September 12, 2022 • 24 mins
Who's to blame when your favorite soccer team sucks? It's probably not the players or the manager...it's the mysterious millionaires and billionaires who fund the clubs we love. Producer Jordan Rizzieri asks soccer journalists from around the world Luis Miguel Echegaray, Matt Ford, and Justin Salhani what ownership means in different leagues and is there anything fans can do to be heard.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly. Owners tend to
get blamed by fans when things don't go well, especially
in soccer. Anyone who watches the Premier League was aware
of Manchester United fans marching through the streets chanting Glazers out.
But what do we know about the glazers? Really? What
do we know about any of the extremely rich owners
(00:23):
who are throwing around gobs of money at various clubs
all over the world. Our producer and resident football enthusiast
Jordan Rizsieri takes a look at global football owners, what
they're after by buying clubs, and what they could do
to better serve the fans who support their teams. I'm
your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and iHeart Radio.
(00:45):
This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. When things are going well
for our soccer teams, it can be the best fielding
in the whole world in the final minutes of the
final in them. But when things are going badly, we
(01:11):
turn our anger to the players, the managers, and when
things have gone disastrously bad, the owners. Who are these
mysterious millionaires and billionaires who found the clubs we love?
Can anyone purchase a stake in a major soccer club,
What does it even mean to be an owner? And
(01:33):
perhaps a better question, what should it mean not just
for the team, but for the surrounding communities. It's time
to call up some of our favorite soccer experts for
a course in global soccer ownership. I'm Jordan Rozsieri, producer
at Sports Illustrated Weekly, and class is now in session.
As an American soccer fan, the first question I have
(01:56):
to ask is simple, why is ownership in professional soccer
so different all over the world. The reason why it's
so different in Europe and South America as opposed to
the US, is because there's a pyramid system. In those
other places, there's a relegation system, and no matter who
you bring in and no matter how much you spend,
(02:16):
you better deliver on the pitch because otherwise all that revenue,
specifically your TV rights, et cetera, are just gonna keep
going down. That's not the case in MLS. There's already
a sort of infiltrated bubble that's you know, already exists
because those clubs are never gonna be relegated. Here at
Sports Illustrated Weekly, when we have a soccer question. We
(02:37):
always start by asking Luis miguel At, a Garai longtime
soccer media mainstay recently of CBS Sports and the Kega
Lots of podcast. I wanted to know why we're not
seeing the kind of reaction to big spenders coming into
Major League Soccer to buy up our clubs that we
are in Europe. It's controversial, it's complicated, but I do
believe that the core reason why there's a big difference
(03:00):
is because MLS doesn't rely on relegation. If relegation existed,
I think more clubs there would be much more apparel
to find owners that, no matter what, can inject the
level of financial sustainability. In fact, what we see in
terms of ownership in the MLS is a certain amount
of celebrity, from Drew Kerrey to Ken Griffey Jr. And
(03:21):
even Matthew McConaughey. But what are these famous faces really
adding to the league. So if you're a name, a
celebrity name that's coming in and supporting this club and
adding some money and to your points and fame or
your face, and you know you do like a monthly
Q and a on Instagram live and maybe that helps
you a little bit, so be it what's more important
And this is what I see more from Matthew McConaughey.
(03:42):
Actually I'm very impressed with his influence for us Austin
FC is is how much are you given to your community?
And Angel City actually are doing a lot of stout there.
So I don't care what kind of celebrity comes in,
just make sure that the community is being represented and
being nurtured. When we think about soccer clubs and owners
relationships with the community, with the supporters, perhaps there is
(04:04):
no better example than in Germany in the Bundesliga. The
term fifty plus one gets thrown around a lot to
describe how the fans are involved in the ownership of
their clubs. So I decided to ask matt Ford football
journalists with Deutsche Vella to explain very very simply. The
fifty plus one rule stipulates that the majority of voting
(04:28):
rights in a professional company which runs a professional Bundesliague
football club, that those majority voting rights who main in
the hands of the parents club, the pairment football club
and its members, in other words, it's fans. This ensures
that while it's possible to purchase majority stakes in football clubs.
(04:52):
No outside entities, no external investors, no external business interests
can ever tame majority voting control over these clubs. That's
this ensures that of the voting shares in these clubs
remain with the club itself with its members plus one share,
hence the term fifty plus one. And this wild has
(05:14):
been in place since. So what does voting actually consist of?
What are you voting on? What are the fans actually
participating in? And it can vary slightly from club to club.
Were generally speaking, the fans will have a chance, usually
once per year at an annual general meeting to vote
(05:36):
for the bard all supervisor be barred. It's not that
direct voting. Nobody is directly voting for the manager. Nobody's
really even directly voting for the CEO, and there're certainly
not voting for the new striker that you sang in summer.
But that there isn't an indirect voting system. So when
we compare this kind of structure and this relationship between
(05:58):
the supporters and the club itself and where the money
is coming from to what's currently happening in the Premier League.
You're wearing a Manchester United shirt. Right now, we've seen
a lot of vocalization from the fans outside of the
stadium at Old Trafford, with a lot of opinions about
the owners of the team with the start the first
(06:19):
couple of games. What's your message to the Glazers. Absolutely
get out of this club because we don't need you.
You're a pathetic bunch of owners. You took this club
dry and all you do it's just take, take, take.
Can we talk a little bit about the difference between
those two things, because it's it seems to me that
there is a place in the Bundesliga for you as
(06:40):
a fan to have a voice when you're unsatisfied with
something that's going on, whereas in the Premier League there
is a limit to what you can do with your
frustration in terms of actually affecting change within your club.
One of the most common phases that you hear from
I suppose football fans all over the world, but I
think made particularly in England fans of Premier League and
(07:01):
other English clubs lower down the pyramid. We all, and
I include myself in this, we all talk about my club,
our club was we which is fine, That's that's only
natural However, at the end of the day, if we're
being if I'm being totally honest with myself, legally speaking,
Manchester United is not mine at all. It belongs to
(07:21):
the Closer family, and it has done since two thousand
and five. I have no possession or ownership or control
at all of Manchester United, and this applies to every
other club in the Premier League and elsewhere in the pyramid.
I might have something of man United, which is called
a membership, but it entitles me to absolutely nothing more
than what I might get if I have a bonus
card at the local local supermarket. That's all this entitles
(07:44):
me to. Ultimately. In Germany there is a fundamental difference
in it because of the fifty plus one whole. When
a German fan says it's my club, it literally is,
and that by its very nature influences the decisions which
those elected officials, and there the board members or directors
that they appoint influences the way they behave knowing that
(08:05):
there is an element of accountability. At some point when
it came to for example, the Super League by a
Munich and Bussy dartmands, they didn't even dare accept the
invitation to join the Super League at first, because they
knew it would have been impossible in their own club
statutes to take such a step without consulting membership. In England,
there was absolutely nothing stopping the Glazers of Manchester United,
(08:28):
or FSG group at Liverpool, or at the time of
Ramovich Chelsea or the Abu Dabi royal family in Manchester City.
Notebooks out everyone because now we're onto something. So there's
almost nothing stopping a singular person, a group or an
organization from taking over ownership of a club outside of
(08:51):
Germany and making decisions that may or may not be
in the best interests of the club and its supporters.
One place that Matt didn't mention is France. In Legua,
so I called up Justin Sahani, a Paris based journalist
and writer who works for Oh My Goal, to talk
about the ownership of one of the biggest clubs in
the world PSG. Let's talk a little bit about France.
(09:16):
So first of all, it's hard not to automatically start
talking about p s G as a club and their ownership,
but can we talk about what makes it possible for
an organization like that to even own a club in France.
In Germany there's this fifty plus one rule. I believe
in the Premier League there's sort of like a board
(09:38):
that determines whether or not a team can be bought
by a certain entity. And while those they have certain
like levers in place or certain rules in place, those
are fairly easily circumnavigated. In the case of while everyone
knows that it is owned by the state of Katar,
is effectively the owner, it's ran by and was purchased
(09:59):
by Qua side, which is the cut our sports investment,
which is essentially a means of the cutter government being
able to kind of operate and do things and say that,
you know, it's not exactly the emir who's who's in
charge of things. In France in general, I mean, we've
seen outside investment come more and more. We've had a
lot of American investment in recent years. For example, marse
(10:20):
which is maybe historically the biggest club in France, or
at least the most well supported club in France, has
had an American owner. Recently, international owners start to get
in and try to get ownership in the way that
you've seen in the Premier League and elsewhere. Monaco, which
is owned by a Russian individual who is on certain
lists that have seen consideration for sanctions in the US,
but in France until now through Friends Football, that they've
(10:42):
decided not to sanction him, which you know we saw
in the UK with Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich. Abramovich has
now been added to the UK sanctions list. He was
placed under sanction and had to sell the team and
has since sold the team. So in France there's just
no sort of rule that that's tip relates anything like
the Bundesliga, which I think opens it up to people
(11:04):
being able to invest more freely, and like the sort
of owners that come in can kind of be from
you know, almost anywhere in particular. So there's lots of
reasons why somebody would be interested in purchasing a club.
You mentioned Frank McCourt who owns Marseille, who comes from
the l A Dodgers. He's got experience owning a franchise
team in the US and Major League Baseball. I think
(11:25):
there's probably some cloud involved with getting your ownership on
a really well known, well respected, globally recognized team, And
that's how we end up talking about the term sports washing. First,
let's define what the term actually means. Yeah, sports washing
is a means of essentially laundering a reputation. So for example,
(11:47):
you know, you might buy a football club because it's
a way for you to get in and get into
new circles, to get into new in business and investment
circles or political circles. Particularly with PSG, that's what we've seen.
We've seen that the Katy government in various figure years
have used the ownership of PSG to make political connections
in France, particularly with somebody like the former French president
Nicolas Sarkozy. Why they're getting involved is more for the
(12:10):
political cloud but also for the associative clouds. So for example,
now when um, you know, you go around and you
talk about the state of cud Art two people in
France with the greater Prissian area, you know, they might
talk about things related to the upcoming World Cup. They
might talk about the labor violation issues, because this is
something that has been fairly well documented and shared among
(12:30):
you know, around the world. But you know, you also
see kind of the inverse of that at times. For example,
when Lionel Messi signed for for PSG last summer, Lionel
Messi has tonight signed for Parry Saint Gemin, officially ending
his twenty one year stay at Barcelona. He's completed his
medical examinations and signed a lucrative two year deal with
an option for a third year. You know, a bunch
(12:52):
of Parisians started to post things on social media to
the likes of thank you NASA speaking to Nasif was
essentially overseeing the PSG operation and has now also taken
like a very high profile role with UEFA as well.
So some interesting conflict of interest going on there, but
in essence, you know, the reasons to get involved here
(13:13):
and this is what sports watching comes down to, is
to change the association in your mind. And it's not
just happening in France either, It's happening in other places too.
I mean, we've talked a lot about what's happening with
the new ownership of Newcastle and I'm sure it's a
complicated thing for fans of Newcastle, longtime fans who have
(13:35):
seen the difficulties that the team has had in terms
of coming close to relegation and who want to see
their team be successful and who understand that Unfortunately, in
the Premier League that means you need money. You can't
win the Premier League if you don't have a lot
of money. However, when we see things like I think
maybe towards the end of last year, at the beginning
of the summer, we saw what their new kit was
(13:56):
going to look like, and it's basically the Saudi Arabian
flag right and speaks exactly to what you were just saying.
Is that now when people see those color combinations, are
they going to be thinking about the Newcastle away kit
or are they going to be thinking about Saudi Arabia
and the country and the things that have happened there
and have happened elsewhere in the world. But I think
those are the things that we talk about when we
(14:17):
talk about sports washing. Is it's kind of like having
your brain rewired, not even realizing it at the time.
There's a number of threads to pull up there. If
you take Newcastle as an example in particular, you really
have to empathize with some of the fans, you know,
I mean, because I think there there are levels to
what's been happening, and there's levels of culpability and responsibility
as well. Obviously, the major responsibility here lies with the
(14:39):
people highest in power that happens to be the Premier League. Um,
you can even argue maybe the British government to some extent.
You know, Newcastle fans have been they've been relegated a
couple of times in recent years. And this is a massive,
massive club with a huge fan base that was challenging
for titles you know a little over a decade ago.
The message that we've been receiving from watching football on TV,
(15:00):
watching all the highlight shows and review shows is that
the only thing that matters is winning, and the only
thing that matters our trophies. And if that's that's the
message we're taking away from playing football, then the kind
of natural end game of this is arriving at a
point where, well, we need money. Anytime a new owner
is coming in, there's gonna be kind of like, great,
(15:20):
just get us out of this guy's ownership. We saw
what happened with Man City and Abu Dhabi, and we
saw what happened with ps G N Kuta. So suddenly
there's this association that, Okay, we know this is problematic,
but we also know we're going to get investment, we're
gonna win. So maybe nobody has quite figured it out
yet from what Matt told me, it sounds like the
Bundesliga has some of their own problems, and there's obviously
(15:41):
plenty of problems in the Premier League and League in America.
Even if you lose, basically always, you're never going to
end about of the league. So you know, maybe there's
no perfect answer to what football ownership should look like.
The Amber consisted at an interesting comparison because as a nation,
as a culture, in the United States, it's is the
pre eminent free markets, unregulated sort of capitalist economy in
(16:06):
the Western world. However, the US sports systems are among
the most highly regulated in the Western world to ensure
their competition. There's actually quite interesting to see how that works.
And then we're seeing it in the Premier League at
the moment whereby it's no longer just wealthy business people
who are owning football clubs, but it's across the state
now where literally nation states are owning football clubs. Then
(16:30):
you're getting into a whole different ball game of why
are these people involved. If you're a Newcastle fan or
a Manchester City fan, you can tell yourself whatever you want,
I supposed to make yourself feel better about it. But
ultimately the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth for them arm of
the Saudi government, and about how they spin it. They're
not involved in Newcastle because they primarily care about football
(16:52):
or sports in Newcastle, in a city in the northeast
of England. They're doing it because it suits the state
of Saudi Bavia to be a oociated with the glamorous
entertainment products all over the world, which is the Premier League.
The same applies to Abu d Abbey in man Manchester City.
The same applied to Romano Gramovich and the adults ulterior
motives to be involved, to be associated with the high
(17:15):
profile Western assets. Other reasons why high profile individuals or
entities my own football clubs are argue even more dangerous
when you consider the damage that has been done to
Manchester United by the Glazier families since two thousand and five.
You know, over one point two billion pounds effectively stolen
from the football club's own profits and own turnovers in
(17:36):
order to repay debts and pay our dividends. So all
these zones all have ulterior motives to it to own
these football clubs and it ultimately leaves the fans the
support as the people to whom actually do these clubs
mean the most? It is a hugely important socio cultural
assets and socio cultural institutions in their communities. They end
(17:58):
up being little more than puppets, to put it bluntly,
and for whatever cause that owner might want, whether it's sportswashing,
whether it's cash machine, whether it's protect your assets or
whatever the reason might be. The fans are the ones
that end up being puppits in this, and the fans
of that they held hostage because they can't say no.
(18:18):
So what exactly is the point of a soccer club owner?
What are they meant to be doing besides pumping money
into the team to be competitive. How are these owners
supporting the communities that support their teams, that house their stadiums,
that come and work on game day. Louise has a
suggestion every single MLS club should have a community based department,
(18:39):
and their entire job has nothing to do with like
posting on Twitter or social media admin or videos, but
it's literally going out there into the community and engaging
with them and perhaps creating events, whether it's twenty four
hour days, soccer marathon days, you know, trials for the
(18:59):
under nines are under tens, food and culture festivals, whatever
it is, just begin to create a tighter bridge between
the club and community that has nothing to do with digital.
The moment that you yourself show yourself in the community,
and I'm speaking directly about the multicultural, underprivileged minority communities.
The more you do that, the better served. I mean again,
(19:21):
I go back to l a f C. The Mexican
American power that is the soccer fan in the United
States is so prevalent, and you go into that stadium
you can feel it. And it's not just because like
Carlos Vela is there. It's because they go into the
community and they try and create more relationships with whether
it's an amateur club or a youth club or a school,
(19:43):
et cetera. And I think that's the key. Like every
MLS clubs should have a community outreach department that specifically
focuses on one thing, and that's engaging with the community.
If you do that, you'll be better for it five, ten,
fifteen years from now. The kind of community engagement from
the club itself that Louise is talking about also helps
to encourage an outspoken and participatory fan base back in
(20:07):
German football supporters have been extremely vocal about their feelings
on a number of issues, made clear through the colorful
and vibrant displays known as TIFO. I asked Matt about
(20:28):
how the fifty plus one rule intrinsically ties the values
of the community to the clubs themselves. The very way
in which the club substructure in Germany makes them much
much more accuate and embedded representations of the communities they
come from, much more so than Premier League football crowds.
I was an old trafford in Manchester and it always
(20:49):
strikes me that how how comparatively old football crowds are
in England compared to Germany. I believe it. At one
point in recent years the average age of a season
ticket older at a print league football club in England
was about forty five to fifty years old. In Germany.
That is certainly much lower. It's certainly not forty five.
That's the result of the ticket prices being a lot
(21:09):
more affordable. That's the result of undeserved standing stervices being present.
Because if you abolish a standing terraces in a place
with seats, suddenly you can charge forty fifty are those
per sits rather than only ten. You are boys, per
stand where you want. It also attracts arguably a more
moneyed and perhaps slightly more controllable demographic rather than a
(21:33):
younger demographic, which there's a subculture which by thirty nature
as a youth subculture is rebellious. There has to be
a space for young people to rebil abit on the
Saturday afternoon within reason, and that is very much present
in Germany. So I think, like you said before you
mentioned the huge flags that capture people's attention, I think, yeah,
they're great, fantastically you know, they made for viable tweets
(21:55):
and videos and look spectacular blah blah blah. But they
I think, as we probably as I hope is probably
clear now is tip of the aspect? What what is
underneath that? The structures, the societal and impart and fifty
those one and that's that's all beneath that, that's probably
more going part and then simply a fantasy flag. And
(22:16):
and what a great example too, because literally the people
you're talking about that represent those structures are quite quite
literally underneath those giant flags too, So it was great,
a great metaphor, excellent, I'll use that sale. So what
have we learned about global soccer ownership. Well, we know
(22:37):
that clubs need financial backing in order to be competitive,
but because of the global popularity of the sport, the
tradeoff could be investment from individuals, groups, and even nation states.
We're looking to benefit in the socio political sphere as
well as with sports fans. Money make will wins, but
at what cost? And we also know that with ownership
(22:58):
structures varying were wide, the rocket powered globalization of top
tier soccer continues to widen the gap between the teams
and the communities they once represented. In order to strike
a balance, there must be true regulation of club ownership
and the elevation of each community's values within the clubs
they support. That's it for today, Class dismissed. Sports Illustrated
(23:36):
Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best
stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode of
Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jordan Rozsieri, Jessica yard
(23:58):
Moski and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer.
Our senior producers are Dan Bloom and Harry swart Out.
Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez.
Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And if you've
stuck around this long, we leave you with this. So
(24:20):
actually the first thing, justin, would you mind just introducing
yourself quickly so that I know how to refer to
you in the in the podcast. This is always my
part that I liked the least, just letting you know, um, sorry,
On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly. Owners tend to
get blamed by fans when things don't go well, especially
in soccer. Anyone who watches the Premier League was aware
of Manchester United fans marching through the streets chanting Glazers out.
But what do we know about the glazers? Really? What
do we know about any of the extremely rich owners
(00:23):
who are throwing around gobs of money at various clubs
all over the world. Our producer and resident football enthusiast
Jordan Rizsieri takes a look at global football owners, what
they're after by buying clubs, and what they could do
to better serve the fans who support their teams. I'm
your host, John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and iHeart Radio.
(00:45):
This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. When things are going well
for our soccer teams, it can be the best fielding
in the whole world in the final minutes of the
final in them. But when things are going badly, we
(01:11):
turn our anger to the players, the managers, and when
things have gone disastrously bad, the owners. Who are these
mysterious millionaires and billionaires who found the clubs we love?
Can anyone purchase a stake in a major soccer club,
What does it even mean to be an owner? And
(01:33):
perhaps a better question, what should it mean not just
for the team, but for the surrounding communities. It's time
to call up some of our favorite soccer experts for
a course in global soccer ownership. I'm Jordan Rozsieri, producer
at Sports Illustrated Weekly, and class is now in session.
As an American soccer fan, the first question I have
(01:56):
to ask is simple, why is ownership in professional soccer
so different all over the world. The reason why it's
so different in Europe and South America as opposed to
the US, is because there's a pyramid system. In those
other places, there's a relegation system, and no matter who
you bring in and no matter how much you spend,
(02:16):
you better deliver on the pitch because otherwise all that revenue,
specifically your TV rights, et cetera, are just gonna keep
going down. That's not the case in MLS. There's already
a sort of infiltrated bubble that's you know, already exists
because those clubs are never gonna be relegated. Here at
Sports Illustrated Weekly, when we have a soccer question. We
(02:37):
always start by asking Luis miguel At, a Garai longtime
soccer media mainstay recently of CBS Sports and the Kega
Lots of podcast. I wanted to know why we're not
seeing the kind of reaction to big spenders coming into
Major League Soccer to buy up our clubs that we
are in Europe. It's controversial, it's complicated, but I do
believe that the core reason why there's a big difference
(03:00):
is because MLS doesn't rely on relegation. If relegation existed,
I think more clubs there would be much more apparel
to find owners that, no matter what, can inject the
level of financial sustainability. In fact, what we see in
terms of ownership in the MLS is a certain amount
of celebrity, from Drew Kerrey to Ken Griffey Jr. And
(03:21):
even Matthew McConaughey. But what are these famous faces really
adding to the league. So if you're a name, a
celebrity name that's coming in and supporting this club and
adding some money and to your points and fame or
your face, and you know you do like a monthly
Q and a on Instagram live and maybe that helps
you a little bit, so be it what's more important
And this is what I see more from Matthew McConaughey.
(03:42):
Actually I'm very impressed with his influence for us Austin
FC is is how much are you given to your community?
And Angel City actually are doing a lot of stout there.
So I don't care what kind of celebrity comes in,
just make sure that the community is being represented and
being nurtured. When we think about soccer clubs and owners
relationships with the community, with the supporters, perhaps there is
(04:04):
no better example than in Germany in the Bundesliga. The
term fifty plus one gets thrown around a lot to
describe how the fans are involved in the ownership of
their clubs. So I decided to ask matt Ford football
journalists with Deutsche Vella to explain very very simply. The
fifty plus one rule stipulates that the majority of voting
(04:28):
rights in a professional company which runs a professional Bundesliague
football club, that those majority voting rights who main in
the hands of the parents club, the pairment football club
and its members, in other words, it's fans. This ensures
that while it's possible to purchase majority stakes in football clubs.
(04:52):
No outside entities, no external investors, no external business interests
can ever tame majority voting control over these clubs. That's
this ensures that of the voting shares in these clubs
remain with the club itself with its members plus one share,
hence the term fifty plus one. And this wild has
(05:14):
been in place since. So what does voting actually consist of?
What are you voting on? What are the fans actually
participating in? And it can vary slightly from club to club.
Were generally speaking, the fans will have a chance, usually
once per year at an annual general meeting to vote
(05:36):
for the bard all supervisor be barred. It's not that
direct voting. Nobody is directly voting for the manager. Nobody's
really even directly voting for the CEO, and there're certainly
not voting for the new striker that you sang in summer.
But that there isn't an indirect voting system. So when
we compare this kind of structure and this relationship between
(05:58):
the supporters and the club itself and where the money
is coming from to what's currently happening in the Premier League.
You're wearing a Manchester United shirt. Right now, we've seen
a lot of vocalization from the fans outside of the
stadium at Old Trafford, with a lot of opinions about
the owners of the team with the start the first
(06:19):
couple of games. What's your message to the Glazers. Absolutely
get out of this club because we don't need you.
You're a pathetic bunch of owners. You took this club
dry and all you do it's just take, take, take.
Can we talk a little bit about the difference between
those two things, because it's it seems to me that
there is a place in the Bundesliga for you as
(06:40):
a fan to have a voice when you're unsatisfied with
something that's going on, whereas in the Premier League there
is a limit to what you can do with your
frustration in terms of actually affecting change within your club.
One of the most common phases that you hear from
I suppose football fans all over the world, but I
think made particularly in England fans of Premier League and
(07:01):
other English clubs lower down the pyramid. We all, and
I include myself in this, we all talk about my club,
our club was we which is fine, That's that's only
natural However, at the end of the day, if we're
being if I'm being totally honest with myself, legally speaking,
Manchester United is not mine at all. It belongs to
(07:21):
the Closer family, and it has done since two thousand
and five. I have no possession or ownership or control
at all of Manchester United, and this applies to every
other club in the Premier League and elsewhere in the pyramid.
I might have something of man United, which is called
a membership, but it entitles me to absolutely nothing more
than what I might get if I have a bonus
card at the local local supermarket. That's all this entitles
(07:44):
me to. Ultimately. In Germany there is a fundamental difference
in it because of the fifty plus one whole. When
a German fan says it's my club, it literally is,
and that by its very nature influences the decisions which
those elected officials, and there the board members or directors
that they appoint influences the way they behave knowing that
(08:05):
there is an element of accountability. At some point when
it came to for example, the Super League by a
Munich and Bussy dartmands, they didn't even dare accept the
invitation to join the Super League at first, because they
knew it would have been impossible in their own club
statutes to take such a step without consulting membership. In England,
there was absolutely nothing stopping the Glazers of Manchester United,
(08:28):
or FSG group at Liverpool, or at the time of
Ramovich Chelsea or the Abu Dabi royal family in Manchester City.
Notebooks out everyone because now we're onto something. So there's
almost nothing stopping a singular person, a group or an
organization from taking over ownership of a club outside of
(08:51):
Germany and making decisions that may or may not be
in the best interests of the club and its supporters.
One place that Matt didn't mention is France. In Legua,
so I called up Justin Sahani, a Paris based journalist
and writer who works for Oh My Goal, to talk
about the ownership of one of the biggest clubs in
the world PSG. Let's talk a little bit about France.
(09:16):
So first of all, it's hard not to automatically start
talking about p s G as a club and their ownership,
but can we talk about what makes it possible for
an organization like that to even own a club in France.
In Germany there's this fifty plus one rule. I believe
in the Premier League there's sort of like a board
(09:38):
that determines whether or not a team can be bought
by a certain entity. And while those they have certain
like levers in place or certain rules in place, those
are fairly easily circumnavigated. In the case of while everyone
knows that it is owned by the state of Katar,
is effectively the owner, it's ran by and was purchased
(09:59):
by Qua side, which is the cut our sports investment,
which is essentially a means of the cutter government being
able to kind of operate and do things and say that,
you know, it's not exactly the emir who's who's in
charge of things. In France in general, I mean, we've
seen outside investment come more and more. We've had a
lot of American investment in recent years. For example, marse
(10:20):
which is maybe historically the biggest club in France, or
at least the most well supported club in France, has
had an American owner. Recently, international owners start to get
in and try to get ownership in the way that
you've seen in the Premier League and elsewhere. Monaco, which
is owned by a Russian individual who is on certain
lists that have seen consideration for sanctions in the US,
but in France until now through Friends Football, that they've
(10:42):
decided not to sanction him, which you know we saw
in the UK with Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich. Abramovich has
now been added to the UK sanctions list. He was
placed under sanction and had to sell the team and
has since sold the team. So in France there's just
no sort of rule that that's tip relates anything like
the Bundesliga, which I think opens it up to people
(11:04):
being able to invest more freely, and like the sort
of owners that come in can kind of be from
you know, almost anywhere in particular. So there's lots of
reasons why somebody would be interested in purchasing a club.
You mentioned Frank McCourt who owns Marseille, who comes from
the l A Dodgers. He's got experience owning a franchise
team in the US and Major League Baseball. I think
(11:25):
there's probably some cloud involved with getting your ownership on
a really well known, well respected, globally recognized team, And
that's how we end up talking about the term sports washing. First,
let's define what the term actually means. Yeah, sports washing
is a means of essentially laundering a reputation. So for example,
(11:47):
you know, you might buy a football club because it's
a way for you to get in and get into
new circles, to get into new in business and investment
circles or political circles. Particularly with PSG, that's what we've seen.
We've seen that the Katy government in various figure years
have used the ownership of PSG to make political connections
in France, particularly with somebody like the former French president
Nicolas Sarkozy. Why they're getting involved is more for the
(12:10):
political cloud but also for the associative clouds. So for example,
now when um, you know, you go around and you
talk about the state of cud Art two people in
France with the greater Prissian area, you know, they might
talk about things related to the upcoming World Cup. They
might talk about the labor violation issues, because this is
something that has been fairly well documented and shared among
(12:30):
you know, around the world. But you know, you also
see kind of the inverse of that at times. For example,
when Lionel Messi signed for for PSG last summer, Lionel
Messi has tonight signed for Parry Saint Gemin, officially ending
his twenty one year stay at Barcelona. He's completed his
medical examinations and signed a lucrative two year deal with
an option for a third year. You know, a bunch
(12:52):
of Parisians started to post things on social media to
the likes of thank you NASA speaking to Nasif was
essentially overseeing the PSG operation and has now also taken
like a very high profile role with UEFA as well.
So some interesting conflict of interest going on there, but
in essence, you know, the reasons to get involved here
(13:13):
and this is what sports watching comes down to, is
to change the association in your mind. And it's not
just happening in France either, It's happening in other places too.
I mean, we've talked a lot about what's happening with
the new ownership of Newcastle and I'm sure it's a
complicated thing for fans of Newcastle, longtime fans who have
(13:35):
seen the difficulties that the team has had in terms
of coming close to relegation and who want to see
their team be successful and who understand that Unfortunately, in
the Premier League that means you need money. You can't
win the Premier League if you don't have a lot
of money. However, when we see things like I think
maybe towards the end of last year, at the beginning
of the summer, we saw what their new kit was
(13:56):
going to look like, and it's basically the Saudi Arabian
flag right and speaks exactly to what you were just saying.
Is that now when people see those color combinations, are
they going to be thinking about the Newcastle away kit
or are they going to be thinking about Saudi Arabia
and the country and the things that have happened there
and have happened elsewhere in the world. But I think
those are the things that we talk about when we
(14:17):
talk about sports washing. Is it's kind of like having
your brain rewired, not even realizing it at the time.
There's a number of threads to pull up there. If
you take Newcastle as an example in particular, you really
have to empathize with some of the fans, you know,
I mean, because I think there there are levels to
what's been happening, and there's levels of culpability and responsibility
as well. Obviously, the major responsibility here lies with the
(14:39):
people highest in power that happens to be the Premier League. Um,
you can even argue maybe the British government to some extent.
You know, Newcastle fans have been they've been relegated a
couple of times in recent years. And this is a massive,
massive club with a huge fan base that was challenging
for titles you know a little over a decade ago.
The message that we've been receiving from watching football on TV,
(15:00):
watching all the highlight shows and review shows is that
the only thing that matters is winning, and the only
thing that matters our trophies. And if that's that's the
message we're taking away from playing football, then the kind
of natural end game of this is arriving at a
point where, well, we need money. Anytime a new owner
is coming in, there's gonna be kind of like, great,
(15:20):
just get us out of this guy's ownership. We saw
what happened with Man City and Abu Dhabi, and we
saw what happened with ps G N Kuta. So suddenly
there's this association that, Okay, we know this is problematic,
but we also know we're going to get investment, we're
gonna win. So maybe nobody has quite figured it out
yet from what Matt told me, it sounds like the
Bundesliga has some of their own problems, and there's obviously
(15:41):
plenty of problems in the Premier League and League in America.
Even if you lose, basically always, you're never going to
end about of the league. So you know, maybe there's
no perfect answer to what football ownership should look like.
The Amber consisted at an interesting comparison because as a nation,
as a culture, in the United States, it's is the
pre eminent free markets, unregulated sort of capitalist economy in
(16:06):
the Western world. However, the US sports systems are among
the most highly regulated in the Western world to ensure
their competition. There's actually quite interesting to see how that works.
And then we're seeing it in the Premier League at
the moment whereby it's no longer just wealthy business people
who are owning football clubs, but it's across the state
now where literally nation states are owning football clubs. Then
(16:30):
you're getting into a whole different ball game of why
are these people involved. If you're a Newcastle fan or
a Manchester City fan, you can tell yourself whatever you want,
I supposed to make yourself feel better about it. But
ultimately the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth for them arm of
the Saudi government, and about how they spin it. They're
not involved in Newcastle because they primarily care about football
(16:52):
or sports in Newcastle, in a city in the northeast
of England. They're doing it because it suits the state
of Saudi Bavia to be a oociated with the glamorous
entertainment products all over the world, which is the Premier League.
The same applies to Abu d Abbey in man Manchester City.
The same applied to Romano Gramovich and the adults ulterior
motives to be involved, to be associated with the high
(17:15):
profile Western assets. Other reasons why high profile individuals or
entities my own football clubs are argue even more dangerous
when you consider the damage that has been done to
Manchester United by the Glazier families since two thousand and five.
You know, over one point two billion pounds effectively stolen
from the football club's own profits and own turnovers in
(17:36):
order to repay debts and pay our dividends. So all
these zones all have ulterior motives to it to own
these football clubs and it ultimately leaves the fans the
support as the people to whom actually do these clubs
mean the most? It is a hugely important socio cultural
assets and socio cultural institutions in their communities. They end
(17:58):
up being little more than puppets, to put it bluntly,
and for whatever cause that owner might want, whether it's sportswashing,
whether it's cash machine, whether it's protect your assets or
whatever the reason might be. The fans are the ones
that end up being puppits in this, and the fans
of that they held hostage because they can't say no.
(18:18):
So what exactly is the point of a soccer club owner?
What are they meant to be doing besides pumping money
into the team to be competitive. How are these owners
supporting the communities that support their teams, that house their stadiums,
that come and work on game day. Louise has a
suggestion every single MLS club should have a community based department,
(18:39):
and their entire job has nothing to do with like
posting on Twitter or social media admin or videos, but
it's literally going out there into the community and engaging
with them and perhaps creating events, whether it's twenty four
hour days, soccer marathon days, you know, trials for the
(18:59):
under nines are under tens, food and culture festivals, whatever
it is, just begin to create a tighter bridge between
the club and community that has nothing to do with digital.
The moment that you yourself show yourself in the community,
and I'm speaking directly about the multicultural, underprivileged minority communities.
The more you do that, the better served. I mean again,
(19:21):
I go back to l a f C. The Mexican
American power that is the soccer fan in the United
States is so prevalent, and you go into that stadium
you can feel it. And it's not just because like
Carlos Vela is there. It's because they go into the
community and they try and create more relationships with whether
it's an amateur club or a youth club or a school,
(19:43):
et cetera. And I think that's the key. Like every
MLS clubs should have a community outreach department that specifically
focuses on one thing, and that's engaging with the community.
If you do that, you'll be better for it five, ten,
fifteen years from now. The kind of community engagement from
the club itself that Louise is talking about also helps
to encourage an outspoken and participatory fan base back in
(20:07):
German football supporters have been extremely vocal about their feelings
on a number of issues, made clear through the colorful
and vibrant displays known as TIFO. I asked Matt about
(20:28):
how the fifty plus one rule intrinsically ties the values
of the community to the clubs themselves. The very way
in which the club substructure in Germany makes them much
much more accuate and embedded representations of the communities they
come from, much more so than Premier League football crowds.
I was an old trafford in Manchester and it always
(20:49):
strikes me that how how comparatively old football crowds are
in England compared to Germany. I believe it. At one
point in recent years the average age of a season
ticket older at a print league football club in England
was about forty five to fifty years old. In Germany.
That is certainly much lower. It's certainly not forty five.
That's the result of the ticket prices being a lot
(21:09):
more affordable. That's the result of undeserved standing stervices being present.
Because if you abolish a standing terraces in a place
with seats, suddenly you can charge forty fifty are those
per sits rather than only ten. You are boys, per
stand where you want. It also attracts arguably a more
moneyed and perhaps slightly more controllable demographic rather than a
(21:33):
younger demographic, which there's a subculture which by thirty nature
as a youth subculture is rebellious. There has to be
a space for young people to rebil abit on the
Saturday afternoon within reason, and that is very much present
in Germany. So I think, like you said before you
mentioned the huge flags that capture people's attention, I think, yeah,
they're great, fantastically you know, they made for viable tweets
(21:55):
and videos and look spectacular blah blah blah. But they
I think, as we probably as I hope is probably
clear now is tip of the aspect? What what is
underneath that? The structures, the societal and impart and fifty
those one and that's that's all beneath that, that's probably
more going part and then simply a fantasy flag. And
(22:16):
and what a great example too, because literally the people
you're talking about that represent those structures are quite quite
literally underneath those giant flags too, So it was great,
a great metaphor, excellent, I'll use that sale. So what
have we learned about global soccer ownership. Well, we know
(22:37):
that clubs need financial backing in order to be competitive,
but because of the global popularity of the sport, the
tradeoff could be investment from individuals, groups, and even nation states.
We're looking to benefit in the socio political sphere as
well as with sports fans. Money make will wins, but
at what cost? And we also know that with ownership
(22:58):
structures varying were wide, the rocket powered globalization of top
tier soccer continues to widen the gap between the teams
and the communities they once represented. In order to strike
a balance, there must be true regulation of club ownership
and the elevation of each community's values within the clubs
they support. That's it for today, Class dismissed. Sports Illustrated
(23:36):
Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best
stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode of
Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jordan Rozsieri, Jessica yard
(23:58):
Moski and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer.
Our senior producers are Dan Bloom and Harry swart Out.
Our executive producers are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez.
Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And if you've
stuck around this long, we leave you with this. So
(24:20):
actually the first thing, justin, would you mind just introducing
yourself quickly so that I know how to refer to
you in the in the podcast. This is always my
part that I liked the least, just letting you know, um, sorry,
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