you can see they really go at it. And I realise that they've been playing with boys from a very, very young age. It's also down to the individuals a little bit, isn't it? You know, again, going back to my experiences, one of mine wouldn't have played football if she had to play with boys. There's always the balance, isn't there? But bizarrely, she happens to play cricket with boys, but didn't want to play football. I know. World Cup year, Emil. So we've got to talk to you a little bit about England and what could potentially happen for them through the summer.

32:02I know it's a little bit early, but Thomas Tuchel, obviously, speaking of early, has already been extended as England's head coach through to the end of Euro 2028, which has done a lot, actually, Chappas, hasn't it, to kind of snuff out conversations about him going to various places in the Premier League. So it's probably helped a load of other managers, actually, who are in love with those jobs. But do you think they did the right thing announcing that at this stage, Emil? Yeah, I think so. It helps with, like you're saying, not only for Premier League managers who are worried about their jobs, but him himself and the media keep jumping on the back of it.

32:38You know, asking the questions when you're really trying to look at winning a World Cup. The main focus is going to be, what about your contract? What about this? You can actually then just focus on the main objective. What we want is winning the World Cup. Do you think we will? Tough. there's so many different elements and then obviously the weather is going to be one of the biggest factors um i went to 02 that was tough in japan that uh altitude and etc and then uh 2010 was altitude 2010 was weird because uh there were certain games and i never obviously born and raised in england you don't really think about altitude that's the last thing you think about there was a ball that came to me and it was just moving it just kept on moving like this and there's obviously the altitude the attitude that was the air and you're watching this ball and you're like trying to concentrate on this ball although 2010 was also the Jubilani wasn't it yeah so the ball that got more attention combination of altitude on that ball yeah and a lot of things it was a strange World Cup wasn't it and it was a World Cup where England I think learned a lot didn't they Emil about how you look after players at a tournament obviously under Capello it was quite a strict regime and things to kind of give the players a bit more autonomy yeah you need a balance don't you you need a balance and you need you got to remember if you're away for six weeks you need to mix things up I think Sven was really good at that but then again we did have we did have Beckham and we could basically do whatever we want when we had Bex so um but yeah he mixed it up we'd go out go out shopping or just go and walking around places to just be locked up can be tough for some people even though you've got you play the games room and stuff like that how many games of xyz can you played well we learned recently on the wayne rooney podcast didn't we that he was so bored that um didn't he watch his whole wedding video did he one night because yeah apparently so i want to say with jermaine defoe i think the two of them lay on the bed and watched his whole wedding video together oh god but jermaine loved that for that two hours that's how much that's how how much they'd run out of things to do at that world cup just a final one before we let you go which is the and we talked about Leicester's women but Leicester's men is a very, very worrying time for the club.

34:52They've been deducted to six points they're in a relegation battle in the Championship there is every chance they could go down to League One. Andy King who you will know very well is in interim charge, they don't have a permanent manager It's just a difficult time for the club in general for the fans, for the club, for the players everything. We've got some good young players coming through so that's good for the future but we need to know what's happening now and trying to fix this i would love to say we're not going to go down but there's a like you're saying there's a real there's a real chance we could uh we just need to really start if you look at the games so we've we've managed to get 3-0 up against uh southampton and then lose that so there is positives in the sense of 45 minutes was amazing how can we replicate that but for a longer period and get ourselves out of this slump that we're in because it's not great for a club of that size, club of that stature, for someone who has arguably the best training ground in the country, a fantastic stadium, very, very well represented when it comes to the fans.

35:56If you're doing well, we're getting 30 ,000, no problem. So we need to get back onto that. We need to get the fans back behind everyone and really push these players on. The Sports Agents. Thumbtack presents Uncertainty Strikes. I was surrounded. The aisle and the options were closing in. There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes, and natural bristles. There were too many choices. What if I never got my living room painted? What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use? What if I just used Thumbtack? I can hire a top-rated pro that knows everything about interior paint, easily compare prices, and read reviews.

36:35Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today. The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Okay, before we go, we want to tell you about a big interview with four-time Formula One world champion Max Verstappen. It's out today on Global's new Formula One podcast, Up to Speed. So here's a taste of Max's chat with 13-time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard and former racing driver Naomi Schiff. You talk a lot about not wanting to stay in Formula One forever and that you have a bucket list of other things in racing that you still want to do out there. So can you just tell us where are you on that timeline of wanting to exit F1 and what is on your bucket list?