TRIGGERnometry - Joey Barton SPEAKS OUT About Female Football Pundits

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Joey Barton is a former professional footballer and football manager. Barton made 269 appearances in the Premier League, playing for Manchester City (2002-2007), Newcastle (2007-2012) and QPR (2011-2015). As a manager, he has most recently managed League One side Bristol Rovers. He is also the host of the podcast ‘Common Sense with Joey Barton’: https://linktr.ee/CommonSensePod We are proud partners with GiveSendGo - a world-leading crowdfunding platform that believes in free speech. Go to givesendgo.com and raise money for anything important to you. SPONSOR: MUD\WTR. Save $20, get a free sample of creamer AND a free frother when you visit https://mudwtr.com/triggernometry Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I just believe the best person for the job should get the job. And that's quite radical at this moment. What I'm saying is, underqualified women shouldn't be in there because they're taking qualified men's jobs. But we're sending a wrong message. I think we're sending a message of be lazy, be controversial. Be a victim. Cancel people, be a victim.

The joke you made about Fred and Rosemary West. See, I knew I was going to have that response because they're so fragile these people, as uncomfortable as it is, you have to be able to speak the truth to power. Joey, welcome to the show. You are pissing more people off than even we are, which is an achievement.

So welcome to the show. You've been talking a lot, and we wanted to have you on to talk about your life and where you come from and stuff you've been through, but also the stuff you're talking about now. As I say, you are kind of upsetting, triggering, you might say, a lot of people, because you've dared to point out that

some female football pundits are not perhaps their on merit. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I just believe the best person for the job should get the job. And that's quite radical at this moment in time.

Yeah, I just think we send the wrong message. You know, certainly if we're putting people in position, not because of the skills and their attitude and, you know, their ability, then I just think we send a dangerous message going forward and look at societies, I'm only 41, but it's changed a hell of a lot in a short space of time,

and I don't think it's changed for the better because of, you know, kind of DIY and inclusion. I'm all for it. I think when I look into sports teams, you know, any team I've been a part of, the more varied, the better. But it is underpinned on merit. You know, we need the best right back for the team. You know, meet the best left midfielder for the team to make the team function,

not, you know, quotas and boxes to tick. And, you know, sport is the ultimate meritocracy, isn't it? You know, I know the doping and the financial doping and all the stuff that goes off the pitch. But on the pitch, sport is, you know, certainly football is a true meritocracy. I think that's why people love sport, because at least they have the idea that this is like one of the few places in life where you're either good or you're not, you're either performing or you're not.

And I'm curious because you must have known that saying what you're saying is going to get, it's going to make difficult for you to work in football, let's be honest. Yeah. Is that fair to say? Well, I knew I was burning the boats, yeah. So, you know, that was. And why have you decided to speak up? I mean, let's be honest, you've always been a bit of a troublemaker, one aware of a note.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. I didn't decide to speak out. It just kind of came out. I got sacked the Bristol Rovers. We were taken over by a couple of Kuwaiti investors, quite different principles, culture, just not aligned principally with the way I see the world. Try divide and conquer strategy relatively early.

And at that point, I'm like, okay, this is not for me. I'm away from my family. I've been down at Bristol two and a half years to change the club's culture. And then coming out of the management space, I knew with this women's commentating in football issue. I knew it was frustrating

a lot of people, certainly when I'm watching it. I'm like, because I'm listening to the technical nuances and knowing how incorrect they are. Like I watched a game at the weekend. I shouldn't keep banging on about it,

but I watch a game at the weekend, the Everton game. And I'm on the dodge box, you know, so I can watch all the streams from all different countries. To any way, you know, you can get football,

you know, live football, at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. You can't get it in our country and yet all the other countries have got on. So I'm watching Everton and Luton because for me, Sins, I'm an Evertonian in the FA Cup. And the first goal at Luton's score is a foul. It's just, if you know what you're looking at, it's a file.

So you get the goal, you've got the male commentator and the female co-commentator. I believe the co-commentator's role has to be experts. I think they have to have spent a long time either play in the game or time served in the game to give that nuance, the expertise to the audience. If I'm a young kid out there listening, I want to know what's happening

so I can apply that to my game. And they miss it and they get it wrong. And then the male, the female co-coms is talking about something else entirely. She gets a goal to score it wrong. When they show multiple repeat players then, you then see Ross Barclay pushed Calvert-Luhin in the back blatantly.

That little nudge is the difference between Dominique head and the ball in the front post or not. After about the 4th of 5th replay where she should be now saying Luffy A.R should intervene and disallow this goal.

She then says, oh, it's really clever. I'm just a fury to watch and the Terry. God. And I'm not a mad football fan anymore because I played the game. Once you play the game, being a died in the wolf fan goes because you're a mercenary, you're a gun for hire. You know, I've played against Devitton

as a Newcastle player, Man City player and we've scored goals and I've celebrated them. and I've been desperate to beat them. So I can't no longer claim to be a true Evertonian because I don't want Everton to win above anything else. And for me, the difficulty lies in, if I was watching the golf, I'm a keen golfer or the UFC or the boxing,

and the person who was in the co-coms role or the pundit role was given the wrong information, then that would give me nonsense. I wouldn't be getting stuff I could apply to my game or stuff I could really interpret it and using me in my boxing career or whatever or MMA career. And the fact that this is going on

on every single media platform and it's going on unchecked because people are either listening to people make mistakes and fearful of pulling them up on it for the repraisals or given, you know, you've seen a few guys, I think, I've seen Jensen Button doing a few times in the Formula One where it looks at the,

I think it's Darnaker Stewart or Patrick, is it? And it's just like, she's talking about something to do with her driving and you can see he's just like, what the fuck she knows? What does Checo supposed to do? He couldn't just lift off before the corner and pull him behind

because looking at that, there were cars there. So they would have had the opportunity to dive down the outside of him and cause mayhem. So it's a tricky one, but it's when you get to that point of deciding, I'm going to turn in now but I need to give them room.

Maybe I just run off track a bit and come back on. I think he should have. I think he should have lifted and pulled in a bit next to Carlos and then two by two and just, it's still a good. Good start. The problem is lifting as well. It causes accidents.

So you can't just suddenly lift because in an F1 car when you lift there's so much drag that it does slow you down very quickly and the guy's behind get affected by that and it just funneled. It goes all the way back to the guys in the back.

I haven't driven one so fair. You know, he's obviously been an elite level of driver and it's just like and I think we want to see a decrease in misogyny, a decrease in racism, a decrease in sexism. And that is the whole purpose

of DEI, you know, bringing down these barriers. But when they force it on you and they force it on you and it's poor quality, poor journalistic standards, then you get a rise in everything. It was meant to defeat. So it becomes, it just becomes upset. I agree with you. It's a good point, Joey.

I think what I would say, and as someone who is a football fan, when you listen to the COCOMs role, and even people who have played at the elite level, frequently the standard is pretty crap as well do you know what I mean? Yeah the males I'm watching lots of mail you know this has ended up being a bit of a

volcano because if you can't say anything now about certain groups or people who've put themselves in certain groups there's a lot of poor male commentators out there for co-coms pundits as well the problem with them guys is they've actually got equity They've got credibility. They've played the game. And as stupid as their opinions can be,

they're doing it from a knowledgeable position of experienced the intensity or the speed at which the game moves out or the physicality or they've experienced it. And again, good, bad and indifferent in all. The problem I have with the women ex-players is they have no experience of it. In essence, it's pretty much a different sport. I know they'll argue same rules into the same sport.

You know, we have to accept that women's critic. and men's cricket ain't the same, you know, same with rugby, women's rugby and men's rugby. Now I prefer, if I watch the tennis, I prefer to watch the women's tennis. Firstly, the better looking than the men. Secondly, the rallies last longer. You know, the men's games pretty much power, serve, ace, bang, you know. I prefer the women's golf sometimes to the male golf because they hit the ball. So if they're playing a course I've played, they hit some of the shots that I can hit.

The men don't. They just hit to like 100 yards further so I can't relate to it. So when I watch women's... I'm not against women's sports. I think women's football's done fantastic in our country. I've never seen more of it on TV.

You know, there's... You know, they're seeing Trafalgar Square. I couldn't get into Trafalgar Square for the lioness's final. So it's great. But men and women's football, like if I, as an ex-player, I watch women's football,

trying to be as kind as I can to it, but it's just not very good. Look, I agree with you. Compared to men's. Yeah, compared to men. You look at like the elite level Champions League, for instance. In the women's game?

No, no, in the women's game. It's nowhere near close. When you get to that elite level of male game, they just can't compete. The reason that I find you funny on Twitter, Joey, is you do like being provocative, mate.

You do like making a joke. And it is funny seeing people have a meltdown. For instance, the joke you made about Fred and, Rosemary West. Yeah. That is... I knew I knew I was going to have that response because there's so... There's so fragile these people. Like, I don't know whether this is

a blessing or a case. I've had that much abuse in football stadiums and you can imagine the articles written about me in the comments. And people passing comment and stuff I've done or said that you just develop a bit of a thicker skin. You know, when you've had as much said to me as what I have, in the end, you realise it's me who's taking offence to me. You actually can't offend me. It's not possible for you to offend me.

I have to, at some level, let you in to be offended. So me and Black, he used to work on this thing of visualising. And the only time I've done Constantine, the only time I've done the Vimov Breaving, every single morning was in the Burnley promotion the year we won the league. I religiously used to get up and do it every morning. I've never felt clearer.

You know, that was a great way. an environment that the manager built there. And for me, in terms of, you know, provoking people, Blackie, we would talk about stepping into this, like almost like a bubble of strength. And no, we're not going to let anyone in. The opposition players, the opposition fans, the referee, we're not. And if we choose to open the door and interact with it,

then, but we know what, so I asked to, it worked on this kind of visualization concept. I didn't get sent off that year, lowest number of bookings, team of the year. So there was a few factors Vimov and some of the stuff me and Blackie were doing. We were talking before about Wim Hof breathing and your mentor Steve Black. Steve Black.

Who's passed away. He made a big difference in your career. So in terms of I then moved that concept further out in terms of like words and offence and you know I've used it I think to benefit my life because you know you can be offended every time you open the curtains if you want to be. You know I find it bizarre that

people follow me on Twitter or X, as it's now called, and get offended at what I'm putting out there when no one asked you to be here. No, now, I also now have worked out because I've been in Twitter a long period of time, although I haven't used it, but I've always kind of monitored what's going on.

And I do think it's got nuts. Oh, yeah, a lot. But if you use it for what it is, a tool, you can use it for benefit, as we clearly have. And I just figured out, I can't be, I can't, why am I taking offense to that? just block it out. It's the same way if I came in here now

and I called you a fat bastard. You'd be like, well, I'm not fat, so you wouldn't get offended by you. You only get offended if there's an element of truth in it or the more close to the truth it is, the more to clearly offends or triggers people, as we want to call it. And, you know, I've just got to the point where I'm actually, you know,

I'm not trying to cause anyone, any offence, like purposely want to make people upset or unhappy. But if me just saying, like, basic truths is going to trigger you to make it unhappy, then fuck you. You know, what's interesting is, like, I'm actually not that big a football fan, the boys here at the studio, much more so than, but when I watch some of the stuff that you're saying and then I look at the stuff you're talking about, it's hard to argue with what

you're saying. And when I talk to people who are not in the media space, just normal people, look, people can agree or disagree with your opinion about female pundits, but most people in the country actually do share that opinion. men and women, by the way. They just do. Yeah. And again, I see the feedback.

I have never had positivity or feedback positively on the stuff I've talked about over the years as much as this. So this has clearly hit a nerve. The fact that it was still, it was a month, about a month ago, I tweeted about, you know, let's be serious here. The women shouldn't have any authority in the men's game. And I'm prepared to sit in front of any ex-woman player. anyone wants to have a chat about but yeah they just keep attacking the messenger

not the message and even Emma Hayes I went to the Leas and Sport conference Emma spoke there she's seen as the best one manager in the WSL you know she could be the crossover I know there was a a lady who stood in last night in the Bundesliga for Union Berlin and they won't

1-0 because the manager got suspended for I think pushing Leroy Sarnay in the face so you've got a three game five game eight game ban something like that and a lady his assistant manager as a lady she stepped in the one one So obviously, you know, they can manage in the women's, I'm not saying women can manage in the men's game. I think playing in the men's game

be a hell of a lot harder for them. But men going the other way, which is inevitable if they don't change the law because it's only a 12-month cooling off period. I looked into it because I thought, I might just fucking poke the box entirely. I'm fairly overweight now for what I was when I played.

I'm 41, but I still think I could be Erling Harlan next season in the WSL. Even if I have testosterone suppresses, no danger. I'm just bigger, stronger, faster. You know, they wouldn't be able to deal with that, but then also that, the brain, the little nudges, the dark arts, the stuff that, you know, would be very, very easy for me to apply in the WSL

and be very, very successful. And then they would be fucked, wouldn't they? Because they couldn't attack me. If I woke up and I said, I'm Josephine Barton, and I'm playing in WSL next year. Well, now they've got to, they can't write negative articles about me.

You know, it's a good move in many ways. It is, it is. But then when you're running by your kids, I'm like, shall I just piss these off completely? And they're like, Dad, don't we? You know, this is the last thing we need. So if I didn't have kids, I would, I would be tempted just to poke the box,

almost to say, look, this is how absurd your position is. But then, you know, you don't want to make fun of what is a serious topic, you know, a serious conversation. and I'm just seeing now, obviously, the swimmer in America's trying to get in the Olympics. Yeah, Thomas. And then you've had obviously the woman golfer, the man golfer win the women's golf. We've covered this issue a fair bit on the show because it's ridiculous. Yeah, and this is the problem is it's, I'm just like, okay, objectively in a thousand years,

so you're going to bury this person and it's got all these sporting achievements on the gravestorm. What a great, you know, women's champion golf, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. and then they do a DNA and they're like these must have been stupid because that's a dude didn't they not know the difference between and again if we can't agree on simple things like you know the basics then we've got no chance of solving the really complex stuff

that we've clearly got to get through if we're going to survive on the planet for another 500 years I mean we'd be fortunate at this rate Joey do you think it's quite bizarre almost because like you said football is in many ways the ultimate meritocracy. It doesn't matter who your dad is. It doesn't matter your background, what color you are, blah, blah, blah. You can either do it or you can't. And it's pure meritocracy. And then on the other side, you've got this. I mean, it's utterly bizarre, isn't it?

Yeah. It is strange, isn't it? Because, you know, as I say, most sport is meritocracy. The best person, it gives you the best chance of winning gets the jersey. which I think it's not a radical, it's just common sense. I'm like, yeah, you want the best people. We know that diversification, I read a book called Teams of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal, and they talk about, you know, diversity is massive in terms of it does help you, you know, get different perspectives, different, and we know it leads to better performance. But diversity for diversity's sake or equality for, you know, quality,

It's inclusion for inclusion, say, is bizarre. You know, the highlight of this being the current... She follows me, actually, we will with this... I don't know where it's a real person, but has been taking Mark Cuban on about, you know, saying Dallas Maverick should have... She wants to play for the Dallas Mavericks because they haven't got a Chinese,

five-foot-two Chinese girl in the team, you know, if you've got in your other businesses. And I think it's somebody's part of the account, but I think it's got quite big traction. And she's still... Cubans actually was interacting with her for a bit and is then blocked it. Blocked.

That's what it's gone. But again, you know, the message we've got to send to people is work hard, be as, be as diligent as you can in upgrading your skills. And if you do that and you put the time and effort in, you will get rewarded and you will get on. But we're sending a wrong message.

I think we're sending a message of, be lazy, be controversial. Be a victim. Cancel people, be a victim. And what, I just think we're just going to, society's just going to spiral off the back of it. And, you know, I think we've, I do think we've gone past kind of that peak wokeness.

When I'm watching the States now, I've been, you know, I always watch the American kind of culture because it ends up in some form of fashion by the weird osmosis of television, you know, ruin our society when I look at the message the Kardashians send to young girls. I mean, it's just so,

so dangerous. I think that the worst kind of people, you know change your body you're not good enough alter yourself you know you know these girls look up to them you know if they release a mascara and tens of millions of these

young kids are watching it and it's over sexualized and everything you know basically make yourself a superstar by doing a sex tape and then exploiting everything that comes afterwards and yet they celebrate it and I'm like this is just sending the wrong message we won't realize for

20 and 30th, what the consequences of this are. And obviously, Yori Rejov and the, you know, the stuff that they'd been saying about kind of what the Soviets were going to do to universities, we're kind of seeing, you know, that kind of. And I know Peterson, Jordan Peterson was talking about, you know, language a long time ago. And he was really, really strong on not letting the woke take control of language and we're seeing why. You know, the crazy situation we're in now.

for me, I didn't think we'd be this stupid because I want to work on the premise that most people are rational and most people are reasonable but what I'm finding now is and COVID for me was the big change point when I was seeing people driving around in the cars with a mask on and they were the only person in the car when I'm seeing people

you know, banging pots and pans and then getting locked in the house and phoning the authorities on the neighbours because they've had three walks today. I'm just like, where are we going? And it's a strange, I didn't get vaccinated because I watched the companies basically say, if anything happens, we're not going to,

and I got COVID relatively early. I was just watching it and unfold. I was like, it's not enough information here. You know, anything I knew about vaccines. And I kind of read a book, I shouldn't I read it really called Merchants, a doubt about the tobacco industry and I had kind of corrupted the medical industry

to say smoking was grafier and obviously we all now know that not to be true. And I just had this, I was just like, this just isn't right, this kind of. I didn't want to kill anybody's gran. I didn't want to pass the infection on as well. So I end up volunteering because we got shut down in football. Obviously we all got stopped.

So I ended up volunteering for the royal volunteers and ended up doing a load of washing and getting a few messages for a guy who was living near me who obviously didn't have a wash. machine and would go to the laundrette, so obviously COVID happened. And it didn't obviously want to, you know, cause any problems for society. And luckily got COVID. So in early March, natural, forter off, it was not nice, lost me a sense, a smell, taste for 10, 12 days.

Did feel different to the flu. Yeah. No, we had a couple, two or three times. And one of the two, one of them was really barely noticeable for me. The other two pretty brutal. It wasn't a flu. Yeah, I felt that. I was in the back garden. We'd been shut down for COVID and just felt really, really cold. To the point where I ran a hot bath and knowing you know, the bath's hot, you get in there

and it felt freezing, but like steam's coming off me. So I was like, this is not right. And he felt like that for two days. Really cold, really, like, fluy. But the smell and taste had gone. So why would they need to? the vaccine, if my body had built up natural antibodies towards it, it doesn't stop you getting it, it doesn't stop your passion.

And then when they were starting to say, like, you know, for me the big thing was when they started offering people in America, like burger and fries and I was just like, a lot of what's going on here? And then luckily I didn't, you know, didn't need to get vaccinated to carry on playing. I probably would have done if you'd have said to me, you need to take this vaccine because we want to go back playing

and we want to start the football season back up and get the season finished. I probably would have taken it because I'm desperate to play football. and if the club doctor was telling me, which I think's gone on at, lots of these clubs. I know they've put off the vaccine conversation until after the general election,

because it's clearly going to go right across all parties. And I would have, you know, for the pressures of our industry, I probably would have got at least one vaccination. You know, I've taken flu vaccines. If I go on, you know, a far east trip or I go to the Amazon, I would take the required vaccines to not get, you know,

the tropical diseases that are out there. So I'm not anti-vax. And by the grace of God, if there is God, I didn't get injected. And at the time, my wife was pregnant with my youngest son Etienne now. And her family were kind of in that limbo that everyone was in trying to do the right thing.

And her brother got vaccinated and got rushed to hospital within 24 hours. And had to get his appendix out. Just, you know, definitely as a, in response to what he'd been injected with. You know, the 91% of the UK, I think that was what I read had been vaccinated at one dose, at least. So there's a lot, we're in the minority, the people who haven't been vaccinated. So there's no good going, ha, ha, ha, ha, because you're not going to, you're in the minority.

And I think a lot of good people have made poor decisions because of the information that was a hand or the pressure to keep the economy moving or the jobs moving. and I don't think it's a case of going back and punishing everybody the same way I think we just have to draw a line under it and it's easy for me to say I haven't lost a loved one I wasn't forced to bury a loved one

behind a plastic sheet or with a funeral of two or three people I haven't had COVID injuries because I never took the job so it's easy for me to say look I think we have to just draw a line and say I think a lot of good people made bad decisions

you know we're all subject to change when new information comes to light. And I think they tried to do the right thing in the midst of a global pandemic where the government clearly were incompetent or incapable. And everybody was trying to do the right thing to protect vulnerable people.

And in the midst of that, they've done some irreparable damage to people's belief in government, to people's belief in authority, and also to people's bodies and families. And some people, if that's happened to you, I'm not sure I would be able to forgive and forget. Yeah, I mean, you wrote some very good points, Joe.

The thing that I noticed as well is there was football before COVID and football after COVID. And I'm going to be honest with you, it was someone who really loved football, really loved it, from the age of eight, seven, eight years old, mad keen football fan. I'm not sure I like the football after COVID. Do you know why I'm going with this?

Well, VAR's more prevalent now, isn't it? That's ruined it, hasn't it? You know, I think we have to accept that. The Black Lives Matter thing was tapped on the back of that. Don't forget we were all kneeling. I had to kneel because my brothers and my cousins been involved in a racially, one of the biggest high profile racial murders in the country.

Imagine I had a stud when everyone was kneeling. So I was like, they just, because they write whatever they write about me anyway. So I'm like, well, for me to kneel for two seconds, stops them calling me a racist because that's what they would have done. And also, what I felt it was is showing the black people and people are coloured. Where would you? Like, there's no, you know,

you don't need, you don't need to do it every single week and every single game as it kind of got hijacked. And then I've seen people, players stop doing it. And I thought, well, you know, now there's no point to us carrying on doing it

because there was a lot of players of colour who stopped doing it. I said, this is a lot of nonsense. It's been hijacked by people with nefarious purposes and it doesn't do the cause, you know, reducing racism any benefit. and I do agree with you

I think it fundamentally changed those who were in the industry because the amount of shit I've had our fans over the years home and away fans by the way when it's going well it's great football

but when it's not going so well the people clearly let you know it is in that regard to meritocracy and players and fans and the wages players were getting paid and fans were kind of taken for granted it was kind of like the clubs

were trying to exploit fans to get as much money out with them. Players, players were had lost a connection, you know, working class game, the players, because of the salaries certainly at the top level, and even cascading down, filtering down, they were still earning a lot more than the average person.

And I think certainly for me, it was kind of like TV money was what was driving, you know, the big salaries, and it was kind of like, I got the feeling players were like, fuck the fans. Fucking annoying in the stadium. And there was a bit of a disconnect.

And then the stadiums were emptied and I think everybody in the industry realise just how important fans in the stadium where if if not as important as the players what's the point in it's a Sunday league match in essence if the fans

aren't and they make it and what I think players realised in that period was how fan noise and the momentum, the energy that fans can bring can lead to incredible performance that is just not reachable

without the live stadium audience. So I think from that regard for players, I think it was a really interesting reset. And I think players and people in the industry really appreciated the fans in the stadium what it takes to shell out your hard-earned wages and travel to a stadium and support your team with the energy. And I think from that regard,

it was really good because I think there was a disconnect happening. And I think that reset that. But I do agree with you in terms of the product we came out of, you know, there's no doubt that George Floyd, Black Lives Matter thing, irreconcilably disrupted our culture. You know, beyond,

I think it had more impact than anybody's even figured out here. And it shouldn't because America is a completely different entity to the UK. But then, you know, with social media and YouTube, and all of a sudden people who are bored, people who are unimportant or unimpressive, hijacked. these movements, you know, to add pronouns on and add, you know, whether it's Ukraine and

the anti, you know, whatever it is, anti-Russia or Middle East now or, you know, whatever a crusader is. And the problem for them is they hijack and they take so many positions that eventually, as we're seeing now in some of the communities, they end up cannibalizing each other because although they stood on the same thing two years ago, now they're in direct competition, you know, so for me, I lowered the drawbridge, you know, in football. I would, I was the one who's done the first interview with Amal Fascheneu about her uncle killing himself who was

I think a gay footballer Justin. No one would do it. She kept emailing me and I'm like go and ask one of the other the ones who'll big profiles who'll do any, you know who should really be speaking out on this because they're of colour and

Justin's more aligned to them than me and she just kept no one would do. I don't want to name the player's names but the big profile, even today ex-players now, but massive media profiles, didn't want any part of it. I said, why? She's like, well, the fearful that

they'll get homophobic abuse in the stadiums. So I'm like, well, if I get homophobic abuse in the stadiums, it's a positive for what I'm getting. And also my uncle Tom's gay, and he was one of my heroes growing up. And I didn't know he was gay until I was like 19 or 20. And at that point, it wasn't okay to be gay

in the 80s and 90s, certainly in rural work, class like offspring of Liverpool you know so you know Joe can we talk about that a little bit yeah I'm just going to so what I was going to say to you then is so I got asked to do this interview

I didn't want to do it because it's not my course I've got a gay uncle it's not to do it me she couldn't get anyone to do her so I said to her look I'll do it for you because I'm not bothered about anyone saying I'm gay and the off spin of that I think it was for the BBC or whatever she did of it

the off spin of that was Paddy Power and Stonewall came to me and said, look, we've got this idea for rainbow laces. We've seen you do that. Would you be, so I was like, okay, what is this? So I end up being the first person to wear rainbow laces and got some of my teammates to do it. And now it's become the Premier League's taken on by them.

They never, you know, when they put me CV off or never mentioned me, because that would give me credit, you know, so you don't want to give me, you know, let's just call them a bastard for all those things, but let's not, you know, shine light on the stuff he's used as profile for positive for. So I end up to do that. That's become a big thing now. So I actually lowered the drawbridge because I was like,

if there's got a one in ten men a gay, how many professional footballers is in the UK? Law of averages, like just logic who says, there's got to be some lads in the dressing. I know for a fact I've played with three or four. But they couldn't do, they weren't out. They couldn't come out publicly. Why not, Joey?

I just think for the abuse that you would get. in a football stadium, you know, because like anything, you know, you've seen it with, you see the clip going online yesterday about the guy that's doing BBC Radio Wales from the Newport Man United game and he's saying, oh, this is great, the fans are singing Anthony's the greatest, you know, the Brazilian winger. And when he goes, can you not hear it? And as he slows it down, you can clearly hear them singing Anthony's a rapist, which he's been accused of in Brazil.

Anthony's the greatest is the latest champ from the... Oh, no, it's not greatest, sorry. If you understand that. And then he realises, but obviously it's just brilliant in terms of he actually has thought the fans were singing there. Because again, football stadiums, you know, you misbehave. You can't tell 2,000, 4,000, 8,000 drunken football fans what to sing and what not a singer, what's plitters. So if you think about football, it's concept, it's a working class game. So we still have a huge class system in this country, I think, and I see it every single day when I watch.

I see it especially now when I watch the Guardian journalist attack me. Guardian that was once in my mind been in the offices. When I was talking about, you know, quote Nietzsche and I was going to art galleries and I was talking about Rembrandts, the Guardian were all over me. When I was doing Stonewall and Rainbow, the Guardian could, you know, I could have got my own opinion column in there, no problem. And then all of a sudden I take this position of the class of right wing. I don't see, I suppose if you're that far left, anything's right.

Right. And again, you know, take the position, has said my truth about what I feel about the female standard of commentary in the men's game. And also that it's taken men with credibility and equities, jobs. That's what they're forgetting. A lot of white, and I don't want to be a victim here and play in Stinn, but a lot of white ex-players are no longer a viable option because it's not politically correct to have them on the TV. Really? So in the industry now, if you're an ex-prior who's a white male of a certain age, you just wouldn't get anyone here. I've had so many people reach out to me

who obviously, you know, petrified to say anything because there will be ramifications of, like, I'm seeing low, 90%, 95% positive in personal feedback. About 80, 20, on Twitter. I've never agreed.

About 70, 30 on Instagram. They're the only kind of one's a gauge. And then... I always think there's lots of people, and I've met these people who come up to me in person, they say, I completely agree with you, but I can't say anything. If I said that, I'd get sacked by work, and they work for, like, a car manufacturer because they're on, like, zero-hour contracts or whatever, or I can't say that because me are getting a dispute with my partner,

but I totally agree with you. So I'm only seeing a small kind of synopsis of people's real sentiment and feeling, as you're saying, you use smelling it and scenting it as well. And I think, you know, it's only one thing here about female comments, in the male game, but clearly in society, in businesses across it, this is infected for the negative of a lot of these other industries. So, you know, I'm seeing, because I get a lot of feedback in terms of, they've put me a lot of, you know, racism, misogynous, whatever, do you want to call me from day to day? But they haven't actually come for me on the homophobic one.

The reason they can't is because I've done the Rainbow Laces campaign. They probably will after they still attack me. Great. But now what you're seeing in Accom. community because I interact with these because I was the first person to, you know, certainly in the modern era to put my balls on the line, so to speak to say, we should make it absolutely fine for the be a gay football. Clearly there's been thousands of them, but we haven't made the landscape safe enough for them to be able to come out whilst they're playing. I know Thomas Hittelsperger and a few lads. I think there is a guy playing in the lower leagues at Blackpool who's out. But on that, but on that, I know Thomas Hitzelsperger and a few lads. I think there is a guy playing in the lower leagues of Blackpool who's out.

but on the whole, I think a lot of people, and I think if you're a good player, I think it would be wise at the minute, wrong, but wise at the minute for all manner of different things to stay in the closet. Is that really true, Joey? Because, look, I don't know the game as well as you, obviously, but I find it hard to imagine

that in the society that we live in now, thousands of people are going to chant homophobic abuse at somebody in public. Well, you've seen someone do a monkey scientist to a black player at Sheffield Wednesday last week, So clearly they're going to, because they say stuff designed to hear you. So they'll say, like the stuff they've said to, like I remember getting out of jail, right? Came out of jail for assault.

I'd had the fight in the Liverpool City Centre. My first game back was at the Emirates. I was on the bench. Kevin Keegan put me on the bench for Newcastle against Arsenal. It was my reintroduction to Premier League football. It's the Emirates, which is a sanitiser stadium. You know, it's soft in terms of, you know, there's no levelance in that stadium. Like some stadiums are going to go viral.

viral clip right here. It's a fantastic stadium. It's filled with graphic designers. Yeah, it feels a bit manufactured and forced to try to create an atmosphere in there, which is different to the, you know, I'm old enough to have played that hybrid multiple times and really on you, really narrow pitch.

You can feel people breathing when you're taking a throwing or a corner, you can feel, you know, they can touch you. These old football amphitheaters, the modern stadiums change a little bit now. You know, obviously, you know, they've got to upgrade and I do think it's for the best but I'm at the Emirates

as I say not the bowling ground not West Ham or something where the fans are on you and I'm warming up and as I'm warming up this guy is just shouting abuse abuse abuse at me basically because I've been to jail for assault

but he's telling me he's going to slit me throat so he's saying to me I'm going to slit if I come out I'll slit your throat and he's sitting next to his son who must have been five six seven at the time shouting his abuse at me me and the reason he's shouting abuse at me is because I've been involved in a violent altercation and as we talked to him he shot abuse nobody around him's checking him like everyone's kind of

sitting there like it's not happening and I'm kind of like now there's part of me because I'm fight a flight and I'm fight there's part of me that's like okay let's see what this is about like so I would always turn and meet it head on look him directly in the eyes because I'm like well if you said this to me where you knew there was going to be a chance of of you being held accountable, not that the fact that you're sitting in a stadium in the stand and the stewards and there's advertising orders and about five rows of seating between me,

there's no way in the world you would be able to do what you're professing that you're going to do to me if you get your hands on me. Plus, you're sitting next to your son. And this is meant to be a football stadium. And that for me is the absurdity of the world, like, of football at times. You cannot sanitise football stadium.

You're going to get people shouting mad stuff because it is the modern version of a church in terms of people go there religiously. It's everything to them. You know, being a Liverpool fan, a man United fan, it's everything to them. It actually makes them a success. So there's lots of people who aren't successful but support a successful team. And they almost become successful as a by-product because they're a winner because they support winning team. which is peculiar there's not many

there's not many sports I think that have the reach in the world that football has and I think when used positively can be incredible you know you look at I've just read a book and I don't know why my first war I can remember

was the Bolton's so I remember that being on the TV obviously Slobodadam Milosevic and all the kind of you know Sarajevo and the UN stepping in and then the guy who fixed me foot was a UN doctor and told me some of the stories graphically what had gone on

the affidnec cleansing nuts and Croatian football doing well where you're cheap population of 5 million producing Luka Madrich

Davosuka Robert Prisneche and I remember the Yugoslavian team breaking up because if you ever remember the Euros was won by Denmark who weren't in it

Yugoslavia had disbanded and Denmark took the place and ended up winning I think in 1992 it was yeah the Euros England were crapping it with the Graham Turner

period where we were terrible we didn't make the World Cup 94 so my Irish heritage kicked in I became an island fan 94 because England weren't there but Italian 90 was my first World Cup I can remember

but then there was two wars at the back end if you remember there obviously the conflict in the Balkan states Yugoslavia breaking up and the first Gulf War and I read a book about it and actually the war was in

it started the rebellion and the revolution took place in the football stadiums. I've got to book Yugoslavia, politics and football, because I was like, how is this country? I wanted to know how it produced the caliber of players. Because if you look at Yugoslavia without a shadow of a doubt, if Croatia have got to World Cup finals and semifinals,

Yugoslavia with the talent pool they had, would have no doubt been very, very close to winning a major tournament. So, you know, they'd won, I think the youth tournaments preceding, and they were about to become a golden generation. You know, Croatia gets the semi-final of France 98. And you think you add in, what is it? You've got Slovenia, is it in there? Slovenia, Serbia, obviously Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia.

I think it's like six countries in there. And then when you know football at the level I do and you go through and you go, Pandev play for Inter Milan and play for Macedonia, he would have played for that. And, you know, you would have had an incredible talent pool. and reading it for me made me realize

how important football is for social debate. It's been the place you could go when the stars he were in or when the government was not maybe how you wanted it in Yugoslavia and you could rebel.

You could group together you could share ideas did go and travel to games you know became quite revolutionary. You've got football fans in Iran now chanting against the regime and stuff like that. And this is the thing where we have to be careful with the sports washing.

You know, one of my clubs, Newcastle, bought by the Saudis. I'm like, well, it doesn't really, you know, an excellent mind. My man, city obviously got a nation state owner in Abu Dhabi government. It is interesting, isn't it? Because there's that contrast. You know, you've got to be careful. It's a contrast between like what some people at the forefront of, let's say, sports coverage say about, you know, the signaling virtue about this and that.

And you're, Garrelina because of a good job. So imagine, for instance, James Milner. So I see James Milner as, like, I played with Millie at Newcastle, never drank, drinks tea every, like, the ultimate professional. If you want to be a football, if I'm a manager and you say, who can I, what attitude can I take and give to all my plays? It's Milner, gets the maximum out of him. So he's been forced to play in the Premier League and he needs to take an injection. I don't know whether he hasn't have an ass, really this, but, like, so, so dangerous. Now, if he came out and said, look, I've had a vaccine and I had this reaction to it and I don't think you should get it.

Think of the power that would have. Think how dangerous that is for people who don't want that to be the narrative. So if you look at football now, I had Littistice taught and I was listening to a podcast with Matt on, Michael Anthony. Because I've done a podcast with him a while back. Totally different energy to use you guys. Interesting guy. And Lettis is on there, and he's talking about character and, like, footballers now, there's just no characters.

It's just very, very bland. And you get like a Marcus Rashford who goes on a, you know, does the, I think, really good to go and get the school dinners thing and holds the government accountable there. But it's very seldom you see them come out and have a message. I do remember when I was growing up, you had kind of Robbie Fowler with the doches. I think because of the way the salaries and the way clubs are now,

and the media control and also all the training these players are given they're just robots. You know, you see interviews after the game. You can almost verbatim kind of predict what they're going to say, can't you? You know, you can almost... Joe, this is what I was getting that, right? It's just sanitized, it boring. Well, right, except it also seems to me that there are some people who are allowed to express whatever opinions they want. Do you see what I'm getting that? I mean, you're obviously talking about... Is a good example of this, right? Because this is someone who expresses quite a lot of opinions

that to a lot of people in the country are wrong or controversial or whatever. But it just seems like when you say what you say about female pundits or whatever, shock, horror, outrage, etc., Gary Linnaker can say whatever he wants while working for the national broadcaster. Yeah, and again, you do, you know, and I know those people within the industry that kind of find that upset. But then it's about power, isn't it, really, when you think about it? So judging from the outside, I don't know,

it looks like Gary's had a coup d'etat. He pretty much does what he wants at the BBC because he's probably got them by the Shorten Carey's. You know, if you don't do this, I'll piss off and work for CBS, or I'll go and work for Al Jazeera or go and work for the highest bid at Amazon or whatever. So he's obviously in a position

where they're petrified or losing him. And again, you know, I know a bit more about that character and kind of what they get up to. And if people actually knew the truth about what he's done and what he gets up to, it wouldn't last five minutes, you know, with the virtue signalling. Yeah, I mean, absolutely, like, despicable. And then to say the stuff he says, I'm like...

But that's a lot of these people, Joey, because, you know, Jordan Henderson, you know, he was saying an LGBTQ role model coming out and, you know, talking about acceptance and whatever else. Saudis waver 350 grand a week, tax-free salary in his face and he's, see you later, boys.

I'm off to Saudi Arabia. Yeah, and look, I mean, you have to be careful, I would fucking take that deal. But again, you have to be careful telling the truth because, you know, you can be principal and stand for something. But again, it's out the window

if you take the biggest bundle of cash, isn't it? So again, you know, do think he's a bad person, no, because if someone offers you that, I mean, it's not lasted long as he's on his way back, So, you know, most people are virtuous until enough money's put in front of the face. You know what I mean? Like, for me, I'm lucky.

I don't value money. I have no, like, it doesn't make me happy. And I've only only know that because I've not had it and had it. So, you know, life's well easier if you've got it. Like, I'd rather have it than not have it. You know, so it can't ever be grudge anybody. But it can't be why you do what you do. Like I made one move in my career for money

and I hated it. I hated every moment. I've been vocal and a lot of the QPR fans don't like me because I've said I only signed for the club because of the contract there and I didn't enjoy my time there

because I knew I'd joined for the wrong reasons. It wasn't I didn't like the club or the people like and I had a great moment with winning a playoff final in the last minute when we're down to 10 men. Stuff, 80,000 I'll never forget

like life affirming moments and always look to that club positively, but because I was honest, and I said, I signed for the money. I was leaving Newcastle, and I fell out with Mike Ashley, the owner there, and I went to the highest bidder.

Sorry, I'm a masonry, like, you know, at that point I was 30. You know, I know I haven't got 10, 15 years left. I know, 35, 36, whatever, you know, it's very ageous, my sport, unfortunately. Very ableist as well, once your body fails, you're gone.

You know, as much of them like to stay there for another 10 10 or 15 years. I'm open with D, if this, this DI continues, you have to go for an old grey-haired white person in your team. No, I don't think that's ever going to happen, Charlie. You're going to have to wait a couple of hundred years. I'm in the category now, as they say, and we'll get back to it of white, male and stale. Yeah.

So as I said to you, when I'd said what it's said about the women, lots of ex-players, lots of ex-media personalities have reached out to me and said, look, you can't quote me on this, but this is the landscape, this is what's going on. You know, behind the cameras, there's no DAI. All the people who producers, executive producers, financially beneficial jobs, are all white. But everyone in front of the camera

or where it matters of obviously they're petrified now because of the George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, all the marches and the petrified at the Wohmop turn on them and then shut them down and if they're like, how do we defend our ivory tower?

Right, let's diversify in front of the and all the people who've got equity who've been in our organisation and done great work for years now we're gone because this doesn't fit the public facing arm of our corporation. And for me, I'm just like,

every time you turn the TV on, I'm like, fucking hell. So what it's done, this is the bad thing for me. I'm driving. I shouldn't say this out loud, but I end up in the house and I'm unemployed at the minute,

so you obviously do a lot of daytime TV surfing. So I'm watching some documentary finishes and I flick over, and I don't know why I like this. But every now and again, if the bowls is on, you know, the crown green bowls, I find myself watching it.

I don't know why. I find it incredible. Unemployment will do that to you, no, no, I've played. A lot of pubs by ours used to have a crown green bowling thing in the back garden. And there was a couple of lads in our road whose dad played crown green balls.

So I wasn't into crown green bowls. There was one in our park, but we used to use it for football, which obviously wasn't great for the, because it was the best surface. Oh, yeah? You know, we only had trainers on. We didn't wear boots on anything,

but we would get chased off by the parkkeeper if he's seen us on there, but we would play on it. And every now and again, we mate would bring his balls and you'd have a game, and it is actually a fascinating game if you can, if you play it.

Only after an hour, you wouldn't want to play as a career, I wouldn't certainly, you know, so I end up flicking over and I'm watching the bowls and there was a woman co-coms on the balls, okay? And I started thinking to myself,

all these women are in football and they're usually wrong. So I wonder if there's a bowling, ex-player, like me, who's played bowls for years, who's now sitting in front of the telego, mad, because she is technically incorrect in her analysis

of the crown green bowls. And then it was driving yesterday, and was it yesterday or Saturday, and I flipped Radio 5 on to try and get the footy commentary on. And it wasn't, it was the netball. New Zealand against England was on the live commentary, which you can

imagine it was quite riveting for radio commentary. And it was two female comms and co-coms. But I was there talking, I was the same. I was like, these could be waffling shite. I've no longer any trust in other sports, female commentary, because I feel the ones we've got in the sport that I'm known for, I've got credibility in.

If we work on Pretto's Law of 80-20, 80% of the time, the poor or incorrect, there is some good women pundits out there. Not denying that, but we've got overkill now. too many and lots of them aren't good and you can't remove them because if they come with a couple of box six and they place certain cards which lots of them do, they're actually really, really difficult to remove because they sue yeah and they go down all the, you know, you're seeing with Eni who's suing me, she's joined with Jeremy Vine's lawyers to sue me,

so I've got to let her, they kindly sent me a message on Instagram to tell me I was going to get it, which is obviously, uh, well, a lawyer's contact. So Jeremy Sue, so Jeremy sue me for bike nuns, saying I'm, I'm calling them a paedophile or whatever and I'm not. I'm like, no, for me, nonsense about on a bike with a camera on your helmet trying to get people points. He's on his phone at traffic. It's a peculiar way to spend your day. And then he asked me to, after I first said this, so how this happened. I wasn't planning this. I knew this would be a topic that would cause outrage women's commencing because so many people were pissed off with the standards and it was just annoying people. So I said to

Noah and Josh, we were going to launch a podcast. I'll do this 15 for Jan. I'm going away on Aldi. I get back about 10 for Jan. I'll talk about it here. So that was the plan. And then I've joined a snooker league to get me competitive fix with my mates in the winter.

So we play snooker on a Wednesday. And it's in the working men's clubs in and around the area around. All ex-mine and villages. So it's like one pound 50, a pint, which you won't understand if you're in London. But it's like, you can't spend your money in there. And they're all ex-labour clubs or conservative clubs. or like but the work in men's clubs

and Amazon were doing the games on that Wednesday so every game you could watch and everyone had a different commentary team so whilst the other lads are playing I'm waiting for my game out a couple of pints and then I played I'm like what the fuck you're on what they on about every time I've got changing the telly over because they were that bad

played my game come back and now about five or six pints in and I ended up sending that tweet because I was like fuck what they what are these on about then I went to bed that night and I got up the next day I'd turn my phone off to the avalanche of wokeness attacking me and I thought oh fuck I've got two options here

I had to say apologize for what I've tweeted and said I didn't really meant it I was playing snooker at a few pints or whatever or I actually do mean it and fuck you which is my take so my take was that Piers Morgan reaches out to me and says look do you want to come on and defend you know

I'm like I'll come on and no problem and I didn't think it was going to be what it was because he didn't tell me anybody else was coming on. He said, it'll be 15 minutes. I'll ask him a few questions. I thought it'd be quite safe because he's aligned with this anti-wope policy. And I go on and it was obviously an ambush set for me, which I knew, I said to Noah, this won't be straightforward. If we're no peers, there'll be something coming here.

So I was pacing around before trying to think of the attack. What's the attack going to be? Where's it coming from? Who's it going to be? I do the first bit, and if you've seen the interview, after 15 minutes, says we're going to come back after the break and we're going to have three female ex-players on, so I'm like, so I'm like, I'm off. I was shouting, I'm going, because he didn't tell me,

come back on, and it was Bianca Westwood off, Sky, some of a woman who'd have written a football podcast or had an interest in football inconsequential, and a young girl who's an anti-feminist called Pearl Davis, who's online as YouTube, I'd never met, I don't know YouTube, I'm a 41-year-old ex-footballer. No, no, no, listen, Bianca, do you think,

Bianca, can I just ask you a question, and I respect your opinion, massively. I respect your opinion massively. Do you think the women's game and the men's game is the same game? The laws of the game are exactly the same. The same rules apply. I never asked you know whether it's the same game, red card, offside. You can read the game. It's still exactly the same. There's two goals and 11 players play and can bring on a certain amount of stuff. It's not about that. Have you ever been tackled that full speed by a fully grown man and the velocity that I've got involved? Hang on, Joey. Joey.

That really doesn't have anything to do with it. You seem to have changed your opinion, Joey. But not to peers earlier. You had a problem with women who are not a top player to talk about the game. But he's saying that. I don't all talk over each other. And now you're saying the game's different. He's saying that.

What do you have a problem with? He's changing his mind. He's changing his mind all the time. Have you got a problem with the journalistic coverage? Or have you got a problem with the playing of the game? Please don't all talk over each other. Bianca. You're just shouting at me a car.

Being a top player. It doesn't mean you're going to be a cop-hand-dict. This is becoming a farce. The first, Bianca comes on and she's just attacking me, just coming for me. I was kind of, I'm just sitting there smiling because I'm like, you've done my work for me. I don't even have to say anything. Like, there's going to be so many people who are now in my camp because of the stance you take. There was another woman they tapped on second who was trying to like get involved.

She was a bit politer. So I expected Pearl to come on her and she was like, who's this American? She must be really smart. She's going to put a hole in me here. So I'm like, what? The other two didn't really, they were just confirming why women shouldn't really be talking about football, really, or certainly about the men's game.

And then Pearl comes on and was like, you just aren't listening to him? And she'd actually taking the time to listen and was like, no, no, he's not saying that. He's not saying women out of football, which I'm not saying. Far from it, some great friends in my name football at women. But what I'm saying is, underqualified women shouldn't be in there. Because they're taking qualified men's jobs, and I just think that's wrong.

Men mainly in football. I've played the game, mainly all right. There is the other exception who've become exceptional, but on the whole, it's people who've played the game. And if you put a lot of women who play football, are lesbians, to be honest. It's not feminist women. It might be a bit more now because it's a bit cooler, but it's usually lesbians who play women's games.

So they're not going to have kids, unless they adopt and do Madonna or Angelina Jolie and kind of do that virtue of single one. So you're taking away men's jobs. We've got equity in the game, whose career is now beyond them because the body can't do it anymore. And they're breadwinners, they usually got kids to feed and families to look after. And because it doesn't fit this cool agenda of having a female on there

or a person of colour on there or a homosexual on there or whatever it is, or a transsexual on there, all of a sudden, their earning capacity is gone. And the amount of people, honest, they call the ex-players, and I'm saying, would you say, and they say, can't say it publicly. La Tiscos goes on about the people dropping down dead, and he's contacted the PFA and FIFA Pro. And he tells a great story about it and says way more credit. and me in this space.

And, you know, when I look at the attacks on him, you know, he's not me, he's very well behaved. He's one of the most loyal players I've ever known, didn't leave Southampton when he could have gone anywhere, a true individual, Channel Islander, you know, so I found out today they're actually called donkeys, weirdly, because that's stubborn, which fits for Matt's personality, because he's taking a stance,

and I think its cost them his media career and further opportunities beyond that. And the amount of women I see it in those roles who are taking men's jobs. Now, those women must be the best of the best because they're on the best shows doing the best matches and they're not very good on the whole.

Some are, but it's in the minority. They could be commentating on the women's game where they're credible. they could be building, making the mistakes that they're making on the TV in the men's game now and getting ridiculed for it and getting abuse online and having to close the profiles in the women's game and eventually someone will go

you know what she's really good let's get on the men and that's the way I think it should work the cream should rise to the top they've got enormous credibility in there but they've got none in the men's game absolutely zero and any man ex-player who tells you the women commentators or punders are taken seriously

he's a liar he's a liar and I'm telling you, there's none of them that take it serious. It's just they want to keep the job. Like, you can see on the overlap, all the stuff they do, but they don't think that deep down,

but they're getting paid for it, and they've got profile, and they've got power, so you can't blame him. Gary Lineche, I don't, I don't know how he gets away with what he gets away with in the BBC,

because it's obviously taxpayer, you know, through the license fee, funded. But again, I would imagine that it's checks and balances, isn't he? There's no checks, and balances on him. And that was evidence the other day when the Wayne Rooney tweet was put on by BBC Sports about the peeky blinders and he came and said, get it taken down. Within 50 minutes

it was down. When you see the sports personality there's a joke like, but when you see, obviously the keeper won't you, when you see who's at the front and center of that, there he is again. You know, the woke diversity nonsense that you see in there is just running them off. And even when I look at ex-teamate to mine who've attacked me, we didn't like each other when we were. played. And when I look at the personelhood in certain roles, it's so racist, it's untrue. What do you mean by that, Joey? Well, it's racist because it's against white people. So that exclude them white people specifically because they're white.

So if that was done to any other race, we go, but we go, oh, well, you know, white people have owned slaves and had to bat. And we're like, I haven't. I'm from Liverpool, a working class estate. Irish immigrant family I haven't owned any tobacco plantations or cotton plantations and that wasn't me

from what I know they landed aristocracy who were sitting in houses of lords or in Bokingham Palace take it up with them I don't get out we've gone from 82% of the British population

are white and yet we're excluding them based on the fact that the white what can you do about being born in Britain, unfortunately, there's not enough sunnier to get any other shake. Like, once we exclude people on colour, it's just bad. We would never do it, um, you know, to, to any other race. I think it's fundamentally wrong to do it. And it's happening

to white people and everybody's just kind of gone, oh, well, you know, the white people have done some bad things in the past. I'm like, yeah, so what you can do what the fuck you want to them now? You can pretty much just exclude them from, um, um, having the opportunity to use merit and use their ability to get as far as they can in life. And I just think it's wrong, absolutely wrong at its core. I quite agree with you, Joe. There's one thing that I really wanted to talk to you about,

which is mindset. Okay. What makes a Premier League footballer? Why is it that some people who have the ability, I'm thinking of someone like Ravel Morrison, who was at West Ham and probably the most... Play the Vailer, QPR, yeah. Yeah, who is one of the most talented footballers of his generation.

if that's what Rio said and lots of other people. Yeah, a mega player, yeah, really talented. Why is it someone like him never made the top? And yet there are other people who are less talented, like your Gary Nevels, who then go on and win Champions League twice, leagues, etc., etc. Yeah, look, to win trophies, you've got to be at certain clubs. There's only so many teams that can win a trophy at the top level.

There's only so many teams that can win the Champions League. You can probably count them on two hands. similar when it comes to the Premier League you might get the odd Lester the old curveball team but on the whole pretty much all the top leagues and all the top countries go to a certain select amount of clubs

so to play for a certain team at the right time can mean you end up with a trophy laden career or like use Littis for example clearly a player capable of magic but won't have won't have won't have won much because he stayed at Southampton and constantly fought relegation

and never went to, you know, join Chelsea or Tottenham or Liverpool or Man United. So, so massively decrease your chance of winning all these trophies. Like Harry Kane, prime examples, had to leave Tottenham to go and try and get the trophies. He feels like he's going to need to be held in the same esteem as some of the greats that have played the game. You know, playing for Bayern Munich, I do think is a chance for him to cement his legacy. he obviously negates his chance of beating Shearer's Premier League record but again he's probably good enough player to come back at some point in the next two, three, four years

and still get to that record, I think. And then what people miss with footballers is addictive personalities who get addicted to football at a young age and then dedicate everything in their life to that in terms of every waking moment remember me being in school all I'm thinking about is

the training I've got to do after school finishes or the game I'm going to play in or the teacher's talking, I'm trying to pay attention but I'm thinking about the game I'm going to play in or training I've got that night for Everton's Academy at the time or Man City's Academy

and what people miss with footballers is it takes enormous discipline over a long period like I sacrifice being a teenager which is probably a good thing because there would have only been trouble or the stuff that's out there and look at all my close peer group

I grew up with who've either been killed, killed, been involved in crime at a high level and have either had to leave the country or I was living in other countries now. So I go, well, that was the kind of group I was in. Luckily for me, that's 15, 16. My mum and dad got divorced at 14. I went to live with my grandmother

who was a lot more strict than my mum. So I was kept on a real tight leash. of us weren't, they stayed with my mum on the council estate and I just moved off but was with my grand and she would go, when I was at that age where I could have just slipped, I'd say, I'm staying in my mates and I was going fishing or fucking about with my mates and she got, if I said I was staying in my mate, she'd want to speak to my mate's mother or she'd visit the house to make sure I was there, which my mum never would have done. And loads of people's parents didn't so they could fall in the cracks of being, you know,

a little bit mischievous as a youngster I couldn't because my gran had literally if I said I was staying somewhere or was late coming in she'd come and get me and pull me out of it only happened once twice I never done it again because I thought she'll fucking drive me out and make a show me and she'd done that to my dad

but it worked with me because I had something to get after a career I was touching go for a long period but something to get after and then it was the sacrifice you know 16 17 18 people are wanting to drink drug experiment, girls, whatever's coming in.

I knew if I did that, I wasn't going to be good enough to make it, because I'd seen lots of people get in trouble with all of those vices who were talented, better players than me, and it didn't make it. Ravel would be in that category of an incredible player.

Play with Ravel at KPR. Strange character in terms of just been allowed to get away with lots because of his talent. He actually just needed someone really strong with him to show him. He didn't need to, a disciplinarian, but he needs someone to, you know, I believe men, men need male mentors who fucked up and changed their lives. Like Blackie for me was one, Peter Kaye from Sporting Chance

Clinic, former drug and alcoholic, changed my life fundamentally. And when you meet these older people who aren't perfect, who say, look, I've felt that, and I've done that, and I've fucked up, and I've done actually ten times worse than you're here, you know, I've done X, all. of a sudden you realize, oh my God, like, I'm not a bad person. I've just made a mistake here. And I think when we go through in the world and we try and make everyone perfect and you can't make a mistake,

I just think it's really dangerous because for me life is a series of fucking up and trying to improve, you know, being prepared to fail, whether that's on your bench press, if you're trying to lift or in a race. I think failure is very, very important and lots of failure. Obviously, you don't want catastrophic failure because, you know, you don't recover from it.

But I think you've got to put yourself in a position to fail, you know, to be ridiculed. You know, it's the only way for me you make real progress. And when I look at like a Gary Neville like you spoke about and I feel like I'm going around a little bit, Gary Neville would be somebody who did everything right, trained, slept, et, everything right. And that increases your chances of making it. It's very, very difficult to make it because someone can tackle you and that's the end of the end of 15, 16, 17, or you might grow, you know, your genetic constraints might kick in or, you know, A manager might infancy it, you know, in a key window

where you need an opportunity to play. So it is finely balanced. But I think the people who have a fantastic attitude, like, you know, Gary Neville, I would say, would be, you know, almost like a perfect, a prefect in school. He would do everything he could. You know, that's not every character. Because sometimes, as you know, with great football,

with that addictive personality, comes quirkiness. You look at like a gaza. Clearly incredible football based on his quirky mindset. But obviously that's caused him a lot of, problems in his life. And I think someone like that, Gaza probably needed an Alex Ferguson type role model and everyone thinks if he'd decide for Man United

that had been different for Gaza, but then you're right to point out, Ravel Morrison was under Fergis' tutelage. And I've seen a lot of my, you know, the way I'd behaved as a younger person where what you were actually wanting was someone to mentor you because what we're all looking for is structure and boundaries.

And this is why I worry about society. Now, if you just left, the evergreen thing, I don't know whether you've seen this. Did you see that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've had all the people are. So when kids are telling adults what to do,

I think the lunatics are now running the asylum. Now, remember being 20, me. I'm on a hero's journey. I just got in the first team at Man City. I start getting into me, you know, 20 to 24 is when my world kind of changes in terms of I've become what I've always dreamt of becoming and I get financially rewarded for that.

And I remember the arrogance of me thinking, I've fucking cracked this and all everything. I look back at it and I think, my God, how naive and how stupid you was. But I remember the energy I had that, you know, I said, I turned atheist in that period. I'm like, no, I've done all this reading and you think you know everything. Plus, you're really, really motivated in terms of, you know, people go to war in their age categories.

You come out at university or you come out of school and whatever and you're ready to take the world on. And you think you know everything. And it's only when you're 40 or you're 30, you realize how stupid you was in your 20s. You know, you only have to look back at old 40s to see the clothes you've got on, your haircuts, etc. And that energy now is going to. and unchecked, because that's scaring 30, 40, 50, 60 year olds to death and the petrified to say anything.

So now the lunatics are running the asylum. That's what we've got. And again, I do think society is broken down because people have forgotten what it's like to get slapped or punched in the face. You know, you do some of these radical things that these are doing and someone punches it in the face once. You don't do it again.

No. Because you think, fucking hell, don't fancy that. You know, don't agree with it, but I got hit as a kid. You know, when I stepped out of line, I got whacked. It stopped me stepping out of line again. Now, I don't bring my kids up in that world, you know, because I've learned a different strategy and, you know,

spoke to great mentors and read lots of books and I'm trying a different way with it. And I want to have a different relationship with my kids. But then when I see the world that we're in, I'm like, this is probably a factor that kids now are just going unchecked, you know, university, just running over to professors. and it is this Yori Brezhnev of...

Beseminov. Yes. Of this when I look at it and I don't know loads about it I've just heard a few guys thought about it

and I'm like I don't know it's what Peterson's been saying the universities have been hijacked and these mega young really really want to

take the world on and make their stamp and change the world people are just so confused and they're just running rough shot against everything and they're actually

pulling the very institutions and the fabric of society that we need to function healthfully are down and it's causing irreparable damage i think to some institutions and if we're not careful you know i didn't think east germany the start i'm always like how the stars he made the how did the one third of the population you know opt into spying on and working for the for the state against the people And COVID made me realize actually really, really quickly, really quickly, a minority can take over a majority.

It was the stuff you guys were speaking about. I only heard it on a little cliff. I thought it was brilliant. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't know. I was like, oh, yeah, actually, if we don't, if we don't stand up and say our truth. And even if you get excommunicated, I've been the black sheep, so I'm cool.

I'm like, listen, I'm just on the naughty step again. I've been here loads of times. And what I learned out on that step, when you're ostracized. and you get out there because you're a bad person. All you want to do is fit in because we're quite tribal. You know, we're primates, I believe,

hierarchal chimpanzees, you know, Darwin's fear evolution had a huge effect on me. I've still, as I say, it made me an atheist, Dawkins, etc. Christopher Hitchens is a huge influence on me. But a few things have happened and I've met people and it's just kept me agnostic. Like, it's just a few weird things

where I'm like, hopefully, and it gives me great salvation at this moment, because I'm like, hopefully there is something out there that has got a good, you know, if there is a heaven or whatever it is, and there is a God, and he's got this, ultimately, he'll allow good to prevail. And when I look back across humanity and you see, you know, the Nazis get seen off, you think, what got, what, it must have been touching go for large periods of that early part of the 1939s of, you know, Minam was born 42. It doesn't look until like 42, 43 and, you know, when the Russians and get involved,

that it kind of goes away from Hitler. But when you look at kind of history and you look at good prevailing, you know, I know there's been mass murder and genocide in Cambodia or the Native Americans. But I do believe good gets through, you know, to the Peterson stuff of it only works if you, you can speak truth to power you know Putin for instance thought he was going to take Ukraine and what two three days because he's in a vacuum

where nobody will tell him the truth for fear of the consequence you're not allowed to tell the truth to power because if the if the power doesn't like the truth that's the end of you you know Stalin you know all these dictators or whatever you know over the past we actually have an episode with a historian about talking about that very thing about Putin

Mike Elliott he'll come out after yours but we'll send it to you well and I've seen use it into world history I didn't want to say down it's rabble all guys, sorry. No, no, no. So for me, you know, if you can't speak the truth to power, eventually it's going to disintegrate,

which is what I think Putin's two and a bit years in now to a three-day war. You know, he thought the Ukrainians were going to roll over, almost like the French and wave them into Paris. You know, and obviously the adverse scenario he's in now is that hasn't happened. And that hasn't happened, because of the way he's constructed the world that he's in.

You know, no one's telling them the truth. And again, you know, for me, we have to, I agreed with what you said. I don't think it's perfect, our country, by the way. I've traveled around the world and I've seen lots of places. And look, we've got loads of work to do. But I think it's a fantastic country for many, many reasons. Pot hole. And as soon as I replied to your thing,

people come back at me, all the things. not do so well, training times, pot, all, etc. But see, people get confused about this, and you were talking about this from the personal level as well. Just because something isn't perfect or a person isn't perfect, doesn't mean they're a bad person. It means they've got things they can work on.

But the way I feel about the way people talk about this country and they talk about America and the West more broadly, it's like if you talked about your partner, your wife, your girlfriend, in the way that people talk about their country, people would say you're an abuser. Yeah. If you talk that way about your wife.

right? Yeah. But we, for some reason, we're allowed, I mean, of course we're allowed to, we all have free speech. I just mean we are allowing people to get deluded about the reality of the place in which they live. And then they go out and they say all these things. That's not to say we haven't got problems. See, I have to disagree with it. I don't think we've got free speech. I don't. Honestly, I would like to think we have, but then, you know, I've found out recently we don't. You know, people want to sue you. And I'm, you know, I kind of get it. But I have spoken to. people, when people have written pieces about me in the past, and I'm like, what, is this liable? And they're like, this is how much it's going to cost. And in the end, you're like, what's, it's just wasted resource. And, you know, the only people that win in it is lawyers. And then when you get these lawyers of no win, no fee kind of buzzing around, you know, looking for outrage and looking to, you know, give themselves work, I find a peculiar. You know, the, I say, I do believe as uncomfortable as it is, you have to be able to speak the truth to power.

And the problem we've got at this moment in time is, you know, power is just not listening? Is it just, you know, it's not listening to people? And I've never ever thought we'd be in a position where you know the government are stealing from the people. Like the PPE stuff is just probably the tip of the iceberg if they get into it.

You know, track and trace, what was that? billion? What the fuck was that all about? Like, you know, another two and a half billions of Ukraine. This keep going in until you, I'm like, what are we doing? Like, the Russians, I don't agree with Putin. I do think he's a bad man. But to control a country like that,

the same way with Saddam Hussein, you need bad people. You can't. I'm Russian and I really don't like Putin, but it's not untrue. Well, again, but you need bad people to control big, massive, what would I call it, like ethno diverse groups, religiously diverse groups across. You can't expect a nice guy to hold that together.

You know, now Putin's the extreme example of that. You know, don't disagree with him. His enemies have a funny... Habit of falling out windows, all blowing up in planes, you know. But I was watching the whole progosion. I'm like, speaking to a couple of my pals who weren't with me,

who were one's the next SaaS, SAS, SAS, and one's ex-doctor in the SBS. And I'm like, I'm back and forth and with them on the wall. I've never seen anything like this. Also, when the gas pipes getting blown up, I'm like, who's this? Who's done this? Is this a good thing?

Is this a bad thing? And then, you know, I think society has to be, it's the pieces in one again of. It's when really dangerous men are capable of it, but don't use it. Yeah. It has to be a deterrent. Like, you know, you have to think, if I do this, there's going to be a consequence.

Now, if there's no deterrent, as Californian retail industry is finding out, you know, there has to be a deterrent. You just say, well, we're not going to prosecute anyone who steals less than $950. Well, great. My dad worked as a security card. We needed to go off on a tangent in a big supermarket chain just before he retired. And he said, none of the security guards would stop people who were shoplifting because they'd say, can you put that down? Because if they touched them, there's a completely different. case opening up where they could be sued.

So your security guard in a supermarket chain stopping people shoplifting, but you can't go anywhere near them. Now my dad's difference, he would stop them. And then in the end, he's like, I got in trouble, so he said, you're asking me to stop people stealing from in the shop. And I'm trying to stop them. And if I put my hands on them to take the stuff off them, I get sued. So what's, and the job doesn't pay enough for,

for, and it's this, this is just this, strange, strange world of consequences for some things and no consequences for other things. And it's like, okay. So it's, you know, the policing being one, you know, seeing, you know, the kind of two-tier policing, somebody is able to shout obscenities and then I've seen, I don't know, you've seen this clip of the, looks like a volunteer, police officer telling someone to not to sing a church or a gospel song yesterday. No, miss, you're not allowed to sing a song, you are, you are. You are.

You are. You are. by the way. You're not allowed to sing church songs outside of... Outside to church songs or church grounds. You're not allowed. That's fine. You're not allowed.

She just said you're not allowed to sing church songs outside of church. Our church is outside of church grounds unless you have... That's a load of ruby. You're allowed. You're allowed. So, you know, it's okay for certain religions to pray outside and take over spaces and but it's not for other religions. And the police are policing one and arresting people and round and them up.

and allowing, you know, it's the, it's a demonstration, we've seen that as with as well, you know, a BLM demonstrations, prime example. Yeah. I mean, there was a woman who was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic just like, sitting in her head. Can I please ask you to step away from here

and step outside the exclusion zone? But you've said you're engaging in prayer, which is the offence. It's silent prayer. No, but you are still engaging in prayer. It is an offence. I disagree. You're totally right, Joey, we're running out of time.

You're being in the Thor police then? If you're playing Slightly and Ed, you are now in all well. That's right. That's what I'm saying. And it's really interesting talking to you. We could talk for another hour. I actually was going to ask you about, you know, you've talked a lot about violence in your childhood and dealing with all of that.

And obviously, I'm sure it plays into the young man that you then were and stuff like that. I would have loved to talk to you about that. Maybe we'll come back. You'd come on mine and we can. Yeah, we'd love to. That'd be great. We'd love to do that. But anyway, we're going to go to.

to locals with questions from our audience in a second. But before we do, we always wrap up with the same question, which is, according to you, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? The one thing I haven't, I've spoken about a lot recently, certainly on Twitter, because I'm opening up a few fronts in terms of discussions for the podcast later. For me, one massive one would be the kind of tax situation and how many of the, you know, big taxpayers or people who should be paying a lot of tax in this country are just avoiding just loopholes for the rich to get out of it and yet I'm someone who's paid an enormous amount of tax

you know that that's where I think you know the Premier League salaries going north is a great thing because 45 to 50% of them will go in tax on national insurance you know Harlan's on 900 grand a week well that's great for the tax because you get half of that and it's you know your Starbucks your Amazon's you you know your big corporations as well as these big wealthy guys, whether that's the Sunach dynasty or the Riesmog dynasty, who just blatantly are refusing to pay tax. And because they've got the big chartered accountants that they pay financially a lot of money to, it's kind of seen as okay.

It's almost white-collar crime. But, you know, because it's via all these legal loopholes, it's great and I think if we actually got into the nitty gritty of that and people paid the right amount I'm not saying they should get taxed I don't like, you know, I don't think any population should be taxed more than 25%.

I just don't. I don't think you know, to tax high earners more than for doing well I'm not necessarily down with that but I think if we were to go and look at our tax structure I think a lot of the

money we could get back from that could be utilised well probably not with this fucking government they'd only probably siphon it off into the offshore accounts or to the cronies to buy yachts but I think you know the people who are profiteering from from the people of this country who were giving us McDonald's and Starbucks and fatty foods and all the problems that arise from

from their profiteering I'm not saying the wrong to do it because in the capitalist structure, it's up to people, whatever they want to do, you want to eat fast food or whatever. But all the benefits that their money is making them offshore is not going into the NHS who are dealing with the problems that they're causing with the products they're making a huge profit from.

So for me, I think we need to get hold of our tax. You know, you tax the poor all the time. You know, Ulaz driving in here. Like you're taxing the poor and they're working all the time. What about these, you know, the rich are still getting richer like that. We've got to gear our country towards, if you do really well out the country and you're earning a few quid, you should look at it and be saying, look, I'm delighted to pay me tax. I've always seen it as a badge of honour.

You know, I'm a working class kid who's paying me tax. Now, there's been times where I've been offered, you know, and there was one of them that you should get into. That's wiped out all the footballers. That's why you've seen a lot of footballers gone bankrupt, the generation before mine. because the government actually had a scheme where you could invest in the British film industry and it would obviously offset some of your tax. Yeah.

And the banks... Someone offered that to us. Well, again, there's lots of them out there and the banks and all that were all in cahoots with it. So they were all in cahoots. The government, it was HMRC, regulated or backed. And then five years later, they went back and said, no, no, that was illegal.

Claude the money back. Lots of players went bankrupt because they couldn't pay it because they'd offset it off the tax. And then they wanted the interest back. So I've had to pay, I was only 450 grand. I shouldn't say only. But it was only because I wasn't earning the money at the time. Because these were financial advisors.

You know, look, I'm a working class kid. I'm not a banker or a financial wizard. We were giving financial advice from people who are regulated to do a trust. My bank was the Queen's Bank before she passed away. And HMRC. So they were telling us, this is what you should do with your money. This is the advice.

And then afterwards, they changed the law and then went back when it was legal and said no no we're going to so it's almost like you can smoke it's legal to smoke so for five years you're smoking and then they say right smoking's illegal and now we're going to if you've smoked

you need to and we're actually going to charge your incest for those siggies you had which is just bizarre so lots of ex-players so there was a if you've seen there's been a tsunami of players who I grew up idolized and who were you know household names all bankrupt

one of the guys phoned me and there was a short list, I think, of 350 of them, that they'd all banded together because they were like, this is outrageous, we've been told, this was legal. Anyway, sorry to digress, but one of the things I would change would be we need to sort out

that the people who profit here and make a lot of money in this country paid the proportionate amount of tax, not because they've got the best accountants and they can afford billions to get away of it. I think if we do that, I think that would be a step in the right direction amongst

other things. Perfect. Well, head on over to locals where we ask Joey your questions and a few more of our run. I told Gary 10 years ago when he was giving it

to me tight on match a day and I said to him, look, all my skeletons are out. All mine were on CCTV and I've been to jail for them, they're out. You know, they've been on the back

of the pages. All yours are still hidden. I know. Stuff that he doesn't want people to know.