Josh Kerr v Michael Johnson: I'm owed six-figures but hold no grudge

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. Are you one of those athletes who still owed money? Yes, yeah. You know, I sit there and I watch five races a day. That's my minimum. Five races a day. Wow. I want to show that I'm the best 1500m runner in this era. And to do that, I have to race the other best guys. You know, I took that to training and I took that kind of personally. That annoyed me. Because I mentioned Mo Sulla at the start. A big story. And yet when I saw it break, I thought, yeah. I'm not going to give you a media answer here. He is rapidly becoming one of my favourite post-match interviews.

0:34That 28 minutes on Sunday. I was very left out, wasn't I?

0:41Mo Salah announces that he's leaving Liverpool at the end of the season and Ben White is back in the England squad for the first time since 2022. And after a gold rush for Great Britain and a sensational World Indoor Championships, Team GB's Josh Kerr, who got the ball rolling, joins us in the studio after regaining his World Championship title just a year after his calf popped on the track in Tokyo. Welcome to The Sports Agents. The Sports Agents with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

1:15Hello, Mark. Hi, Gabby. How are you? Oh, good. Yeah, I've had a decent week. You? How was Pennyhill Park? Penny Hill Park. It was absolutely lovely and had a fantastic chat with Ellie and Jess. And what was really interesting when we kind of put the mics down and took our kind of stuff off, I said something about walking back to their rooms and they revealed and I don't think they mind me telling you this. I think they want to get this out there. The women are not allowed to stay there yet. They are then transported or they transport themselves to a hotel 20 minutes away. So they don't get to stay in the same rooms.

1:51The men stay in this very luxurious. Why are they not allowed to stay there? Well, in the past, it was kind of because they weren't bringing in as much money, as much revenue as the men. But their argument now is we've already sold 70 ,000 tickets for the first game at Twickenham as Allianz. And we're world champions and we are packing out stadiums. So we should be treated the same. And I think they were quite keen that this message gets out there because they feel this is now a little bit unfair. So they get bussed in to train at Pennyhill Park, do they? I assumed it was bussed. She said, no, we transport ourselves.

2:27They drive themselves down to a hotel, which is obviously not anywhere near as luxurious and lovely. Yeah, so you can listen back to the full episode from Tuesday where we discuss a lot more than just some injustices which still prevail considering they're world champions and have made such huge leaps forward in terms of selling out. We are recording this before Wales and Northern Ireland play the, what they will hope, is the first of two World Cup qualifiers. And thank goodness, I'm sure they would prefer to qualify automatically, but thank goodness they have that. And therefore we have some competitive international football to watch.

3:10Otherwise, I have to be honest, I don't find this, I don't find it the most interesting time of year, really, football-wise, international friendlies. I haven't had a weekend off since January. I am grateful for a weekend off. Although just to qualify, you just go around watching sport for a living. I could say that. I could say that because I do the same thing. Yeah, but it is also nice. And I will be watching sport. That's the irony of it. But it is nice to actually see family and friends and just kind of do something a little bit. Because it turns out other people, they do stuff at the weekends.

3:45They have hobbies and stuff like that. But I'm not doing anything this weekend either, but I know I'll get to four o 'clock on Sunday. God, that's been a long weekend. Can I go back to being in the radio studio? Well, I'm a little bit gutted because Ruben's been involved in the Sales Sharks' first team, 23, all year until this weekend. And this weekend he's TRing, which, if you don't know, means that quite often rugby players go down in warm-up and the TR then steps into the squad. So they always have a TR. Not quite often, but it happens more often than you'd think. so he's not actually kind of in the 23 and I was thinking, oh, I would have gone and watched that.

4:20I would have made another trip to Manchester and gone and watched that. But no, as you say, I'm just now, what I'm doing right now, by the way, is I'm trying to divert my nerves from Wales by not talking about their match against Bosnia and Herzegovina which is taking place this evening. And I'm confident about that one. I'm less confident about Tuesday because obviously it could be Italy. Getting Bellamy on would be absolutely brilliant. He is a fascinating manager. And one of the things he said at his press conference yesterday was somebody had asked him how he was relaxing. And he said, oh, well, the previous night he'd watched a documentary about the war in the Balkans because he wanted to get into the mindset of what the Bosnian people had been through and their mindset and how that had maybe been passed on through generations to get to where they are now.

5:10now and then somebody pointed out watching a documentary about six nations rugby in wales over the last few years because they won't have any expectations about them

5:22but somebody did say and that and that was your that was your relaxing night off was it so he he is he is constantly on it i think he'd be a brilliant guest a brilliant guest speaking of we um we had gareth southgate on the pod a few months ago didn't we and and i see ben white is back in the England squad. I won't go too much into what happened before. But there is still all the reports about a fallout with Steve Holland or whatever. Well, what came through when we interviewed Gareth on the podcast? Well, there was much more to it than that. And therefore, if everything's all right with Ben White and he's ready for international football again, it seems like a very sensible call-up because he's versatile, isn't he?

6:04I know there's all this discussion about Trent Alexander-Arnold, but I suppose because it was Gerald Kwanzaa who who dropped out who can play full back and center half Ben White actually makes a very obvious replacement because he can play right back and he hasn't played too much football this season either so I mean you know obviously he's featured but he's not somebody who's you know on the start sheet on the first you know kind of first 11 every single match is he so um I think those kinds of players are going to come through aren't they as the season kind of draws to a close, the ones who've maybe got fewer miles in the legs.

6:39Before we get into our guest today, Josh Kerr, can I just bring you this? Erling Haaland has been involved in a literary story this week, which I absolutely love. He, together with his father, Alfinger, has bought a 16th century manuscript of the Viking sagas, and he bought this so that it would stay in Norway. This is a 1594 printed edition of a work by the 13th century historian Snorri Sturlsen, who we often talk about on the podcast. I think you're patronising me a bit here with these days. It's not like I don't know what you're talking about. Anyhow, back to Snorri. These are stories about Viking kings and queens and farmers and warriors and he spent a million Norwegian crowns, which is£100 ,000 if you're not familiar with the exchange rate at the moment.

7:26Of course you are. It's a record for a book sale in Norway and gave it straight to a library in Brin so it can be displayed and made public and didn't leave the country and end up in some kind of private collector's library. I love him for this. What a wonderful way to use your wealth. He is rapidly becoming one of my favourite post-match interviews. And I've done him a couple of times this season. And at the League Cup final on Sunday, we hadn't even put in a request to talk to him. We'd asked to talk to Bernardo Silva. we'd asked to talk to Semenyo and he was just wandering around and seeing people and then he just wandered over for a chat mainly with Micah and Wrighty but he just wandered over for a chat and the worst, and he just had this twinkle in his eye and he was laughing I said, oh, talk us through the second Nico O 'Reilly goal then and he said, well, you've started it too late because you need to show all the pressing and running that I did to make this happen, he's really funny and the only thing was we were coming off air on, because several channels took it, we were coming off air on ITV and I literally had no room and I only had like a minute with him and then had to cut him off and say bye.

8:38But he is, he has always, if it's gone well, he's always got a real twinkle in his eye and you're never quite sure what you're going to get with him. I really like talking to him, really like talking to him. Yeah, I've only had him in the kind of studio, that studio kind of set up a couple of times, but he's always been very good value. Good value, yeah. and also he's quite good to stand next to because there aren't many people that I stand next to and I actually feel small and I look like the jolly group You're not that tall No, I'm not that tall but compared to standing next to Bernardo Silva where it looked like I'd just brought my kid to work I mean it was like Yeah, true, true You are what, about 6 '2"?

9:18Yeah 6 '3"? Yeah, okay Obviously with my son being almost 6 '6 I just feel like I'm constantly in Land of the Giants and I feel like some kind of little hobbit. Because I mentioned Mo Salah at the start, we've gone all around the houses and actually haven't mentioned it, which is probably one of the biggest stories of the week. And yet, a big story, and yet when I saw it break, I thought, yeah, we kind of knew that was going to happen, didn't we? It wasn't a massive surprise. No, I think, as even a lot of Liverpool fans have said, they it makes sense for everybody I suppose the most surprising thing is he signed a two year deal didn't he and this is the end of the first year and from everything that I've read which is why I assume he's being allowed to leave on a free which if he goes to a certain league if he went to Saudi I'm sure Liverpool could actually get quite a lot money.

10:16I assume that was yeah I mean it's obviously he's not on the pitch been ripping up trees has he? No. But it felt like It was a sweetener last year to the fans to keep hold of him and probably against their better judgment when they were looking at the kind of his age. And then you think, well, it's clever. It's a two year deal. So they can sell him next year and make some money out of him. You know, that kind of is what it looked like. But yeah, as you say, that doesn't doesn't appear to be the case. Am I going to have to go back and re-record this intro at the top now to mention Sneer East Rulison?

10:46It could be a lovely surprise. Because we did more on him than Salah. The Mo Salah. Remember, you can catch up with all our previous episodes on YouTube, Global Player, wherever you get your podcasts, including the episode with Jess Breach and Ellie Kildun from Tuesday. Subscribe, follow, leave a review. Please get in touch at the Sports Agents across our socials. The email is the sportsagents at global.com. Next up, the world 3000 metre champion Josh Kerr is in the studio. Josh, welcome to the Sports Agents You have had quite the week That was an incredible championship and you got the ball rolling with Great Britain's gold and backing up what you did in Glasgow two years ago but we have to go back six months when you hobbled off that track in Tokyo and you just looked so desperately disappointed to see you kind of turn it around like that was amazing for everybody Tell us a little bit about what that journey's been like Yeah, it's a great question I think there's so much behind the scenes in the sport that we don't always see.

11:46And when you train as hard as I do or anyone really does in the sport, there's this element where you react to these situations where you're like, the sport owes me something. Like I've worked so hard, the sport must owe me something here. And I'm dragging myself across the line. And to be honest, I wasn't happy about it. I was probably within 10 minutes, I was in an Uber back to my hotel and just hobbled straight out and I sat there with my family sitting on the physio table to kind of assess what what's going on in my in my hotel room and I sat there and I'm like this is not how we are remembered like find me a race that and and let's get in the pool tomorrow and you know everyone was on board and and that's just the way that I like to run my career it's you know it's the worst and you know I'd I'd probably be in the best shape of my career on that day um I was in such an amazing spot and the sport was like no there's you're not you're not ready yeah and that's okay did that feeling only last until you as you say until you were in that hotel room with your family and you were like it's not meant to be like this find me a race so did that feeling of the sport owing you something only last that couple of hours yeah I think what it just showed me is that we're old nothing and and you have to earn every single meter in this sport and it's that's what people need to understand at home is like just because someone didn't win didn't mean that they didn't work like one of the hardest there um but the execution of the race is what we're remembered by and um i think that's the way that i went into the prep for the world indoor championships is i might not be the fittest there and i might not be pegged as the number one guy but i believe i'm the best athlete and i'm going to go and take out what what you'd had one race if that's right between uh that incident in tokyo coming off the track and and obviously what happened in to run and i in the build-up i said to the guys in the studio you know what kind of shape will we see josh karen and they both said jess and greg rutherford said he doesn't show up unless he thinks he can win yeah so you believed you could win that race oh yeah i'm very delusional that way though gabby i think um you know i think i i mean i could convince myself of most things in this sport I think you have to be able to convince yourself to even to convey it doesn't matter if you convince others like no one's going to help you out there and it's even you know I had the conversations with my my coach Danny it's like at some point he has to let me walk in the call room and take care of business and so I can it doesn't take me racist to understand that I'm good at what I do and I have a very big respect for how difficult this sport is and I know that I've been doing it for a high level for a long time and I know how much pressure everyone else was under you know I came in here with a with a bit of a free swing I'm good at racing I'm up against guys that are really good but I know I can beat them tactically when you say tactically how how much does the tactical preparation then dominate your build-up how much are you analyzing your opponents going into a race like that a lot um you know i have you know a contract with myself of of being a student of the sport and and not underselling or overselling anyone else's achievements or ability but you know i sit there and i watch five races a day that's my minimum five races a day wow and so you get in the deep dark depths of archives when five races a day and so a lot of black and white in there and so do you you win a lot because you're strategic about kind of how you race as well so you you know your kind of win percentage is probably quite high um if you look at the your races overall but does winning feel as good every time no no it really doesn't um because i like to race in races that people care about because it means that i care like i think the person that wants the most can have and makes the right decisions has a bit of an advantage.

15:45And so I don't like racing. Like if I was given the opportunity to race the 1 ,500 at World Endors, I wouldn't do it because I'm not as excited to race those guys as I am, you know, some of the best guys in the world. And, you know, those are the races that are remembered, I think. So I think it's important to keep racing the best guys in the world. You say you like to race in races that people care about. Do you like to race against people that you care about, whether that be either positively or negatively yeah i think um you know sport it's moments right and so if you have to manufacture that moment by saying i'm going after this goal or like you know other people are like oh you know these people are racing each other like you know that's great and stuff like that but you know for me it's you know i want to show that i'm the best 1500 meter runner in this era and to do that i have to race the best the other best guys um and and then we can compare records at the end.

16:41So let's talk about your rivalry with Cole Hocker, which was kind of brought into the spotlight again at the weekend. Did you like it? What did you think? We loved it. We loved it. I appreciate it. He didn't, by all accounts. That's all part and parcel of it. So we're talking about your celebration, which was the kind of snoozing celebration, which he'd done previously to you. Right. So you threw back at him. But he'd nicked it from Steph Curry. Correct. The basketball player, obviously. so how do you deal with each other when you're in close proximity is it genuine, do you actually talk do you nod at each other, do you make eye contact yeah we actually have a solid relationship I wouldn't speak of that as the same for everyone across the board but for me you find your motivation somewhere for me it was, Milrose was a big race for me post Tokyo last time me and Cole raced or were at the same competition I walked away with crutches So, you know, to then have this big goal and race each other and for me to be back at the top of the sport again, racing the best guys, you know, it was an important milestone for me.

17:46And, you know, I ended up seeing that celebration after the fact. And I was like, that's a problem for me. You know, that's I'm not I'm not happy with that. And, you know, I took that to training and I took that kind of personally. And I went, you know what? But the way that I want World Indoors to go, I'm going to let him know that that annoyed me. But behind the scenes, he's a very quiet, nice guy. We don't really interact too much, but the interaction we've had have been very positive. But it's not about his overall character. We're playing a game out there. But sport in general would be crap without rivalries, wouldn't it?

18:26It would. And again, it's rivalries, it's moments. I think it's the balance between the two. You know, I'm not looking for rivals. I'm looking for moments. And that was a moment for me that fueled part of the conversation and part of my training. And he knows that now. And he knows that, you know, and I know that that will fuel him. And that's okay. And that storyline will continue. This is one of the things that... Were you laughing at my high-brow question there, Gabby? You saying crap. Michael Johnson used to talk for years about the importance of rivalries. And that was one of his big kind of features of Grand Slam track was going to be these big rivalries that we were going to get to see again and again and again.

19:08You know the question I'm coming to you now on, obviously. No, I don't actually. Well, it's just this week, having heard last week that Michael had paid himself, secretly paid himself a large sum of money. It's been announced this week that money is going to be paid back because there are still athletes who are owed money. Are you one of those athletes who still owed money? Yes. And what did you think when you heard that he had paid himself half a million dollars in the days surrounding the kind of demise of Grand Slam Track? It's a good question. And I'll be honest, you know, I'm not I'm not going to give you a media answer here.

19:42I had a great relationship and I still have a great relationship with Michael. I truly feel like where Grand Slam Track got things wrong were in the contracts. I think they weren't legally binding or as binding as they should have been. You know, I sent my first contract back because it was not legally binding. And I needed to make sure that we were crossing every T and dotting every I. I'm not someone that follows all of this on social media very closely because it's not where my bandwidth is. You know, I'm trying to win races and do that. However, you know, there is there's a lot of crap that surrounds it.

20:20And it's frustrating from an athlete standpoint. but I'm not frustrated for myself. I'm in a very lucky position. I'm supported by some great brands where I don't miss that money. I would love to have it, but I don't miss it. But there's athletes that were part of this that story got exposed of working jobs and not having sponsorships and coming out with a win with life-changing money that didn't receive it. And I came out and spoke about this before and that's what I'm frustrated by because you can't have that and athletes need to stick together that way. And so I believe that Michael should pay the athletes for the people who are owed the least to the people who are owed the most because that is the level of importance.

20:57Are you also frustrated that what looked like it was going to be such a great development for athletics just wasn't executed perhaps in quite the right way because I believe Michael's intentions were absolutely pure that he wanted to elevate you all. I do as well I agree it's why I signed on and I was sold sold the dream and it wasn't like I was like oh yeah I'll do whatever you know we went through it and we did a lot of like I was the second athlete to sign the contract, but it wasn't as easy as send me the contract. It was a lot of back and forth with lawyers to figure out how the athlete contract should look.

21:29And my agent helped a lot with that and we found out the best way to do it. But those were legally binding contracts. That was after they signed on all the investors. And so I believe that's where the problem is. That's my correspondence with Michael. We got an email recently, like yesterday or two days ago, saying that we were going to get a bit more money. but then I think we're going to get maxed out about 70 percent right um so that's that's where we're at but that is that is hard as you say for those who for those a little bit lower down the ladder who needed this who were relying on this yeah and that's you know where the sport is at this point um you know I would love to know what your guys's opinions on it are but you know I think it was great for the sport to have another outlet for athletes to go out and promote themselves and create those moments and you know I signed on and we had you know the the Paris Olympic podium there to race each other four times or eight times a year and they were great races and you know there was all this stuff about you know no one was there fans and this and that you know it's an early project.

22:32Well Josh we had him I mean he came on and obviously Gabby knows him very well and I've worked with him at the Olympics and he's been on the sports agent several times and one of the big things that I felt came through from talking to him is you're going to kind of need a decade of this Michael really to get it to where you want it to be because you can't you can't manufacture history and loyalty can you Josh and any new competition and we talk about this so often on the pod like anything that you are launching needs time for people to care about it. You don't just suddenly invent something and somebody goes, yeah, my God, I'm fully invested in this team or that athlete or that rivalry.

23:15It has to build and build. I also think there's other logistical things, aren't there, that perhaps with hindsight, maybe doing the first event in Jamaica wasn't the right idea. Time zones and all of that. Yeah, and European athletics, the American athletes know that, that they make more money in Europe, don't they in terms of coming over here to race and so it felt like a European destination for the first event might have given it an amplification and a crowd yeah yeah definitely and and you know the funny thing is is you know when I signed on a big reason was is they were going to have an event in the UK they had that's what they had told me and you know my first contract had that it was going to be in London then it got moved to Birmingham then it got ended up moving to um I don't know what I think maybe Miami ended up being that one um and so there was what happened I think was that you know everything was moving so quickly and it was an exciting idea but the reason that this sport is where it's at is because of the history of it and it's not going to take you know one company to change that it's and and it's just going to take time and so yeah i do think that the foundation wasn't strong enough to build up from it but it doesn't mean that the concept was wrong um you know the races became better the crowds became bigger and to get the athletes all in one spot was important but it's a loss for the athletes i don't know why other athletes would be like oh you know why why do this whatever because it's at the end of the day you know this is helping this is helping everyone and everybody yeah as an athlete then as somebody in athletics who's traveling the world in this sport where where do you feel it is at you know we look ahead to this summer and it will be part of and this has got nothing to do with it no fault of athletics but a much reduced commonwealth games much but a home european championships yeah um how do you feel the sport is you know i think the the the world is is as interested in running as it's ever been i think you know through everything um that happened in 2020 2021 people realized how important health is and you know i think the running shoe brands are starting to reap the benefits of that and so the contracts that you're seeing for the athletes are becoming bigger and the investment into the sport is becoming bigger and it's you know it's going to trickle down into these events and we need to continue to you know promote it in the best way that we can and again a lot of that's on the athletes as well i wouldn't sit here and tell you that this sport deserves to be as big as football as big as rugby as big as other sports in in this country right now because we're not doing enough we need to continue to race we need to continue to make events bigger by having the best athletes race the best i think there's an interesting time in athletics isn't it because there's this huge running tiktok and instagram kind of but people who aren't elite athletes who who kind of get recognized for being runners and i had an experience of this chapter when i was training for the you know the um half marathon i did in london last year and i was working i didn't sorry josh there's a josh there's a history of on this podcast let me hear i want to hear of gabby quite often comparing her amateur sporting career to whichever guest we have in the studio.

26:24We are all listening. I am absolutely not going to do that. My point is that I went for a run with a guy who has a kind of training app called Runner and he spotted this woman running in Richmond Park. She was a very good runner by all accounts, but she was kind of an Instagram runner. And I was like, wow. You know who she is, but he didn't know the people I was talking about in athletics, right? And I'm going like, oh, this is so weird to me that you don't know the real elites, the people that you really should know. And so, but that is, I guess, you know, as you said, you point to this kind of burgeoning kind of passion for running.

26:59And hopefully those people will then look to, the same way that you do, Chappies, you play golf and you realise that you're, you know, your pro at your club isn't as good as Brighton de Chambault, right? You can still know who both are, right? And so I think there's an interesting, a really interesting time in running in that respect but also we've got the European Championships in Birmingham this summer I reckon and I don't think I'm stating you know this overstating this both sessions a day will sell out you know we are very good in this country at coming out and supporting athletics and you just need to look at the streets of London when the marathon happens the last world championships in London and this brings me on to 2029 because that's the hope that we would have another world championships in London Keely Hodgkinson has jumped into West Ham, I don't know if you've seen this Chappas, West Ham are saying they can't possibly give the stadium over because it's football season and she's declared that there will bring more gold medals for Great Britain than West Ham have ever won Oh we're calling out West Ham I'm not getting involved in that, I have enough stuff going on I'm not taking on a whole sport Not Cole Hawker and West Ham Cole Hawker's enough to have on my hands, I don't need West Ham behind it as well I don't know if she quite realises what she's done with that one but it would be, wouldn't it?

28:12wonderful to get another world championship back in london and you would be right in the prime of your career yeah i mean look i i think i think the generations of this sport and and who we have right now are fueled by london 2012 um through growing up they're fueled by london 2017 um you know commonwealth games obviously things like that where we have been really lucky over the past 10 years or so to have such amazing events in the uk and you know i i ran london 2017 was my first ever senior vest and i was 36th and and and i learned so much from home and and almost we take it for granted at this point but if we want to continue to have the performances like we did in poland we need to continue to show the younger athletes what it's like to to compete in front of a home crowd because we do it really well we do it really well yeah we do and um and speaking of the performance is that 28 minutes on Sunday that was extraordinary I was very left out wasn't I I was sitting there so I flew back on in the evening because I had some family stuff going on and I was sitting there on the plane watching it all having the best time and then also I heard Crammy being like we do remember you Josh I'm like it was a day ago Crammy you know and I'm very happy that we're in a spot where we're lucky enough to have all the you know the amazing athletes that we have and i sat with georgia that morning at breakfast and i could tell she had that calm confidence in her that you know she was asking me some questions out and i was asking her some questions about you know her prep and it was just like the energy in that camp was fantastic but at the end of the day i was on the wrong day wasn't i yeah you were and but in we've had georgia on this podcast we've had keely on it the one in all of that who and not all athletes have injuries so i'm sure you know keely and georgia georgia spoke to us about all of her battles to get to where she is but molly had such a difficult year didn't she that well two years really two years yeah paris obviously with the no jumps and then obviously like you in tokyo she just you know injury thwarted and she was in the form of her life so yeah psychologically that was amazing for her it was you know what it is it shows across the board that it's not like it's just the middle distances.

30:32It could have been the sprints. It could have been the jumps. And we're a well-rounded team now. And we went through a couple of years there where they were getting a lot of stick and we weren't bringing full teams. And again, Scott Lincoln as well, just off the podium, we're really starting to round out as a team. And I think the energy is starting to become like, we're here for medals. If you're here for, get your first experience, that's amazing. But this is what we're trying to develop you into. and I think that British Athletics are doing a really good job about that to be honest and yeah I did feel a bit left out and that's okay that's life though you know sometimes you gotta you gotta let the woman do their thing.

31:08We called it Super Saturday but then it became Sensational Sunday. Sensational Sunday with a mediocre Saturday that kickstarted it off I think. Well look who's sat here now? I mean not George or Keely or Molly I'm here for you guys so I hope that I've got your biggest support. We really appreciate you coming in. Thank you. That's it for today. Thank you very much for listening. Any thoughts on today's show, please get in touch. The Sports Agents at global.com. You can find us across social media as well or via the link in the show notes. And remember, our past episodes are available on YouTube, Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts.

31:43And please make sure you subscribe or follow and leave a review. Thanks for listening. The Sports Agents. With Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

31:56Thank you.