Football Daily - Monday Night Club: Reaction to the big Sir Jim Ratcliffe - Manchester United interview

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

After Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s comments following his first year as minority owner of Manchester United, the panel react to his claims about the club’s financial situation and his aims for the club’s future.EFL Chairman Rick Parry also joins Mark Chapman, Chris Sutton, Shay Given and Rory Smith on this week’s Monday Night Club to talk about the disparity between the Premier League and the EFL and how the Football Regulator Bill could help.They also discuss Bournemouth, and the art of the wall – should referees take Chris’ advice and use a tape measure?Plus, the birthday celebrations are in full force for Chris!TIME CODES:02:15 – Sir Jim Ratcliffe 09:05 – Reaction to Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s interview 23:35 – Disparity between the Premier League and EFL 26:40 – EFL Chairman Rick Parry on the Football Regulator BillBBC Sounds / 5 Live commentaries this week:Tue 11 Mar 2000 Liverpool v PSG in the Champions League, Wed 12 Mar 2000 Aston Villa v Club Brugge in the Champions League, Thu 13 Mar 2000 Man Utd v Real Sociedad in the Europa League.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn. It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.

And also in this series, we're discussing history of music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. The Football Daily Podcast with Mark Chapman. Welcome to the Monday Night Pub. Shay Given, Rory Smith and Chris Sutton are with us. Get in touch on email mnc at bbc.co.uk and birthday wishes for Chris would be most welcome. That'd be lovely if people, if they could wish you a happy birthday, happy birthday. Oh, thank you very much. Happy birthday, Chris.

Thank you. Happy birthday. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Shay. I didn't receive a card from any of you, but thanks for the wishes. Well. Thanks for the birthday wishes. You've never shared your address with any of us. So that's the slight problem.

And also, none of us so that's the slight problem and also none of us would have known had your daughter not just come onto the the camera two minutes before going on air and mouthed it's his birthday and then you shoot her away. Well she wants me to wear this badge. Oh please come on, come on it's a rosette, put the rosette on for the show come on. Come on, come on, it's a rosette. It's a, put the rosette on for the show, come on. Come on, Chris. Really? Yeah, come on.

You gotta hide it under the jumper. Right. I don't know. You never wore a rosette before. Can you just stick it on your forehead or something? Yeah. I'll squeeze it on, but yeah, it's a bit big. Have the family looked after you today?

Plenty of celebrations? Well I've had a nice day of celebrations. I've not opened my presents yet. Right. So this is after I wanted to give my bit to the BBC and the listeners around the world first and then I'm going to open the presents after. Okay. So I didn't want to let you down. I mean Rory would have would have had a night off I'm sure but you know. Are you not too old for presents Chris? No. Never too old for presents? No. Yeah absolutely not. Do you have sort of miserable birthdays? Very few and far between the presents coming my way. Really? Yeah. So Chris has got his birthday rosette on. Is that a rosette that's normally given to

one of your horses on their birthday? And it's just been... Yeah. Whatever's happened to just an old fashioned badge. I don't know. Moving on Manchester United owner and minority owner Jim Ratcliffe has spoken to BBC Sport this afternoon. The full 30 minute interview is available as a podcast on the Football Daily Feed and via BBC Sounds. Radcliffe says he doesn't regret investing in United and that he understands the fan protests ahead of Sunday's draw against Arsenal.

I sympathise with them because Manchester United is not where it's expected to be. We're expected to be winning the Premier League and challenging for the Champions League and we're not there at the moment. I think we need to get the house back in order before we can get back to our winning ways. That's the process. It's not a light switch. I mean, if you look at, just to give you an example, if you look at the players that we're buying this summer that we didn't buy, we're buying Anthony, we're buying Casimiro, we're buying Inano,

we're buying Hoyland, we're buying Sancho. These are all things from the past, but we've inherited those things, so we have to sort it out. So for Sancho, who now obviously plays for Chelsea and we pay half his wages, we're paying £17 million to buy in the summer. So it takes time for us to move away from the past into a new place in the future. To what extent are you still dealing with the problems of the past or after a year though is this on you to some extent now? Do INEOS have to share some of the responsibility?

No, no, I think we absolutely, I just think if you're in a period of change, it is disruptive and excuse the pun, but just take people's eye off the ball a bit. But we have got a club which was in a level of financial difficulty. Manchester United would have run out of cash by the end of this year, by the end of 2025, after me having put $300 million in and if we buy no new players in the summer, if we hadn't implemented all the cost programmes and restructurings that we have done over

the last 12 months. So we have to deal with all those things and you know there's only so many things you can deal with at once. So we've got a new management team, we have to deal with the financial restructuring and then we have to move on to the squad, data analysis and moving forward. But we're in the process of change and it's an uncomfortable period and it's disruptive and you know I do feel sympathy with the fans but I'm not actually surprised at where we are in the league because Rubens only got a certain size of squad he can deal with.

Quite a number of those players are either injured or they're not available to him. A year ago you were seen as a saviour for the club by many fans but now a lot of them also see Ineos as part of the problem and they will look to some of the decisions that have been made and the cost of some of those decisions financially. Do you accept that you've contributed to the predicament that the club finds itself in? I think we're not perfect and we're on a journey and you know there have been a couple of errors along the way but I think in the main all the things that we're doing are the right things for the club and the club's going to finish up in a very, very different place in three years' time

to where it's been in the past in my view. I think it will become the most profitable club in the world. In three years' time Manchester United will be, that will be my prediction for Manchester, it will become the most profitable club in the world. I think we may well finish up with the most iconic football stadium in the world and I think we will finish up winning Silverware again. It's not just the ticket price increases is it Jim, it's also the cost cutting that you've instigated and obviously there's been hundreds of redundancies last year and hundreds more

to come. Again why is there a need to do that? Because many would argue that again the money you're going to save is dwarfed by the amount that's been spent on interest repayments, on player salaries and signings, on decisions around managers and executives. I mean the simple answer is the club runs out of money at Christmas if we don't do those things. But ultimately if you look at running a club

at the South of Manchester United with income of about £650 million, you spend a part of that £650 million on operating the club and a part of it on the squad. Where do you want to spend the money? Do you want to spend it on operating the club or do you want to spend it on the squad? Because if you spend it on the squad you get better results. And you know at the end of the day what's Manchester United here for if it's not to win trophies and silverware what we want to do is invest in the best players in the world if we can rather than spend it on I'm afraid free lunches. The Dan Ashworth situation you told me last February this is somebody's best in the world of what they do you were

prepared to wait a long time to secure his services and then he spent around as much time on gardening leave as he actually did in the job before you went your separate ways. Can you explain what exactly went wrong there? No. It was an error on our part and all I would say is chemistry really. I don't really want to go into the details, you know, we are where we are, we've moved on, the chemistry issue. And with Eric, it's been suggested that you, after the club finished eighth last season, were keen to make a change but others perhaps felt differently. Is that the case? Can you

explain to Cheneley Light on that at all? At the end of the day, we're a consensus organisation, so there's a collection of us that make decisions. It's not just me that makes the decision, it involves that management team. And if you look at the time that we made the decision about Eric, the management team hadn't been in place more than five minutes really. It was a very difficult decision to make at short notice and also it's quite difficult to extract Eric from Eric's performance in the previous season from the management team he had been working with in the previous. If I look today there's a great relationship between Ruben and Jason, Jason Wilcox, the sporting director and Jason gives Rubin a lot of support but

Eric didn't benefit from that. It's quite difficult to understand in that previous season to what extent Eric maybe wasn't performing as we'd hoped or it was the circumstances in which Eric was trying to perform and we couldn't get to the bottom of that problem. It became clearer obviously three months later and you know, we got it wrong, but We've moved on. I think we've corrected it and we're in a very different place today Jim Radcliffe and the full 30-minute interview is on the football daily feed available as a podcast If you were a Manchester United fan Chris Sutton, would that give you any confidence whatsoever? Well, I think he think he was open and honest. Not on some things he wasn't.

Was open and honest on Dan Ashworth was he? Chemistry. That's a good point. Well you know that was his way out. I mean that was an odd part. Look, I think Ineos's judgment now, I mean if it isn't already, has to come under serious scrutiny. Ashworth being a case in point, the decision to for Eric Tenhag to sign him on a new contract, didn't they, you know, after winning the FA Cup. They signed them on a new contract, didn't they, after winning the FA Cup. Other parts, which I listened to a longer part of the interview earlier, Jim Ratcliffe

said that Manchester United had a very good management team in place and he thought that they were on the right path. I think if people would have seen Manchester United under Ruben Amrén, some people may feel that the club and the team have regressed. I think the point he made about inheriting players, I think that's absolutely fair, but surprised maybe that he could not name them, but Hoi-Lan and Inana listening to that, you wouldn't be feeling particularly good about yourself with his line on inheriting them because it didn't sound like he was overly happy about that.

And then the whole staff cut thing and spending it on the squad, look, it's maybe really difficult for him to have to make those decisions, but I think as a Manchester United fan you want to get back to winning trophies. He talked about in three years they'll be the most profitable club in the world and they'll have the most iconic stadium. But football fans want to see Manchester United or the Manchester United fans will want to see the team winning things and competing at the top end of the Premier League table and competing for the biggest trophies in Europe and they seem miles off.

What will be interesting is will he stick with Ruben Ameren or how long will he stick with Ruben Ameren if he's got that much confidence in him now? I mean he was very clear on the most profitable club in the world, Shea. That's not the title that fans want to win most. No, I mean there's a lot of still more questions I think than answers after that. I mean the Dan Ashworth sort of is the question that I was jumped off the page to me obviously him being at Newcastle being at Brighton before that I think renowned in the game as one of the best sort of guys for sorting you know the people behind the scenes putting a structure

in place for all the best people and the right, putting a structure in place for all the best people and the right things. Jim goes, it's about the chemistry. But at the end of the day, you don't want to have a set of nodding dogs around the table. You want people who are going to disagree or say, that's not right, we need to do it this way. Because I suppose Jim will have the final say because he's leading it. But at the same time, you need people that's going to say, no, that that's not right or we should do it this way or that way and I think the likes of Jason Wolcox and Omar Bradd are being around football long enough to think that you know in the summer when 10 Hag, yes they won the FA Cup final but the football leading up to that, I mean

even Coventry in the semi-final, I mean they scraped into the final didn't they? I just think that was such a wrong decision. And now I actually feel for Ruben Amram, yes, his results haven't been good enough, I get that, but at the same time he's brought in one player and now staff are getting laid off left, right and centre. The morale at Man United must be lower than anything, than a snake's belly perhaps. And what's going to happen in the summer if they don't make Champions League through the Europa League?

The talk is they need to sell £100 million worth of players before they can do anything. I just don't know where the future lies. I mean surely Rory, not paying interest payments on the debt would save them more money than cutting meals for staff and sellotape. Isn't that the crux of it, isn't it? Yeah, a billion's gone out of United in debt payments to the Deleuzers, for the pleasure of being owned by the Deleuzer family. Obviously there's a political reason that Jim Ratcliffe can't sit there and say, the problem here is we lose all of this money to our owners. But

yeah, I think that's the thing that was left unsaid is that you can make the argument, if you want to, that Manchester United needed to trim a little bit of the staff that maybe as a company it had become a bit too bloated, there were too many people doing this, that or the other. I don't know, I don't have access to Manchester United's HR documentation. But it's fine, sometimes unfortunately companies do need to think, okay look we're a bit overstaffed here or there or whatever. But I think the thing that really aggravates not just fans but anyone who's kind of aware of the situation

is the waste at the same time. And that is in two major directions. That is one, the huge amount of money that goes out in interest payments, which Ratcliffe doesn't mention at all and is without question the source of all of United's financial problems. And two, the amount of money they spend on players. Because then that leaves fans feeling, probably quite rightly, that they are now being forced to pay for the incompetence of others. Well yeah, and look, no fans like their ticket prices going up, tickets are already extortionately expensive, there is a point at which clubs are social institutions and have to value

the people who are around them and sustain them. It's not kind of a dynamic pricing model. That's not good. Football should be resistant to that. But it's one thing doing that when you can see that your team has been run really well and another way you think, right, great, I get to pay 80 quid a match so that we can pay

the 17 million quid that it cost us to sign Antony and we still owe IACS, which I thought was a remarkable detail. It shows a lot of the waste. But all of this, he made a quip about the free lunches, that they want to put money towards the players rather than the free lunches, which I just think is so cynical. It's such a cynical way to try and get the fans onside in the same way as whenever anyone's trying to buy a club, they promise a war chest, which is just sort of football owner language for we think you're

stupid to the fans. We think you want bright shiny things like children and that's all you care about. Fine, maybe don't supply your staff with free lunches. Lots of companies don't provide their staff with free lunches. That's not a problem. Don't pretend that makes the slightest bit of difference when you want to go and spend 70 million quid on a midfielder in the summer. It's that. There's an element of kind of cognitive dissonance that feels deliberate and it feels cynical and I think fans see straight through it. The other thing, Chris, is that they would have run out of money by the end of the year.

That's Manchester United running out of money by the end of the year. Given all their commercial weight and crowd size and all of this kind of thing, they would have had nothing by Christmas 2025. And the second part of that, Chris, is he must have had an inkling of that when he invested, surely, because due diligence would, I mean, I don't know, I've never taken over a business so but if you are looking at projections you would have been wouldn't you have

had some kind of inkling? I think Manchester United fans listening to that will be will be staggered I think you know hearing him hearing him say that was you know totally staggering and you know he's in a position where he is Put his money in his is a Manchester United fan is trying to turn turn things around and it hasn't gone as he as he would have wanted it to go and It's you know, he the one thing which I took out of that is it seems like he is in for the long haul. I would just there's a number of things which have happened.

Even this one about, you know, talk about running out of money where you'd have to question his judgment and Manchester United. They if you're a Manchester United fan, you want to see some sign of improvement. And I do think that Amram needs the summer. And I think that Ineos need the summer for them to start turning things around and for the club to be moving in the right direction again Are you not slightly suspicious of that claim though? I mean, I'd love to see his working Which claim? The running out of money? The running out of money by Christmas that that that seems an extraordinary I'm not saying he's lying, but I'd like to see the you know Like to see his working out. He wouldn't have said that though would he? I mean that would be an astonishing thing

for him to say and for that to be wrong. But as Chappell says from the sheer scale of their commercial revenue plus all the money they get from being in the Premier League I can see why they might have had to take out some sort of loan to cover their wage bill or they might have had to slash their wage bill by trying to sell players but But to intimate that the club might have been wound up on Boxing Day, I think, as I say, I just really like to see the maths on that. I mean, the other thing with that as well is trying to work out if they are or were close to running out of money at the end of 2025, how on earth do you pull yourself back from the brink of that to be able to

function this summer in changing over a squad? That's the other bit in all of this. How do you do that to change over a squad if you're close this summer, if you're close to running out of money at Christmas? And in one breath he's going to say it's the most profitable club in the world in three years time with an income of 650 million. But in six or eight months we could run out of money, we could run money dry. I don't know, I mean we don't know the finances, we don't know the exact ins and outs of it all but that is a concern. I mean the other question I would probably ask is has Rubin had any guarantees at Ameryam when he signed to join Man United that we will back you

in the summer because obviously he got one player in January but they didn't back him heavily and people will say was that a financial thing, was that a trust thing as results aren't good enough or whatever? But in the summer, surely he wouldn't have signed for Manchester United because he did say he wanted to join in the summer, but surely he wouldn't have signed to come to the football club with the reputation you had in Portugal and maybe lots of clubs around the world looking at him. He can come to Manchester United, but we ain't got a, we ain't, what was I going to say, I was just right there. I know exactly what you were going to say.

We ain't got nothing in the pot basically. But you know what I mean? Like he must have had some sort of guarantees in the summer he's going to get some backing to bring his own players in. I'm like Chappers though, I've never run a business, so I'm not qualified to say this, but if I was running a business that might run out of money in 12 months time, I don't know if I'd spend £30 pounds on a 20 year old left back. It feels like that is a luxury sort of purchase to be honest. So how do they turn it around then? Because it's clearly they're sitting in the bottom

half of the league, they're struggling individually, collectively. It needs a major overhaul, it needs a major, I mean, Rannach said that a few years ago, it needs open heart surgery and it feels like, you know, they're in sedation at the minute and something major needs to happen. Well, I mean, you can always improve commercial performance and stuff. Manchester United's commercial income is massive. Yeah, but my fans don't care about that. Fans just want to... No, but in terms of turning it around as a business, you try and improve the commercial side of it, because that's all you've got. Your TV income is fixed. You get that from

the Premier League for being in the Premier League. Some of it is dependent on where you finish. You can get more from being in Europe. So obviously being, you know, 100 million in the Champions League, hugely important to United. But other than that, all you can really do is try and maximise your merchandise, your commercial, the business side of it, the stuff like you say, Shea, that fans don't like thinking about, but that is how you improve it. But United's is already pretty extensive and even if they start to perform better in that kind of sphere, that's probably offset by the fact that a lot of the deals that are expiring were probably predicated on Manchester United not being 14th in the Premier League. So I don't see how you make

a huge bump there. And to be honest, this is again, to go back to the job cuts and stuff I don't see how any of that can make a huge dent when you have this huge amount of money that is going out on the first team which is clearly underperforming so short of selling off as many players as you can and starting again I don't really see how you make a huge amount of difference. The Football Daily Podcast on BBC Sounds how you make a huge amount of difference. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off.

Jupiter versus Saturn! It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice. After all of that it's gonna kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes. So listen wherever you get your podcasts. costs. into all things WSL and beyond in the women's game. It's very big now, it's very alive. There's a lot of fans and supporters. Women's Football Weekly only on the Football Daily. Listen now on BBC Sounds.

The Football Daily podcast. With Mark Chapman. Rory Smith, Shay Given, Chris Sutton on the Monday night. Club, thank you very much to Ed who sent an email into mnc at bbc.co.uk. This weekend I'm attending the 40th birthday where in honour of the host, the theme is to dress like a famous Chris. As a keen listener of the Monday night club, I am currently thinking of going as you Chris.

If possible, could you give me some pointers as to what I should wear to best represent your current vibe? Many thanks. Well, I'd have to ask my wife that. So I'll maybe put them in touch with my wife because she dresses me. Not literally, but it gives me clothes to wear. And not belong, Chris. So she decides what your vibe is, does she?

Every day. Every single day. Maybe he could just wear the kit of one of your former clubs. Yeah. Yeah. Which one? I've got a few spare Chelsea shirts. Nobody wants them for all. That has half nine Sutton on the back? Yes.

Oh brilliant. There you go. Send us another email and we'll get Chris to send you a nine Sutton Chelsea shirt from the mid-90s. He could wear a pair of Patrick boots. Yeah, but with the Chelsea shirt you have to put them on the wrong thing. Still got them, yep. Good. Do you have any Villa 44 Sutton shirts? I think I do, yeah, does anybody out there who wants one? Have you got a Champions League shirt from Norwich? Champions League was it? Not Champions League,

UEFA Cup. I tried to big him up there bigger but I sort of messed it up for him. Right, let's talk about the EFL, the Premier League, the bottom three. Rick Parry, the EFL chairman, will join us in just a moment. But yet again this weekend, defeats for the bottom three, increasing the likelihood that all three promoter sides will be relegated in consecutive seasons for the first time in Premier League history. So last season, Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United finished with a combined points tally of 66. Opta is projecting that Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton will finish with 58, which will obviously be the lowest tally over 38

games comfortably. So that's not a good look. No, something probably needs to be looked at from the Premier League. I know Rick will have these views and thoughts on the EFL side of things as well. But I suppose one of the examples I mentioned on here before was the Nottingham Forest thing they overspent or whatever and took a punch, sort of hit to try and compete in the Premier League because I think every season the gap seems to be getting bigger and probably known more so than this season. It makes the Premier League less competitive and it's more of a struggle for the teams that come up because Apswich, Leicester and Southampton

we all feel that are going to go back down probably. They want to stay in the Premier League and build and make the clubs bigger and stronger and yeah it's, there's a big question mark over how the gap can be smaller. You will also know Chris though with your EFL hat on that two of the relegated clubs are on course to come back up. I know Leeds are top of the table, Sheffield United have the same number of points as them and Burnley are a point back so two of the three that went down could be coming straight back up as well. Yeah and clearly the parachute payments are a massive advantage. I mean my old club, Norwich City now, don't get the parachute payment so it becomes harder for them. At the start of this season they've actually changed their whole model

and the way that the club has run because of that. We can look at it a couple of ways. This and we can look at this season and the three promoted clubs are going to likely come back down. But you can also look at, Chase mentioned, Forrest. You can look at Bournemouth and Fulham in recent seasons and they are clubs who have gone up and made a fist of it and more than survived. But I mean, the financial gap must be, it seems to be getting vaster, seems to be getting wider. that that does seem to be you know a large part of the reason why is a

struggle for sides who get relegated and and then stay down and then they you know they simply don't have the clout to come back and compete so the The the stronger clubs the Premier League clubs are getting stronger They're getting richer and because of that, that gap is going to continue to grow. Well, Rick Parry, the EFL chair joins us now on the Monday night club. Evening Rick, nice to see you. The gap is a chasm is it now? It is. Many ways of analysing it. Simplest way maybe is to remember that when we formed the Premier

League in 1992-1993, the difference in the income of the Premier League and the EFL was £11 million. It's now £3.3 billion. The Premier League income has gone up by 78 times. We know it's been a brilliant success and we're all rejoicing its success. EFL's income has only gone up six times. So yes, the gap has become a chasm and the solution is not to increase parachute payments in our view. The solution is to address what we call the cliff edge, which is the £100 million gap between the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship. So how do you address that then? And obviously we're having this discussion on the eve of

the report stage for the football governance bill to begin in the House of Lords tomorrow. So if the main point for you is addressing that £100 million cliff edge, where do you begin? Well we would say it's really very simple. First of all there has to be a willingness, there has to be a recognition that the pyramid matters and that what we want is for clubs to be able to rise and fall without financial catastrophe. It should be sporting jeopardy without catastrophe. jeopardy without catastrophe. And we need a fairer distribution. And it's really simple. We can make this overly complicated or we can do it very, very simply and straightforwardly. We've been saying for four years that what we should do is to go back to where we were before the Premier League was formed and have a 75-25 split of revenue between the Premier

League and the rest. We hear all the howls of anguish about Premier League won't be competitive internationally, that we'll be killing the golden goose. I mean, we're not in the business of killing golden geese. We absolutely want the Premier League to succeed internationally. But it's really interesting. And over the years, it's remarkable how the Germans seem to do things straightforwardly without fuss. A couple of weeks ago they announced that they were reaffirming their commitment to share

20% of the Bundesliga's revenue with the second division. UEFA benchmarking report came out last week which showed that the Bundesliga is only making half the revenue of the Premier League. But the Bundesliga clubs aren't saying this is catastrophic, we can't compete with the Premier League, we're not going to share anything with the clubs lower down. Their priority is German football, making sure that's sustainable. And if it means they're way behind the Premier League in revenue terms, so be it. But there are many European leagues who do feel that they can't compete with the Premier League, aren't there, Rick?

I mean, I take your point that they may not be saying that, but virtually when European giants are not able to either bring players in or lose players to a side who maybe finished 15th in the Premier League, there are howls of protest in those leagues. Yes, so that's the point we're making really, that the Premier League could afford to share quite a lot of revenue and make our game sustainable and not make even a dent in its position at the top of the pile in Europe. So one of the analyses we did for Tracy Crouch, and we did quite a lot, we looked back over the 15-year period and we looked back to 2008-9 because that was the end of a vintage period in Europe

for English clubs. Obviously, from my perspective, winning the Champions League with Liverpool was a high, but we won two Champions Leagues, three semi-finalists, or three semi-finalists on three occasions, three finalists, we couldn't do much better in Europe. The Premier League was paying 460 million more in wages than the other four major European leagues. Now they're paying 2.2 billion more than the other leagues, more than four times as much. So they're so far ahead that to say if we share money lower down, it'll affect our competitiveness just doesn't stack up.

And I'm asking you to sort of, and you can put yourself in this position because you were there at the start with the Premier League and the CEO at the very start. Could you sit in a room with the 20 stakeholders, the 20 clubs in the Premier League and say, let's make our revenue a 75-25 split and persuade them to do that. I mean, are they going to put the greater good ahead of individual benefits? Honestly, could you do that? Unlikely, which is why we support the independent regulator. Although, what I can also say, and times have changed, it's different people, but back in 1995, it took 20 minutes to persuade the

20 Premier League clubs to go to the EFL and offer to share revenues on an 80-20 basis. So it has been done, albeit 5% less, but then I was on the other side then. But back then, they agreed to do it. The AFL turned it down, which probably wasn't the wisest decision they ever made. But, you know, it can be done. But clearly, it's been challenging, to say the least, over the last two years. We haven't had an offer for redistribution from the Premier League, which is why we're backing the independent regulator. And I can understand clubs in the middle of the Premier League thinking, but hang on, we're looking upwards, we're trying to compete with the clubs in the Champions League, they've got way more money than us. I get all of that.

But when you look at the structure, you look at the clubs in the EFL who've had Premier League experience, you look at Middlesbrough with 15 years, you look at the structure, you look at the clubs in the EFL who've had Premier League experience, you look at Middlesbrough with 15 years, you look at Stoke, you look at Blackburn, former champions, you look at Bolton, you look at Wigan. Why shouldn't these clubs have a say in something as pivotal as all of this, the future of the game? Why should it only be the 14 clubs who happen to be there when the music stops, who get to vote and block these things? So trying to find a solution within the game that works for everybody, highly unlikely, because of all the vested interests in it.

It does need that independent view. Rick, I mean, there's an element of kind of naivety about this question, but is the central problem not precisely that, that there is nobody who is thinking about the actual interests of the game as a whole? That you see it quite a lot in the coverage of these issues that there is nobody who is thinking about the actual interest of the game as a whole. You see it quite a lot in the coverage of these issues that kind of the... I should probably be diplomatic here, but I'm not going to be.

We assume that the interest of Crystal Palace can be read as this is what is good for the game. Or West Ham, the clubs who have owners or executives who will speak freely, they tend to be the ones who are sort of self-appointed guardians of the spirit of the game. The Premier League doesn't want to give up its money, as you say that the Premier League's owners, the 20 stakeholders, there is no chance that anyone can persuade them to give up more of their money. Ideally they would give away none of it. They don't think about the greater good. They will surely object to the regulator in every possible way so that even if it comes through it's completely toothless.

Yeah, I mean, which is why the next two weeks are pivotal as the bill returns to the House of Lords. We don't believe it will be toothless. We believe it... well, it's come a long way. It's taken an awful long time. We've supported the bill, as you said, the Premier League doesn't support the bill. But we believe we're really at a crossroads now in terms of providing something that's objective, independent, and is going to take that view of the good of the game as a whole.

So if things carry on, say, for the next five years at the same rate and the gap keeps getting bigger, how does this, well, I think we know how it pans out, but how catastrophic could this be? I think catastrophic is a really strong word, Chris, because football is incredibly resilient. It tends to thrive despite the people running it because it's got an enduring simplicity and a popularity. People talk about the bubble bursting. I've never quite seen it that way. I see it more as maybe a balloon that

deflates and finds a level. Because you can imagine that if we go on at this rate, the Premier League becomes less attractive. If we don't have competition down at the bottom, the viewing figures will decline. When that happens, the TV companies will be saying, well, hang on, the product isn't worth as much, so we're not going to pay as much. At which point the Premier League clubs think we'd better do something about this. And so maybe that then leads to a fresh look and a solution. Is this going to go through this bill?

Do you feel that it will be passed? And if so, when will it start to have some effect? We believe it will be passed and if so when will it start to have some effect? We believe it will be passed. Labour have shown a very clear commitment to taking it forwards. The Conservative leaders come out in opposition to it. Do you know why? We've asked her, we've written to ask her why. She said she's spoken to people in football who think it's a bad idea. And we reminded her she hasn't spoken to us. So if she hasn't spoken to many people in football, we've asked her to meet us so we can explain our perspective. Because it's a tad ironic that this was a conservative bill, of course.

So the whole thing was their idea when it kicked off with the fan-led review many years ago. But Labour have been strong. We're pleased with the amendments Labour have made to the bill and given the majority they've got in the House of Commons, when it gets back to the House of Commons we think it will go through relatively straightforwardly. But two more tests to get through in the Lords. A lot of amendments have been tabled. Some of them are innocuous, some of them are perfectly sensible, some of them are potentially quite dangerous. So we've got two big days, really important days coming up in the House of Lords, which

will play a part in shaping the future of football. Which are the dangerous amendments? I mean, two minds about mentioning that, Rory, in case people shaping the future of football. Which are the dangerous amendments? I'm in two minds about mentioning that Rory, in case people haven't thought of them. I guess the most dangerous one is the hybridity clause. And I'm now going to say as if I know what hybridity means, I've never even heard of it three months ago. Just say confidently, Rick, people assume that you know the word. Yeah, Rory does that most weeks with at least one word and we marvel at him.

I've got the word right, but basically what that means is that they want to, instead of saying the top three leagues, there's an amendment insisting that they be specifically named on the face of the bill. And that turns it from being a public bill into a hybrid bill because you're naming specific organizations and when you do that and and effectively they're being legislated on you have to have even more consultation. Premier League's complaining there hasn't been much consultation. I think we've been talking about it non-stop for four years but if it becomes a hybrid bill then it's another two or three years of consultation and it absolutely then gets bogged

down in the in the mire so that that is the dangerous one. Are you hopeful finally before I let you go? Yeah absolutely of course we are I mean we wouldn't hope we wouldn't keep doing this we've been at it for long enough and it it's you know the game matters and the irony is that it was many of the conservative MPs, the Redwall MPs, the Northwestern MPs, the Carlisles, the Middlesbroughs, the Grimsby, the Ackentons, they weren't necessarily pro-regulation but they absolutely got the importance of their clubs to their towns and communities and how important it was to keep them alive, recognising the social value of those clubs. That's why

they were so supportive of the bill from the Conservative backbenchers. Rick, thank you for your time this evening. Appreciate it. I'm sure we'll talk soon. Rick Parry, chair of the EFL. Go first on Bournemouth then Shea, who since they got their first league win under Iraoula in October 23 have picked up 89 points and they're seventh in XG and fifth in XG against. So no weaknesses at either end of the park. And every time at the moment you watch them, you are entertained. I mean, I don't know how the game, we covered it obviously last night as well, how they

drew yesterday because they should have been out of sight. Tottenham are very lucky one was a cross and the second one was a poor decision from Kepa to give away a penalty. But the attacking play and Wayne mentioned last night about the way they attack and the pace they attack at, there's no passing into midfield and knocking it back to the keeper. It's incisive, it's direct, there's runners off the ball, there's runners forward. When they break through any sort of press from the opposition, they go for the throat, don't they? And it's direct, his runners off the ball, his runners forward. When they break through any sort of press from the opposition, they go for the throat, don't they? It's quite refreshing. I mean, Iriola, the job he's done, because I remember when he first came in,

he really struggled the first 10 games and people were saying, be careful what you wish for getting rid of O'Neill and what have you, but he's proven and shown to everyone exactly what he's all about. It's a breath of fresh air. I suppose you mentioned things before about Chelsea and Tottenham, who would they like to play against? Their fans would like to watch Bournemouth every week because they've just been a really breath of fresh air with him. Dominated the game with 39% possession.

Did you watch the game? No, and that's the whole point. Yeah. That's, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's the way that he sets them up and they are brilliant in the press and everything, which she says about them being direct. They'll play, they'll play quickly forward, but that's the way they are. They are set up when they are, you know, they're, they're dynamic. They are, they are organized and they've got some brilliant forward players. The second goal,

the par, the drop of the shoulder, the slip ball and then the finish from Evan Eelson. I mean that was a work of art. The offside goal would have been goal of the season if he hadn't stepped offside. I mean he was quite a long way outside. I know, but it was still. The thing with Bournemouth is the directness. We're talking about fans becoming frustrated by teams playing around at the back. Bournemouth are the opposite.

They are stylish and they are kind of adventurous and they're expansive in that modern way. But they go from back to front really, really fast. There's no messing about with Bournemouth. And then Iriola, I think, said to Miguel Delaney, the independent, a few weeks ago, that he tells his attackers that if the pre-set runs aren't on, just go and make trouble. If you've got the ball, just go and you can't see an option, just go and express yourself, kind of show your talent. And I think that in itself is a breath of fresh air. That sense of football is meant to be kind of spontaneous and opportunistic

and expressive in some way, rather than everything being, this is my vision as the coach and you have to implement it, your job is to implement it. If you don't implement it you're coming off the pitch. There should be freedom and to be honest from a fan or from a neutral spectator point of view it's much more fun to watch that rather than two teams trying to do these things that they've been working on in training for a week that they know off by heart. It's much more fun to see a little bit of kind of free form play. It's what works for Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest. And it's probably not the way that a lot of, should I say that the, sort of, can we call it the big six anymore? I don't know.

There is a big six anymore, but you're sort of, you know, you're Manchester cities, you're Liverpool's, you're, you know, you're Tottenham's, you're Chelsea's. They, do they not have to play in a certain way? Liverpool last week against PSG had 30% position. We've talked with possession But we've even the number almost first goal yesterday we were talking about in the office and Kirkes's break with it and sprinted 50 yards with it and Really there weren't that many options on for him unless he hit the most amazing cross which he then did and we talked about how you could see

several teams in that situation that left back thinking, do you know what, I'm not going to try and hit that 50-yard cross in the hopes I'm just going to cut back inside and play it to my midfield and we'll build it through. Let the opposition get back into shape and we'll slow it all down. Yeah. I mean, it was quite refreshing. I was actually shouting to Zvi Kirkus to bring it further up the pitch and he crossed it and he scored and I was sort of saying to my own head, what do I know about football because it was an unbelievable ball.

And of course, Avenir was at the back post, Spence maybe switched off. But at the same time, you know, there's stories in that team as well. There's all Patrick Cleaver's son, what a season he's having. He's playing as a 10, he's been absolutely phenomenal for Bournemouth, hasn't he? I don't know, what can you say? It's just the way they played yesterday. The possession stats, and sometimes it winds me up watching teams, and I'm going to say one of my old teams, Man City, sometimes you get a bit bored because it's keep the ball keep the ball keep the ball and opposition teams are just sitting in a low block trying to break them down pass pass pass and and I suppose it's not Man City's

fault it's the way teams defend against them but the sort of refreshing thing about Bournemouth is when they get the ball wide even the players I've even Ilson and Cleaver and Taveny and these guys are bombing into the box because Areola most stadium if we get it wide if there's a chance to put the ball in the box cross cross the ball in the box, we're going to flood the box with bodies and invariably you'll get chances and I think it's great on the ID watch. You do know some stuff about football though because you were very good on the wall last night and whether that was David Wrayer's mistake or not. Well I was trying to stick up for David Wrayer because a lot of experts on social media were

giving him a lot of stick. So why should he be defended for that goal? I just think he started in a wrong position but I think that was just a mind game thing before he got into the right position. So when Bruno stepped up and took the free kick I think he was in the right position. Obviously the wall being back over 11 yards didn't help because I think Bruno didn't have to hit it as high and it probably got more power in it. So it didn't go in the corner, I get that, but at the same time I still think it was a really good execution from Bruno and you know some

people questioning Reija because maybe the starting position was wrong but when he actually hit it, his starting position was right. We broke it down last night, I think Xerxi pushed it, I think it was Pardy in the wall as well, closed the gap. So then when Bruno steps up to hit it he can't see anything and I've been in that position myself. It's nearly panic stations in your head a little bit because now you can't see it, you have to wait and wait because Bruno is good enough, you mentioned the way last night, to reverse it back goalkeeper side as well. So Raya has to keep his balance until he sees the ball and when he sees the ball it's just over the wall and that's probably 16 yards out and the pace Bruno puts on it, he can't keep it out.

That is one of the problems of working with Wayne Reene as a pundit. You go, could he actually have done that because it looks impossible and then he goes, yeah I did it three times, so yeah you can't do that. Can I share a question about whether Ryan might have been helped by not having a wall at all? Oh, good question. I mean, there is, there is, this has been a sort of lifelong debate for me is no wall because, you know, if he, if he set that ball with Bruno's out, for example, and had 10 shots, say in training and the goalkeepers in the middle of the goal and say, can you beat me from that distance? Then you would, you've got a good chance

of back and right to save it. There's another argument to say, build two walls. I've heard before three and one side and three and the other and the keeper stand in the middle to get a gap. But then, but then opposition. Have you ever tried that? No, I think we spoke about it in training and maybe we tried it as a demo, but I don't think anyone was, was brave enough to do that, you know, but then you're middle of the goal as well, aren't you? And possibly, you know, giving yourself an opportunity. But then sometimes the walls put up. Depends on who you have on one side, the shorter ones on one side. How do you do that? Yeah, get the measuring tape out. But yeah, I mean, it's a really good point, you know,

because at times the wall can be a hindrance for the goalkeeper and make it more difficult because invariably You build the wall and the wall supposed to cover that side and the goalkeeper covers his side because how many times Do we say it's gone on the keeper's side? What's he doing? I think Chris scored past me once actually a black burner fingers at Newcastle keeper's side an absolute bullet from about 18 yards And I got hammered off kind of a leash after I think from about 18 yards and I got hammered off kind of the glace after. I think with, if it's right on the edge of the box it makes sense to have a wall, if it's really close in it's so hard to dip it over. But Bruno, that distance, he was what, 27, 28 yards or something?

Who do we blame for the 11.2 yards? Who's taking the blame for that? Probably Anthony Taylor's parents, I think, for producing such a tall child. Is that being overblown or do you think that is a serious issue? Massively overblown. Why? Right, you say that. It's a big difference in 10 and 11.2 is a big difference. But in a game where we have technology for everything, draw the lines on,

why can't we have a measuring tape? Just play the season with AI Chris. Just go out and get the old tape measure out, 10 yards, that's it. Draw the line. It wouldn't take long. Ref jogs over to look at the monitor, doesn't he? Jogs over, gets his measuring tape, whack, as if you're building a fence or something. Wouldn't take long.

That would be a very large piece of equipment for the referee to carry Not the old not the old metal measuring tape It's not enough time to get the major tip Where's he keeping that in his salt? He's gonna keep it in his pocket. They're not that big referee's gonna come on I've got one in the drawer in the kitchen. It was like the referee's gonna come out like Bob the builder for the next game Next week a measuring tape bleeding shaving foam in the back pocket. Whistle, cards, book. Well it has to be 10 yards.

I wish we'd done this at the start. No exactly, you just flick it. Oh my goodness. You just flick it and it whacks down 10. What's wrong with you? You obviously don't do your own gardening. No, we won't get into that. But we'll end it there because that could be a low point for Chris

going through his kitchen drawer to show as a ruler on the Monday Night Club. Go and open your birthday presents, I'm sure there's going to be some exciting... A new tip, yeah. Yeah, a new measuring tape. Thank you very much Shane Given, Chris Sutton and Rory Smith. Chris Sutton and Rory Smith. Hello, I'm Robin Ince. And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series

of The Infinite Monkey Cage. We're going to have a planet off. Jupiter versus Saturn. It's very well done that because in the script, it does say wrestling voice. After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice. And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.

So listen wherever you get your podcasts.