0:03

On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly. Owners

0:06

tend to get blamed by fans when things

0:08

don't go well, especially in soccer.

0:10

Anyone who watches the Premier League was aware

0:13

of Manchester United fans marching through

0:15

the streets chanting Glazers out.

0:18

But what do we know about the glazers? Really? What

0:20

do we know about any of the extremely rich

0:22

owners who are throwing around gobs of

0:24

money at various clubs all over the world.

0:28

Our producer and resident football enthusiast

0:30

Jordan Rizsieri takes a look at global football

0:33

owners, what they're after by buying

0:35

clubs, and what they could do to better

0:37

serve the fans who support their teams.

0:40

I'm your host, John Gonzalez from

0:42

Sports Illustrated and iHeart Radio.

0:45

This is Sports Illustrated Weekly.

0:57

When things are going well for our soccer teams, it

0:59

can be the best fielding in the whole world in

1:01

the final minutes of the final in

1:07

them. But

1:10

when things are going badly, we turn our

1:12

anger to the players, the managers,

1:14

and when things have gone disastrously bad, the

1:16

owners.

1:22

Who are these mysterious millionaires

1:24

and billionaires who found the clubs we love?

1:27

Can anyone purchase a stake in a major soccer

1:29

club, What does it even mean to

1:32

be an owner? And perhaps a better question,

1:35

what should it mean not just for the team,

1:37

but for the surrounding communities. It's

1:40

time to call up some of our favorite soccer experts

1:42

for a course in global soccer ownership.

1:45

I'm Jordan Rozsieri, producer at

1:47

Sports Illustrated Weekly, and class

1:49

is now in session. As

1:53

an American soccer fan, the first question

1:55

I have to ask is simple, why is

1:58

ownership in professional soccer so different

2:00

all over the world. The

2:02

reason why it's so different in Europe

2:05

and South America as opposed to

2:07

the US, is because there's

2:09

a pyramid system. In those other places, there's

2:11

a relegation system, and no matter

2:13

who you bring in and no matter how much you spend, you

2:16

better deliver on the pitch because otherwise

2:18

all that revenue, specifically your TV rights,

2:20

et cetera, are just gonna keep going down. That's

2:23

not the case in MLS. There's already a

2:26

sort of infiltrated bubble

2:28

that's you know, already exists because

2:30

those clubs are never gonna be relegated.

2:33

Here at Sports Illustrated Weekly, when we have a

2:36

soccer question. We always start by asking

2:38

Luis miguel At, a Garai longtime

2:40

soccer media mainstay recently of

2:42

CBS Sports and the Kega Lots of

2:45

podcast. I wanted to know why we're

2:47

not seeing the kind of reaction to big

2:49

spenders coming into Major League Soccer to

2:51

buy up our clubs that we are in Europe. It's

2:54

controversial, it's complicated, but

2:56

I do believe that the core reason why

2:58

there's a big difference is because MLS

3:01

doesn't rely on relegation. If relegation

3:03

existed, I think more clubs there would be

3:06

much more apparel to find owners

3:09

that, no matter what, can inject the level

3:11

of financial sustainability. In

3:13

fact, what we see in terms of ownership

3:15

in the MLS is a certain amount of celebrity,

3:18

from Drew Kerrey to Ken Griffey Jr.

3:20

And even Matthew McConaughey. But what

3:23

are these famous faces really adding to the

3:25

league. So if you're a name, a

3:27

celebrity name that's coming in and supporting this club

3:29

and adding some money and to your points and fame

3:31

or your face, and you know you do like a

3:34

monthly Q and a on Instagram

3:36

live and maybe that helps you a little bit, so

3:38

be it what's more important And

3:40

this is what I see more from Matthew McConaughey. Actually

3:42

I'm very impressed with his influence for

3:45

us Austin FC is is

3:47

how much are you given to your community? And

3:49

Angel City actually are doing a lot of stout there.

3:51

So I don't care what kind of celebrity

3:53

comes in, just make sure that the community is being represented

3:56

and being nurtured. When

3:58

we think about soccer clubs and owners relationships

4:01

with the community, with the supporters, perhaps

4:04

there is no better example than in Germany

4:06

in the Bundesliga. The term fifty plus

4:08

one gets thrown around a lot to describe

4:10

how the fans are involved in the ownership of their

4:12

clubs. So I decided to ask

4:15

matt Ford football journalists with

4:17

Deutsche Vella to explain very

4:20

very simply. The fifty plus

4:22

one rule stipulates

4:24

that the majority

4:27

of voting rights

4:29

in a professional company

4:31

which runs a professional Bundesliague

4:34

football club, that those majority

4:36

voting rights who main in the hands

4:38

of the parents club, the

4:40

pairment football club and its members,

4:43

in other words, it's fans. This

4:45

ensures that while it's

4:48

possible to purchase majority

4:50

stakes in football clubs. No outside

4:53

entities, no external investors,

4:55

no external business

4:58

interests can ever tame

5:00

majority voting control over these

5:02

clubs. That's this ensures that of

5:05

the voting shares in these clubs remain

5:08

with the club itself with its members plus

5:10

one share, hence the term fifty

5:13

plus one. And this wild has been in place since. So

5:18

what does voting actually

5:20

consist of? What are you voting on? What are

5:22

the fans actually participating in? And

5:26

it can vary slightly from club

5:28

to club. Were generally speaking, the

5:30

fans will have a

5:32

chance, usually once per year at an annual

5:35

general meeting to vote for the bard all

5:37

supervisor be barred. It's not that direct

5:40

voting. Nobody is directly voting

5:42

for the manager. Nobody's really even directly voting

5:44

for the CEO, and there're certainly

5:46

not voting for the new striker that you sang

5:48

in summer. But that there isn't an indirect

5:51

voting system. So

5:53

when we compare this

5:56

kind of structure and this relationship

5:58

between the supporters and the club itself

6:00

and where the money is coming from

6:03

to what's currently happening in the

6:06

Premier League. You're wearing a Manchester

6:08

United shirt. Right now, we've seen

6:10

a lot of vocalization from the fans

6:12

outside of the stadium at Old Trafford,

6:15

with a lot of opinions about the owners of the

6:17

team with the start the first

6:19

couple of games. What's your message to the Glazers.

6:22

Absolutely get out of this club because

6:24

we don't need you. You're a pathetic bunch

6:26

of owners. You took this club dry

6:29

and all you do it's just take, take, take.

6:31

Can we talk a little bit about the difference between those

6:33

two things, because it's it seems to me

6:36

that there is a place

6:39

in the Bundesliga for you as a fan

6:41

to have a voice when you're unsatisfied

6:44

with something that's going on, whereas

6:46

in the Premier League there is a limit

6:48

to what you can do with your frustration

6:51

in terms of actually affecting change within your

6:53

club. One of the most common phases

6:55

that you hear from I suppose football fans

6:57

all over the world, but I think made particularly in England

7:00

fans of Premier League and other English

7:02

clubs lower down the pyramid. We all,

7:04

and I include myself in this, we all

7:06

talk about my club, our club

7:08

was we which

7:11

is fine, That's that's only natural However,

7:13

at the end of the day, if we're being if I'm being totally

7:15

honest with myself, legally speaking,

7:17

Manchester United is not mine at all.

7:20

It belongs to the Closer family, and

7:22

it has done since two thousand and five. I

7:24

have no possession or ownership

7:27

or control at all of Manchester United,

7:29

and this applies to every other club in the Premier League

7:31

and elsewhere in the pyramid. I might have something

7:33

of man United, which is called a membership, but

7:35

it entitles me to absolutely nothing

7:38

more than what I might get

7:40

if I have a bonus card at the local

7:42

local supermarket. That's all this entitles

7:44

me to. Ultimately. In Germany there is a fundamental

7:47

difference in it because of the fifty plus one whole. When

7:49

a German fan says it's

7:51

my club, it literally

7:54

is, and that by its very nature

7:56

influences the decisions which those elected

7:58

officials, and there the board

8:00

members or directors that they appoint

8:03

influences the way they behave knowing

8:05

that there is an element of accountability.

8:07

At some point when it came to for example,

8:10

the Super League by a Munich and Bussy dartmands,

8:12

they didn't even dare accept the invitation

8:15

to join the Super League at first, because they knew

8:17

it would have been impossible in their own club statutes

8:20

to take such a step without consulting

8:22

membership. In England, there was

8:24

absolutely nothing stopping the

8:26

Glazers of Manchester United, or FSG

8:29

group at Liverpool, or

8:31

at the time of Ramovich Chelsea

8:34

or the Abu Dabi royal family

8:36

in Manchester City. Notebooks

8:38

out everyone because now we're

8:40

onto something. So

8:43

there's almost nothing stopping a singular

8:45

person, a group or an organization

8:48

from taking over ownership of a club

8:50

outside of Germany and making

8:52

decisions that may or may not be in

8:54

the best interests of the club and its supporters.

8:57

One place that Matt didn't mention is France.

8:59

In Legua, so I called up Justin

9:02

Sahani, a Paris based journalist

9:04

and writer who works for Oh My Goal, to talk

9:06

about the ownership of one of the biggest clubs

9:09

in the world PSG. Let's

9:13

talk a little bit about France.

9:16

So first of all, it's

9:18

hard not to automatically

9:21

start talking about p s G as

9:23

a club and their ownership, but

9:26

can we talk about what makes it

9:29

possible for an organization like that

9:31

to even own a club in France.

9:34

In Germany there's this fifty plus one rule.

9:36

I believe in the Premier League there's sort of like a board

9:38

that determines whether or not a team can

9:40

be bought by a certain entity. And while

9:43

those they have certain like levers in

9:45

place or certain rules in place, those

9:47

are fairly easily circumnavigated.

9:50

In the case of while

9:52

everyone knows that it is owned by the

9:54

state of Katar, is

9:56

effectively the owner, it's ran by and was

9:58

purchased by Qua side, which is the cut

10:01

our sports investment, which is essentially a means

10:03

of the cutter government being able

10:05

to kind of operate and do things and say that,

10:07

you know, it's not exactly the

10:09

emir who's who's in charge of things.

10:11

In France in general, I mean, we've seen outside

10:14

investment come more and more. We've had a lot

10:16

of American investment in recent years.

10:19

For example, marse which is maybe

10:21

historically the biggest club in France, or at least

10:23

the most well supported club in France, has had an

10:25

American owner. Recently, international owners

10:28

start to get in and try to get ownership in the way

10:30

that you've seen in the Premier League and elsewhere. Monaco,

10:32

which is owned by a Russian individual who

10:35

is on certain lists that have

10:37

seen consideration for sanctions in the US,

10:39

but in France until now through

10:41

Friends Football, that they've decided not to sanction him,

10:44

which you know we saw in the UK

10:46

with Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich. Abramovich

10:49

has now been added to the UK sanctions

10:53

list. He was placed under sanction

10:55

and had to sell the team and has since sold the team. So

10:57

in France there's just no sort of rule that that's

10:59

tip relates anything like the Bundesliga,

11:02

which I think opens it up to people being

11:04

able to invest more freely, and like the sort

11:06

of owners that come in can kind of be from

11:09

you know, almost anywhere in particular. So

11:11

there's lots of reasons why somebody

11:13

would be interested in purchasing

11:16

a club. You mentioned Frank McCourt who

11:18

owns Marseille, who comes from the l A Dodgers.

11:20

He's got experience owning a franchise

11:22

team in the US and Major League Baseball.

11:25

I think there's probably some cloud involved

11:27

with getting your ownership on a really

11:29

well known, well respected, globally

11:31

recognized team,

11:33

And that's how we end up talking about the term

11:36

sports washing. First, let's define

11:38

what the term actually means. Yeah,

11:40

sports washing is a means of

11:43

essentially laundering a reputation.

11:45

So for example, you know, you might buy

11:48

a football club because it's a way

11:50

for you to get in and get into new circles,

11:52

to get into new in business and investment circles or

11:54

political circles. Particularly with PSG,

11:56

that's what we've seen. We've seen that the Katy

11:59

government in various figure years have used

12:01

the ownership of PSG to make political

12:03

connections in France, particularly with somebody like the former

12:05

French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

12:08

Why they're getting involved is more for the

12:10

political cloud but also for the associative

12:12

clouds. So for example, now when

12:14

um, you know, you go around and you talk about the state

12:16

of cud Art two people in France

12:19

with the greater Prissian area, you

12:21

know, they might talk about things

12:23

related to the upcoming World Cup. They might talk about

12:25

the labor violation issues, because this is something that

12:27

has been fairly well documented

12:30

and shared among you know, around the world. But

12:32

you know, you also see kind of the inverse

12:34

of that at times. For example, when

12:36

Lionel Messi signed for for PSG last

12:39

summer, Lionel Messi has tonight signed

12:41

for Parry Saint Gemin, officially ending

12:43

his twenty one year stay at Barcelona.

12:46

He's completed his medical examinations

12:48

and signed a lucrative two year deal with

12:50

an option for a third year. You know, a bunch

12:52

of Parisians started to post

12:55

things on social media to the likes of thank

12:57

you NASA speaking to Nasif

12:59

was essentially overseeing the PSG

13:02

operation and has now also taken like a very high

13:04

profile role with UEFA as well. So some

13:07

interesting conflict of interest going on there,

13:09

but in essence, you know, the reasons

13:12

to get involved here and this is what sports watching comes

13:14

down to, is to change

13:16

the association in your mind. And

13:18

it's not just happening

13:20

in France either, It's happening in other

13:23

places too. I mean, we've talked a

13:25

lot about what's happening with

13:27

the new ownership of Newcastle

13:29

and I'm sure it's a complicated thing for

13:32

fans of Newcastle, longtime

13:34

fans who have seen the difficulties

13:36

that the team has had in terms of coming close to

13:38

relegation and who want to see their team be

13:40

successful and who understand that Unfortunately,

13:43

in the Premier League that means you need money.

13:45

You can't win the Premier League if you

13:47

don't have a lot of money. However,

13:50

when we see things like I think maybe

13:52

towards the end of last year, at the beginning of the summer,

13:55

we saw what their new kit was going to look

13:57

like, and it's basically the Saudi Arabian flag

13:59

right and speaks exactly to what you were just saying.

14:01

Is that now when people see those color

14:04

combinations, are they going to be thinking about

14:06

the Newcastle away kit or are they going

14:08

to be thinking about Saudi Arabia

14:10

and the country and the things that have happened

14:13

there and have happened elsewhere in the world. But

14:15

I think those are the things that we talk about when

14:17

we talk about sports washing. Is it's kind of like

14:19

having your brain rewired, not even realizing

14:22

it at the time. There's a number of

14:24

threads to pull up there. If you take Newcastle

14:26

as an example in particular, you really have

14:28

to empathize with some of the fans, you

14:30

know, I mean, because I think there there

14:32

are levels to what's been happening,

14:34

and there's levels of culpability and responsibility

14:36

as well. Obviously, the major responsibility

14:39

here lies with the people highest in power that

14:41

happens to be the Premier League. Um,

14:43

you can even argue maybe the British government to some extent.

14:46

You know, Newcastle fans have been they've been

14:48

relegated a couple of times in recent years. And

14:50

this is a massive, massive club with a

14:52

huge fan base that was challenging for titles

14:55

you know a little over a decade ago. The

14:57

message that we've been receiving from watching football

14:59

on TV, watching all the highlight

15:01

shows and review shows is that the only thing that matters

15:03

is winning, and the only thing that matters our trophies. And

15:05

if that's that's the message we're taking away

15:07

from playing football, then the

15:10

kind of natural end game

15:12

of this is arriving at a point where, well,

15:15

we need money. Anytime a new owner

15:17

is coming in, there's gonna be kind of like,

15:19

great, just get us out of this guy's ownership. We

15:21

saw what happened with Man City

15:24

and Abu Dhabi, and we saw what happened with

15:26

ps G N Kuta. So suddenly there's this association

15:29

that, Okay, we know this is problematic, but we also

15:31

know we're going to get investment, we're gonna win. So

15:33

maybe nobody has quite figured it out yet

15:36

from what Matt told me, it sounds like

15:38

the Bundesliga has some of their own problems,

15:40

and there's obviously plenty of problems in

15:42

the Premier League and League in America.

15:45

Even if you lose, basically always, you're

15:48

never going to end about of the league. So

15:50

you know, maybe there's no perfect answer

15:52

to what football ownership should look like. The

15:54

Amber consisted at an interesting comparison

15:56

because as a nation, as a culture, in

15:59

the United States, it's is the pre eminent free

16:02

markets, unregulated sort

16:04

of capitalist economy in the

16:06

Western world. However, the US sports

16:08

systems are among the

16:10

most highly regulated in the

16:13

Western world to ensure their competition. There's

16:15

actually quite interesting to see how that works. And

16:17

then we're seeing it in the Premier League at the moment

16:19

whereby it's no longer just wealthy

16:22

business people who are owning football

16:24

clubs, but it's across the state now where

16:26

literally nation states are owning

16:28

football clubs. Then you're getting into

16:30

a whole different ball game of why are

16:32

these people involved. If you're a

16:34

Newcastle fan or a Manchester

16:36

City fan, you can tell yourself whatever you

16:39

want, I supposed to make yourself feel better

16:41

about it. But ultimately the

16:43

Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth for

16:45

them arm of the Saudi government, and about how

16:47

they spin it. They're not involved

16:49

in Newcastle because they primarily care

16:51

about football or sports in Newcastle,

16:54

in a city in the northeast of England. They're

16:56

doing it because it suits the state

16:58

of Saudi Bavia to be a oociated with the

17:00

glamorous entertainment products

17:03

all over the world, which is the Premier League. The

17:05

same applies to Abu d Abbey

17:07

in man Manchester City. The same applied

17:09

to Romano Gramovich and the adults ulterior

17:12

motives to be involved, to be associated

17:14

with the high profile Western assets. Other

17:17

reasons why high profile individuals

17:19

or entities my own football clubs are argue

17:22

even more dangerous when you consider the damage

17:24

that has been done to Manchester United by the Glazier

17:26

families since two thousand and five. You know, over

17:29

one point two billion pounds effectively

17:31

stolen from the football club's own profits

17:34

and own turnovers in order

17:36

to repay debts and pay

17:38

our dividends. So all these zones

17:40

all have ulterior motives to it to own

17:42

these football clubs and it ultimately

17:45

leaves the fans the support as

17:47

the people to whom actually do these clubs

17:49

mean the most? It is a

17:52

hugely important socio cultural assets

17:54

and socio cultural institutions in their

17:56

communities. They end up being

17:58

little more than puppets, to put it bluntly,

18:01

and for whatever cause that owner

18:03

might want, whether it's sportswashing,

18:05

whether it's cash machine, whether

18:07

it's protect your assets or whatever

18:09

the reason might be. The fans are the ones

18:11

that end up being puppits in

18:13

this, and the fans of that they held

18:15

hostage because they can't say no. So

18:19

what exactly is the point of a soccer club

18:21

owner? What are they meant to be doing besides

18:23

pumping money into the team to be competitive.

18:25

How are these owners supporting the communities

18:27

that support their teams, that house their

18:29

stadiums, that come and work on game day.

18:32

Louise has a suggestion every

18:35

single MLS club should have a community

18:37

based department, and their entire

18:40

job has nothing to do with like posting

18:42

on Twitter or social media admin

18:44

or videos, but it's literally going

18:46

out there into the community and

18:49

engaging with them and perhaps

18:51

creating events, whether it's twenty

18:54

four hour days, soccer marathon

18:57

days, you know, trials for

18:59

the under nines are under tens, food

19:01

and culture festivals, whatever it is,

19:03

just begin to create a

19:06

tighter bridge between the club and community

19:08

that has nothing to do with digital. The

19:10

moment that you yourself show yourself in

19:12

the community, and I'm speaking directly about

19:15

the multicultural, underprivileged

19:17

minority communities. The more you do that, the

19:19

better served. I mean again, I go back

19:22

to l a f C. The Mexican American

19:25

power that is the soccer fan in the United

19:27

States is so prevalent, and you go into

19:29

that stadium you can feel it.

19:32

And it's not just because like Carlos Vela is

19:34

there. It's because they go into the community

19:36

and they try and create more relationships

19:39

with whether it's an amateur club

19:41

or a youth club or a school, et

19:43

cetera. And I think that's the key. Like

19:45

every MLS clubs should have a community outreach

19:48

department that specifically focuses

19:50

on one thing, and that's engaging with the

19:52

community. If you do that, you'll be better for

19:54

it five, ten, fifteen years from now. The

19:57

kind of community engagement from the club

19:59

itself that Louise is talking about also

20:01

helps to encourage an outspoken and participatory

20:05

fan base back

20:07

in German football supporters have

20:09

been extremely vocal about their

20:11

feelings on a number of issues, made

20:13

clear through the colorful and vibrant

20:15

displays known as TIFO. I

20:27

asked Matt about how the fifty plus one rule

20:30

intrinsically ties the values of the community

20:33

to the clubs themselves. The

20:35

very way in which the club substructure in Germany

20:37

makes them much much more accuate

20:40

and embedded representations of the communities

20:43

they come from, much more so than Premier League

20:45

football crowds. I was an old trafford

20:47

in Manchester and it always

20:49

strikes me that how how comparatively

20:52

old football crowds are in England

20:54

compared to Germany. I believe it. At one

20:56

point in recent years the average age of a season

20:58

ticket older at a print league football club

21:00

in England was about forty five to fifty

21:03

years old. In Germany. That is certainly

21:05

much lower. It's certainly not forty five. That's

21:07

the result of the ticket prices being

21:09

a lot more affordable. That's the result

21:12

of undeserved standing stervices

21:14

being present. Because if you abolish a standing

21:16

terraces in a place with seats, suddenly you

21:18

can charge forty fifty are those per sits

21:21

rather than only ten. You are boys, per stand

21:23

where you want. It also attracts

21:25

arguably a more moneyed

21:28

and perhaps slightly more controllable demographic

21:31

rather than a younger

21:33

demographic, which there's a subculture which

21:35

by thirty nature as a youth subculture is rebellious.

21:38

There has to be a space for young people to

21:41

rebil abit on the Saturday afternoon within reason,

21:43

and that is very much present in Germany.

21:45

So I think, like you said before you mentioned the huge flags

21:49

that capture people's attention, I think,

21:51

yeah, they're great, fantastically

21:53

you know, they made for viable tweets and videos

21:56

and look spectacular blah blah blah. But

21:58

they I think, as we probably as I

22:00

hope is probably clear now is tip

22:02

of the aspect? What what is underneath that? The

22:04

structures, the societal and impart

22:07

and fifty those one and

22:09

that's that's all beneath that, that's probably

22:11

more going part and then simply a fantasy

22:14

flag. And and what

22:16

a great example too, because literally the people

22:18

you're talking about that represent those structures

22:20

are quite quite literally underneath

22:23

those giant flags too, So it

22:25

was great, a great metaphor, excellent, I'll

22:28

use that sale.

22:33

So what have we learned about global soccer

22:35

ownership. Well, we know that clubs

22:37

need financial backing in order to be competitive,

22:40

but because of the global popularity of the sport,

22:43

the tradeoff could be investment

22:45

from individuals, groups, and even nation

22:47

states. We're looking to benefit in the

22:49

socio political sphere as well as

22:51

with sports fans. Money make will

22:54

wins, but at what cost? And

22:57

we also know that with ownership structures

22:59

varying were wide, the rocket powered

23:01

globalization of top tier soccer

23:04

continues to widen the gap between the teams

23:06

and the communities they once represented.

23:09

In order to strike a balance, there must

23:11

be true regulation of club ownership

23:14

and the elevation of each community's

23:16

values within the clubs they support.

23:20

That's it for today, Class

23:23

dismissed. Sports

23:36

Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated

23:38

and I Heart Radio. For more

23:40

podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

23:43

the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

23:45

or wherever you get your favorite shows. And

23:48

for more of Sports Illustrated It's best stories and

23:50

podcasts, visit SI dot

23:52

com. This episode of Sports

23:55

Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jordan Rozsieri,

23:57

Jessica yard Moski and Isaac Lee,

24:00

who was also our sound engineer. Our

24:02

senior producers are Dan Bloom and Harry

24:05

swart Out. Our executive producers

24:07

are Scott Brody and me John Gonzalez.

24:10

Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider. And

24:13

if you've stuck around this long, we leave

24:15

you with this. So

24:20

actually the first thing, justin, would you mind

24:22

just introducing yourself quickly so that I know how

24:24

to refer to you in the in the podcast.

24:27

This is always my part that I liked the least,

24:29

just letting you know, um,

24:32

sorry,