Sky Sports Premier League Podcast
The Football Show – Neville, Carragher, Joorabchian, Hanley
15 May 2020
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning and welcome to the Football Show. It's Friday morning. We're here with you until 11 o'clock in the morning. And we're joined by Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. Also alongside us this morning, it is the Peter Browner, Darren McCartney.
There's a lot been going on on Twitter and clearly there's been a lot more than that going on behind the scenes, trying to work out how League One moves forward at this time. Just explain your position and the tweet that you put out last night.
Morning all. Yeah, thanks for having me on and to be able to give my opinion on what's going on. Basically, what it was yesterday, we knew we had the big EFL meeting today, and everyone's been talking for the last 10 days about League 1, League 2, or voting to cancel, finish, end the season. And it's been going on in the press. Stories have been leaked left, right, and center.
And that's not something we've been told all along. We've been preparing to get back to playing and finishing the season out. That's been the EFL stance all along when it was safe to do so. And as things suddenly started to improve and we're told football could be back in June, suddenly we're faced with this, well, there is going to be no football.
So a few clubs obviously decided to have a conversation yesterday. I got a phone call. I was invited to join a Zoom conversation. There were six of us on the call. We wanted to have a chat about basically what was going to happen in the meeting. All the clubs on that phone call, including clubs who aren't really involved in a promotion race at the moment, wanted to finish the season.
It's been their plan all along for their fans to play out the nine games, finish the season as safely as possible. You know, if there's playoffs, if there's three games. When I spoke to Rick Parry about two and a half, three weeks ago, Rick made it very clear to me the EFL stance has always been the same. We want to finish the leagues. We want to get it done.
Yes, we mentioned sporting integrity, but there's a lot more to that. There's financial ramifications if we don't finish the league. I think there's a lot of those people don't know the full answers about before they make that decision about, well, we don't take our players off furlough.
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Chapter 2: What are the latest updates on League One football plans?
So when we spoke yesterday, it was really clear from all those clubs involved that we spoke to that, look, we want to get going. We want to finish the season. We want to give our fans who are at home, a lot of older fans we have at Peterborough, we want to give them something to smile about. So that's been our plan all along. And that's our plan going into the meeting today when we speak.
I don't think there's going to be a vote today, but that's definitely our situation. And obviously, I saw Gary got involved on Twitter and I think he got a bit upset with me. And hence the invite to come on the show.
I wasn't upset.
Just before. The Festival of Football. What was it? The way you described it? I can't remember.
No, I mean... Yeah, Kelly, there you go. No, I mean, Dara, my point was last night, I understand completely the clubs at the top want to have a certain position, the clubs in the middle don't want to bring their players off furlough and they don't want to spend the money on the testing. I mean, my view on it would be that we're 10th in League Two. We would support football return if it was safe.
And we would also pay for the testing to happen. However, I also understand, and you'll understand going into the meeting this morning, that it's circa £150,000 for the testing that clubs would have to fork out. And it's also maybe another... £150,000 minimum in furlough payments that the clubs are receiving at the moment.
They would lose £300,000 to £400,000 over a couple of months to play football. How are you going to be able to convince the rest of the league that your pursuit of football is something that they should pursue when obviously you need maybe 75% of the vote?
Sure. Look, a couple of things we want to clear on. We don't quite know what percentage of the vote we need. That seems to be changing every day. But look, you're absolutely right. It's about 120 to 140 grand for the testing. And then we don't know the full cost then of playing the actual games behind closed doors. You're saying they're another 150 grand.
Here's the figure we don't know, Gary, and this is the real worry. We don't know the price of not doing it. Right now, we have contracts. We have TV contracts. We have contracts with our season ticket holders. You know, I did an estimation a few weeks ago, and I tried to let other clubs know and I let the media know that
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Chapter 3: What are the financial implications of finishing the football season?
That's always been the plan for the EFL. I got told two months ago when we downed tools and we sent our players home and did it for the right reason, the football will be back when it's safe to do so. The government's now telling us it could be around the corner in June. The EFL stance has always been get back playing. The Championship are going to go back playing.
The Premier League are going to go back playing. What does it say about League One and League Two if we can't go back and play?
Obviously, the big part of it is financial. And you say you don't know what the cost could be down there. But it's obviously there's a lot of clubs in your league who don't have the same thought process as you. And they obviously want the league to finish.
Do you think those clubs and maybe yourselves included should be getting a bigger helping hand from maybe the Premier League and making sure these leagues near the bottom actually go ahead and be given financial assistance?
Look, Gary stole my idea about factoring the TV money down the line. I came up with that idea five weeks ago. He's a plagiarizer. He's a plagiarizer. Oh, my God. That's unbelievable. No, no, no. Six weeks ago, I wrote an article to Rick Perry and I put it up in the Football League board you're on, I think. I think it was like for all the forums to be honest.
And I put in there, if we factored year four and five of the TV deal, We need about 200 million amongst all the 72 clubs because what's coming in July and August is ugly. All this money that people have deferred in VAT, player wages and PAYE is going to be an horrific amount to pay in July, August, September.
My biggest concern, Gary, Jamie, Kelly, is if we don't get back to playing now, when do we get back? The further away from playing we are, it worries me. It really troubles me. If we don't see football again within the next two, three months, we mightn't see football for the rest of the year. So even if it's without fans for the moment, behind closed doors, we need football back on.
We need to give our fans something. We need to give our employees something. I don't want to lose any of my employees. I've owned a football club for 15 years, and the word self-interest was mentioned. I've never made any money out of football. Borrow when I've sold a player to Gary, obviously, at Salford and, you know, robbed him. I've never made any money in 15 years in a football club.
And you're letting him off in the last few years. I let him off that last payment. I just told him I expect that payment June the 30th, by the way, to be interesting. So, you know, from my perspective, I've never been in football for money. It's never been about that for me. You know, yes, I'm one of those people who either love me or hate me, but I love the game. I love football.
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Chapter 4: What is the stance of players regarding the return to training and games?
He had no decision making in that. So where you are now trying to change the situation on third-party ownership and take it down a different line, I'm trying to bring it back into the question that you had raised, which was about down-tooling and professionalism, and it wasn't about third-party.
If you want to have a debate about third-party ownership, I'm more than happy to have a debate with you on third-party ownership.
I know why you're taking it away from third-party ownership, because the minute that Manchester United didn't trigger that option, the third-party owners came back into play. You said Sir Alex Ferguson before took his eye off the ball. You said to me, would Sir Alex Ferguson have taken his eye off the ball?
Why did Sir Alex Ferguson not trigger the option then if he thought that Carlos Tevez was the right player for Manchester United?
Well, exactly. I'm not, I'm not, you know, at the end of the season, David Gill called me and said that we want to, we want to exercise the option and Carlos will be in touch. When you guys were in South Africa that year for your pre-season, David Gill and both Sadarets made an interview about it.
After when the move of Berbatov came available, I think that they needed to use the money for that particular transaction. And they used that transaction instead of purchasing Carlos. In January, he had the option. The moment Sir Alex wanted to sign Carlos was in May. of that year. And in May of that year, Sir Alex pulled Carlos and said, we want you to stay before the Champions League final.
And after the Champions League final, he called Carlos and he said, I don't know where you are. Carlos had already been back in Argentina.
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Chapter 5: How are clubs planning to ensure player safety during the pandemic?
I don't know where you are, but I'd really like you to stay and I want you to come back to United. But the option had already expired at that moment in time. And Carlos was already looking at other options because he was quite disappointed that during the two seasons, Sir Alex hadn't signed him.
So at some point in time, Sir Alex actually changed his mind in wanting to keep Carlos because he realized that Carlos, he was about to lose him. Maybe during the period of time, they felt that because they had the option and they had a chance to just sign a paper and send it to the Premier League and sign Carlos for four years, they didn't believe that they had any urgency to do so.
And maybe after the urgency had finished, they realized that they were about to lose him and that was too late. But I don't think, you know, you're talking about professionalism and down tooling. It has anything to do with that.
Okay, I'm trying to connect the dots here. Manchester United signed Dimitar Berbatov on the start of the 2008-09 season. They beat Manchester City to the signature of Dimitar Berbatov. And Manchester City at that point, I think, were quite upset. They thought Dimitar Berbatov was going to go to them. During that next season, Dimitar played some games. I played a lot less.
And Manchester United at that point decided not to trigger his option, probably partway through that season, whether it be around Christmas or whenever it would be. Am I right in saying that the owners of Carlos Tevez made double the money by going to Manchester City than staying and triggering the option of Manchester United?
And it was actually in the interest economically of the owners of Carlos to actually him not sign that option and him not have a good second season at the club.
Well, I think the point that you're transferring to is about what the financial economic rights of the player occurred after Man United had not triggered the option.
And I think the most thing that you have to realize is that a lot of players, when their contracts run down and go for free, they obviously demand more at that moment in time than they do when someone has to pay $100 million for them or $80 million for them.
The point was that, of course, Manchester City were going to pay more than Man United, and so was at that moment in time Real Madrid, and so was at that moment in time Barcelona, who had both made official offers for Carlos once his option had expired and the word had got out that the option has expired. But...
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Chapter 6: What challenges do lower league clubs face in resuming play?
It took, I think, a lot of planning. The logistics are not that easy. But the DFL, the equivalent to the Premier League in England... Yeah, presented a concept to the government. They approved. And, yeah, so far things are going pretty smoothly. The lads are back in training, I think, for 10 to 14 days now. And, yeah, everybody's looking forward to see the first game tomorrow.
Because the conversation here and there have been comments from politicians suggesting that it would improve the mood of the nation. Is that how it's being seen in the Bundesliga in Germany?
Yeah.
Well, there's still quite a few people opposed to it. I read a poll this morning that almost half the people think it's a bit too early. But the matter of fact is that what we know now of the virus and what we've been going through over the last few weeks that is probably not any safer in two weeks' time or six months' time than it is now.
And the new infected cases have been going back in Germany for the last three to four weeks. That reproduction rate everybody's talking about now is below one for the best part of two or three weeks now. So, I think the figures all show that, yeah, the restrictions are being eased in Germany. Some of the states open schools again. The restaurants are open from Monday.
The outdoor areas inside, people are allowed from a week Monday onwards. So, restrictions are being eased and the numbers we get are backing it up. So, yeah, I think football has a chance to come back. Otherwise, government wouldn't have approved it. And this is why most people look forward to seeing it again tomorrow.
In the Premier League now, there's lots of talk of whether the players actually want to come back. There's obviously two or three in every squad who maybe are not sure. Has that been a problem in Germany? And this weekend, have any players opted out of actually not playing because of the risk of the coronavirus?
So far, no. I think all the clubs gave the players the options whether they want to come back or whether they do come back. And you just have to follow the rules. Obviously, they get tested two or three times. So far, most tests have been negative. I think when they first started testing, they tested over 1,700 people. They had 10 positive tests.
These 10 people went into quarantine and the rest carried on training. You just have to go with the doctors with the rules that don't think 100% security. You don't get wherever you go, whatever you do. These days, the players seem to trust the people in charge. And this is why I haven't heard of a case that a player said he doesn't want to play because he feels it's unsafe.
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Chapter 7: What was Gary Neville's perspective on Carlos Tevez's behavior?
Suddenly Southampton are doomed.
2-2. 2-2. Yeah, OK. 2-2, Jeff. I'm just saying. They've gone for zero downstairs, as you can imagine. There's a ball in the whistle, Jeff. West Brom are safe. Palace are down. Charlton have got a draw. 2-2. And those are the scenes. West Brom against all odds. Stay up on this. The day of all days at the bottom of the Premiership.
Chapter 8: How does Kia Joorabchian respond to Gary Neville's criticisms?
So, yeah, West Brom stayed up. Norwich, Southampton and Crystal Palace went down. And, of course, Norwich involved in a relegation battle this year as well, if we ever see the return to football and what that will look like when we're back and playing for their Premier League survival. They don't find themselves in a particularly good place, Jamie, at the moment.
But the teams at the bottom, do they have more reason, do you think, in some ways, to get the season started, to try and play themselves out of that situation?
Yes, maybe, of course. I mean, I think when this started, it's changed so much. And I think even some of my opinions on the league starting or stopping and how it affected other teams as we've moved on through different weeks, as you understand the ramifications of certain things.
I think initially my first thought was just play the season whenever it's safe to do so and whether that goes into next season and you're almost changed next season rather than change this season. But Then you obviously read more into it and obviously UEFA get involved about European football next season. All the leagues in Europe have to be aligned for that.
So there has to be a cut-off point at some stage. There's no doubt about that. But I think at the start it felt like the debate was almost about Liverpool and the title. I think it's moved on from that now to almost become...
almost what's happening with promotion and relegation and through every league but obviously we predominantly look at the the premier league situation and maybe the top of the championship and because of the funds involved so much so that i think that's that's the biggest uh sort of talking point now and thing that i think we have to resolve oh well we're joined now to get some more insight on that by the norwich captain grant henley good morning to you grant good morning how we doing
Good, thank you. Just wondering what the position of you as Norwich captain is on how and what happens next in terms of potentially restarting the season. What do you think?
It's a difficult one to answer, I think, because obviously with everything going on, there's just so much uncertainty and there's so much that's not clear. I think, obviously, from a player's point of view and being a captain's point of view... It's important to speak to your players and I think the overall feeling is that players have got concerns. Like I said, there's just so much uncertainty.
Looking at the protocols for going back to training, I think that's probably fair enough. But it's just the next step after that. Where do we go from there in terms of going back to contact training and games?
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