This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - David Chimbaza (World Cup Special)

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Today's episode is a special one with the FIFA World Cup starting soon! Our guest today is David Chimbaza, a British sports professional and big association football (or what we Yanks call soccer) fan.  We talk about the World Cup and the differences between English football and American sports.  (David is a Manchester United fan, but we won't hold it against him.)

Check the mic will go live. Stories told their eyes and dive. Topics fresh with every spin. You won't guess what's coming in. Every week and new surprise. Minds away. Never lies. Conversations bold and free.

Just press play. Hi, everybody. Welcome to this podcast on call for. I have another great guest with me today. And time for the World Cup. Actually, so go ahead and introduce yourself, please. Hey, so yeah, thank you for having me. I'm David Chambaza.

I'm on the other side of the pond in the UK. And I'm into my football. I know you call it soccer. I'm going to call it football for the intents and purposes of the show. I've run my own sports business in football. And obviously, the World Cup's coming up, and there's a big football fan. It's massive.

So I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait. And I can't wait to talk about it. could be ready nice. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm in one of the cities that's a World Cup hosts this year. So in Kansas City, yeah. In fact, in fact, our city, we are hosting three of the national teams.

One of them is England. Yeah. Yeah. And the other two are the Netherlands and Argentina. Yeah. Yeah. Big teams to know. Yeah.

Algeria, they're staying in Lawrence, which is. nearby, but I don't consider it part of the KC Metro. They're close by. It's a 40-minute drive. Yeah. Do you notice like there's, do you notice a change in the way that people are behaving, the tournament's coming closer or people getting more interested? Is the city getting more interested?

Well, certainly around the city. I'm seeing a lot of World Cup stuff, are street cars, are decked apps in the World Cup paint jobs and yeah we're getting ready to do a fan fest near the World War I Memorial which is a huge landmark within the city

and yeah yeah yeah so it's really starting to pick up a little bit everything and we're looking forward to seeing folks from all of the world, hopefully. Assuming our dickhead president hasn't pissed everyone off. It's a big event because obviously this is the biggest World Cup that there's ever going to be. There's 48 teams, which is a massive change from the general.

So it's a massive tournament. Obviously, it's not just being held in the U.S., it's being held in Canada, and in Mexico as well there's games being played across which I think is the first World Cup certainly for a long time in my lifetime where it's being spread across multiple countries

and I think that that's that'll be interesting to see how it plays out I think from a fan perspective I think that would quite cool because obviously there's just different venues but I think for the players it's going to be a lot of travelling because America is huge as it is right

but it is in the fact there's other countries involved as well. It'd be quite a end up getting paid a lot, but quite a draining tournament for the players traveling, I imagine. Absolutely. And the United States, we don't have the best public transits. I know

that's a huge thing, especially in the UK, that you guys have passenger buses down to a science. It seems like, especially in London, I think. It's you, I mean, the thing is with the UK, and particularly when it comes to sports,

Obviously, I don't know too well how it works logistically that size. But this country is almost built to facilitate football. We complain about it. We complain about the trains. And there is a lot of stuff that doesn't make it easy to travel to matches. But on the whole, it's built for it. So we're built for, because it's not a massive country by size. That you can get anywhere, I think you can get from the top to the bottom of the country

in like seven hours, maybe, which is not too bad. That's roughly, I think. So you get a lot of catered where when one football team goes to another team, like another club, let's say you go from Manchester to London. Manchester playing in London, for example, you get a lot of people from Manchester traveling to London and vice versa. And so because of the way that it's built, they have to make the public transports quite a big deal. Obviously, I know that the model in the US is slightly different when it comes to the franchises. So I've never really known how the away fans work.

Do you see a lot of... So I can only speak to... Yeah, I'm still here. I don't know what the heck's going on, but you can still hear me, right? I'm going to pause for a sec, and we'll jump right back in soon. Okay, yeah. All right. Oh, you just came back on.

All right. I don't know what the heck happened there, so... But, yeah, you will see a way. fans from time to time, but it's really difficult to get to different cities as an away fan. As you know, from my experience,

as an away fan had Arrowhead, being a St. Louis fan in the NFL, and then going to St. Louis. Kansas City to St. Louis, yeah, we share states together. San Missouri, but that's

four hours driving, six hours by train. yeah it's a long yeah it's a long it's I think it'll be interesting and I think that the last World Cup so the last World Cup was held in Qatar

obviously out in the Middle East and there was a lot of questions before the tournament even when I was doing my my university because I studied sport business I studied football business and we were really looking into the World Cup maybe about what 2021 the tournament was held in 2022 so about

2021 2021 we were like doing a lot of case studies around the World Cup and just looking at the transport side of things, the way that the fans are going to work. Of course, there are a lot of political agendas before the tournament. But when it came to the transport, it was a question of, well, is Qatar going to be ready to host such a major tournament?

Major tournaments are massive that you're going to get fans from all over the world coming into your country and obviously not everyone's going to be able to drive everywhere because people won't know where they're going, you know what I mean? So they'll rely on the public transport. They rely on the trains. I imagine a lot of people will fly from game to game to follow the countries.

And so I do think it will test in a different way the transportation system. I think Qatar had to make a lot of changes. They had to build infrastructure to make it to handle the number of people. I know the US won't have that problem necessarily because it's built for that anyways. But I think such a tournament professional, It's a different challenge. There's people, football fans especially, are so impatient. They want everything right now.

Definitely, when I watch the way that the discourse happens of teams underperforming, a lot of the impatience happens and people like, we want things now. And it's the same when it comes to traveling. I know, you know, I follow on social media, fans who travel and follow their teams. They complain a lot about the lack of transport or the trains. And so it's, it will be interesting. and to see from that side of think how it works because obviously even the scale

is massive, even big because there's more teams and so more fans of becoming. So, I mean, it will definitely I think you'd like to hope that it'll have a lasting effect as well because the transportation system will have to improve. You know, they'll have to put out more services.

And you'd like to hope that, hopefully it performs well, right? We don't want it to underperform, but you'd like to hope off the back of it, there'll be changes so that when everyone will it doesn't go back to type, it goes back to literally improving because that scale, that volume will be massive. So I'll be interested to see how that works and how people find that experience because, you know, I'm sure that it will be different. But I mean, I want to ask, like,

obviously a major tournament's coming into your country and, you know, do you think anything around the fact that you're going to have so many different people, I know people travel to the US again all the time, but a different set of fans, a different set of, even sport. I know football's not the biggest sport in the US. How do you feel about that as someone who actually has teams, people coming into your city as well? Well, that's a lot. I guess we'll start with the transit portion first.

I would love, we do have a temporary transit plan in place because there is. is no direct rail to our airports or to the stadium in question. I would like there to be, I think it would be, it would improve getting around this city tremendously. And I hope that the powers that be are not short-sighted enough to completely ignore this. I think this is something I think I'm in agreement with you. this is something that can be built upon and all that. And I hope that someone's forward thinking of to say, yeah, let's get rail to the airport.

Let's get rail to. Yeah. Now that's, as for the quality of fans that are, I hope we get great fans shown up from England, from Argentina and so on. And I hope they have a good time. And everything, they get to experience American culture, regardless of which city they wind up going to.

And I have a sink. And since I mentioned airports, I have a suspicion that people are going to be flying around a lot to get to their games, you know. I mean, I guess it's a, it'll be interesting. I mean, we had the World Cup in 94, 1994, that came over to the US. And that was before my lifetime.

And I think that seemed from the out, like from looking into it, from doing some reading, that seemed to be quite a decent tournament. I mean, obviously the reasons why FIFA and the big football heads want America is because it's the biggest untapped market in the world. And because football is not the biggest sport,

We've got NFL, American football, basketball, baseball, even NHL, hockey. Yeah, they're biggest sports than football. And so for this sport, our sport, it's been the biggest question is how can we do anything in America? We have leagues. So obviously in England there's the Premier League. That's the league we have. But there's Blaniga in Spain. There's the Bundesliga in Germany.

But particularly in Spain and Italy, one of the conversation discussions, points that's been happening for years is to take a league match. You know how in the, I think it's the NFL, they come over to England, to Wembley. Yeah. To play a game. Yeah. Yeah. So football has been wanting to do that for ages.

Like I think there was meant to be, I think Barcelona were meant to play a game, a league, a league match in, I can't even remember what city was now somewhere in the US this season, but it got called off, I got cancelled. And even in England in the Premier League, they've been, flirting with that idea for 10 years maybe, how can we get into the US? Obviously, they come over for preseason, like out-of-season games. We have the pre-season and the Premier League Cup and different matches, but it's not the same as a league match.

But the issue that football has always had, particularly in England, is the tribalism here is nuts. So it would be the backlash to be able to go and take a mansion. team is Manchester United and I'm wearing a Manchester United top. I saw that. Yeah, if Manchester United went to play a league match in the States, which commercially would be fantastic.

I think it would be an unbelievable thing. And for the people in the state, it would be amazing. But the tribalism here would just be incredible. People would protest so much. They'd be really annoyed. And it's so funny, because people don't even

protest as much for actual government issues as they do for football. It's crazy. So they've always been trying to find a way to make it in America. And obviously with this tournament, they had the Club World Cup. That happened last year. That was a big, they made a big thing out of that. And obviously this year, now football's really trying to compete with basketball

and the other sports, which I don't think will work because those sports are just too big. Do I mean, even they're massive. And for football to be able to overtake that, you'd need the MLN. to be huge, which is not. It's not. Yeah, yeah. It's not because, I think in part, it's not because MLS continues to follow the American franchise model.

They're not real clubs. Now, I'll give sporting, Sporting Kansas City, a bit of a shout at that they tried to be as close to a normal club as possible, allowing their grounds to be used to, my likes of England and Argentina but also we have a pretty

decent amateur football side here in Kansas City and I've gone to see a few of those games and they those guys came to know me through just attending and watching the amateur

matches yeah yeah you made a good point about them trying to be a lot more like the traditional clubs and I think that's really, really important I guess

what makes sport in general is the fans allegiance to any particular team or any particular club so you look how many people go and watch NBA games, how many people go to the ground to watch the NFL games because they feel a level of connection to that club, right?

And I guess when looking at some of the MLS clubs, they struggle to capture that tension. I mean, if you're a fan of, let's say you're a fan of the Lakers and LA Galaxy is in your area as well. And the LA Lakers have given you more of a reason to emotionally connect rather than the galaxy. You're not going to go watch the galaxy play. Even, I don't know what, I don't know what, and I've used basketball because I've still the one American sport. I know the best out of all of them. Even into Miami, right, obviously they're massive with, with Lino Messi being over there now.

but they're massive in the sense of football because he's there. But if you're someone who's never been interested in football, and into Miami is still just another club or franchise, or you're going to go watch your team that's been your team for ages. And that's the thing that football's struggling to compete with. It's not necessarily, even if the MLS got really, really good. They're really good because it's also got a skill, it's got a, sorry, it's also got a bit of a skill problem in terms of the best play.

players aren't playing in that league. And they won't because the better teams are in Europe at the moment. So there's just a lot of factors that make it are so difficult for football to make it in America. Really, really tough. And I respect them for trying, but even off at the back of this World Cup, it's the reason why they've gone massive.

It's the reason why with the Club World Cup, you had Trump giving the trophy to the winning team. They wanted to make a massive deal out of it. And it's tough. I don't know how that's... you've got to break the mold and give people a reason to choose LA Galaxy over the LA Lakers, do you know what I mean? But that's not going to happen.

Not any time it, anyways. I agree. Yeah, you mentioned the Lakers. Lakers and Boston, those are the two big teams in the NBA championship-wise. Yeah, Galaxy are up there for MLS, which started as a result of the 94. World Cup actually. But by Alana says it's more the American style with franchises. And this is one thing that pisses me off about the American sports model is that teams can move whenever they want.

I mentioned I was the St. Louis fan in football. And it's a guy that you guys in England know all too well, one Stanley Cronkey. And I will tell you on good authority, Arsenal fans hate them too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot with the, you've got Stan Kronk, you've got Joel Glazer, he's Manchester United. And they have been trying to make football over this side as American as they can.

They've really been pushing for it. Because, of course, in America, like you talked about the, of the, franchise it's so easy for them the model for that suits them because like you said they can just get up and leave if if they feel there's a better opportunity then i have to sell the whole investment they can just get up move it and they still get to retain the power which it's unfortunate for the fans it's unfortunate for you guys because that's that's not fair that's in essence i think it's so anti-sport in what i genuinely don't think it has a place in sport that type of thing but that's the model and i think that it's i don't know i think that i think

think here we have promoted a relegation with our team. So there's a risk. If your team doesn't do well enough, you go down into the division below. And that's the way that it's been structured. They've even tried to get rid of that. And I won't say get rid, but they proposed the idea of making it close. They tried to bring in the Super League, which would have been a clothes shop, which was just not, you know, the tribalism thing again just wasn't going to happen. but I don't know I think in the whole essence of sport it doesn't allow for much growth

as well because one of the best things where I'm from is a town of Swindon we have a small team in the town yeah yeah and for teams like that they're in the bottom division but they can get to the they can get to the top division it's why you go in

what that's why they get so well supported because the whole point is at any point no matter how small your team is amateur, there's a real possibility that under the right circumstances, you could make it and get to the top division. And I guess that's in the competition of sport, I think that's probably the better model. Obviously, we do have our own problems with ownership here as well because owners buy clubs. It's the same owners that we're talking about here in the States, Crocky and Glazer and Khan with Fulham and the Jaguars. I'm trying to think, who else?

in, oh yeah, Leeds. We're about Tom Bowley now. Todd Bowley's at Chelsea. He's part of all he invested into it. And so there's a big, there's a huge push from American to get into British clubs, specifically British because the Premier League, in a football sense, of the biggest domestic competition in the world. So it's, but then you have that argument.

You have, look what happened to Arsenal. Even Arsenal fans, they don't like sound cranky. and for them they win you know what I mean they win because they can do what they want they get the power of it the glazer family has put so much debt on Manchester United their own personal debt on Manchester United and because the club is so massive

and it generates so much money for them they can just afford to do that and they win because they keep that retention they keep that money and power so it's it's crazy and it's like what can you even do as a fan I feel like it's the same in both circumstances. You just have to kind of accept and just support whatever you can

within the circumstances given to you. Right. I think it's a good way to look at it actually. Yeah. So yeah, and I do agree, like, Manchester, United and Manchester City, not there's the passion is there, but I don't think it's, it might not even be up there. with Green Bay in Chicago

to use a NFL example. That's a pretty intense rivalry and the oldest in the NFL it's dated over 100 years now. But there's nothing like these inner city rivalries that we're talking about in England. And yeah,

we're talking about London. Arsons Chelsea, they hate each other. Arsenal and Tottenham really hate each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think when you have the situation where you're with your friends, right, and your friend, one of them supports Man City, one of them supports Man United. And I guess it's the same in the NFL.

There's so much just history behind it, when you said 100 years. Can you make the amount of history and bad blood between that period of time? And it's the same in sport. I think that's what I prefer with the last. league, obviously it's the international tournament, talking about the World Cups coming up. And there's certain, you know, historical rivalries or if countries are, I'd say, at odds in the real world, that can create some tension. But generally speaking, with club football, because it happens every season.

So it just reignites that all of the time. And I love, I've been to, I've been fortunate to go to Manchester City versus Manchester United a few times. And just the people will work. it's the same people that I work with on one day and on Sunday they'll be apparently there's so much abuse at each other and go crazy in the stand

but that's the thing with sport I can just take so much out of you kind of forget all logic and reasoning and go crazy and I really hope that the World Cup and this tournament can showcase that the good side of things I think I've seen some pretty cool things that would suggest that there's going to be

good parts of the tournament, really, really good. And I think the World Cup in general is always like a good atmosphere, a good vibe and good energy. And we'll showcase that. And I guess that's what they're hoping by bringing more teams in. I think a few teams are going there for the first time. And so with the goal of bringing in smaller countries, I say smaller nations,

who might have different cultures that we've never seen before. We see Brazil. They bring a lot of America, right? I can't say it. But they bring a lot of, like, you know, staff and their, you know, the dances and the other way is so nice. But there's, there's countries there that we haven't seen before. And I think by showcasing that, obviously, in one country, the goal is to kind of appeal to sponsors, local businesses, local people would say, hey, this is, we know you have your sports here,

but look at what we can bring to you, which obviously is not actually the case all the time because it's only one tournament. Right. Yeah, that's something I'm looking forward to seeing too. I think Cape Verde is one of those new countries. Coroussel, I think is another one. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I think it would be good. And I think regardless of what's happening in the world,

obviously it's not ideal with the timing. You kind of have to, football does this, though, a lot of the time when it comes to, there's a lot, it's so politically charged and I don't want to talk about politics to that end three, but football does find itself at the heart and circle a lot of times. Even Qatar was the same.

2018, it was Russia, which, you know, you can imagine politically charged as well. So it finds itself in the middle of this, particularly with the World Cup and FIFA. But the president, Johnny and Fantina, that's his name, he kind of, he's a very interesting character. He got himself very close to Trump in the last few years, obviously when Trump won. I think he's been, there's been some of you, a few times I've seen him in the Oval Office.

Yeah, this is second term. It's two non-conclusive terms, but he is term limited. We don't have to deal with him in a couple of years. Yeah, I know, I know, sure. I'm sure that I'll be a bit more peaceful. The FIFA president, Infantino, obviously, FIFA are the ones, the organizers of the event of the World Cup. But he's been getting really close to Trump because obviously, I think he's up for re-election soon, Infantino, the FIFA president. And obviously, last year at the Club World Cup, they did this whole press conference together.

Infantino and Trump are in the Oval Office doing some talk with the trophy. and football fans like to say that we keep football out of politics that's one of our biggest sayings and then you have the FIFA president literally sat next to Trump and then you have Chrisana Ronaldo who's a massive football star massive football legend he was invited to the White House I think it was last year when Trump was in power I think he went there and then this year obviously there was

the Inter Miami they went there and Lino Messi was there with the president and so Infantino and he's never done this he never did it with Putin in 2018 for example we didn't see him with any of the Qataris heads of state

it's kind of been Trump and Infantino and he's been really like Infantino's really been complimentary of Trump to say yeah he's great like all these different stuff and that's the thing with football

and like it picks and chooses when it wants to be political do you know I mean it picks and choose of each side and I think sometimes you just want to focus on what's going on on the pitch

but then it takes away from some people's enjoyment like the Qatar one was probably the most I don't I said Moscow happened but the last World Cup in Qatar was possibly the most politically charged tournament I've ever seen we had teams teams were threatening to boycott the tournament

because of the human rights abuses that were going on there every single you know like pundits people who like talk on the, on the, analyze the game and stuff. So they were getting heavily criticized for agreeing to go to the tournament. Even though it was a fantastic opportunity, a lot of the comments underneath some of these guys were saying, you're sold out, you don't have for money, look what's going on in this country.

What you, do you mean? Like really, really upset and a lot of frustration of people for being a part of the tournament. And there was just so much backlash around the event. I think the whole tournament was, and rightly so, there was a lot of things. that were wrong about the tournament. Yeah, I mean, but it just goes to show that some people refuse to watch. I mean, some people have said I'm not watching because of what's going on the pitch. And so I think it needs people, football fans sometimes,

in a position where they have to choose between morality and just wanting to be a fan in and doing what's going on. And I think for some people that's frustrating. I'm sure even in this tournament, there'll be some people, especially as things are happening who say I'm not watching this tournament because of what's happening in the Middle East or because of what's happening in certain parts of the youth.

I mean, they won't get involved. And I think that's a shame because I think the product, I think the football's products will be really, really good. I imagine a lot of the talk in the next few weeks will be about how is this tournament going to work with what's going on in the world, with what's going on in the Middle East.

I think a lot of conversation will be around that. That's what I think will happen anyways, because I know people are worried that they're saying, is it even safe to go there? Is it even safe to make? I mean, and it's because of, you know, how people are, how the way the wealth is, but it makes it complex. You just want to go, I just want to go watch football. And then there's, and I have to decide whether my morals are in question. Yeah. Yeah.

And those are, those are valid concerns. and know, and as an American, I have those concerns as well. I know they're not going to pick on me because I look like a typical white guy American. Yeah. I think that's as you probably could tell for my last name. I'm still a minority. Yeah. And everything.

But, yeah, it's pretty disgusting what ICE has been doing and everything. And I genuinely. I fear for people come in here, but at the same time if they at the same time, they should they shouldn't be a messed with and all that. And I hope they're not mess with.

Yeah, I think we're okay. I know I know a few people who are going out to the tournament and they're like to be fine. So. But, yeah. I'm excited. Good deal. Yeah. So I think we'll go on to wrap it up here.

Thanks for coming on, and I appreciate the insights and everything. Best love to England and the World Cup. And on my end, I hope the U.S. does well. I'm not counting on it, though. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. This podcast is Uncalled for. Is hosted, producing, edited by myself, Mike Cherniv's.

Our opening music is the, this podcast is an uncalled for a theme, which was created at sueno.com, suno.com. Our outro music is Wepa by Kevin McLeod at Incomptech.com. Licensed under Creative Commons by attribution 4.0 license. And good luck to all the teams participating in the World Cup. Please support the podcast and purchase our exclusive uncalled for merchandise. t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and so much more. Go to www.com.com

uncalled for pod. Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time.