The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: Trust The Process

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

Pablo and Mike Ryan discuss Kylian Mbappé's potential transfer to Al-Halal and the continued sportswashing by Saudi Arabia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe King's Network. The sound that you're hearing on the microphones is Sioux Gatz taking his entire pharmacy off the table because as you know, he's got the type of COVID that makes him want to leave work early. They both cool. But you can leave here Sioux Gatz because we're going to continue a discussion on soccer as it's one of the few things going on in the sporting calendar. But there are some geopolitical ramifications, and I told you that I'm in a Saudi soccer

group chat, and it's buzzing right now, because it appears as the consensus best player in the world right now. I'm not talking about achievements. I'm just talking about form and potential from here on out. If he actually won the last World Cup, there'd be talks that he was already going to be the most decorative soccer player ever. I'm talking about Killian and Bope. He is at, he is presently at PSG, but if you followed the saga around his employment,

it is very clear that Real Madrid Want him and he wants Real Madrid. It's kind of written in the SARS Destiny and La Liga is famous for tampering with talents and getting them on these miraculous free transfers The problem is a killing in Bapay has reportedly agreed to terms already through back channels with the Real Madrid But he has a pesky one-year left on his contract and he can't leave to re-al Madrid on a free until next year. So what happens now? Real Madrid has offer a transfer fee that PSG can accept or not, and they're not so inclined

on dealing with PSG right now for Brizio who if you followed for Brizio Romano's reporting, it's very pro PSG. Remember 90% Lionel Messi was coming back. So we know where his sources lie and they've already come out with a very betrayed by Killian and Boppe. It's all interesting because of how these clubs do their individual business. But now comes reports that Saudi Arabia is trying to acquire Killian and Bope just for one year, just for one year with the agreement that you can go to Real Madrid at the end of this one year. And the reports are that it would be the biggest transfer ever.

Just for one year. So what are we talking about financially when it talks about the biggest transfer ever? So we're talking about a net worth salary for just personal terms for imbapay. And remember, after the player can come to personal terms, but then it's incumbent upon the teams to come to come to these terms. There are reports out there that PSG is already negotiated price without halal, who is in on messy, shrug out on messy. So PSG is incentive here, by the way, is just the cash in at the cash in cash in at the world's greatest transfer fee just for one year. You'll usually see gigantic transfer fees

when players have loads of years left on their contract because that makes it worth it. That rationalizes the fee. You never see a team cash out with one year, basically an expiring, an expiring contract where there's no guarantee. And in this case, the certainty that this player is going to go to another club at the end of the term. They're the package in total could reach up to 700 million pounds. Like Mike, what? So to zoom out on this story, right? Because it's fascinating if you know nothing about soccer,

but simply know that Saudi Arabia has this unending purse it seems like, this bottomless store of wealth from which they can draw record amounts to out bid, anyone else on anything resembling an open market. And so the question I have here, right, is why is this a good financial move for Saudi Arabia or do they even care? Like is there a mount, is that a mount, is that a chess move or is that just checkers

because they like to throw money at the wall? Yeah, I would say it's closer to checkers because it's not that complicated. By the way, Sky Sports is reporting as of an hour ago that PSG have accepted Al Halal's bid for Killian and Bope, the report being 259 million hounds. So a fee paid to the organization on top of the fee paid directly to Mbope now. It's on. Bob a to negotiate terms and he can play hardball. Say I'm not going to go there, but he doesn't have a lot of leverage in this. Has he the leverage that he tried to leak out before the news of this transfer was I'm just not going to play a year for a top player in top form.

That's not a smart decision. So the exact opposite of what's happening to NFL running backs is currently happening to kill you in him. Bob. of what's happening to NFL running backs is currently happening to Killian and Bapet. Yes. I mean, it's pretty great where your plan B is, okay, I'll go there next year and I'll collect the richest contract ever. Well, what do you think the end game is here, right? So you have this out of your Abyan soccer league. You have these teams that they're propping up using petrodollars and all sorts of, you

know, shadowy sources of money that we just sort of now are numbed to. What are they trying to do? I believe they're trying to get a world cup, but I also don't think it's that sophisticated because I also think that these clubs like to spill their money over the bar and sign big names and have an attraction like Cristiano Ronaldo. They tried to get messy and now they're getting younger players. They just signed Jordan Henderson, which was a player of the year, according to the football

writers. And didn't they just come for one of your guys, one of the, didn't aren't you guys responsible for them trying to acquire some coach? Who's you guys? The show, the Atonicon. Oh, yeah. That was fascinating. So Tony Khan, who is a sporting director over at full on amongst his many jobs, think GM owner. Yes.

From your team for full on his strike or mid-trivic was linked to Al Halal, the same club that is presently chasing him. Bob Bay and Tony, who's made no bones about his opinions about Saudi Arabia in the wrestling sense ever because WWE has this major lucrative deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This was the first time that he applied the soccer context to it, which is a lot more complicated because do you have a fiduciary duty to the club to accept what is an overmarket value deal for someone like Alexander Mitramitch. He said, flatly on our show, money can buy you a lot of things, including you can get

a weight with a lot of things with a lot of money, including murder. And he knew what he was doing by that. And it took off over in the UK. And then the counter move from Saudi Arabia was to then offer his manager, his coach, a 46 million pound contract. You want to talk about well above market value. So the play was like, Oh, what is that? Hold this player away from us, but your manager can just decide to leave. And just for the record, 46 million dollars is about how much above his actual. It's insane. It's, it's, it's, we're talking about like 200 percent increase.

It's, it's wise. So this, so the question I have about Saudi Arabia and how they spend, right? We've talked previously about the moral aspects of it, sports washing and all of that. And we can always talk about that. And we should. But the question about strategy, are they bros throwing money like they're at a casino? Or are they scheming in a way that suggests that we're underestimating them? They are scheming in a way that I don't think is being underestimated through their WWE deal, normalizing through their live golf deal.

They're trying to normalize their presence in sports through boxing and having the big more key fights. They're an undeniable part of the sports scene, but soccer has been able to keep that at bay. This is not the first time in Arab nation is try to spend big money on talents and it's never worked out. This is the first time it's working. We're in all though being the first really massive name and he didn't really have a lot of options. You see, he burned a lot of bridges without we got out of Manchester United. There weren't any major European players in on him.

He wanted to play champions like football and the talks in America were around Kansas. He was going to go play in Kansas, not Kansas City. I mean, it is Kansas City, but it's a twin city. They play the professional footballing Kansas. And he seriously wanted to take that offer where I'm saying is there weren't a lot of bitters and Cristiano Ronaldo and his agent decided on Saudi Arabia because might as well go for a huge cash grab. But now they're targeting players that are at the top of the top of the line, peek of their powers, young players that still have a lot to offer the game, even players that don't even have a huge recognition

internationally, but are reputed to be really good players even players that don't even have a huge recognition internationally, but are reputed to be really good players. And that's how you build a league. I think they're trying to continue this sports washing plan of normalizing themselves around the conversation. They feel like they have the money to be taken seriously. And now they're going to take all the big players and make you take their league seriously because they're going to dare you to go an entire soccer season without watching Killian and Bob A's brilliance. But this is where the moral hazards of this can substitute for something resembling

a plan. And I say that because if their goal, right, is to say, we want everybody to watch our league, we want to watch our players who are gonna be mixed in with the best players in the world and we're gonna invite the world to come check it out. Like, okay, maybe they wanna sell like a meteorite deal to like their own league. Sure, but if that doesn't happen, the excuse of,

and this for them is now like a strategic excuse, would be we're normalizing Saudi Arabia. And it's like, okay, but you're also just throwing money at stuff and because throwing money at stuff in an effort to create what feels like Middle Eastern Las Vegas feels like something that would normalize Saudi Arabia, it's like, oh, that's a scheme.

And it's like maybe they just don't really have a good plan and everything can be called normalizing when you're dealing with people who have a moral background but they wanna sell you a product that you want to watch more than you want to stop watching it because of their moral background. So the Cotari sports investment, if you've been paying attention to certain sell-offs, has dwindled after they reach their endgame, which was get the world cup. And so they don't necessarily see the point in continuing to pump the same kind of money.

This will spend huge money. PSG is still a massive club, but PSG is right now embroiled in, they just lost Messi. Right. They may lose name more and they're about to lose in Bope one way or another. I just like the idea, Mike, that while we think of them as this sort of like shadowy authoritarian regime, that is sort of brilliantly scheming ways to undermine moral authority. I like the idea that maybe there is a guy over there who's whole account is the sports

stuff. And his boss is like, so what are we getting for this? And he's like, oh, don't worry about it. We're going to normalize us. And really, it's just sort of, we're going to kind of get these rumors and these headlines about big name players that we're never going to actually watch. They can normalize it though, because they can make their presence so undeniable that if you are recreationally a fan of sports, you cannot watch it and follow it to the level

you are presently without tuning in to a Saudi funded entity. They're doing it already with golf. The merger happened like that. I mean, it's still pending, but they won. So I should be clear. I agree that the normalization by eroding our norms around who gets to be in the room bidding on stuff. Players, shares of teams, guitargers about a share of the Washington Wizards paracompany. All that stuff is very troubling morally because it does normalize things. We're now numb to them being in the room. But what I'm really thinking about is whether that makes them money.

Like, is there an actual business model here on top of the normalization? That's what I'm demanding of my sports bro running my house. If I'm Saudi Arabia. How is, how is, I don't think it's good business for now. It's more of a long game. And the more WWE events that happen, I think they're up to three a year. Is it tourism then? You're getting people to come visit.

Yeah. And getting people to not think of your country as a country that funded 9-11. It's murdered a journalist that has repressive laws against gay people, all this stuff. Think about fabulous jettah and Roman Reigns versus Brock Lesnar. And well, if I'm a wrestling fan, it's getting to the point where I can't follow professional wrestling without seeing a Saudi card. Right. If I'm a golf fan, I guess I can't follow golf anymore without supporting the Saudis in some form

or fashion. But will you spend the money, right? Like to me, what's interesting is, I mean, I already am. Aren't I because of some of these subscription models? Well, so there we get into like some brass tax, right? Like beyond the idea that I'm now okay with Saudi Arabia and or fill in the blank authoritarian regime with endless pockets, being in my sports. The question is, how are they actually getting my money? And it seems

you pay at the pump, too. It's it's it's it. But they're they want to make it like that. But are they moving away in their effort to diversify their portfolio beyond just oil? They're getting into sports. And my question is, what are the returns? They're hoping a world cup. And and Mike, you're telling me essentially what their sports row is telling their bosses, trust the process. Yeah, trust the process. Wait, Sam Hinkie isn't saving human rights.