Super League E118 @CPLPodcast

New Premier Podcast: @MikeMillerFC talks about the #SuperLeague with guest, Sam Adamo of the @CalcioPodcast. #UCL

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to the Premiere Podcast, yoursource of information about Canadian soccer. This
is what you can find us onApple, Spotify and wherever you find your
favorite podcast, New Demension. Youcan also chat with us on Facebook,

(00:28):
Twitter and Instagram at CPL podcast.Ladies and gentlemen from Montreal, Quebec.
Up the volume, Michael the volumeMiller. Would you mind, Hello and

(01:06):
welcome to this episode of the PremierPodcast. With you, as always,
straight from Montreal, Quebec, yourhost, Michael Miller, and with me
today I have a very special guest. He is the host of the Calcio
podcast. Please welcome. Also fromMontreal, Quebec, Sam Adamo. How
are you, my friend? I'mvery well, Thank you, Mike.

(01:26):
I'm I'm I'm Jazz ut Man.It's been well, what a ride the
past couple of days have been.First of all, I'm very happy to
be here. Thank you for forhaving me on. UM look forward to
look forward to doing the same andreciprocating and the reciprocating the favor and having
you on sometime soon when when wehave a little excuse to to talk some
to talk about excuse me, umin an Italian context, maybe uh I

(01:49):
actually actually thought that an opportunity mightarise very soon, with Barcelona joining potentially
the Super League next year, andI figured out, well, you know,
no problem, every week, everyevery couple of weeks, Barcelona's gonna
be playing an Italian team. Maybewe could have you on sometime then easily.
But I'm not so sure anymore.What a last forty eight hours these
have been. I know, Iknow, but you know what, I

(02:16):
was skeptical from the very beginning because, as you probably know, I'm a
FC Barcelona member, right, andBarcelona is when it comes to sports,
Barcelona and Real Madrid are very uniquein the way they're set up because they're
essentially coops, right, they're democraciesand they can't do anything without the approval

(02:40):
of their members. And as amember, I was not contacted by the
club. There was no extraordinary extraordinarygeneral assembly, there was no memo,
no email, nothing, and I'mlike, wait a minute, there,
they're coming up with this whole projectand we've never approved this. What's going

(03:02):
on? And from then on,from the very beginning of this crazy forty
eight hour cycle, I was waitingfor my president to say something, and
he kept quiet until today and whenhe actually did say something, what do
you say, We're not going todo anything without the approval of our members,

(03:23):
as simple as that. And that'sweird. That's weird because you would
think that if they're going to bedoing something like this in the shadows and
coming out publicly as they did onSunday and saying, yeah, we're throwing
our weight behind this, we're fullyon board with this, and we have
every intent of playing in this Europeansuper League, you would think that they

(03:43):
would only do that if it wasn'tcontingent on something that big, because obviously
it kind of goes against the fabricof how football has always been in Europe,
and you'd expect that most members wouldas a result be opposed to it.
It's actually a reason why I thoughtthat a lot of German clubs would
stay away from it, namely ByernMunich and Brusia Dortman, who were probably
the only two who I would haveexpected to be a part of this sort

(04:04):
of thing anyway. But well hegot Red Bull as well, right right.
I don't know that they would haveI don't know that they would have
been able to to to swing it, to be honest with you. But
again, who the hell knows MadCity were involved, and they've only really
been they've only really been a superpowerfor the past twelve is years. I
don't know that Red Bull would havebeen considered established it up. I don't
know. I listen. I foundtwo omissions on Sunday rather rather conspicuous,

(04:29):
and that was PSG and Bayern Munich. And the first two things that kind
of came to my mind after havingreflected on it, was well, in
the case of PSG, you're basicallydealing with Qatar, literally Qatar itself,
so they're probably not gonna want tobark up the wrong tree and piss off
FIFA, given the fact that they'vegot the World Cup in the year's time.
So I guess that made sense becauseobviously the Super League was always going

(04:50):
to rufle a little bit. Itwas always going to rufle up some feathers,
and I think anyone could have hadthe foresight to expect to happen.
So PSG out right there, andthen well then you turn to Buyron and
you think, well, what thehell are they not doing in the competition?
Isn't it in their best interest totry to, you know, be
among these big boys. Well,there's also the fact that in Germany,

(05:13):
like in Spain. I don't knowif this is actually the case of all
Spanish clubs, but I know thatit's the case of Barcelona, as you
mentioned, and I know Real Madridas well. But let the bill bow
is the third one. They're theonly three in Spain. Okay, Okay,
Well, I think it's a Ithink it's I think it's pretty much
something that's I could be wrong,but I think it's something that is the
case for every club in Germany,at least at the professional level where they
have to have a supporters trust.I could be wrong, but I know
in any event, I know BayernMunich do notoriously, and I figured,

(05:36):
well, there's no way that thisgets past their members. It's probably why
they didn't throw their weight behind it. In a lot of ways, it's
smarter that they didn't, because ifthey had and the vote and the members
would have voted against it, theywould have looked right stupid backing out.
But yeah, you make a goodpoint about the whole member thing in Barcelona.
Yeah, it makes you wonder ifit was ever really something that could

(05:57):
happen. And you know, buthere's the thing about Barcelona. Here's the
thing about Barcelona. As you probablyknow, we just kicked out our former
president a few months ago, right, and we just elected our new president,
like what not even a month ago. So Laporta has nothing to do
with this. It has Bartomeyo writtenall over it. And Bartomeyo was not

(06:21):
a popular president and he was notthe kind of president who wanted to consult
the members, because no matter whathe would have tried to do, the
members would have crushed it. Andby the time he left, Laporta came
in with this with these wills alreadyin motion, and he had nothing to
do. It was already done.And by the time he got announced,

(06:43):
he kept quiet, he didn't sayanything, and when he did say something,
it was about the members, whichis exactly what was expected of him.
And one of the reasons why themembers love him so much, it's
because of the perspective that he actuallycares about the members and cares about the
statutes and wouldn't do something, wouldn'ttry to put one past the members.

(07:08):
That's a whole weird dynamic. Iknow this is kind of getting off on
a sidetach in here, but that'sa whole weird dynamic that exists in Spain
a couple of these clubs where youbasically have you basically have presidents that are
campaigning like a president of any ofany of any state. Yeah, just
can't just campaigning for votes, tryingto make good with trying to make good

(07:28):
with with with with members and votersessentially because they want to maintain power and
they want to stay at the club. That's a little bit of a weird
dynamic that kind of exists. Obviously, though they have to act on behalf
of the members and they can't justdo anything they want and and and sit
on their ass and just collect abig ass salary every year. But it
is I always found it a littlebit strange. I always found it a

(07:49):
little bit strange. But at theend of the day, I think it
kind of highlights the fact that really, as the head of a club,
all you're supposed to do is justact as the custodian of that club on
behalf of the people, you knowwhat I mean. But that's what the
job should be. Well, that'swhat that's that is what it should be.
And this begs the Q. Here'sthe thing, right, Andrea and
Yelli of Juventas. I'm a UVfan right cultural podcast, Italian background,

(08:11):
No surprise, fell in love withas a kid. John Jibufon was that
Uve I was. I was stuckwith them, Okay. I've been supporting
them for a very long time.And I'd have to say I always loved
Andrea andely since he came in inlike twenty ten eleven, because I felt
that he was a guy. Well, first of all, he was He's
a part of the Anielli family,which owns Fiat. And if you're not

(08:33):
aware, and Yelli is Fiat,and Fiat is Yuve and Juve is Anielli,
and they're all very interconnected. JeepChrysler, definitely, but that came
later after Fiat bought those, afterthey bought out Was it um not General
Motors christ who Daimler, Well,no, Mont Damler. The Damler owned

(08:54):
Chrysler. And then when they whenthey broke that merger, then fiatleped in
because it was it was Chrysler Motors, right, It was Chrysler Motors,
right, Okay. In any event, I always like what I Nelly did.
I always like the fact that hewas kind of an in house guy,
and the fact that he understood theculture of the club. He's from
the city of Torino, but healso he's very well read, he's very

(09:16):
well educated, and he has avery global business background. And I think
that he always acted in the bestinterests of the club always, so I
don't think there was ever a questionof him not acting on behalf of the
fans. I really do think thathe always had the club's best interest in
mind. Now here's the thing whata lot of fans now are pissed off

(09:37):
about is the fact that every singleone of these big boys who tried to
break off from MUAFA to form thisnew European competition, A big concern is
that they don't give a shit aboutthe fans. And I swear on this
pot are are we going dirty?Are we going for a big? Big
thing that we've been hearing is thata lot of the clubs don't give a
shit about the fans. I actuallydon't know if that's true. In the

(10:00):
Vonnielli, I believe that what he'sbeen trying to do is get a bigger
piece of the pie, which hefeels ub is due. Every individual club
is within their right to go abouttrying to secure the best future, they
can for themselves. I think everyonehas to act in their own self interest,
So I understand that I don't necessarilythink that, you know, Annelli
going out and doing this is somehownot acting as a as a custodian on

(10:22):
behalf of UB. If anything,it's it's a it's a good pressure play
on WIFA to milk a little bitmore money out of them. But the
thing is, Begs, the questionshould be due more of the pie in
Italy say you know what I mean. Obviously UB bring in more money,
bring more eyeballs to the league thanVera then Helas Vidna for example. But

(10:46):
does it not make sense that perhaps, you know, you split up the
pie equally among the twenty teams inthe league, just on the basis of
the fact that it makes it alittle bit more interesting and kind of prevents
the possibility of further inequities. Again, it becomes it becomes it becomes a
collectivism versus capitalism type debate, butwithin a very specific industry we're not talking.

(11:07):
And that's the thing. You know, you could be as free market
as you want to be in lifein general. You know, you could
want to be left alone or dowhatever the hell you want with your business.
But I think you look at footballand you say, oh, maybe
it's a little bit different, youknow. And I'm not saying this is
necessarily the case, but maybe youlook at football and say, maybe it
needs a little bit more regulation,and maybe FIFA and WAYFA what they provide
is a good thing, because otherwiseyou'd have big clubs go and do this

(11:28):
and form closed leagues where there's nolevel of competition and there's no punishment for
losing. But on the flip side, you look at WAIFA and FIFA and
you could almost look at them asa mafia who control the entirety of football
globally, who who decide, youknow, who decide whether or not a
club is legit or not. Imean the whole, the whole notion of

(11:50):
kicking clubs out of their respective nationalfederations is only possible because FIFA is the
one who everyone gets whoever one andeverything gets reported to. So there are
a lot of layers to this.That's really the takeaway here, and I
don't know that there's really a possibleoutcome that is Peretto efficient for everyone.

(12:13):
Someone loses out. I think abig issue with the idea of the super
League is that those who would loseout would arguably be the fans. That's
something we've heard. It's become abit of a platitude the past couple of
days. You know, football isfor the fans, but it's hard to
argue that fans benefit from this otherthan the fact that they get to watch
a cool competition. But you know, fans of every other team in the

(12:37):
world almost feel like the sport isdevalued and the only thing that matters is
this one competition. And given howbig the sport is, I don't know
that it makes sense to have anNBA type system or an NHL type system
because of how big and global footballis. Here's the thing, though,
And by the way, I believein capitalism. I'm a CPA, so

(13:01):
do I. Yeah, totally,I'm a CPA. I got a master's
degree in finance from McGill University.If I weren't a capitalist, there would
be something extremely wrong with me,right right, right? Um. However,
what I don't believe in a Shenanigansand I feel as though the Big
twelve as we're gonna call him,when they came up with this idea of

(13:22):
announcing a super League. It wasall part of a larger plan to squeeze
UEFA for more money. And guesswhat, this morning, UEFA wakes up
and they come up with the sevenbillion euro plan which will be injected in
the in the UEFA Champions League.And who benefits the most from from the

(13:43):
UFA Champions League year and year outthe big twelve, right, the ones
who are there most often. Right. The thing is you get guys like
Arsenal and Tottenham who are nowhere nearthe Champions League this year, for instance,
But the expansion is going to benefitthem. Right, of course,
of course it will. But mypoint is, I think one thing that
you might argue as being I thinkI think one kind of detractor of this

(14:07):
whole of this whole idea of aleague is that there's mobility in football.
And if Arsenal mismanaged their their youknow, their affairs over the next three
years, they could wind up relegated. In theory, obviously that's crazy,
right, they make a lot ofmoney. Uh, they're a big brand
globally. It would be very difficult, it would be very difficult for them
to not be competitive at some level. But in theory, it's possible.
It's also some people viewed this asa little bit farcical because it's like,

(14:30):
well, you're not even taking thebest teams that exist right now, you're
just going off of name and offof who makes the most money, which
which, which, again kind ofdevalues the idea that football is based off
at off a sporting merit. It'sbeen a big detractor of the MLS that
there's no relegation, right but onething that I think you could say about
MLS is that clubs were created outof thin air. There was no infrastructure

(14:50):
that was in place in the States. There's an infrastructure that's been in place
in England for one hundred and twentyone hundred and thirty years in the case
of some clubs. So to goagainst that now feels a little bit more
cataclysmic, and I think that's whywe're seeing the shock that we're that we're
that we're kind of seeing worldwide.And then you know, FIFA played their
hand brilliantly. Let's not let's notlet's not let's not hit ourselves. I

(15:11):
mean FIFA coming out and saying,you know what you want to do this,
Your players aren't gonna be able togo to the World Cup. That's
a bit of a shock right there, you know what. You know what,
though, there's a legal precedence againstthat claim. I don't know if
you've heard about the Dutch speed skaterswho there were two of them and they
took part in a private competition andbecause of that they were going to be

(15:33):
banned from the Olympics. And thenthey seized the European Union tribunal and they
won their case and they were ableto take party the Olympics. And here's
the thing, but it would havebeen a stupid play by FIFA. Would
have been a play to basically justsay, you know what, we're gonna
flex our muscles and say that wemean business. But at the end of
the day, would have devalued theirproduct because the best players in the world
play for those twelve twenty clubs,not only the e penalized players who have

(15:56):
nothing to do with this decision inthe first place. Definitely, definitely.
But the idea is then that playersare free to leave the club if they
want so they if they don't wantto not play in a World Cup,
they could just leave. I don'tknow, they can go play for Leicester
for example, or they can goplay for Napoli or for Roma or for
Leon whatever. You would have asecond Bosman ruling. And that's one thing
actually that I wanted to tell youabout them. Yeah, we were talking

(16:19):
off pod before. What what whatis? What is the relevance of the
Bosman ruling that we were talking aboutbefore. Listen, This a little bit
out of context here because listeners won'tget what we were talking about off pod.
But I was mentioning the fact thatyou had a Morocco jersey on that
it was beautiful, and you weresaying how the Bosman ruling screwed up the
Moroccan national team's ability to stay competitive. I'm not I'm not going to get

(16:40):
into the Moroccan national team for thebenefit of our listeners. But the Bosman
ruling in nineteen ninety six, basicallybefore in nineteen ninety six, you were
not able to um to leave yourclub freely at the end of your contract.
Even if your contract was up,you still belong to your club and
your club was free to either releaseyou, sell you, or renew your

(17:03):
contract. And in nineteen ninety six, there's a case which which has legal
precedence over every single player contract,not only in Europe, but in the
entire world. And that's when playerswere started is starting to be free to
move as they pleased at the endof their contracts. And the other thing

(17:25):
that happened during those days is thatbefore nineteen ninety six, I don't know
if you noticed, I don't knowif you heard stories from from from before.
I know that you're younger than me, But before nineteen ninety six,
if you're an Italian team, forexample, your entire roster except for three
players had to be Italian, notnaturalized Italian, but actually Italian born.

(17:49):
And the same was true for everysingle championship in the entire world. And
this Belgian player, Bosman, that'shis name, he wanted to leave his
Belgian club at the end of hiscontract to sign for a club I believe
in Germany, and he was toldthat first of all, he couldn't because

(18:11):
he wasn't free to leave, andsecond he couldn't play for this German club
because they had already hit their quotaof internationals. And then he was able
to demonstrate in front of the Europeancourt that because he is a member of
the European Union, he could beconsidered a local player where wherever he went

(18:33):
within the Eurozone. And you know, that's like a whole big parentheses to
to demonstrate to you that if FIFAhad decided that, you know what,
if you're signed to Super League club, you're free to leave in order to

(18:56):
be able to represent your country.I don't think it would have been accepted
by by courts, not only inEurope or anywhere in the world, because
the contract is a contract, andwhen you were assigned to a team,
an institution like FIFA cannot avoid yourcontract just because you've decided to compete in

(19:18):
this brand new competition. Here's thething, right, I thought about this
and it hit me that one waythat FIFA could really hit these guys where
it hurts if they wanted to.And again, this is in the event
of the league does go on totake place. Right now, the past
like a few hours, there's beencrazy news coming out about teams backing out

(19:40):
and the whole thing possibly being crisisnow, and I guess we can we
can get to that in a littlebit, but let's assume that this all
goes through. If you're FIFA andyou really want to get these guys where
it hurts. What do you do, well, very simply, you want
to try to kill off the qualityof their product, because if the product
sucks and they're no longer the bestteams in the world, they're not even
winning their own domestic leagues, ifthey're even allowed to play in their domestic
leagues, then people will no longertake them seriously over time. Now,

(20:02):
how do you do this, right, How the hell do you do this?
These guys are gonna be making moremoney to can buy the best players
that exist. Right, well,very simply, if you are FIFA,
what you do is you say toevery other FIFA member club, which is
basically every other professional club in theworld who is not a part of this
broken away league, if you sellto a European Super League club, there
will be consequences. You will befined, you will be banned from your

(20:26):
competition. Basically, what you dois you ban outright, Yes, you
ban outright the sale of players toosuper league clubs. Furthermore, you could
even ban the acquisition of players froma Super League club. Now, of
course, this really screws with anyplayers that are a part of a Super
League club because then it means thatthe only movement they could do is within
you know, it was within theleague and to each other, like a

(20:47):
close system that you have in theNHL. And ultimately, you know,
eventually these players would retire and whothe hell do you bring up? Well,
all you have is your own academysystem, because you can't go and
buy kids from another club because well, that's a true transaction, and you
cannot transact with anyone that is aFIFA member because FIFA will not allow it.
If you do that, then theyhave to focus entirely on development.
And no matter how much you focusyour efforts on development, you're not going

(21:08):
to develop the same quality of playerin Torrino alone through Juventus as you will
throughout the rest of the Italian peninsula. So you Ventus, for example,
goes down in quality, their teamsucks, They become the quality of what
you would expect of the second divisionside perhaps, and then the same thing
is happening to Barcelona, the samething is happening at Chelsea, and all

(21:32):
of a sudden the league no longercarries anyway. That's how you would ultimately
squeeze them. I think now,is that something that FIFA could do?
I don't know. I don't knowif there's a legal precedent to do something
like that, because who are theyto decide whether or not a transaction can
occur between a private company and anotherprivate company. Again, it depends.
It depends on what rules they putin place. They put financial fair play

(21:52):
rules in place, maybe they couldput something similar like that in place when
it comes to transfers and transactions withthese clubs. It really depends on how
serious they are, because I wonderif it'll even get to that point.
Man just saying you know, there'sa possibility that you guys could not play
in the World Cup players if youplay for a team that's a part of
the Super League. That was enoughclearly to throw everything for a little bit

(22:14):
of a loop and bake. Itmakes you wonder if you know the fact
that Chelsea and Man City now havebacked out of it already after a day
makes you wonder if it had allbeen thought out that well at all.
But again, it's not like it'snot like FIFA saying that players who play
in the Super League cannot play inthe World Cup actually is good for FIFA.

(22:34):
It's not because it renders their competitiondogshit. The best players in the
world play in these leagues, soit's almost like a hollow threat, but
it was enough to Again, Idon't know if it was hollow or not,
but you would you would, youwould wonder if it might have been
something that they were just saying tokind of scare them off in Incredibly,
it seems to have possibly worked,but it puts unnecessary pressure over the player's

(22:57):
shoulders in my opinion. Anyway,let's make a mental note. I want
to I want to talk about howweak UEFA has looked throughout this entire process.
And you're right, FIFA has alot of power, but the way
that they could have effectively wielded theirpower is through every domestic federation. Let's

(23:18):
say, for example, in Spain, in England or in Italy. It'd
been like, you know what,if you want to be in a super
League, fine, you're free togo, but you cannot compete in your
domestic league, and you cannot competein the in your domestic cup. Your
banned from domestic competition. The superLeague is the only competition that you'll that
you'll have to worry about from hereon out. And then it would have

(23:40):
put it would it would have putpressure on the shoulders of the owners,
sponsors, players, everyone involved withthese clubs. That being said, and
that's the one thing that I foundextremely hypocritical about the way that this whole
project was announced. And I sawFlorida and Tino Perez's interview with the Spanish

(24:03):
media yesterday and the way that hewas explaining the whole thing. He was
presenting it as an alternative to theto the Champions League, but from what
he was saying, nothing else wasgoing to change. The only difference is
that instead of competing in UEFA's acompetition, they were going to create a
competition of their own. But theone thing that I found extremely hypocritical.
The other thing that I found extremelyhypocritical about the way that the whole competition

(24:27):
was set up was that it wasset up as a as a closed league,
but they kept five spots open forother teams to qualify in the competition,
which I find extremely stupid. Ifthey had announced an all out closed
league, it would have been lesshypocritical. But now they present a system

(24:48):
where fifteen teams are always qualified nomatter what happens, and there are five
spots available for for other things,for other teams to qualifying, and that
I found extremely weird. Anyway,all that aside, I sincerely don't believe
that the plan was to start thissuper league at all. I think that

(25:11):
all of this was an elaborate planto get UEFA to bend and come up
with, yeah, making sessions,change the format, come up with this
extra seven billion year olds that cameout of nowhere. No one's asking questions
about that, by the way,But I don't think that the plan,

(25:32):
the real plan, was ever forthese twelve clubs to actually set up a
super league which would either compete againstthe Champions League or effectively kill the Champions
League. I think that because whenyou when you look at when you look
at the grand scheme of things,all of these clubs were members of the

(25:52):
European Clubs Association, right, includingByron, including PSG. And what is
this associate in doing and has beendoing since two thousand and eight, or
we can even go back to nineteenninety eight when it was called the G
fourteen. Right. Their sole missionis to put pressure on UEFA and get

(26:14):
UEFA to cough up more money andcome up with a format that is more
easily accessible for these huge teams andput less less pressure on them to have
to qualify locally. Um, whatwas it two years ago that they decided

(26:34):
to change the format in a waythat the top four associations in Europe were
able to send our top four teamstwo three years ago? Yeah, something
like that. Yeah, exactly,Bro. When I grew up, Listen,
when I grew up, I'm thirtysix years old. When I when
I grew up, only the championgot to go to the Champions League,
and that that was until nineteen ninetythree, then nineteen ninety three with the

(26:56):
Champions League, but before that wasthe European Cup. When it was the
Cup, which is from nineteen fiftyfour to nineteen ninety two, only the
champion went furthermore, the European Cup. Where is it coming from? They
created a UEFA in nineteen fifty fourwhen the top clubs in Europe and link
It, which is the French languagesoccer magazine. Right, they decided to

(27:21):
come together, the newspaper exactly,decided to come together and create this competition
which was vehemently opposed, just likethe Super League today and now it's considered
the most prestigious club title in theworld. Yeah, people are opposed to
change invariably whenever. Whenever they likesomething, people get comfortable and they don't
like to see that comfort taken away. But you know what, the more

(27:44):
I think about it, and andhere here's the thing, I haven't been
necessarily on equivocally against the super League. I don't want it to happen personally
because I prefer the idea that anyteam can come up through you know,
competitive through through through competitive competitive mejust just from from from from the quality
of their their play on sporting meritbasically right. But I understand why these

(28:11):
clubs want to create the league.At the end of the day, who
is YUAFA to tell them who andwho who they can and can't play against.
If if you've and Bayern and PSGand Man City decide that over a
two week period they're gonna face eachother in friendlies on Tuesday, that exists,
and you know what it's called.It's called the International Champions Cup and

(28:32):
it's played every summer, right right, right, But that's a preseason friendly
tournament. But I'm saying is what'sokay? But you know what, you
make a good point. Why whyis that allowed? And why is you
know, playing games on Fridays againsteach other not allowed if it were just
in a in a friendly context whereyou know, a trophy is awarded at
the end, and yeah, peoplemight watch it on TV, but it's
not federated. The thing is,WAIFA wants to have control over every game

(28:57):
that they can make money on,right, So if if any of its
members are playing a match in Europeancompetition, they're the ones running it.
They're the ones who are negotiating theTV deal. So I do understand why
it could be for the benefit ofall the clubs to see a bigger piece
of the pie. And I'm notjust talking about the big boys. I'm

(29:18):
talking about any respective team that makesthe Champions League. It could be Atalanta
who made it last year and thisyear, you know who are not one
of the big boys in Europe.There, they're certainly not one of the
big boys in Europe. But youcould say that, you know what,
it would be better for Atalanta ifthey could get a bigger piece of the
pie that you get when you getto the Champions League. You're probably one
of the better managed teams in Europeright now, I'll tell you that much.
Certainly from a sporting percent from asporting perspective. Financially, absolutely,

(29:44):
yeah, they go hand in hand, right They It's very simple. They
they they buy young, they develop, they develop in house, and they
sell off. And a lot ofthe time and a lot of the guys
that they sell barely even played aminute for them. I mean, take
the case of trial Ray and Kulzewski, who have sold this past year.
First I think a ridiculous combined feeof like maybe sixty or seventy million year

(30:06):
old. They had played a coupleof games between them for the first team.
But my point is WAIFA aren't necessarilywielding any exclusive power by being able
to put on games. Because iftwo teams shake if the presidents of two
teams shake hands and say, okay, you know we're gonna play. We're
gonna play next week, they couldplay. They could field their first teams.

(30:29):
It could be a friendly on paper. It could not be an official
competition, but they could do that. People would watch it, and you
know it wouldn't be it wouldn't beunder the oversight of WAIFA. Right.
My point is, all this isis kind of just It's almost like some
of the more powerful clubs in Europeare saying, we don't really need you.
If we want to, we couldgo and do whatever we want.

(30:52):
We're the ones who control where theeyeballs come from. We're the ones who
control where the money comes from.It has nothing to do with you and
your ability to organize a tournament format, because that is not something that they
have. Hum what's the word apatent on? They don't anyone could do

(31:14):
that. I could organize the tournamentif I want. If a billion people
want to watch that tournament, thenall of a sudden, the tournament becomes
valuable. But no one's gonna watchit because the tournament I would organize it
would be with my beer league guys. But but but but you know,
the second the second that Uventus atManchester United and Chelsea and man City and
Athletic and every big club in Europedecides to organize the tournament, it becomes

(31:34):
interesting and that's where there's money behindit. But again, the value of
the Champions League is in the clubs. It is in the clubs, and
I get that a lot of fansare pissed off when they see clubs wanted
to break off, because they say, you know what you're just doing this
for more money. I get it. But at the end of the day,
the clubs do have a duty totry to make the best, the

(31:55):
best, the best possible outcome forthemselves that they can. So we have
to realize that it is in alot of case, it is in a
lot of ways approach an active protestagainst Huifa. But then, you know,
on the flip side, you couldjust say how much money is,
how much money is enough money?How much more money? How much more
money you guys need? You know, you guys are wealthy, you guys
are perfectly sustainable. The problem isa lot of these clubs of in the

(32:19):
past year have been exposed as beingnecessarily sustainable when faced with something like a
global pandemic. And you know,that's possibly a reason why we saw Chelsea
and man City back out right away, because they have big backing from big
individual players. But yeah, man, you know what, though, I
I do not understand how people ingeneral are kind of what's the word.

(32:52):
They're basically denouncing the Super League asthis giant cash grab, as if the
UFA Champions League was anything different.The UFA Champions League also is a giant
cash grab, and it's not theopen system that people make it out to
be. Yeah, sure, you'llhave a few smaller teams in the group
stage after they went through an entiresummer of qualifying rounds. Right, but

(33:15):
at the end of the day,who wins it, who qualifies to its
quarterfinals, semifinals. Don't tell methat Lyon or IAX or Porto or Monika
or small teams. They're they're they'rethey're huge, they're they have they're bigger
than any team from from from anycountry outside of Europe could be, right,

(33:38):
what's cool? Right, But what'scool about the Champions League is if
you're you could get into the Championyou can get into the Champions League.
You may not win the freaking thing, but yes, you're in this but
in the right but in nineteen eightysix could win it. That's true,
that's true. They actually did noright, no right, But again you

(34:00):
know that, and that's kind ofthe point. Right, If you create
a super league like this, thenthe narrative of you know, teams falling
and rising goes And this is wherewe recreate this is where we reinvent history.
Antiqueill zero now and everything from thispoint on is the only thing that
matters. That's what's weird. Itdoesn't make sense in my opinion, to
cut off the possibility of other teamsattaining the level that a lot of these

(34:22):
clubs are at right now, becauseyou know what, I think it was
Hawthorne who said families are always risingand falling in America. I don't know
if that's true. I heard itUnderdeparted. But but but but it's true.
Bad, it's true. But justbecause it's league, nothing is guaranteed.
Just because the Super League is wrong, it doesn't mean that the Champions
League is right. The format hasto be rethought in a way that is

(34:45):
more competitive, because right now that'snot what it is. And they were
talking about this reform, this thirtysixteen reform, which is absolute garbage if
you ask me, I don't knowif you saw it or not, but
basically, you played ten teams nothome in a way out of thirty six
and they figure out a way todecide who's playing home, and at the

(35:07):
end of the day, the topteams qualified to the next round. And
that's fucking stupid. Why can't wejust go back to an actual competition,
which which is entertaining and competitive andfair. Because right now, the Champions

(35:28):
League as it is is not thebest of formats. However, everything that
has been presented as a potential newformat is even worse. Yeah, and
I'm just gonna chime in a second, here, change gears a little bit,
live live breaking news update, officiallyofficial fabric Romano. Here we go,

(35:52):
as we're recording, all six PremierLeague teams have officially withdrawn from the
competition or are commencing the process ofthe drunk from the Super League. What
the hell? Mad? This wasa power play, wasn't it. I
haven't answered to your breaking news.I'm gonna answer with breaking news of my
own. Let's go. According toMundo Deportivo, a very reputable Spanish newspaper,

(36:19):
they claimed that UEFA offered a veryvery large sum to Premier League clubs
in order to leave the Super League. So this was a power play,
wasn't it. And Yelly and petsour geniuses, and they orchestrated this whole
thing because they were trying a strongarm WIFA. That's probably what this was,
surely, or you know what itwant you know what it might have
been. It might have just beenthem saying this is a theory I have

(36:39):
now. Maybe maybe it was themjust saying, you know what, maybe
we go and make this league.Maybe we fuck around and make this league,
maybe we don't. Either way wewin, you know what I mean,
Either we come back because they wantto make concessions, or maybe we
you know, we we go offand do our own thing if we're not
happy with the concessions that they make, which is nuts. And you know,
you ever you ever see a showlike a House of Cards or Scandal

(37:01):
or or any James Bond movie,Man, there's there's there's a collusion that
goes on at all levels of society. Who knows, maybe maybe maybe what's
his name, Alexander sefad In,the president of UEFA, isn't actually Madame
Andrea and Yelli, who he denouncedyesterday, called him a liar, even

(37:22):
though he's a godfather to Ali's daughter. You know, maybe maybe they were
all in coods and Stefan's like,you know what, Andrea, maybe we
could do something here. You're right, I can't just award this to you
because all the clubs are going tobe up in arms. You know,
it's a bad look if we justredistribute the pie. My my, WAIFA
constituents are going to be really pissedoff if I do this, because I
have a duty to kind of,you know, get as much money as

(37:45):
I can for the federation. Buthow about we go about this whole pr
media play. I'll denounce you withina few days, It'll all be done,
and I'll have reason. I'll haveI'll have justifiable cause. I'll have
reason. I'll have justified cause toto to provide you guys with a big
package that in the eyes of myconstituents will not look bad because I'll be

(38:07):
doing it under the guys of keepingthe big boys around within WAIFA. Because
you know what, WAIFA does needthe clubs more than the clubs need WAIFA.
That's that's what I feel. Ido think that there is a happy
balance that can be attained. Ido um because as we were saying before,
there there there is a little bitof a there is a little bit
of a hindrance that is caused byWAIFA but and FIFA. But at the

(38:29):
end of the day, FIFA havethe World Cup and that is a product
that belongs to them. That's somethingthat has a lot of value that the
players want to participate in and thesecond the players no longer want to play
for the clubs, well, thenthe clubs lose their bargaining position. So
get a lot of actors, alot of moving parts here. But who
the hell knows? Who knows ifthis was all a ruse? Who knows
if it was if this is justthe craziest, the craziest failed coup they

(38:52):
tad that we've ever seen. Um, I don't know. I think actually
I said it was a failed Isaid it was a failed coup on Twitter.
You actually came back and said Ithink it was a big success.
Maybe you were right. Yeah,I don't know. I saw it from
Afar. And you know how crazythe world is when your conspiracy theories make
more sense than what's presented to you. No, it's it's true, it's

(39:19):
true. Well it's it's not aconspiracy. Well I guess this literally is
a conspiracy theory. It literally is. But it makes more sly about a
conspiracy between the tippit, between allit, between all of the players that
we talked about. Maybe I don'tknow, Man, I don't listen.
Here's what drives me nuts. Wouldwould Chelsea and Man City really have backed
out after two days I love thatthis has just become a speculative, a

(39:44):
speculative conspiracy theory pod. But doyou really think that Man City would have
backed out after two days after seeinga little bit of a little bit of
backlash online? Like what it wouldhave been too, you know, they
couldn't have been able to handle theheat. I don't know about that.
It feels a little bit weird,like how, you know, unless Man
City basically at the last second,as we say, you know, at
the death decided to jump on board, and they were a big laggard and

(40:07):
they were like, you know what, we were never really a part of
this to begin with. It's notworth it, chow By, We're out.
I can't see that having ever happened. I can't see that having happened.
Maybe, you know, maybe itwas all a power play. It
looks it looks it certainly looks waytoo half assed for billion, multi billion
dollar organizations to to pull something likethat. If the Super League was a

(40:29):
serious project, and actually if thereactually was a legal agreement in tying all
these clubs together, I don't thinkit would have been that easy for them
to just back down. Yeah,Otherwise, it's a pretty limp attempt.
It's a very limp attempt at doingsomething like this. Imagine in real life
if that happens. Because this,this, clearly, this clearly is to

(40:50):
me the finest work of fiction.Because in real life, if something like
that were to collapse, these clubswould have been in tangled in many,
many, many years worth of litigation. And all they did, all they
did, all they did was releasea statement, and that was enough to
kind of start this whole domino effectin a way. In a way,

(41:12):
it's been cool because it's it's it'sforced us to ask important questions over the
past couple of days about you know, who football belongs to and who the
real who the real driver of interestis. Is it the players? Is
the clubs? Is it the organizationslike WAIFA and FIFA fans the fans exactly
right. Um, we've been forcedto ask critical questions and we've had debates

(41:36):
about the subject. We were planningon I don't even know what we were
planning on doing. I guess wewere just kind of going to talk about
this and see where it led.But we've wound up. We've wound up,
we wound up kind of examining differentperspectives, And the point that we've
gotten to now is it's it's funnyhow it's funny, how much it unraveled

(41:58):
and how quickly. That's all Idon't know, man, because it never
existed. To think about it.The first thing these these clubs would have
done. I mean, if ifthat project was actually real, if if
it were tangible, they would havecreated a legal entity. Did you hear
of any legal entity? Any superLeague AG or Super League Inc. Or

(42:20):
Super League GmbH. That's the onething that I'm looking at. And you
know I used to work in mergersand acquisitions, right, I pay attention
to these things. When twelve entitiescome together to start a project, there
has to be a legal entity.There has to be Like even even their
statement didn't have a letterhead. No, a gentleman's agreement is not it's It

(42:45):
wasn't even a proper cartel. Itwas just it was just a it was
just an allegation of a gentleman's agreementbetween the twelve clubs. I guess unless
there was something signed in the background, which it would be surprising, because
how the hell else would these clubsbe able to back out so easily and
so quickly. So God damn it, you would woke to this. You've
been woked to this for a whilebecause because my tone totally changed from the
start of the plot talking about well, you know if and when this happens

(43:05):
to now like, oh oh shit, this was never real. This was
all It was all a wazi,a woozy vary dust mirrors, smoking,
mirrors smoking. So what do youmake of it? Then? What what
is that? What is it?What does it all mean? It means
that I believe that what happened todayis a is a shift, is a

(43:31):
power shift, right, And thesebig clubs they were able to they were
able to figure out a way tohave a back door of yeah, a
back room agreement with UEFA and getexactly what they wanted by getting the whole

(43:52):
world pissed off about something completely different. Basically, it was a diversion,
That's what I'm thinking. And nowwhichever format that that that UEFA is gonna
come up with for the Champions League, it's not going to be contested at
all because people are gonna be like, well, at least it's not the
Super League. But it was amajor diversion, and I don't know,

(44:17):
I don't think that it's anything butthat those seven billion euros coming out of
nowhere. I think people should,people should look into that more, should
pay more attention to that, becausethe whole story to me is right there,
seven billion euros appearing out of thinair. Well again, the seven

(44:39):
billion euro amount that you keep talkingabout, who who's it going to?
Because because I'll admit that I missedit, it's going to the quote unquote
competition. It's being invested. Yeah, it's being invested in the in the
UEFA Champions League. So it's acut that WIFA is basically reinvesting toward the
clubs exactly exactly what they wanted in, basically making it such that Andrea and

(44:59):
Yello, as President of the EuropeanClubs Association, was doing exactly what he
was supposed to do, which waslook out for the best interests of the
clubs at the end of the day. Yeah, who the hell, who
the hell knows? Well, wewe we've practiced case, Michael, What
the hell else did we talk about? Now the case is cracked. Jesus

(45:20):
Christ, Uh, why why whydon't we talk about the Bosman rule and
how it's screwed up and how it'sscrewed up the Moroccan national team really quickly.
I know you said you didn't wantto, but I'm I'm curious.
You said we would have to getto it on pod. So you gave
a great overview of what the Bosmanrule is. You had this guy who,
as we say in my Southern caliberdesdialect, in my Southern Caliberd's dialect,
he was at chicom talk. Hewas a bit of a ship disturbed.

(45:43):
He was. He was a hewas a he was a casqui.
He uh, you know, hefought for He fought for the things that
that he thought were right. Hewas you know, he was a social
justice warrior. Before there before theybefore that was a thing, except he
was actually fighting for more power toplayers to play wherever they wanted. Well,
where does that leave us in termsof what the Moroccan national team went

(46:06):
through when, by the way,two years prior to ninety eight, it
was like an RFA type system andnow it's a totally open system. How
did how did it affect Moroccos.Well, Morocco had a very strong league
up until the mid nineties, right, and in nineteen ninety four, in
nineteen ninety four. The team thatMorocco fielded at the at the FIFA World

(46:30):
Cup was mostly made up of UMplayers is the name of the of the
league over there. He had afew who played in Spain, but it
wasn't that that much of a thingback in the day. He had Hagi
and he had Nibet who played forthe Portivo Coruna. That's pretty much it.
They all played in Morocco. TheBosman ruling opened up borders, which

(46:52):
means that the top talents in Moroccostarted scattering here and there in Europe.
And with that game, uh,with with that game, obviously every issue's
rising from by nationality. And theseMoroccan talents now and they have a choice
to either represent Morocco or whichever Europeannational team, well they have to they

(47:17):
have to sit down and really thinkabout what they what they decide to do,
and that that was not an issuebefore in nineteen ninety six. Interesting.
So, so that's the reason whyyou guys missed the World Cup for
twenty straight years was because that's notthat's not the I mean, that's not
the reason. It's one of thereasons. I mean, I I could
I could go on in competence,lack of infrastructures, poor recruiting, you

(47:40):
know, you don't have. Thebig issue to me is the fact that
you don't recruit young Moroccan players earlyenough in their development stages. You only
wait for them to hit senior togive him a call, and by that
time they've already they've already invested somuch, so much of their time playing

(48:04):
for a foreign set up. Yeah. But and in a lot, in
a lot of in a lot ofcases, they might have even committed,
if they're very talented player, theymight have committed to whatever country the Netherlands,
Denmark, Belgium, Italy, eventhere were there were there were two
in Italy up up until very recently. Um, yeah, I was.

(48:25):
I was talking about this with aMoroccan friend of mine recently, and it's
just about how much of your nationalteam is made up of made up of
not really foreign not really foreigners.I mean they're abroad, right, exactly,
right, exactly. Yeah. Butin but in a sense that's kind
of it's kind of a good thing, you know, it's kind of encouraging
that they feel a strong tie toyou know, to to the to the

(48:47):
to the motherland, right um.It's indicative of just the strong, the
strong identity that they tend to feel. Maybe part of it is the immigrant
experience. But you know, Iknow this is the premier pod. I
know you're one of the biggest Canadianfootball pods out there. But you know,
I'm not ashamed to say that ifItaly called me up, I play
for Italy before I would Canada becauseI grew up watching them, and because
I feel although I'm very grateful toeverything that Canada gave to my family,

(49:07):
you know, I feel a veryI have this very weird, undying sense
of loyalty to the other country forwhich I'm a citizen, and that's you
know, that's it's an interesting takebecause if I were a professional soccer player,
I would probably represent the first nationto call me up. You're amount
of principle, So so you wouldn'tYou wouldn't so you wouldn't want to,

(49:30):
Yeah, you don't. You neverwant to. That's the exact opposite of
principle. Actually you never know.But listen, it's it's it's a good
it's a good point. You neverwant to be the guy that's chasing a
girl who doesn't want you back.You never want or in any relationship,
you never want to be the guythat's chased. You never want to be
the person that's chasing someone who doesn'twant you. Go where you're wanted.

(49:50):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, Canadacalls me up, I go to Canada.
If Morocco calls me up, Igo to Morocco. Come and get
me, please, a little comingat me, plea to to both national
teams. You know, if you'rereally if you're really strong, you know
what, you know what the butyou know what the best come and get
me plea. In my opinions,through is through high performance. If you're

(50:15):
good enough, they're gonna call you. Ideally, yeah, it should come
at the same time if you're goodenough, right, Yeah, like that
happens. That happens to the Frenchnational team a lot. Actually, they
had a guy Emeric Laparte who playsfor Manchester City. He's a dual citizen.
Yeah, he's a dual citizen Frenchand Spanish. Okay, okay,
yeah, because he he was he'sfrom bass country, isn't he He's from

(50:39):
French Basque country. But he playedfor Athletic Bilbao for a very very very
long time. That's right, andhe's a natural he's a naturalized Spanish citizen.
As a result. I think hewent there when he was like twelve
or thirteen years old, kind oflike a Theo Hernandez type, Theo Hernandez
or Lucas Hernandez. They both grewup in They're both born in France,

(51:00):
but they grew up in Spain.They think in Spanish. They yeah,
they're yeah, dual citizens like that, okay, cool, interesting, But
then he was like, you knowwhat dish on if you don't call me,
I'm gonna represent Spain. And thenDish don't call his bluff and Spain
didn't call him up right right right. You don't want to be that guy
either. Yeah, it's true.La Pot doesn't play for the French national
team much, does he. Hedoesn't at all. He I don't think

(51:22):
he's I don't think he was evercapped. He played like one friendly match.
Perhaps it's where it's an easy pullthat up Jamie search away. But
yeah, yeah for sure. Fuckum, how funny speaking of Mad City,
How funny would it be if likeour entire theory about it all having

(51:42):
been contrived, it's totally wrong,and what actually happened was your boy Pep
coming out and denouncing the whole thingearlier this morning. By the way,
yeah Lapota zero senior caps? Thatis wild? Is twenty twenty one caps?
Okay? But but anyway, howfunny would it be if your boy
Pep coming out earlier today and denouncingthe whole competition is actually what like spiraled
this whole thing out of control whereMan City were like, oh shit,

(52:04):
can't piss this guy off, We'reout, and that just and that just
spurred on every every bit of newsthat we've been reading over the past few
hours. I'm telling you, man, the whole thing's a hoax. So
what are we doing talking about ithere? Mad? What are no But
people have to know look at myfeed. Look how early I called it.

(52:27):
If you look at my personal Twitterfeeds, I called it. I'll
take your word at face value becauseI haven't where can people get at you
on Twitter? Maybe that little reminderfriendy you listeners at Mike Miller FC is
my personal Twitter. So so Ididn't see this, But again I believe
you based on the tone of ourdiscussion, just from from from when we
started talking, you were you.You did say right from the get go,

(52:49):
that you were suspicious as to itslegitimacy, and hey, I have
a question. Was was the wholepoint of getting me on so that I
could talk my way into being convincedof this like you are? Because if
so, you've succeeded. I startedoff with one tone and I'm not I
just talked myself right into a wallwhere I'm like, the information is right
in front of me. It couldonly be this. Mike is right.

(53:13):
Well, I've been meaning to inviteyou on the podcast for a very long
time, So I'm glad. I'mglad we actually had a reason to do
this. For sure. This wasa lot of fun. Man, This
hasn't a lot of fun. Yeah, damn. So what's going on with
your pod? We are in themidst of a little bit of a rebranding
right now. We were two guysfor a while. It was a buddy

(53:36):
of mine, Nick Genti Letti guywho I've noticed. I'm twelve years old.
We went to school together. Wewere in home room all throughout high
school. We were in university together. We played football together growing up.
He's Italian, I'm Italian. He'sa milanis time you Wentino when we were
in school. For a little while, he was pestering me to jump on
a pod. Before it felt likeeveryone with a with a mic in a
voice and an opinion had a podcast, and it's a little convincing, But

(54:00):
eventually he got me on board,and we've been doing it for about three
years now, a little over threeyears. We started in twenty eighteen,
and uh and yeah, it's it'sbeen a great time. We've we've been
able to kind of maintain our listenership. It's been a whole lot of fun.
We're we're dirty, We're we're we'rewe're we're onto you. We're pretty
satirical as well. We uh,we don't tend to only focus in on
news. We kind of just focusin on anything that is of interest to

(54:22):
us. But recently um Nick decidedthat he wanted out. It just wasn't
working out with the schedule anymore.So I'm solo. I'm I'm keeping it
running. And some pods are justlong streams of consciousness of mine, which
I thought would be really daunting.But last week we did it for the
first I did it for the firsttime and got a lot of great feedback,
So encourage you to check it out. We're on all platforms. It's
the Culture podcast time on Twitter atCulture Podcasts. I'm a culture podcast on

(54:45):
all all platforms. And uh yeah, plan on continue to have a lot
of guests on and just some segmentsshoot the shits and kind of making guess
a little bit more of a prominentfeature on the show. But if I
have to go solo, uh,I could talk forever, So I don't.
I don't know what I'm gonna donow. I had a lot of
things on my mind that I thoughtI would talk about tomorrow, but it
looks like this whole super League thingis already fizzling out. I guess we'll

(55:07):
see if I if I do,if I do discuss a conspiracy theory,
I'll give an on to you andsay that you converted me. But thanks
for having me on. Man,it's a I've been listening to you for
for quite some time now, sothis is this has been a lot of
fun and I'm glad we got todo this. We'll have to do it
on my end too now. Soyeah, for sure, you know what
pleasures online and you know since thatone time that you actually called me up

(55:30):
to talk about soccer, among otherthings, I've been listening to every single
one of your episodes and dude,you're you're the funniest motherfucker. Seriously,
thank you, man, I respectthat. I respect that very much.
Yea, even you've been listening asmuch as you have, you had no
no obligation too, but it's greatto know that you you've started and having

(55:52):
thought. So that makes me happy. Thank you. No, No,
I'm having a lot of fun listeningto your thought and you know, you
know, it's everything you talk aboutsoccer, talk about a little bit of
this, a little bit of thatbusiness, singing a few songs every now
and then, it'll Italy makes itfun, man. I mean, it's
become a satirical podcast about Italian footballand society in a lot of ways,
and the two are very closely linked. And dude, the one time you

(56:14):
really cracked me up was when youwere talking about the Mussolina kid with lazioz.
Yeah, whose mother, whose motheris related to Mussolini, but he
still goes by Mussolini because she shecouldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't bury
that hatchet. She she wanted theworld to know. Nope, he's he's
a that offspring, but yeah,you know, it was a few that

(56:35):
was a few weeks back. Theguy I actually got into the first team.
He signed a pro contract. Butwhat better club for him than Latsio.
It's perfect again, but it's anonly in Italy moment. We have
a segment on the pod called onlyin Italy because there are some things that
truly could only happen in Italy.I know, like, I don't know
if if you're Serbian or your yourCroatian and you're listening to this pod,
you probably think there ship that goeson in your country too, Like,
there's a lot there's a lot ofthere's a lot of there's a lot of

(56:58):
batchet crazy, I know totally.You know you probably you could probably only
in Mexico, to take your pick. But there are some things, there's
some nuances to Italy that only makessense in Italy. I feel like that's
one of those things. Yeah,lots too obviously little context that very notoriously
sympathetic club. At least the fansare very notoriously sympathetic to um to far

(57:21):
right ideologies, and there's a tonof neo fascists that are involved in with
with with with the Latso Ultras andI actually had a running with them a
few years back where where I almostI almost got seriously hurt. We're in
a new bad jersey and Rome aftera game which we lost. But yeah,
they're they're absolutely nuts. Like,as you said, couldn't have been
a better club than than Latzo tohave a kid related to Mussolini, Mussolini's

(57:43):
grandson or great grandson playing for theclub. And you could just see it
happening, right, you can justsee it happening where he'll he'll score a
goal ninetieth minute against Roma and likea like a Debi, he'll jump over
the boards, run across the trackand jump into the stands. They'll have
a bunch of bald guys with eagletattoos on their should there's just throwing their
bull horns aside and going shit AndI think he's gonna pull it Tokanyo.

(58:07):
That would be would be very onbrand. But no, No, the
fact that part of the Kanyo wasable to pull a fascist salute and kind
of not we just kind of havedon't have nobody bad an eye, have
people actually applaud and give it backto him is exactly is exactly the type
of us, exactly the type ofperson that UM supports. I think it's
indicative that of the type of personthat supports Latou and the Coudibaut sometimes.

(58:29):
So yeah, no, that thatwas funny. I even I couldn't believe
that one, to be honest,the whole most lu thing this, this
has been the least Canadian of allpremiere podcasts. But you know what,
we had to do it the wholeworld was going to change. We talked
about Italy, we talked about Morocco, we talked about Europe and U we

(58:49):
mentioned MLS once. I think itpassing, but hey, we were we
we are Canadian, I guess.So so this has been brought to you
by by by Canadian homegrown products.So there you go. No, but
it was too important not to talkabout. I'm glad. I had a
lot. I had a lot offun doing it. I'll have a good
time doing this tomorrow on my partas well, I guess, but they'll
be if I already ironed out allthe kinks. I have all the answers

(59:10):
now. So So thanks, thanks, I guess, thanks for thanks for
helping me get to get my importantreps in oh Yeah, you're gonna have
to figure out what else to're talkingabout. Never still games, talk about
to talk about, talk about it, Listen. It was gonna be an
excuse for me not to talk aboutyou've been losing to Atlanta on the weekend.
But I don't know. I might. I might just have to now

(59:31):
now that this whole thing is dyingout already, all right, Buddy,
Thanks again, Man, Thanks again, Mike. I appreciate it. Bro,
thank you for coming and see alldear listeners will cast you next week
for another episode of the premiere podcastYou Wish