American Ownership in English Football

Welcome to the football boardroom. Today we're going to consider the challenges of preparing a team to play football in America in summer We're going to look at whether this World Cup really will transform the sport in the United States of America Think about some of the challenges that England and Scotland can look forward to. To do this, I'm going to be joined by an old friend Wh, I think, has the perfect perspective. Don't forget to subscribe as we're going to be putting out shows throughout the tournament. And please keep sending your comments in, either on social media or to our email address. We read them all. it really helps us decide what we're going to talk to you about. really hope you like the show Christian, good morning from Florida. Good to see you in your seat of learning with all that very impressive. Bodily and strength collection of books behind you. We've got a little bit more England training today. I've just checked the weather forecast, which you do have to do over here. It does go a little bit of Vivalde on you. You get all full seasons in half an hour. and there's going to be a little bit of lightning at training later when England are out there. The Arsenal boys now are back from their Champions League rest after their exertions in the final And I mean, it's all looking incredibly ood And then we got a press conference with Thomas Toucult later. Doubtless. Bellingham will be talked about and also the conditions out here because the weather, the travel absolutely is on everyone's lips. And everyone's all over still I guess the decisive playoff moments in in basketball, not football at the moment. Yeah, I was in a bar last night, unusual for a journalist and I'm watching it and everyone was transfixed with it And even though it's a San Antonio sppurs against New York Nicks, it is now two one still to the Nicks Madison Square Gardens Spurs came back really gutsy performance last night and from a soccer our football perspective, I mean I was here in ' ninety four when the start of the World Cup was slightly overshadowed by the OJ Simpson chase. and there's going to be a slight echo this time that another American sport is going to invade soccer's sort of opening ceremonies. Obviously we go to Mexico, then Canada, Thursday Friday, it kicks off in the U. S. on Saturday when it's looking like we could have you know another decisive game in the NBA. I think they play Thursday and then Saturday. So it's definitely going to go to those extra games. So soccer is having to compete with the traditional sports here I wonder whether Donald Trump will show up this weekend. The Kicks will certainly be asking him to stay away after after they lost last night, but I think that's a good segue into today. So we felt it would be a really good moment for our show to preview Some of the key aspects of this upcoming wonderful World Cup tournament and We want to focus really on ball in America. where is it at? And we thought it would be really helpful to do that with a man who has a foot on both sides of the Atlantic, one of the UK's most experienced players and football managers and the only current MLS coach who has coached in the Premier League person is none other than Dean Smith Deane, welcome Thank you, Christian, Great to see you It's great to have you here, Dean and I want to start really by Let's imagine the term let's turn the clock back maybe eighteen months and I'm sitting in planning meeting at at FAHQ. mayaybe with Thomas Touool in the room and we're talking about the challenges of a World Cup in the United States of America particular playing football in a US summer. And of course, you live and breathe that with an MLS season that runs through the summer And I want to get your take on what would be the sort of key issues that you had been factoring in as you thought about planning and logistics for things like your training base Ying D. Climate is going to be number one You know, it's it's going to be hot, whereatever you are, but the humidity levels will be different in some places to others Obviously travel. I don't think travels as bigigger problem. I think in America people are just used to flying You know, they fly to and from work at times So You know, and For every MLS game, it's a flight. It's our nearest game is uplanted away. it's an hour flight. four a half hours if you if you want to care to drive And, you know, we normally have four thousand fans going to Atlanta, which is unheard of really in the MLS because I think that's the one thing I miss is away fans in the MLS because they don't travel as well. Logistically travel is quite quite an easy thing to do. You charge to a plane, you fly to the place and then But it's then getting used to whether it's the heast, whether it's the humidity whether it's a time zone difference so just Mal times change, but also you've got altitude. We only really come across that when we go to Salt Lake or Colorado. Tell us about that. I'm intrigued. I noticed that the eleven American stadia are at for the World Cup are at sea level but obviously We've all taken a look optimistically at the drawer and can see, you know Mexico City looming as a very high altitude venue When you take your side into Salt Lake or Denver How long in advance do you go? How much of a home field advantage do you think that would confer if you played Mexico away at altitude, for example, in your experience I mean, in general in the MLS, home advantage is so much bigger than, you know what I was used to in England. Really? Yeah You know, I think it's something like forty, forty two percent of home victories, you know during the season which is a lot bigger thanah certainly in England, I believe. So home advantage is really strong. Everybody told me when I first came here, you know, it's going to be hard to win on the road and I'm like, well, why? And But then you start to learn about how to acclimatize I mean, I was told my first ever away game was Vancouver away which was like a four and a half hour flight to the other side of the country, a time difference of three hours differentifferent weather. we were going into a really cold environments. You have to get ready for them changes that are likely to occur Dean, I think one of the things our audience would love to understand, you've now been at Charlotte nearly three years. you're having a good season And I think one of the things that's difficult for us British football fans to get a head around is really the whole state of football or soccer as they call it in the USA. and I'm particularly intrigued by your observations of how this World Cup fits with the MLS in terms of sports fans in America On the one hand, you know, we talk a lot about the nineteen ninety four World Cup when there was no professional league in two years later the MLS was founded on the back of. popularity that that World Cup generated Now thirty years in the MLS has got thirty teams. you're managing one of those I think it's fair to say the numbers suggest it's still You know, an absolute fraction. of the popularity of certain major League sports. I looked at the TV money, eleven billion dollars a year. they pay for the NFL two hundred fifty million for the MLS. so So I get the sense it's a sort of niche product in terms of the overall US sports world So then the World Cup comes along and they shut your league down for seven weeks How do you feel The World Cup will impact MLS. And what do you see as the links and similarities between the two I hope it's going to impact impact it as much as it did in ninety four. You know, he it's quite interesting that A ye I think everywhere I've seen it's around a USA World Cup. yet, there's three countries who are actually host it, you know, you know, M with Mexico and Canada as well. Yeah, good point But it's I think I mean, I can only talk really at Charlotte FC. we've got real diverse fan base Big Hispanic, big Latino fan base as well and fan and fan groups their their sport is football, you know, so they want to come and watch the games and make it You know, an unbelievable atmosphere. U They're all I think now a growing amount of Americans who were starting to get really interested in football, stroke soccer You know, and I think the World Cup, if it's successful and I I see no reason why it can't be successful. It can actually grow the brand. O of the biggest things my assistant coach M Milles Joseph has been in the league for since its inception and He always says to me he said You've got to forget that he's only thirty years old. He said before because they try to manufacture rivalries at times just to Oh. tribal instincts that probablyb we have in England, what they have in South America, but that's got to still grow because he said, The rivalries they have in America are fruit colleges U, because Beyond thirty years, it was college football, college, basketball, college soccer, you know, so The college system is what most Americans have grown up with and are big supporters and the college system is massive in terms of sporing you know a college American football game, for instance They only play eight games a season at times and you'll get eighty thousand people turning up to watch the games Dean, MLS are pushing themselves quite sort of aggressively to pitch themselves as one of the bigger leagues in the world. Do you think the standardization of the calendar, particularly in terms of the transfer window will actually help that because it's now going to sort of echo the European transfer window I think it can only help improve it. you know, we One of my frustrations being in in the MLS is the fact that the markets are different. So when we go shopping for players to recruit players from from Europe You know, our windows clos in a week or two weeks before the rest of Europe So you're always having to either pay a premium or you're losing out to, you know Maybe some teams that have just waited can wait a little bit longer than you can and players sometimes end up wanting to wait that extra two weeks in case you know, a bigger club is going to come in for them as well. So it can only help us, you know,, certainly with the market and it can only help to improve the MLS. I also think, you know, an easing of the salary cap can also help the MLS as well. you know, and I understand they they want it to be more of an even keel in terms of u the squads and the playing style, but if they ease the the salary capping, I think it will help to to encourage better players to come to the MS as well. Dan, do you think this is almost sort of symbolic. We talk about Dean Smith, the soccer coach with what you're doing, what you did in in England and now out in MLS. But if you talk to a lot of Americans and you mentioned the name Dean Smith and he's an NBA Hall of Fer, one of the great coaches they've had over here. did you ever get that conversation I've had that conversation quite a few times and during a press conference, I was quite impressed that I'd already had a highway named after me when I first came to North Carolina U my son went I haven't even got that in Birmingham, boy My my my son went to college in Raleigh and that's where the the stadium, the Dean Smith stadium and Dean Smith highighway were. So yeah, and very interesting coach as well who you know, Michael Jordan u started his fledling career and with and I've read a couple of books on him and incredible coach You've ob got the Scots using your facilities What was that relationship? You know I know you and some of your staff know Steve Clarark. And what can the Scots expect in terms of the facilities? Because I imagine there were other countries who were trying to get your facilities in Charlotte Yeah, there was a lot of countries that looked at our facilities and Scotland were the ones who wanted it I've already had messages from John McGinn and Grant Hanley, you know, going, wow, these facilities are incredible. That's good And to be honest, it's one of the major reasons why I actually went to coach out. at Charlotte, I wanted to make sure you know, the facilities were good first and foremost because that's the place that you spend most of your time at You know, so The training centre, the canteen, the pitches are all excellent. And you know, the Scotland, the Scotland group have been welcomed by, you know, all the staff and all the people of Charlotte already. and You know, u they'll They're training I think it's low thirties at the moment there. So they're getting certainly acclimatized. I think they've been down in Florida already Clarky came over, I think it was in March he came over. And I think the biggest thing that the grass is yellow at that time of year It's something that I didn't understand as well because it it's Bermuda grass and the Bermuda grass during the winter goes lies dormant And then late April, once the sun gets on it, it comes through and it goes green again And I reassured him that it would be green by the time he got here. you know, and u yeah, the I I'm really hope the Scots do well and u You know, I think that that game against Haiti Haiti the first game is going to be big for them. I think it's really interesting for our audience. This is can you imagine if this happened in you know, in England, H, that the Federation, the equivalent the FA isn't isn't swimming in money. It doesn't have massive global TV contracts as the England team do and the FA Cup and all that commercial backdrop. So rich owners and billionaires in America loom a lot more in kind of the funding of the sport. And no better example of this than the fact that Poino salary, it's rumored was picked up by a hedge fund owner called Ken Griffin , you know, they wanted to go for it. They certainly swung for the fences in signing a coach of Mauritizio's reputation and price. but obviously couldn't afford it within the Federation. So So a rich soccer fan pat for it. Can you imagine that happening in English sport H? And Dean, it made me think about you've got a pretty colorful owner who you work for your at your club? Are they do you sense that US MLS owners are much bigger in the national sport than would be the case over here where we tend to where the FA tends to have kept that away Yeah, I mean, there's vast wealth in this country. That's one of the first things I've noticed when you come over here. You know, our owner Dave Teppardy also owns the Panthers, the NFL team U you know, so There's vast wealth. I mean I think they're looking now to buy a franchise for LLS team something like six hundred, seven hundred million dollars. So just shows you the value of a club now in the MLS You know, so that there's definitely vast wealth Yeah, I think there'd be a lot of question marks for the FA if they were if they were getting a private investor to to help help them higher Thomas' salary. Engl. Exactly. yeah. I mean, but On the other side of it, I do think the US soccer Federation have got both their appointees, right Muricio, I think with his experience, his knowledge. Emma Hayes as well has done it exceptionally well for the women's game out there already. you know, so I think I believe that they got them right, but the proof will be in a foudding, so to speak Well, I just was intrigued by by this notion of private wealth creeping into the national game. It's one thing at the club level, obviously, but that sort of church and state separation in English football and The root cause of that, as I've suggested, is is available funding. As you well know, Dean, there's been plenty of focus on Thomas's N deal. I'm sure that caught your eye. Henry was very concerned that we were repeating our you know, our experience of twenty ten when famously, we we gave pillow I think, an extension, and then and then it all went rather wrong in South Africa and that didn't look smart. But you get the sense that people are behind Toukle and there's a high degree of faith in him? Certainly, as it appears at the FA, but I think the players deffinitely od behind him. you know, speaking to a couple of lads that obviously U I know I've worked with him, you know, Jack Relish, Esri Konzer, Ollie Watkins have all worked or spoke I know Jack's spoken to Thomas quite a few times, but Ezri and Ollie obviously work with him and speak very, very highly of him as well. So, you know, they're looking forward to to the campaign and they believe They've got, you know a really tactically astute coach that's going to help them progress as far as they can. Just on the players, you mentioned E and An Ollie who are in the squad. I mean, as we played League one championship And you know, his then has gone on to amazing things. Ollie obviously played non league and then worked his way up, has gone on to amazing things What does that say about the structure and the importance of the structure of the pyramid in English football in terms of supporting the elite league, the Premier League, but also the national team I think is of massive importance and always has been. there's been a lot of players that have come through that system and and grew into becoming established national team players. you know, and it'll continue to do so. I think the standard is just getting better in England in the pyramid U and it'll continue to grow young players You know, most of the I I think when when the u the youths ure changed. I think youve you've seen a lot of the Premier League teams now capture the top younger players But they're still going out on loan to to, you know, league one league two teams to cut their teeth and and learn about the game Can I just ask you one final question for me, and we really appreciate your insight into this. We're seeing obviously on our side of the pond in England, a lot of American owners coming in We on the whole don't expect owners to make huge sums of money. I mean, Cronkerite with Arsenal becausecause they're doing well. But you look at know the Americans clear lake at Chelsea and they're in for quite a big whack at the moment But you look at the way things are run with NFL and the clubs They're there to make money as well as the sporting connection Do the Americans, when they come over to the UK or to the Premier League in particular, expect to make money I think Tw types of owners I'll see at the moment. There's ones with vast wealth And there's ones with an analytical background of, you know, Nably numbers games, baseball, that kind of thing and think they can want to get involved. I know there's Some teams lower down in the pyramid now were owned by American owners as well and trying to change the structure of recruitments in terms of how they recruit players similar to what they they do in America as well. So The ones with the vast wealth, I think it's the competition. I think they love that competition of being in one of the top. Leagues, watched Lagues because I've had to learn coming over you know to the US. I mean We finished fifth and then fourth in our first two years in the the regular season doesnn't matter. it's about playoffs. You've got to first qualify for playoffs and then start winning playoff games. you know, the regular season is not as interesting, even though our average gate at Charlotte' about thirty thousand, I think. You know, for each game. so Um, Yeah I think the owners that are coming over these is certainly for that competition and where there's probably you've seen investment now into Brentford from from America as well. and There's investments in onene of my old teams, Warsaw as well I think they're looking to grow clubs who they feel are underachieving and can grow a little bit higher end the show without having just asked you about how you're feeling. Obviously It's been an incredible season for club we worked at together Astonamvilla. How did you feel that night in Istanbul Well, I would have loved to have gone, but we was obviously in midseason and between games. but Astonville as you know,'ve looked after certainly my family. My wife and my daughter both went to the game with my brother. So That's brilliant. Yeah, so you know Sharon got them there and looked after them and they really enjoyed him Me and my son actually went to he said, What we can do today we're going to watch the game? And I said, Well, I'd like to go and watch it with Villa fans and there's a there's a brewery U where I've asked Villa fans in Charlotte And there's about a hundred people there with villa shirts on. so We went there and enjoyed it, you know, and and spoke to a few of the lads on the night, you know, Joh McGinn on Faceetime, Ollie Watkins on Faceetime Tyon Mingings I't brillant. reallyally pleased for it. I'm really proud of them. You know, Ui has gone in there and done a fantastic job. but For me, more important I mean the owners, I mean, we both work.'ve we've Wars and NazF and know what they've put into the club as well. So you know, really pleased for that Well, you should be very proud because you know, Every villa fan I see points out that nearly all those players. I think fourteen of the squad on that night were players played with and under you and some of the very big names you talked about wouldn't be there if it wasn't for you. I hope you were proud as Punch and It's bloody brilliant to catch up and see you looking so well and making your new life in America and we'll We will stay in touch and It's going to be a fantastic summer. Thanks so much for joining us today Likewise Christia, thank you Thanks D Thanks, Henry