The Corporate Buyout of Football's Crown Jewels: Inside FIFA's Wall Street Gamble

Welcome to the Total Soccer Show and our latest summer transfer and FIFA transfer to Private Equity Updates is Vinnie Jr. going to Arsenal is Roderie heading to Madrid and is the biggest sale of the post-war cup period going to be the World Cup itself with reports that John Infantino is planning to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors. What a timeline we're on ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ryan Bailey joining me today. Hi Taylor Rocco, how are you? I'm doing well. I'm going to I was trying to start this with like some level of positivity, but the way you've begun it does make me feel like we are in the darkest most capitalist timeline, which I guess for some is the best timeline. If you're Johnny and Infantino and you're about to become UN General Secretary and also President of Soccer, what more do you need? What more do you need? Indeed. Jared Kushner is loving this episode so far, Taylor. That's what I'll say. Joining us also in the UK as am I sweating profusely, Graham Ruff and hello, how are you? I'm good, Ryan Bailey. I noticed another day for you, another recording location. Are you doing a world tour? One of these days you're just going to log on from the sphere. Is that the way this is going to finish? That's it. I'm doing the world tour of the sweatiest places with no air conditioning, but I'm selling t-shirts. They're just covered in pre-coded swi-fi. Yeah, no fiber optics tour, we're calling it. I hope you enjoy the tour so far. I will be back on Terra firma in Charlotte, North Carolina next week. I'm conveniently away from the town I live in, but one time it's hosting a MLS All Star as well, which is super convenient, but here we are. I'm hot right now. I'm so excited. Did you do that on purpose? Were you like, I got to get out of here before the All Star rush comes in? That's right, yeah. I mean, there's only so many Natasha bedding field concerts I can take in one week, I think, Taylor, but yeah. I'm also going to miss that. That would be nice. Never mind. The MLS All Star game, the foundation of which is, of course, your lift driver picking you up from the airport and saying, what, what's happening? What are you here for? What, what is going on? And then checking their phone while they drive to see what the event is. To me fear, I had that experience in Los Angeles for the FIFA as people, as tax drivers kept on calling it to me. Well, it could be called the Aramco very soon, great. Very shortly in our episode, before we get to that main event, which I suspect is going to take up a big chunk of this transfer special patreon.com slash total soccer show is our bonus feed. We get bonus episodes bonus videos and access to our discord server where all the cool kids are hanging out. We promise we will not sell any of our patreon to private equity for $20 billion. Do join us there patreon.com slash total soccer show bonus episodes. This week include a lot more transfer chair. Any of the transfer fund we don't fit into this main feed, we're going to hop on over there to our bonus feed chat about patreon.com slash total soccer show. You're promising that we're not going to sell it for $20 billion. If somebody came in with a $20 billion offer, I can't make that promise. I'm hoarding firm. 21's my threshold. So yeah, I'm firm on it. I'm quite firm. Yeah. Man of principle. Exactly that. All right. Well, on that note, Taylor FIFA is for sale to the highest bidder it seems. They have confirmed they're working with the US bank JP Morgan to set up a new entity. It's called FIFA Forward Enterprise FFE. It's going to raise hundreds of million dollars by selling a significant stake in the commercial rights to the women's and men's world cup club world cup as well. That company is valued as noted at 20 billion dollars. There is a company called Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Josh Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner. He's leading the search for investors. This Taylor is when this first drop tells us this doesn't seem real is it? But now it's very real and there's lots of reaction to it. How we feel? I'm feeling upset. I don't love this. I want to ask you, Ryan, right away, did you feel like this was a problematic update? Because I will be honest and say, I think maybe it's an American thing. I don't know. Maybe it's my own mentality. But when I first saw this headline, I thought this is going to be some level of hyperbole. It's not going to be as big of a deal. And then I remember that I felt something similar about when the super league was first announced and I was like, yeah, but I mean, we kind of also this coming and it's probably just going to end up being a rebrand champions league. And then the world was very angry about it and I read more about it and I understood why the world was angry about it. This feels like something similar where it's easy on the surface to see the terms of this and just be like, yeah, of course, they want to make more money. It's FIFA. Of course, they're going to do that. But you look a little cheaper and then you see what this would be structurally, what it would mean for Infantino himself. And it does become really frustrating and really disconcerting very, very quickly. I think to answer your question, Taylor, yes, I think I see this as immediately problematic because FIFA is ostensibly a non-profit organization. That's been a bit laughable over the last few world cups. Obviously, they've made a record amount of money from the most recent one a few weeks ago. They are supposed to be the guardians of the game. They're not supposed to own the game. They're supposed to be the raw makers and the guardians thereof. So I suppose the first place I went, Graham, was could this open things up to corruption? I was thinking I was reading that every member association is going to get a piece of this pie, this new FFE company, and they can sell their piece if they want to. So surely, like the PIF, the Saudi PIF buys up a bunch of it, or let's say in theory, a Spanish company, or an Argentine company buys up a load of this FIFA company, is that not integrity issues with this kind of thing. Surely there is. I think there is. And I think that's worth clarifying. I'm glad you've taken us here, right? Because I think it's worth clarifying why opening the world cup primarily, like there's other competitions involved here, or the idea would be that the commercial rights of several competitions would be transferred to this new subsidiary company, and that's the company that FIFA would be selling the shares to. But it's worth clarifying why opening the world cup, which is the competition we all care. Most about is the competition with the most prestige and the most romance attached to it. It's why opening up to private equity is bad, right? It's because all of a sudden, you literally have other stakeholders pulling the world cup in a way that they want to go in, right? And we trust probably in a misguided way, we trust FIFA to, as you call them, the garges of the game, right? I think that's the correct term. We trust them to look after the best interests of the sport that we all care so much about. And once you invite private equity into that equation, their entire game, their function, purpose is to make money, right? So I know you could argue that FIFA's game and their whole purpose these days seem to be to make money. They made $15 billion from the world cup alone this summer, I don't know, apparently not enough. They need to make more, non-profit, reminder. But yeah, once private equity gets in, there's no going back. There will be consideration, you know, there'll be no consideration for the sporting integrity of the competition. It surely increases the chances of the world cup being held every two or three years instead of four because, you know, more tournaments means more money, more games means more money. It will be a 64 team tournament permanently. And, you know, if I had 64 team, tournament makes more money, then why not an 80 team tournament? And we just keep going down this road until the world cup loses what makes it special. That's why there's been such a visceral reaction to this is because the world cup, despite everything, like I have to admit, I came out of this summer a little bit cold and a little bit detached from, particularly like the later rounds of the world cup. But broadly speaking, the world cup is still a special thing to me. Despite everything we saw this summer, it just feels like we are going to see an extension of that if Johnny and Fantino gets his way. And that is the key part of it for me is if Johnny and Fantino gets his way, because I think Johnny and Fantino is a key part of Johnny and Fantino's plans, because when you start to really try to break this down and understand why they would want to do this, like the immediate arguments that FIFA has presented via Johnny and Fantino's Instagram, the most natural place for this to come out, it kind of all falls apart really, really quickly in my mind, because yes, that would mean what, like, 20 million dollars, I think is the number that would go to every single member nation, which is why this will probably be voted through pretty quickly in my, like, darkest heart of heart, so I'm worried that that's how this is going to play out. But like, even though you have money already going to these member nations, and it's not really well managed, there's not a ton of oversight in it, there's not a ton of sort of audit being done. So it kind of falls on its face immediately from the idea that, well, they'll get even more money, and it's for the good of growing the game. It doesn't seem like that's what will happen, especially if then those rights can be sold or flipped or moved around. And ultimately, what it seems like is a power play from Johnny and Fantino, to create this for-profit enterprise that, according to reports, he would then take over when his next most likely term comes to an end, which I think would be 20, 31 or something like that. He would move to this position, and this position would have him overseeing all of the money for FIFA essentially, so it makes the FIFA president kind of a mood position, because they're answering to the person who's running all of the finances and all of the purse strings and pulling them all. Like, that means one person is in charge of kind of everything, even if that seems to already informally be the case. It seems largely a way for Johnny and Fantino to kind of consolidate power in a for-profit way to continue to make money, continue to grow the game quote-unquote, but ultimately, it doesn't seem like a lot of the game is going to be growing aside from the sheer number of teams that will now be forced to participate in the club World Cup and the World Cup. Yeah, I think that's a very good point to make, Taylor. This story is moving so quickly that there's developments happening all the time, and statements being made by UEFA, who have very strongly come out in opposition to this, as you would expect. The thing that makes it feel very similar to the super league story is, we're seeing sort of like political intervention here. We had the British Prime Minister Andy Burnham make a very strongly worded statement. I believe other European nations leaders have done the same, but from the times of London's reporting, and they seem to lead this story, Martin Ziegler, for the times, were the ones that broke this. He was saying, or their reporting was saying that, and Fantino would become the commissioner of this new subsidiary company. He would be in line to hold shares that would make him tens of millions of dollars, and you look at someone like Roger Goodall, who is the NFL commissioner, his salary or the amount of money that he made last year in 2025 was $64 million. In Fantino, we're surely looking at that kind of money, that other people he sees is on his level, or maybe he even sees himself, we know that he fancies himself as like a political statesman, you know, a global statesman. He's a Israel Gaza talks for goodness sake with Trump, and places that no fee for sporting chief for her head should really be. He sees himself on that level, and he makes nowhere near that money. I'm joining a lot of dots here. I don't know legally where I stand on this, but my opinion is this is his route to get to that kind of financial room, and I look at this plan, and I think this was the idea all along, all the price gouging, all the expensive tickets, the fact that FIFA made $50 billion from this world cup. It was all to fatten FIFA up, all to fatten the world cup. We see this in business, we see this in private equity all the time, before something goes for a sale, and now they're at their point, they're going to get the most money from this. One of the developments I saw just before we started recording, again, this was from the Times of London, was that FIFA, excuse me, Janie and Fantino has now communicated to all the federations that they have until a date in September to let him know whether they are going to accept this proposal. Those who do accept that proposal are going to receive now $40 million up from 20 million when it was reported yesterday, and those who don't let them know by that date are only going to receive $10 million. Seems totally legit to me, not a toll FA or dodged it anyway. No, and I think, Grant, the numbers you've outlined are really fascinating to me. What was good else salary again? It's 64 million. I believe I saw that number roughly. I think it was 60 million, as what they're 62 million is what in Fantino's salary could increase to if he makes this jump to the FFE. I think he's on 6 million a year, 6.1 or something like that, so he was massively increase it. Yeah, he's doing just fine, but that's not global statesmen salary apparently. It needs to be more, and that's what it seems like ultimately this is about is in Fantino getting more money and having more power, and I think this will certainly give him that, and I think he's already, to Graham's point, done a bit of nefarious, but like on the groundwork, I think it's why maybe he's fostered the relationship he has with Donald Trump. A lot of that obviously is the world cup and wanting to make sure things kind of went smoothly and he had the president here, but conversely, then we know like with the Baligan red card overturning, it just it opens up more speculation. It opens up more opportunity for speculation, because now like I absolutely see a scenario in which they've already discussed this. They've already discussed kind of like Kushner's involvement or a Kushner's involvement, and I could absolutely see a scenario in which the president calls it is like, hey man, like you want me to support this? You want me on board? You got to do something for me. And like that is what this would represent is it invites cronism, it invites personal connections overriding what the sport is meant to be and the people who support it and help grow the game. And it just it just seems rife for corruption and cronism and opportunism, and largely it seems rife for certain individuals to make a ton of money off of the backs of millions and billions of people who love this sport, but increasingly feel like they don't have any ownership of it or in it. Yeah, it just it just makes me question everything that we saw in the summer, like even off the field of things like, I questioned why there were so many World Cup players being sent to fanatics fest. I don't know if anyone saw this this happened in the weekend of the of the World Cup final. Fanatics obviously being the merchandise giant that hold the whole of the rights and American sports and increasingly in soccer as well. And they had messy appear at fanatics fest. They had they had players from both World Cup finalists appear at that at that event. I thought, wow, that really is a lot of sway that they hold over over these national teams in FIFA. Well, Michael Rubin, who is the owner or majority shareholder of fanatics, an investor, he's close friends with Joshua Kushner, who is his company thrive as an investor in fanatics. And you have Michael Rubin, who is very close to Janie and Fatino as well. So it just raises questions about all the sort of connections that we saw or play in the public play out in the public eye over the summer. Do you all kind of feel as I do like resigned to this? Because I'm hoping I thought resigned to the super league. And then it doesn't end up happening. So maybe there is reason for optimism. But for the reasons grandma grandma's already outlined with like the way this vote is going to be structured or kind of pushed through the money behind it. It requires the individual federations to vote it down. And those individual federations have a lot of money to make from going the other way. And I think I read that like the Irish Federation is like 30 or 40 million euros in debt. So like, are they going to turn this down? And I think there's many federations that need this money for legitimate and illegitimate reasons. And so it just seems like a short of giant public protests and increased political involvement and maybe UEFA like threatening to pull out. I don't even know if they could speak for all European nations, even if that is their job. I don't really know how this doesn't end up happening. I think Taylor, you've raised a good point there. I think this is a real turning point for the international game. This is the point where we find out how much integrity teams and federations have and how much of a backbone the biggest federations have, the biggest one being UEFA. They issued a statement yesterday as we record the stolen governance of football are not assets to trade, especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA's to sell. So as UEFA's position on this, as you say, some of the member states might feel differently the ones with the votes. And UEFA are apparently holding an emergency meeting this week. And there is discussion of a World Cup boycott. So as I say, I think this is the real point where we discover what they're made of. My gut feeling as this won't happen. I think the reaction has been so visceral. And look, maybe I'm in my social media bubble, but I'm I'm chatting to friends about it who are not in that social media bubble. I got an unprompted message from my mum last night commenting on on Janine Fantino in these plans. So it like there's it's seriously cut through in a way that FIFA is surely feeling the backlash of like you always know that a company or an organization is feeling the force of a backlash when they issue multiple statements and quick succession. Like there's been three FIFA statements in the last 12 hours as they're trying to put out the fire of this entire story. It might be the case that we end up with a water down version of this or something that maybe doesn't, you know, in Fantino ultimately isn't able to personally benefit from the sale of shares or I don't know, puts a cap on how much can be sold of this new company. Maybe it's like 10% or or small amount, you know, like a normal amount of the shares, but I would be surprised if it's quite as as fundamentally like disgusting, frankly, as this. I feel so strongly about this to such an extent that I've seen it reported and it's easy to say this when the World Cup is literally just finished and although there's a women's World Cup next year, but the next men's World Cup is four years away. And I've seen reporting that the European nations are considering boycotting the next World Cup. I feel so strongly about this right now that I'm like in favor of that. Yeah, it's called in a book anyway, right? Well, we've been boycotting since 1998 and I wish we'd boycotted this somewhere as well, but I do feel very strict. That's the problem. He got the memo four years early. That's it. We're just ahead of the game. We're just ahead of the game pioneers, as always. But yeah, I feel really strongly about this and I totally agree with Ryan. This feels like a turning point and the same way the Super League was for the club game. This is the, this is the international games equivalent of that because it's not even a slippery slope. It's like deliberately the slipperyest of slopes. Like once you move towards privatization, you can close ranks, right? And you can basically become a closed system, like the NFL or it's equivalent. And then you really don't have to listen to people unless you truly want to. You can operate independently and make all the money you want to make and you don't really have to worry about the supporters. And I think the 2026 World Cup was in a lot of ways that kind of test run for that. What happens if we do dynamic pricing? What happens if we massively overcharge for tickets and cancel fanfests and don't fund infrastructure or transportation or whatever it might be. And largely it worked. And so it feels like this is in Fontino. It should be noted, trying this again. He tried it in what like 2018, I believe, and it didn't work because a lot of it was felt to be like too secretive, not explained. It was like a felt a little bit closed doors. And this one, I think they're going the other way. They're trying to be as public as possible capitalizing on the World Cup, but also post World Cup when maybe people aren't paying as much attention or just like, oh, yeah, the World Cup made its own money. Of course, you want to make even more. But it just feels like he is doing this at the exact moment when he thinks he can get away with it in order to fundamentally shift the organization and the governance of global soccer forever. And that is just that is such a huge decision for largely an individual to have made. And it does seem like high up members of FIFA are on the FIFA board or some of the decision-makers weren't consulted or weren't aware that this was coming when it was. And so it doesn't seem like it was sort of this unified thing what they've had everybody's buy-in and everybody's sort of thoughts in the process. It seems like something that's happened very quickly for logical reasons, logical reasons being to make money. And really, when I then pause and think about the next World Cup and really the World Cup since, I don't know, 2014 or even before that, like it is just such a, like if you told me private equity had already started, it makes so much more sense that like that's what private equity does. It's a 32 team tournament in one country, like, and they're like, yeah, but what if it was 64 teams in six different countries on three continents? Wouldn't that be better? What if we charged dynamic pricing and consolidated TV revenue and commercial rights? Like, it just feels like such private inner equity ways of doing things that so often fail and lead to a terrible product as a result. Yeah, I mean, it opens such a huge can of worms, like, to your point Taylor, private equity, like you can, you can bet your bottom dollar, literally, that Josh Akushner would look to this Summer's World Cup and be like, wait, Italy are, Italy are at home, they're not involved in this tournament, all their fans, all their history, their stature, but Cape Verde are in this tournament. Yeah, let's, let's, let's do something about that. There's gotta be some mechanism for Italy, like you can guarantee, and we've already seen it in the Champions League, I know UEFA are very much, I think, on the, on the right side of history here, but UEFA are no saints, like we've seen it with the Champions League in the reform of the Champions League recently to ensure that the biggest clubs get into that competition year after year. This is a trend that we're seeing across, across soccer, but there's just so many implications, like one thing I thought about was, you can guarantee that player agents will be contacting FIFA if this happens to get more money for their players, because at the moment, international soccer makes nowhere near as much money as the club game, and so there's this sort of unwritten agreement that, okay, well, we'll do it for bonuses and so on, but if they're selling the world cup and making this huge amount of money out of it, then players are going to want more money as well. So, as that money is going to actually trekle down to the federations for the quote-unquote growth of the game, I think it's questionable. I don't think it will, Graham. I think time and time again, we've been reminded in the last few years that FIFA is not fit for purpose, right? We live streaming in this episode, by the way, David from Tampa Bay is left to comment, if UEFA leave FIFA, would they invite other countries to join their FIFA rival and create a super league? This is something I think I've mentioned on the feed, maybe a year or two ago, that if things got bad and it seems like they're heading in that direction, there should be a rival to FIFA. We should have two or three of the confederations swinging their weight around and creating a new FIFA one that's actually equitable, one that doesn't have this kind of private equity things going on. One is actually in the interest of the game. And once again, I think it's a turning point. If we're going to have a turning point where integrity rules out here, then that's probably the direction to go and start afresh with a new international organization and leave FIFA behind. I think it's idealistic. It's probably not going to happen, but that should be the way things go in my view. I mean, when I was quite wrong, I'm still a little bit wrong about the story yesterday, but I posted something to the effect of one of two things needs to happen and Fantino needs to go or we need a new governing body. So I agree with the sentiment of that, right? And because FIFA don't, they don't own football, like theoretically, we could have another governing body. It's just who do you then trust to be that governing body? Like, do we fully trust you AFA? I think you AFA are, I trust them more than FIFA, but as I say, they're no saints. Are we going to give them power of the game? So that becomes a completely different question. I think that's difficult as well. Yeah. Maybe let the live golf guys do it. They're doing okay, aren't they? Check notes. Google that. Okay. Very good. All right. One more quote, I'll leave you with I found on X, the close relationship between the FIFA president and US president has reached a financial dimension that's deeply damaging football. No one has the right to sell our game. Set bladder, tweeting that one. Set bladder, who we last heard from tweeting about the Balagun red card return around as well. So it's kind of like the meme of the worst person you know makes a great point, isn't it? If once again, if set bladder seems to be on the right side of history on this one, it shows how far Mr and Fantino and his ilk have gone Taylor. It also potentially shows jealousy because it's, I mean, it's the US, I mean, jealousy on one level just, you know, like I want to be giving shiny things to the president and hanging out on stage with Spain and him. But then on the other, I think like it's like bladder FIFA are brought down by the US justice department and the FBI. And like I've said this before, I'll say it again. Like I also wouldn't put it past in Fantino to recognize that if you cozy up to the president who has no problem, not enforcing what the courts say, not enforcing what his own justice department says. Like that, that probably can't hurt you in terms of like, well, now we know that we're not getting indicted there or any indictments are going to be like quashed or limited in their effect. That wasn't the case for bladder. So I feel like there's some maybe even jealousy there. And some, I guess good chess playing by in Fantino, but I'm loathe to say that because ultimately his chess playing is to benefit him and largely no one else. So lovely chessboard, gold leafed. Very beautiful. All right. Well, let's leave that one here for now. We're going to take a look up on to be fair in Fantino. He's got a little bit of a pawn head. He's not, he's not pulled in this game, no, is he? No, he's all the pieces. Night or higher, I would suggest. Anyway, a break we take now, when we come back, we're talking about transfers and what's been going down. We'll start with Vinny Jr. Join us then. Tell us how could you? Welcome back. We're talking transfers now. Graham is rubbing his hands together if not literally then in his head. He's doing it literally as well. Excellent. Graham, shall we start with Vinny Jr. who's been linked with Arsenal. He's got one year left on his contract around Madrid. We're seeing that Madrid might be willing to let him run the deal down and leave for free. That does sound like negotiation talk a little bit to me. So where are we on Vinny Jr. potentially coming to Arsenal? Yeah, I mean, there has been a lot of friction between Venetius Jr. and Real Madrid's over this contract renewal. He told them he wouldn't be signing an extension last year as long as Javier Lonzo was the manager. Obviously, Javier Lonzo is now gone, but there has been no new agreement and Arsenal clearly view this as an opportunity to upgrade an area of their team that could use some upgrading. And I have been buying this drum for a while now. It feels like about three seasons, but the left side of Arsenal's forward line is simply not up to the standard of most of their direct rivals. And that was before they sold Landry Trossard to Besiktus this summer. They have brought in Crystal Solos. Solos, excuse me, from Club Bruja, someone that I know maybe more than most because he was one of the players that destroyed Scotland for Greece in those World Cup qualifiers. He's very talented, but he is he's potential. I don't know if he's a starting figure for Arsenal quite just yet. And when I look at Arsenal, what they've done over the last few seasons, they've been very methodical in bulking up their squad, right? They have, you know, last summer when they needed an orthodox centre forward. They brought in Victor Jocarez. They needed another midfield anchor to play alongside Declan Rice. They brought in Martin Zubimendi. They needed another winger to ease the load on Bacayosaka. They got a Noni Madueke. It is now so abundantly clear that the left wing is where they must improve next. Trossard's gone. Gabriel Martineli is not consistent enough. I also just don't trust him in the big games to deliver like the big moments. And Venetius is absolutely that player for Real Madrid, for Brazil, every team that he's played for, even when Real Madrid haven't been so good, Venetius has been consistent. He's quite possibly the best left winger in the world right now. So there are things to consider out of possession. And against the ball, Martineli is a very good presser of the ball. Trossard as well. Venetius might not offer you those things, but as an impactful forward player who can win games for Arsenal, there's absolutely no doubt if they can do a deal for him, they should do a deal for him. How much, how big of an if is that for you, Graham? Because it's a pretty big if for me right now. In terms of how likely Real Madrid are actually to sell him, right? Yes, what you mean? Because this this has all the familiar symptoms of usually historically, it's Manchester United, but a key Real Madrid figure with 12 months to 24 months left on their deal, suddenly being linked with a primary league team that has money to spend and has spent money recently. And then after a lot of back and forth and headlines, the player inks a new deal in a way we go. And it does feel like that's what we're getting here. This feels like there's a good chance that this is agents leaking things in order to maybe spark a fire under Ramajard feet and make sure that the deal that Vinny Jr. is offered is the exact one he wants. I mean, it's possible, right? It's the old Sergio Ramos to Manchester United's playbook that we saw play out every cell over about five years. And we've seen it even this summer, like Chiumini was apparently maybe going to Manchester. Oh wait, you sign in your contract that happened earlier this month. So I think that's absolutely fair to spot like that Taylor. The thing that makes me think this might be different is the whole political situation within that dressing room at Real Madrid. And one of my predictions right at the top of the year when we did our our prediction show around about New Year's Day was that one big name, at least one big name would leave Real Madrid this year. And I was talking, I was mainly talking a bit of Venetius. It just felt like if Real Madrid have to choose between him and and Bapé, they're going to pick and Bapé. And now that he's entered the final year of his contract, it might well be the case that Venetius is thinking I can get paid more. I can be the main man at another club. I can be able to study Arabia in 12 months. And so this is Real Madrid's last chance to get, you know, 100 million plus for him in this window. The other complication or the other Renco we should mention is a player called Jan Diamande, who listeners might remember from the World Cup. Apparently he's on his way to Real Madrid for 135 million euros. So that's a left-sided player. You can also play on the right side, but certainly another winger to add to that forward line at Real Madrid, which in my opinion, doesn't need another winger. So have they already replaced Venetius before moving them on? I think it's a possibility. What's, do we know the number involved in the Vinny Jr. deal, Graham? Because if Sandra Tanali's 100 million player, what's Vinny at this point? Elliot Anderson, £116 million. I don't know, what is Venetius? A billion? I haven't seen any Taylor. I don't know if you've seen anything, but I haven't seen any figures mentioned, but surely it would be a Premier League record deal. So I think Morgan Rogers is the, oh no, excuse me, Esac, right? Is the Premier League records 120 million, I think? Venetius, even with 12 months left on his contracts, I still think it would be an excess of that. Because even with thought drawbacks that we've talked about, and I've talked about before with his defensive work rate or lack thereof, he makes a lot of sense. Venetius Jr. at Arsenal, if you're going up against bunker teams and you need someone to just create individually or create uncertainty in the defense in a way that I struggle to think of an Arsenal attacker that I trust to do that really consistently, especially after this past season. And then if you are playing a team that's trying to go toe to toe with you, and maybe is going to be too open or too overextended, certainly having Venetius in there and keeping him higher is a threat that will either be exploited or force that defense back and make their game plan not work. So he does a lot on the attacking side. It is just the defensive side of things plus the personality, the salary, the everything else coming into an Arsenal team where that doesn't seem to a better thing that our tetra has really dealt with or had to deal with or embraced in that way. And it does open up the conversation about that Ramajrid locker room for a moment as well, Graham, because you talk about the politics of it. And maybe we'll talk about this when we talk about their courting of Roderie, but I keep seeing people journalists and comments and whatever else talking about Merino and how the number only thing Merino does is manage personalities. And he knows how to get performances that of big egos and big personalities and get everybody playing well. And like there is truth in that, but I feel like also that is a thing that he is not very good at. Yeah, situation is that all negative. It feels like he loses players really quickly and doesn't get by in and let certain situations turn extremely toxic that can then bleed into other situations. And suddenly everything is toxic. And then he's out the door in his second year of his three year deal. Maybe this is an older wiser gentler Merino. Maybe it makes a lot more sense than I think it does, but it still just feels like there's a lot of, I don't know, chefs in the kitchen and then Merino himself is also trying to be like chef to cuisine. And I don't know how any of that is going to work, but maybe Vinicius being moved on just like ratchets down the tension a little bit. Oh, I've just found the financials for the vineyard you need to do it by the way. Apparently a J cushion is putting up 5% of the fee for forward enterprise. It's a billion. It's a billion. I guess that sounds right. Yeah, there we go. I'm saying that in just my real. Yeah, that's how I'm saying it could actually happen. Yeah, wonderful stuff. Graham, what else are arsenal planning? Bruno Gamarish, we've seen that name thrown around as well. Is this all the pieces are going to fall into place eventually and we're going to see one of these players or the other? What's going on here? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm just going on what David Ornstein largely has reported for the athletic, but Arsenal's interest in Gamarish is pretty long-standing at this point, like over multiple seasons and he has been linked with pretty much every big team in the Premier League recently, Manchester City, Arsenal Liverpool, and Arsenal seem to be at the front of that line now. There does seem to be quite a, and I'd stress not my information just going on what I've read, but there does seem to be quite a big gap in valuation of the player where I'm sure I read that Arsenal had been given an indication that he would be available for £50 million this summer and so I spoke to Newcastle and Newcastle kind of scoffed and laughed at that and are looking at the tonnally deals, kind of the benchmark for how much money they can get for Gamarish and that is double that £50 million that Arsenal apparently thought they might be able to pay to get him out of Newcastle. So that one, I don't know how likely that one is, but if you're looking at the areas of that Arsenal squad that they could do with some reinforcement, it's left wing for a starting figure. They've already got the death figure in Solis. I think you'd be looking at another body to add to that central midfield unit and Gamar is this obviously. He's a win now player for Arsenal, like that is a signing, both Venetius and Gamar is, let's say they were able to do both. Those are two signings that say to me, Arsenal are intent on winning everything now, like they're not developing those players, those players are designed to make an impact now in all competitions and the Premier League and in the Champions League as well. And then the other area would be central defence where Williams-Saleba is going to miss I think, like two to three months of the new season with that back injury that he went down with, the World Cup. They had been linked with John Stones, your favourite Ryan, your boy, before apparently Inter Milan are close to getting a deal done there, but I wouldn't surprise me at all to see Arsenal go for another centre back. Stones would have been a really, really smart signing. Graham, with Gamar, does he elevate Arsenal or is he more so reinforcement for the Arsenal team as it already exists? That's a good question. I really like Bernogamaris and I think he might, he's certainly on a par with Zubimendi, right? I think he might even be like a slightly above Zubimendi, but I think as Arteta would see it, he just adds an extra player to the pool and whoever rises to the surface is the player that rises to the surface. But yeah, he could very feasibly be a starting figure for Arsenal, although then that's out of the question. I think the only reason why I ask is because I think of like long, tenured and successful managers in the Premier League, so Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola would be the two that come most readily to mind. And I think both of them, even after title winning campaigns, would sort of look at their squad and figure out where it either needed to be elevated or how it needed to be adapted or how it needed to evolve for the next season. And then the signings would either address an obvious area of need in the last campaign or address an obvious area of need by kind of changing what that area of need might be or how they're going to play. And so you're kind of constantly evolving and and making it really difficult for teams to game plan for you. Like Venetius is an upgrade, is an obvious kind of like evolutionary piece in Arsenal and then he gives them so much more attack and creativity and so much more just threat down that left side and in the attack. But Gimada just feels like a player who is a smart signing and is a very good player, but is kind of more of the same for them. And that would be my only hesitation if I were an Arsenal supporter. And I'm sure that's a small hesitation given the names we're talking about and how much better it might make Arsenal. It doesn't feel like it is necessarily going to evolve that team or help them continue to grow. It feels like it's kind of trying to perfect what they did last year. And that is a thing that teams will prepare for and be better able to handle in the coming season. Set pieces obviously remains its own thing that our civil can exploit. But that's like the one thing that has been scratching my head about Gimada, is it feels like he is sort of a similar slight upgrade on some of the options they already have, but not necessarily going to like be a transitional piece into a next phase of this Arsenal project. And in terms of his profile and it's the same with Venetius, it's something different for Arsenal, right? Like I think their business over the last three to four years has been excellent, but pretty much to a man. I mean there's a couple exceptions there like Christian Norgar last year, but pretty much to a man, their their signings have been players who are like ready to make that next jump like 23-24-year-old. They're going to get you know five to six years out of them at their peak years. And Venetius and Gimada is very much not that and it feels like a slightly different. Keep in mind that this is Andrea Bertha as I think his first full summer window as the sporting director at Arsenal. And so maybe that is a reflection of how Arsenal are going to be going after different players in the years to come. I find it exciting, like Arsenal are the Premier League champions and these are two transfers if they come to pass that like big boy clubs make. And that feels like something different for Arsenal. And last season I can have entered my frustration at their inability to truly impose themselves on games and the biggest games. And there's no doubt that particularly in the case of Venetius, that signing would help them do that. There you go. Finally becoming a big boy, Graham, in your eyes. That's good to hear. That's right. Very good. They've been waiting for that. That's the validation they've been waiting for. They've been waiting for waiting for you to give them the green light to be big boys. I like it. Very good. Let's take one more quick break when we come back. Let's talk about Man City. And Rodry could he be going? Join us then. So let's talk a show. Welcome back to our transfer chat. Let's talk about Rodry. A man Chester City. Rodry much of any junior has a year left on his contract. He is very good at what he does. But instead of leaving Ramadrid, he might be joining Ramadrid from Manchester City. That seems to be what's being reported. Graham, what do we make of this? It seems like Man City are trying to get him down for a new contract at this point. But also he had back surgery yesterday. He is not 100% at the moment either. So interesting conundrum for Rodry going forward. Yeah, and I think part of that, you know, the surgery Ryan and just like his general fitness record over the last couple of years is an interesting wrinkle in this story. Because I think this is a deal that might make a lot of sense for all parties here. So for Ramadrid, they are desperate for a pace set in midfielder at the base of their midfielder unit. Preferably one that has the natural defensive instincts. They've tried a couple players there. Arthur Guler was had this sort of technical ability, but not the defensive side of the game. And there is nobody literally nobody in the world right now that fits that bill better than Rodry, who also kind of fits their galacticals ethos golden ball winner from the world cups. So Ramadrid can do the Ramadrid thing without signing, but he also addresses a real need in their team. For Rodry, it's a new challenge. It feels like City are entering a new era under Enzo Maresca now that Pip Guler has gone. Rodry might feel that he's sort of achieved everything that he can at Man City. Also, Madrid is his home town. And I know he has given interviews in the past where he has openly said that he would like to go back with his family at some point in the future. And then for City, Rodry is in his thirties now. And I know he had an excellent world cup, and on his day, he is the best player in his position in the world. But those days have been getting fewer and further between. As injury record, these past couple scenes hasn't been great. He's having surgery right now. He's going to miss the first couple months of the season. As you mentioned, Ryan is into the final year of his contract. It doesn't seem likely. I mean, just my surface level reading doesn't seem likely that he's going to sign an extension. And also, City have just signed his apparent long-term successor in Elliot Anderson. So I feel like this is a deal that potentially could work for everyone. Yep, I think it could work for everyone. I think it will end up working for everybody. I think it's going to be one that takes a really long time to end up happening, which is a great way for me to solidify that he's going to announce, like, wow, we're recording this one. But given the back surgery, given the 12 months left on the deal, it feels like one in which Ramadrid will maybe continue to kind of leak stuff and keep the pressure on Man City, like as we get closer to the close of the window. And I feel like that's like once things are a little bit more clear, maybe once I contract negotiations haven't really accelerated. I wonder if that's where we'll see an actual offer from Ramadrid. But until then, it feels like they're going to kind of keep their powder dry and leak things through the media. It feels like City tend to do the same in these types of scenarios. So I won't be surprised if this doesn't happen quickly. I won't be surprised if it's one that, like, when we do our next transfer window roundup, there will be a note and they're like, what happened to Roderay? Why hasn't that happened yet? And then I think it will happen, like, really rapidly once it does actually happen. Ramadrid have that history of signing the big player, doing the thumbs up with the heart monitor on doing the string vest, doing the medical. Roderay is going to be, if he signs anytime soon, he's going to be laid out having a heart back surgery, like, how does this work? You're leaving not going to sign him anytime soon, are they? They haven't done anything though. That's the weird one, right? They still haven't announced to Merino. They haven't done, like, the Merino unveiling for his second stint. He's taken training, so I bet. He managed his first, like, pre-season friendly this week, like, but they still have an announcement. I think they haven't announced any of their big signings. It seems like they're waiting for the, we're waiting for the World Cup to end and then some things to kind of get sorted out. But yeah, they're behind, like, maybe there's just, like, somebody's inbox is not being checked and is rapidly filling up with like, oh, what? I was supposed to click yes, and then we could do the announcement. Maybe it's just one admin that's holding everything up that seems very likely. But Ryan, time to answer your question about the medical, right? That's what you were, you were getting at. The fact he's out injured at the moment. I presume these medicals account for injuries that the project will heal, right? If he's had surgery, they won't be concerned about that. It's a bit like underlying issues that will become a problem for their donor line. I feel like we see injured players join clubs all the time. That feels quite cold. All the time, really? Yeah, I think so. Ma'amon, I don't think that of it. I genuinely don't think that will be a problem. I don't think that's the sort of thing they're looking for. Like, that's a known problem with a known fix. I would presume it's more the kind of knee, the underlying knee things that show up in an X-ray that are the problems. It also feels like one that maybe they're not going to care too much about unless the physio comes back and is like, yeah, his, his back does not work. He needs a full backing out of me before we can sign his player. Otherwise, it feels like one of which the medical department is going to sign off as has existing issue is still recovering. Question mark. And then Florence, you know, Paris says, yes, but Rodry and pushes it through. They call it L-backy out of me. They can just get like, they can just get one of the young players, you know, if they need a back transplant. Niko Paz, you come over here. It's like, it's like the prestige in the, beneath the stage. There's all the clones. Wow, we were a dog there. One last thing for me on Rodry and his, and his tenure in Manchester City. It feels to me like, if Sir Alex Ferguson was managing Rodry right now, he probably would have got rid of him maybe last year. You know, I think he was the master of getting rid of players at the right time and catching it at the right time, right? I agree, but to give Man City the, I guess, retrospective credit, they're normally very good at this. They got, they, they regress. They got worse. They kind of forgot that they need to replenish that squads repeatedly and then they ended up in that situation 18 months ago where they had an aging squad on their hands and they had to do a lot of work all at once. But I think a player's like a Guero, Vincent company, David Silva, like they're normally pretty good at moving those players on before they become a bit of a burden. And it feels like, I don't feel like Rodry's quite at that point yet of being a burden, but if they were to hand them a new contract and obviously he'd be one of their highest paid players, that's where they get themselves into a bit of difficulty. Yeah, because what last year he only, he only returns from the torn ACL in like March, right? So he's, yeah, you probably can't sell him last summer with him still recovering from the ACL. That would be a medical. I don't think he would be able to pass quite as effectively or would be more of a problem, problematic issue. And then yeah, I grabbed your point. If you are renewing him, especially if Ramajrid are there wanting him to go play for Ramajrid, I doubt he's taking a huge pay cut and you don't want to offer him a three year deal for a lot of money for a player that could potentially be too injured or too pasted or miss a lot of time. So it does seem like a deal that will end up happening. It's just kind of once all parties are comfortable with it proceeding. There we go. Wonderful stuff. All right, there's some key transfer if we run through there. We're going to talk about a lot more transfers on our Patreon feed, including maybe a 100 gone at show, maybe some what Chelsea are doing in the comments. So David and Tampa Bay's asked where does Enzo end up now that he's burned every bridge inside. Maybe we can have a chat about him as well. And plenty more on our bonus feed, patreon.com slash total soccer show. Do join us there. But for now, Taylor Rockwell, thank you so much for your insights. Always a good man. My pleasure, my good man. And as a tradition, I will extend us by asking Graham, who is the more intriguing team based on their transfer activity right now for you, Mr. Ruffin? Is it Chelsea or is it Ramadred? Oh, man, that's tough. That's a tough one. I mean, it was Ramadred until Chelsea Saint-Hendel the other day. So I might have to say I'm very well back. Yeah, you're not seeing that, Ryan. We're going to talk about it in the Patreon. Okay. I missed that one entirely. That's wow. Very good. He's into two, right? Anyway, Graham Ruffin, thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Ryan Billy. And listen, thank you again for joining us on this one. We'll be back on the feed very shortly indeed. But for now, bye.