Unofficial Partner Podcast

UP495 Joey D'Urso on how football shirts explain the world

• Richard Gillis

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Every shirt tells a story. 

Joey D'Urso, an award-winning journalist from The Times and formerly of The Athletic, joins UP to discuss his new book: More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power.

• How the Gazprom sponsorship on FC Schalke 04's shirts reflects Russia's geopolitical strategies leading up to the invasion of Ukraine.

• The criminal ties and money laundering schemes highlighted by clubs like Colombia's Envigado FC.

• The dark side of the global gambling industry and the rise and fall of cryptocurrency sponsorships, like Football Index, that adorned shirts of clubs such as Nottingham Forest.

• The use of football as a tool for authoritarian power, exemplified by Newcastle United's Saudi ownership.

• And the symbolism of the England women's goalkeeper shirt, connecting to the broader story of women's rights and the growing popularity of the women's game.

Get ready to see the world, and your favorite jerseys, in a whole new light.

This episode of the Unofficial Partner podcast is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport.

Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery, and a culture of marketing effectiveness. They have a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same. And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing, using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media ROI.

So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport, where brands become champions.


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Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, I mean this idea of major events being a sort of democratizing force, I think it's almost the opposite. If you look at Qatar, if you look at Saudi Arabia World Cup in 2034, sport is used to sort of. Bolster authoritarianism. There's no pretense that Arabia, 2034, will be some sort of democratic event. You know, there's some pretty delusional comments when uh, Newcastle United were taken over, that this would somehow further the cause of democracy. I, I think it's the opposite.

Hello, welcome to Unofficial Partner. That was the voice of Joey Durso, our guest today. Joey is an award-winning journalist from The Times and before that the Athletic. And he's written a very good book called More Than A Shirt, how Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, money and Power. Its chapter is its own narrative embedded within football shirts extending beyond mere sport. It talks about. Geopolitics economics, social issues such as Russia's influence through gas companies, Columbia's history with drug cartels and the impact of gambling liberalization. The it's also examines the evolution of women's football via Mary ERPs shirt, Its reflection of global gender equality, alongside discussions about financial shifts, immigration, national identity as expressed through club affiliations. So overall, he argues that every football shirt tells a story, and we get him to tell a few today. This episode of Unofficial Partner is brought to you by Sid Lee Sport. Sid Lee Sport is a new breed of agency that combines world class creativity with deep sponsorship expertise, flawless operational delivery. And a culture of marketing effectiveness. We've got to know the team over the last few months. They're an impressive bunch who believe that sports marketing can and should be done better. They've got a creative philosophy of producing famous campaigns and activations that build buzz and conversation in a category that too often looks and sounds the same. And they're pioneering a new standard of effectiveness in sports marketing using econometrics and attribution models to go beyond traditional media, ROI. So if you're looking for an agency to take your brand to the top, get in touch with the team at Sid Lee Sport where brands become champions.

Richard Gillis, UP:

I really enjoyed the book. I, I'm really looking forward to this. This is, uh, yeah, no, it's great. And it's, so there's a couple of things. One is. It is absolutely bang. There's a load of things in here that we'll talk about in a minute about the, you know, shirts. I had a. An idea for a book. This is about 15 years ago, which has echoes of yours, which is about the England shirt and telling the story of England. Oh. You know, using the different versions of the shirt going back to 66 And you know, cause there's a whole sort of thing about, trying to find the 66, 11 shirts of 60. There's a sort of cottage industry of, of people looking,

Joey D'Urso:

didn't

Richard Gillis, UP:

but.

Joey D'Urso:

one for loads of money recently or a few years

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, no one can find Bobby Moore's shirt. So the most famous shirt in British history is never, is lost. It's in. And, uh, you know, that, that's the start of the tale. But anyway, that's a, we won't get into that, but I love this. I want to just get to the beginning. Let's talk about, well, you set the, set the thing up for me. First of all, give us a, you know, the obvious question about what and why.

Joey D'Urso:

The, so the idea is that football shirts explain the world and as you, you know, run around the park and watch kids playing football or watch, a game in the corner of the pub or wherever, and you see football shirts, they tell stories, often political stories, stories about money and power, and there are some of those that are pretty obvious, you know. Arsenal and Emirates or Man City and Etha pretty obviously talks to Middle Eastern politics. But I found as I've traveled around the world and spoke to countless people is that there are so many more kind of subtle and obscure stories told through football shirts about crime, about the rise of China, about gender politics, but all sorts of things, that maybe aren't immediately obvious to the naked eye.

Richard Gillis, UP:

It's a fantastic route in, and let's start at the beginning'cause there's a nice, you are from Bourneville

Joey D'Urso:

In, yeah, that's right. In Birmingham ca

Richard Gillis, UP:

and you're a Villa fan. so let's talk, let's, let's use that as a route in, because I think that both those bits are relevant. I was, watching the other day, Chelsea win the Club World Cup and they were, didn't have a logo on their shirt. And the, the, the question in the. Unofficial Partner WhatsApp group was, what's the value of that picture? You know, the Trump moment, Cole Palmer. That's the, the picture's gone around the world. And, and what would've been the, the, you know, the return on investment of that shirt villa. Take me back to the sort of days of Villa and your first shirt sponsor engagement.

Joey D'Urso:

was born in 92. I'm three months younger than the, sorry, six months older than the Premier League. Feb. 92 was born in August 92. And yeah, so the shirts in my, it would've been a ST computers, the Muller yogurts. glory year. So Villa, I, I'm, I'm one of these kind of rare people who have never seen my team win anything club or country. cause I, Villa won League Cups in 94 and 96 and I'm just a bit too young to remember that. I remember the 98 World Cup and Michael Owen very well. But that's the sort of start of my football memory. But the one I talk about in the book is the 2002 three villa shirt. So my grandmother, when she, my granddad died and she moved house and she freed up a bit of cash and she gave, I was the oldest grandchild. So, she gave me a hundred pounds basically. And was like, this is for you. It's not to be sensibly invested in a building society or whatever this is to do whatever 10-year-old boy wants to do with it. And I was like, okay, I wanna go down to JJB sports and buy the latest full Villa care. which at the time had rover on the front. Um. Pretty sort of bang average team, to be honest. Durras V and Juan Pablo and gal and players like that. Very sort of mid table dros, but, um, Rover, of course is the big car factory in, in Long Bridge on the sort

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

edge of Birmingham, which made sort of mass market cars. And, you know, now, I mean, I, I've got a friend who works at the Jaguar Land Rover factory in Birmingham that's still there, but high-end fancy cars. You know, mass market cars aren't really made in Britain anymore. Since

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

closed. Doesn't exist it's cheaper to make it in East Europe or, or in Asia. So, uh, about three years after that shirt, I, I wore that shirt. Rover imploded. It went insolvent. So that shirt, which I wore as a kid and have lots of photos wearing, basically yeah, it tells a story of British industrial decline basically.

Richard Gillis, UP:

I know and, and it's also the legacy of British Leland. My dad used to drive, you know, we bought series of Rovers and Morrises and Austins and you know, and to be fair, they were terrible cars, but they were, you know, there was. that sort of heritage.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, it

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah,

Joey D'Urso:

LDV Vans a few years before, which was

Richard Gillis, UP:

that's right.

Joey D'Urso:

daf? Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

I always think of, of. Bourneville. My daughter went to university in Birmingham, so she lived sort of not far from there.

Joey D'Urso:

I don't know. Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yes, exactly. And when I sort of go there, I sort of think it's, it's hard not to think of the sort of Cadbury's story and it's almost the story of the last sort of 50 years or a hundred years where you've got Bourneville is obviously built and it's an incredible, people who haven't been there should go there. It's a beautifully built. Sort of little village. It's almost like a model village these days. But it was built with chocolate money, wasn't it? It was, it was Quakers and they established that sort of, home for the people who are working for the company. And then as you go forward, we know Cadburys today, but Cadburys is, Their marketing still talks to generosity and their sort of Quaker upping, but they are sort of a, you know, a ruthlessly sort of cap capitalistic company owned by, is it either craft or mon

Joey D'Urso:

2009, it was a really big deal. I mean, you know, and people just felt it. So kind of emotionally living there, because it's a rare place where the company is so tight. I mean, and I think now it's, it's a bit, I don't know, artificial is the wrong word, but it doesn't employ that many people. Right. A lot of it's mechanized. I was a kid, I was sort 25 years. There was some kids in my primary school whose, whose parents worked there, but know, certainly doesn't, it's not like it was a hundred years ago where most people, but it was founded as a village, like outside of Birmingham, you know, this

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

industrial city and it was four or five miles outside. Now it's, it's just a suburb. Yeah, it's a pretty idyllic place to be honest. And it still is. It's beautiful. It's

Richard Gillis, UP:

the, the idea of a, of a company. Building a village for its works. You know, now that all of that money has gone to shareholders, it's gone to the CEO, it's gone to, you know, that, that is just such a thing that would never, I can't imagine it. I can't imagine Amazon doing it. I can't imagine, you know, major companies doing that now. Well, they wouldn't.

Joey D'Urso:

the, you know, in the big cities like Birmingham, workers were living in horrendous conditions in slums, you know, unsanitary horrible stuff. And they met, the whole thing was kind of fresh air and green air, and there's so much green and there's a kind of recreation ground and a pavilion and nice, well-built houses and all that sort of thing. So yeah, it's a pretty amazing place to be honest. And obviously it has lost a bit of that with, with 2009 and craft. But yeah, pretty nice place to, to grow up.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Okay, let's go through what's your, the, I've got a favorite. What's your favorite story from the, just take'cause each, and we should explain that each chapter is a, is a ru in, it's a shirt and a, and a, and some stories attached.

Joey D'Urso:

so I, I guess prom is one that I like purely because it's that it's in that category of everyone's kind of heard of it, but maybe doesn't quite understand how mad it is. We can briefly rattle through that one or maybe

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do that.

Joey D'Urso:

So, Gazprom, of course, sponsored the Uafa Champions League for, I mean, the best part of 20 years. You know, the incredibly famous images of Liverpool lifting it in Madrid or Gareth Bale's overhead kick, or Messi, Ronaldo, all of that has Gazprom advertising all over it. Alka, one of the biggest teams in Germany sponsored by gas prom from 2007 2022. Um, Gas prom. A Russian state gas company. Basically a vehicle of Russian state aggression in Ukraine. and it basically tells a story of Germany cosing up to Russia over a very long period of time. Russia selling cheap gas to Germany. Germany turning a bit of a blind eye to Putin's political repression, this sort of cozy relationship that got more and more awkward when Putin invaded Crimea in 2014. And then in 2022 when Putin invaded the whole of Ukraine, it all became crumbling down. And this relationship of. Ulka and I went over there and I spoke to loads of people in, in Germany. Tells that story really of this, yeah, the close ties between Europe and particularly Germany. And the Russian, what turned out to be this sort of dictatorship and and war machine.

Richard Gillis, UP:

There's a great quote in there. Bernard Blumenau, I don't quite know who he is, but trade was meant to deter Putin from aggressive power politics, but it increased Germany's dependence on cheap Russian gas and other raw materials, which is, I think, captures it really nicely, doesn't it?

Joey D'Urso:

he is a professor at St. Andrews, I believe. Yeah, it's, I can't remember the German word for it. There's

Richard Gillis, UP:

course, the Germans have got a, word for it.

Joey D'Urso:

a word that means, a sort of economic independence. Basically the, the German philosophy was, if we bring these guys close to us, they'll become more democratic. You know, you've seen a similar thing with China, you know, the, bring them into the capitalist economy, buy more stuff from them, and they'll inevitably start having elections and stuff. You know, that hasn't, hasn't worked to put it mildly. But that was the sort of philosophy of Germany, you know, post-war destruction, industrialized, huge manufacturing success in the fifties and sixties. It didn't have much in the way of natural resources. The coal fields like that, Gelson, Kishan and Schalka were built on, were kind of running dry. So it was this sort of mutually, you know, Germany wanted the natural resources. Russia wanted the expertise of the German industrialists and their money and their cash was a much richer countries. It was this sort of fatal embrace between the two countries.

Richard Gillis, UP:

There's a, it is interesting that,'cause there's sort of that you mentioned the, the China thing. I mean, I mean running into, would've been Beijing Olympics that. We, we should be doing business with them because, and sport is a route in its soft power. Major events as a sort of strategic, sort of device, which was very much the messaging from the IOC and its acolytes and around sport and pushing, okay, we need to build bridges. You are right in that, that's, I just wonder how that looks from the other side, because obviously when you are dealing with Putin or when you are dealing with, with authoritarian, you know, regimes, they must look at sport and think, well, yes, of course it does brilliant things and, but we are second guessing their objectives, aren't we?

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, I mean this idea of major events being a sort of democratizing force, I think it's almost the opposite. If you look at Qatar, if you look at Saudi Arabia World Cup in 2034, sport is used to sort of. Bolster authoritarianism. There's no pretense that Arabia, 2034, will be some sort of democratic event. You know, there's some pretty delusional comments when uh, Newcastle United were taken over, that this would somehow sort of further the cause of democracy. I, I think it's the opposite. I,

Richard Gillis, UP:

In terms of the G thing, what's the impact on the team on Chaka in terms of that?'cause you've, you know, we often talk about the sponsor, but I quite often wonder what the reflection is and what that looks like. And it, it, there's a sort of short-term, long-term question and we don't quite know what the long-term question, you know, answer is yet. Cause sometimes fans are sort of used. You know, manipulated or you know, the voice of the fan. And people talk about fan engagement and look at how, you know the, the money is gonna pay by players. But is there anything else going on there?

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, so I mean, just taking back to the shirt, which had gas pro on it for so long, people taped it over though the, the fan group handed out blue stickers with the same shade of blue as the shirt, which then

Richard Gillis, UP:

I.

Joey D'Urso:

the gas pros once. And I saw lots of people wearing these. But what I think's interesting about it is that. It's easy to say, oh, this is immoral, this is unethical, which it kind of is. But for these people who are Shaka fans that sure some of the happiest memories of their lives potentially, you know, they won the German Cup,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

semifinals of the Champions League. In 2011, they had this heartbreaking, last day of the season defeat, to win the Buns League and I think it was 2007. So it's quite hard to just be like, oh, just stick that in a drawer and you know, let's talk about how evil Putin is because. So many kind of powerful memories are wrapped up in, in supporting our football team. So I think there's a sort of slightly awkward, everyone from Shaka agrees it was bad, but, know, it's hard to just put all those memories in the bin. I mean, certainly I think, and it's the same is true in the uk, people thought Russia was, was pretty bad and not a place that we, we didn't like Mr. Putin. But until February, 2022, I think there was a sort of. of it, that it quickly, that just completely crumbled. It was such a, you know, aggressive and act that the narrative just changed overnight. It became inexcusable.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah, and there's a, there's the, you're right, the shirt. I, I think, I dunno whether I'm, I'm older than you and I can remember when shirts were just so boring. You know, and we had, Steve Perriman on this, you know, old Spurs player, but he, the, the reason we had him on is that Steve Perriman Sports was the shop on, I grew up in Hayes, in West London, and he, had a shop, and it was our, me, you know, it was, we had our, it was our Mecca, and he would sell,

Joey D'Urso:

he work? The tills.

Richard Gillis, UP:

he did work? The tills. and, and he would sort of, the, he would've a, a wall of shirts and you say, right, I'm a Spurs fan, so. You go in, he gives you a white shirt, and then he would sew

Joey D'Urso:

Really?

Richard Gillis, UP:

a badge on. Okay. And he, they would do it in the shop and they would iron it on. And it was years before Wrights deals and whatever. So if he wanted a red shirt or a blue shirt and a white shirt, you know, basically it was a very basic thing. And then the admiral thing came, came along and I remember the England kit, which is again,

Joey D'Urso:

80, 82.

Richard Gillis, UP:

no, no, no, no. We're We're talking before that. So it was mid seventies and you had. England were terrible. They didn't qualify for any World Cups, but we had a great kit and we would, I remember this being just such a prized thing and Admiral being the first badge you ever saw, and then you get to that sort of Hitachi

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

thing with Liverpool and so, Yeah. and it's, but they are very evocative things and I think I've retained a sort of. Obsession is too strong a word, but just a really, they're very evocative. They're emotionally nostalgia is wrapped up into it. And when I see today, we have people on who are sort of, you know, from the marketing agencies who are kit launch has become the sort of. Genre and it's just this great sort of moment. And Villa, they've just done a brilliant one with Ozzy Osborne and it's, you know, and it's all about tapping into that, those stories. So you're right about, you know, the G Prom thing. You can't just put these things in a drawer. They are incredibly powerful real estate.

Joey D'Urso:

think maybe it's, I mean I've never really thought about this before, before you describe it like that, but maybe it's, you know, think about the things you were interested when you were like fi literally five or six years old. Like really, really young. And most of that now would be, you know, kitty Robert, you know, like the Teletubbies or whatever. Um, like stuff that you're not gonna be interested in as an adult. But some of it is, yeah, football shirts. I remember JVC Arsenal show whenever I see it,'cause I would've been five or six and that it was evocative in that Manchester United Sharp shirt

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

and, you know, Tottenham and Holston and all those things. When I

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

Football aware, really sort of hit something in your brain that was like, when you're first really being of the world outside, sort of, I don't know, your house and your parents' faces and whatever else is,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah,

Joey D'Urso:

those shirts.

Richard Gillis, UP:

well, you sort of, you are put back into a sort of time and place, aren't you? Straight away, you know, when, when I see, you know, the, the, there's a whole and it's now become a sort of industrialized, but there was something quite, exotic about a football shirt. Now it's completely ubiquitous. You know, they're, they're everywhere. But I re there's a bit of me that remembers them being okay. That was a little bit special. If you saw, if you saw a Coventry shirt, someone wear, you know, of the blue and the, again, the admiral, it just, it was, it was, it's really, again, tapping into something very powerful. I think. Let's, let's talk about the, the, again, just to sort of counter people's expectations.'cause the book is. I picked up the book thinking, okay, I'm going to there, I'm expecting some of these stories and you mentioned them at the beginning and you get to power, you know, global politics and you get to sort of sports washing and, and we do a lot of that on this podcast in terms of, you know, what is it and does it work, and all those questions. There's one in here that I really like, which is the sort of, which. It's grubbier, but also more interesting. It's less corporate, which is the sort of, more about organized crime and it's the South American, Colombian story. Can we talk about that? Is it, and I, I'm struggling with my pronunciation. You put me right. Is it envy gado.

Joey D'Urso:

vedo, absolutely. The, the, the club that gave the world, ham Rodriguez. You know, arguably the best Colombian football of all time. Maybe Carlos Valderrama would have a word to say about that, but, it's just outside Medelen, which I went there. And it's incredible place, Medelen. You know, it's beautiful. It's booming. It's like full of sort of. Brits backpacking, and you know, it's a really kind of fun place. Lots going on in the early nineties. It was literally the most dangerous place in the world. It's the highest murder rate of any city in the world, ever. In the era of sort of reliable statistics, people just gunned down all over the place. It's Pablo Escobar.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

that Netflix program? Narcos? You know, it's this,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, I was gonna say Narcos did it no favors, then did it in terms of like, you know, sort of it's, it's like,

Joey D'Urso:

it a bit, to be honest. They really don't like it there because it makes it, it makes Escobar seem kind of cool, whereas he's a really

Richard Gillis, UP:

right. Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

Just people, you know, I think you get paid sort of$20 to like kill a policeman and you bring his head to Escobar and you know, it's incredible levels of just violence and, and really horrible stuff going on. And football was a huge part of that. And, and Escobar was, I dunno, owner is quite the right word, but very connected to the club. Athletic Go Nassio now in Medellin. mil America, decali, were all owned by the drug cartels. Yeah, there's a great story which I tell in the book where people are just watching this football match. And this was before the drug singer had really caught on in the early eighties. And then a sort of flyers came fluttering over the stadium. and everyone was like, you know, what, is this an, is this an advert? Whatever? And people picked it up and it was basically, I. The cartels were fighting this war against the sort of left wing gorillas that were kidnapping people. And they basically said like, we are gonna murder you. We're gonna hunt you down, we're gonna kill you. And it's just like written on this thing as people were sitting in the match. So Columbia suddenly became this really violent place. Football was a huge part. Part of that, a way for, was a way for people to sort of. Show their peacock feathers. You know, if you're a big

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

it's a place for you to entertain people. It's a place for you to, to be the big man. You know, Escobar used to pay for football pitches in the, in the sort of slums, in the

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. That's part of Narcos, isn't it? That's that. There's a sort of, thread in, in Narcos about his interest in football. It's quite an interesting corporate hospitality gig.

Joey D'Urso:

yeah. Yeah. Well there's a lot. Yeah. There are a lot of corporate hospitality there I can imagine. Laid on by the narcos and yeah, I mean, just going a bit further back, like cocaine, started in the seventies. I mean, the COA leaf has sort of thousands of years of, you know, sort of indigenous tribes would chew it to relieve pain, but through a pretty simple industrial process, you mix it with some chemicals, you can turn it into the powder cocaine, which is obviously incredibly and stimulant or whatever else. And that hit New York and Miami in the seventies. But these guys who were. Industrializing. That process in Columbia became like billionaires overnight, and, Escobar was one of them. But the football shirt story I tell in the book is a bit later than that. It's about sort of 20 11, 12. So Escobar was killed in 93. After that there was sort of, you know, power wars and lots of violence, but things got a lot better. One of the offshoots from all that was called the Envado cartel. or the office ddo, which was I think more involved in kind of money laundering and white collar stuff. But the guy who was behind that also owned the football club en Vado. was murdered in 2006. His son owned the club and his a tribute to his dead father. He put his face on the back of the shirt. So this club were playing in the Colombian Premier League in 20 11, 12. So not ancient history a dead gangster's face on the back. And the club was then sanctioned. It was on the called, it's called the Clinton List, the American Government Sanction List, which means you can't do business with that club. So it had no sponsors because soft drinks firm that would sponsor a football club is not touching this sanctioned entity. So it's a blank, a blank orange shirt, and there's a dead gangster's face on the back. And I went to a match there, last year and saw a guy just a sort of, you know, say short stout guy maybe in his fifties with his. Dead gangster shirt on. Maybe you didn't even realize. I mean, you know, that was just the shirt that season.

Richard Gillis, UP:

It's not bad though, is it? It's not a bad marketing. You can see that happening. I dunno if you've got the craze on there, or, you know,

Joey D'Urso:

on that would be a good West Ham one maybe. Uh.

Richard Gillis, UP:

tapping into the history. You see, that's how that work. There's a, there's in terms of that. Bit of it. Is there a thread running through? When I, was reading through and you get to these sort of case studies, what did you learn about how it works it feels like there's a thread going through the book, and again, it's what I liked about the book is that it was taking this, it is the same idea that you hear day in, day out from corporate sponsors who are, you know. Talking about the Premier League or looking at, you know, what, what the value of a shirt deal is and all those things, but there is something inherent in it,

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah,

Richard Gillis, UP:

which is working.

Joey D'Urso:

what you're getting at is, I've mean, I think there's two types of sponsorship. There's carlsburg sponsor Liverpool for so many years because I want to sell beer to people and they would've. Calculations about how much that's worth and calculated that the amount they pay to

Richard Gillis, UP:

I.

Joey D'Urso:

is they're gonna make more profit from being a result. Most sponsorships is like that. I'd say some, quite a lot of sponsorship is not really about that at all. It's about tapping into the glamor and prestige of football a way that is much harder to quantify. And I think that's true of the sort of Middle Eastern countries owning clubs. I think that's true of the the dead gangsters face. I think that's true of Gazprom. I think lots of sponsorship deals are more about. The football is incredibly prestigious, glamorous, popular, cool. Um, and so a lot of sponsorship and sport is about that, I think, rather than a sort of cost benefit analysis,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. It's interesting because it, we, you sometimes hear, again, the conversation in the sponsorship industry is sometimes quite dismissive of football shirts as a, you know, it's, they're

Joey D'Urso:

or.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, it's actually, oh, they're a bit old hat, they're not very sophisticated, and you hear people say, oh, they're they're just a media buy. Okay. or. they're just about awareness as though, well, you know, brand awareness wasn't valuable, so you, you and the sponsorship industry doesn't like it because it wants, I this is my reading of it. Is that it wants to appear more sophisticated than that in a world where, you know, there we're talking about brand strategies and sponsorship and the shirt, the football shirt, one of the, you know, most famous bits of real estate, but also it's sort of telling a story. This is sponsorship and it's quite relatively simple story. You, you, you see it and we make connotations and it's there, and you, it's become more valuable as advertising. So watching it live, they're in the content rather than, you know, trying to

Joey D'Urso:

Hmm.

Richard Gillis, UP:

fight their way into the ad breaks, which is a, you know, an absolute bun fight. So that bit of it, and it's again.

Joey D'Urso:

hard to measure as well. I mean, everywhere, you know, take Manchester United and whatever it is, like viewer, that slightly obscure German company that sponsored for a couple of years and I think

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

shareholders, got annoyed. They thought that, overpaid for it. But team, where I went, wherever I went in the world, you know, South Africa, India, I saw team viewer everywhere because of

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

And I think that's quite concentrated in a handful of clubs to be frank, like I think that there's a very sharp drop off after. Probably Liverpool Arsenal, Manchester United, everywhere. And you know, how do you measure that? You know, if a, a Zimbabwean guy who drove my taxi in Cape Town was wearing a Manchester United shirt, you know, does, does that feed through to someone buying TeamViewer software? I, I dunno. Maybe not.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, I think you get, I mean the, the sponsorship measurement industry is, let's call them, optimistic.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

So, you know, they will put a number on that. And so, you know, and obviously Manu United, we're all Manu United fans by the way. They measure, you know, what a,

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, they've got

Richard Gillis, UP:

how that is.

Joey D'Urso:

10 billion fans or whatever.

Richard Gillis, UP:

exactly, so, but I think this, again, there, there's the sort of tangible, intangible question and getting back to the root of your book is, is the stories that come with it. And I think it's incredibly powerful, but more that, you know, less easy to put a number on, but. It talks to the sheer marketing power of that shirt, you know, and, and whatever the story is, it's just a blank vessel. And whatever the story is that is putting, whether it's, you know, Colombian drug cartels or Putin's political ambitions, or I like the, uh, chapter about, the, prisoners of Robin Island. Can we do that one?

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah. That was fascinating. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, letting you look behind the curtain. I was going to a wedding in South Africa anyway, and I thought, right, it'd be good to do a football show about South Africa. Let's

Richard Gillis, UP:

Everything. Everything's copied. Joey, that someone famous once said,

Joey D'Urso:

some people are like, oh, how did you do all this traveling? And it's like, well, some of it was tact. Either stuff I did at the athletic or tacked

Richard Gillis, UP:

yeah,

Joey D'Urso:

was doing anyway,

Richard Gillis, UP:

yeah, yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

like, let's, I sort, you

Richard Gillis, UP:

I thought you were gonna say tax deductible then.

Joey D'Urso:

oh, well, that as well. But,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

go into that. Well that, not that one anyway. South Africa. Yeah, I sort of Googled, you know, South Africa football, picked up this fantastic book, about football at Rob Island, which I knew nothing about how, you know, I've read, you know, the Long Walk to Freedom and I've, know, and thought I knew a bit about South African history, but Rob Island, which of course was where the, the prisoners, the, political prisoners against apartheid were sent Most famously Mandela, but lots of other people including Zuma, who later became president of South Africa. All sorts of prominent, black South Africans. When they first started going there in the 1960s, there was a lot of rivalry, a lot of factions. There were sort of communists and the A NC, and a lot of'em didn't really get on with each other and had disputes from the mainland and whatever else. anyway, what they really want, they kept in terrible conditions. they really wanted to play football and they kept asking their jailers, you know, let's play football. And at the time, the Apartheid government was coming under a lot of pressure from the International Red Cross and, other governments. So they sort of had to start giving a few concessions. One of them where they let'em play football and it was like a bundle of rags tied together. and then gradually it became a little bit more sophisticated. They got a ball then it became into this sort of league where there'd be teams and the teams would be the different parties or the different political factions. And the kits there, the football shirts are basically the ones someone just went to a Cape Town sports shop with a, and bought back a bag of kit and like, you are the blue team, you're the red team, whatever. And they had proper names named after sort of, you know, stuff in South African history and whatever else. But gradually this became more and more formal and there was a sort of transfer system. You'd have your cell number and you'd be given a contract, and it became this really sort of

Richard Gillis, UP:

Fantastic.

Joey D'Urso:

thing. And, the really big change that happened is at one point it stopped being about political factions people started transferring between teams across factions. So sort of communists and the a NC and whatever started working together more. And also some of the kind of white Africana jailers started. Watching the games as a leisure activity because it, the quality was pretty good. So it also brought guards and the, and sort of added this sort of humanity to this really horrible place. And lots of the people that were, I mean, Mandela himself wasn't'cause he was in solitary confinement, but Jacob Zuma and all these other Tokyo sex Wally, which is a very good name.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

it was a another, a lot of these people have spoken about how important that was. And it brought the. Rival politicians together. And it meant that, you know, in the eighties and when the apartheid regime was gradually crumbling, there was a sort of political unity around Mandela and around those first elections. And people forget, south Africa's a bit of a basket case at the moment, to be honest. But looking back it's pretty astonishing that the transition happened, without violence or without very much violence. Which people all said before this is gonna be, you know, civil war. And part of that is to do with, Mandela himself and his own personality and Clark who was, the, the leader at the time, but also the fact that this, the anti-apartheid movement was relatively unified and people were talking to each other, and football was a massive part of that, which I had

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah, no I didn't. And, and it, you know, the, the sort of Mandela quote, which is on, is the sort of third slide of every sports marketing deck

Joey D'Urso:

I, I know it's a bit cliche, but I had

Richard Gillis, UP:

in terms of, you know, the, the sport has the power to change the world. And I think it's sort of, again, it's interesting and we land on it But then again. I came to the, okay, well I know What this chapter's gonna be about, I think, oh no, it's not about that. So I, you know, I, I think it's really.

Joey D'Urso:

you think it was gonna about?

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, I thought it was gonna, you know, you're, you're sort of, as soon as you. see Roben Island Mandela, I think, okay, I know this story as you say, I think there's a, a root through this, but actually the detail of it is incredibly interesting and not,

Joey D'Urso:

you. yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

you know, is completely, and some of it a bit sort of counterintuitive in terms of the, just the sophistication of the, you know, the leagues and the way in which that. The game sort of is just played, but it is not just a kick about. There's a whole structure to it, which I found is really fascinating and quite, you know, and very endearing.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, the World Cup was in 2010. He died in 2013. He was in basically very bad health by then. Throughout the two thousands he became this you know, the England team went there, Beckham, when every big name footballer went to Mandela. And yeah, that's I guess another

Richard Gillis, UP:

I.

Joey D'Urso:

But in the World Cups in 2010, it's a pretty amazing thing that happened, you know, FIFA Long wanted to have a World Cup in Africa. It went off without hit. There's lots of fears about violence and whatever else, and it, you know, went off pretty much without a hitch. Um,

Richard Gillis, UP:

Do you think about the sports washing question? Because I, again, I sort of wrestle with it a bit and I, I see it applied to things and I wonder if it's, there's, it's, you know, become just a sort of a lazy way of trying to describe quite complicated

Joey D'Urso:

yeah,

Richard Gillis, UP:

ambitions.

Joey D'Urso:

so I've spoken with you, there's a couple of chapters all about that. I was keen for it not to be a book all about that. I think, you know, other people have done that before. Well, okay. Well, I suppose my big thought on sports washing that maybe developed over the course of writing this book is that the, and the, basic view of sports washing is that you're trying to wash the reputation of your country, right? Your guitar, you've done all sorts of human rights abuses, you hosted World Cup, and then everyone thinks guitar's a really fun place. I think it's basically about state survival. It's about Qatar. this tiny little place in between Saudi Arabia. You, you're pretty suspicious of on one side, Iran and Iraq and very unstable places. On the other side, Qatar, you're thinking, right, we've got loads of oil, but gas, sorry. But all we can do exist in 50 years time and to exist in 50 years time and not be invaded is to number one host the. Biggest US follower military base in the world, which Iran halfheartedly bombed the other week. But it, you know, the missiles were intercepted and it wasn't really, didn't really happen. But also if you become the world sporting hub almost, Qatar, I mean, I wouldn't say as much as London, but in a sense that one country is most identified with sport above anything else. Qatar is a strong contender. You know, obviously we'll know about the World Cup, but the Asian, a FC. The equivalent of the Euros, but Asian China was gonna host it in 2023, but they had really strict COVID rules at a few months. Warning, Qatar hosted it. They're ready. Right. And they host

Richard Gillis, UP:

be in sport. is also a central part of this as well.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah. The sort of triumvirate of PSG beer in sports and, Qatar World Cup. Tennis tournaments, athletics tournaments, triathlons, everything. And I think, you know, it's worked in the sense that Qatar is probably more likely to exist in 2070 and not be invaded by its neighbors because of sport. And I think the Saudi Arabian question is, I think it's a similar thing. The oil's gonna run out one day. Um. Arabia's very different because Saudi Arabia is a country of 40 million people or something. It has a huge sort of restive, youthful population. You know, you could

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

a revolution in Saudi Arabia, in Qatar, it's so tiny and most of the PE people who live there are foreign that you can kind of keep a lid on things. I think, whereas Saudi Arabia is kind of hard to control, I think.

Richard Gillis, UP:

And it's got more of it. It has a, you know, I've not been there and. But people who do and work there say there's a pro, it's a proper football country. There is a proper football culture there that, you know, the league, the domestic league is, is servicing and it's very easy to, you know, sit here and make judgments about it, you know, from Brighton.

Joey D'Urso:

I think judgment, I think like, you know, criticizing, you know, the women's rights, their gay rights, their workers' rights. I think we should do that. I don't, I don't think that's sort of, I think, yeah, I'm, I'm very happy to do that. I think you've just gotta sort of take it seriously. I guess you've gotta take these

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

There's a really good book by James Montague called Engulfed, where he, it's about Saudi football. He goes here and he talks to lots of Saudis and he is very critical of the human rights stuff. But I think, yeah, just sort of. it out as hand as like not a real football place, I think is a, is a mistake. I mean, I think with Saudi, another thing which, Saudi explained to me is that all, all dictatorships, which Saudi is a fear revolution, right? They fear all these. Basically, young men tend to be the fervent of any revolution. They fear all these kind of young men who are a bit bored in Saudi Arabia'cause there's not enough work to do and they pay people to do nothing that they, you know, overthrow the government for whatever reason. Whether that be sort of religious extremism or a kind of liberal democratic revolution. If you give people football as a to go out and shout at each other about, it's almost like a safety valve. And dictatorships have used football in, in Serbia and Egypt and all sorts of countries as this sort of. Acceptable form of protest. And you're protesting against, you're shouting at rival fans rather than at the government. And even in China, there, there's been some toleration of sort of low level anti-government banners inside stadiums, which would never be accepted in a sort of town square. So football can be this kind of release valve for, for protest.

Richard Gillis, UP:

It is quite interesting the way in which. Saudi is sort of showing up differently, you know, and, and I just come back from the, the open, Portas Rush and Liv Golf has been on, you know, the second conversation you have there, and it, I you, you start in a position that's now four or five years old and we're, I think the, you know, they wouldn't do it the way they did it. Again, and they're doing it differently in tennis and they're showing up, you know, and so it, their, in the initial sort of thrust was they looked like outsiders and disruptors and, and you know, you had Dan Rowan chasing, you know, the piff guy around the golf club course, and, and it, it all looked very shifty and whatever. And now they've sort of, they're, they're trying to reframe that as a, as a way of. Of just showing up in sport, which I think is sort of interesting. Again, I never quite know. I think the sports washing question is interesting because it assumes, as you said at the beginning, a sort of, it's almost like a, I always equate it to, people think it's a bit like money laundering. You know, the image goes in dirty, comes out clean.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

But actually it's not as straightforward as that, and it's messier. And sometimes I think actually it acts like a sort of, almost like a stadia naming, right? You know, you say, well, because every, everything is associated with, you know, human rights abuses gets tagged onto the question about Saudi. So it sort of carries that story and makes that story as famous as the details.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, no. Another thing that really made me sort of second guess myself about sports washing or what it means was I went to a Qatar pre-tournament. I basically just wanted to go there and the athletic wanted me to go there to, to. Tour the stadiums before they were built, but there was an official event, an official tour. So I did that was like one day out six, but most of, I just traveled around under my own steam. But I was at this event of the Al Juba which was air conditioned, this incredible place, air conditioned of course built by people treated in terrible conditions who were, you know, a

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

particularly in the early 2010s, died over from a heat exhaustion and it's complete scandal and it should never have happened. And from the UK and the, everyone talking about this in the uk, I went there. The guy said the sort of Qatari guy. This was sort of a journalist tour. Everyone was from, from, Asia, Africa. I dunno what countries, but yeah, the, the, the global south you might say, I dunno if that's the right word these days, but I was the only kind of westerner there, put my hand up. I was like, I cannot, if I come back to my office in London not having asked this question, my editors will kill me. I just said, you know, what about all the people who died making this stadium? You know, what, what, what's your response to that? And the guy was basically like shocked. He was sort of, you know. he was sort of mouthy with me. And then he sort of handler said to him, no, no, no, we've got an answer to this. And he me the party line and he said that we've changed the label laws and da, which is all true. They have, the label laws are much better than they were and whatever else. And that was, you know, box ticked. I'd done that, I'd held'em to account. But these guys around me, I'd been chatting to on the tour, you know, with one bloke from Nigeria, there's another guy from India. just like, what? You know, they were like baffled, you know, they were just kind of, you

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

what? And they thought that the Qatar World Cup was really exciting because. If you're Nigerian or if you're Indian, you've probably got a cousin that works in Qatar or you, and that it feels much closer to you than than

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

or the USAID does, where you probably can't get a visa to go on holiday. And you certainly can't immigrate to work. And for them, the Gulf in these places are kind of a place of opportunity. And you know, I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't empathize with that. I don't understand that on a personal level.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

But it just really made me think like, wow, you know, the way we view this in, in the UK is very different to how not just And people who live in the Gulf think about that, but the, you know, billion Africans or people, people

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. Yeah. yeah, No, it's a great point. I'll get there's, there's a, let's switch because there's a, we're in the middle of the, women's euroes and there's a, there's a, we need to talk about Mary ihi. cause I think, again, it's, there's bits in that which I think are really, that you got to, that I think are really interesting. Let's just, let's talk about that up.

Joey D'Urso:

Live Hannah Hampton, I'd say the, you know, England goalkeeper. Last night, I think, who needs, who needs Mary Ups? So yeah, the Mary ups a big hoo-ha. Obviously the hero of the Euros. You know, I was there at Wembley 2022. Amazing. England won, played the tournament. She was, she, I dunno. Anyway, the following England, lost to Spain. The World Cup final Mary s was fantastic. There's a big hoo-ha at that tournament because you could not buy an England women's goalkeeper shirt. And she has, has this anecdote of her teammate's, niece or whatever little girl wants to follow her heroes and she can buy the outfield player shirt, but she can't buy the goalkeeper shirt. this was sort of, you know, a bit of a scandal really. And Knight were very embarrassed about it and they quickly, made some, and it became this sort of symbol of women's football. Not being taken seriously. And it's kind of an incredibly sudden thing that, that women's football just being this massive global thing, massively followed by fans. Big commercially as well. Big players owning lots of money, big players. You know, I was watching the game in the pub and just, you know, these people are in the team, are kind of household names now. You know, Leah

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

and Beth Mead. Like people know who these people are

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

they didn't five years ago. And obviously that's helped. Success massively helps with that. But yeah, the sort of rises of women's football. I mean, the story that I knew this story is like an anecdote, but I researched it and read books about it and it's an incredible story of the ban on women's football.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Hmm.

Joey D'Urso:

Like, so the first World War, the men went off to fight, women started playing football in stadiums and people, you know, they kind of. Women who were around all that, the old men who weren't out to fight went, all the kids went to watch them, and it was really popular. And 1921, the Dick Kerr Ladies, which was a team at a factory in Preston, 50,000 people, went to watch them at Goodison Park. And then the FA Bandit, they, they issued a band. They said the famous quote is not suitable for females. And then women weren't allowed to play on fa affiliated pitches for 50 years. And so, you know, it was basically a defacto ban on anything approaching serious rooms. But you'd have a kick about in the park, but you couldn't play at proper stadium. The band was lifted in 71, but pretty much every serious football country had had bands like that. Brazil literally had. At a time that Brazil won three World Cups, they had a literal ban on women playing football in any capacity. You couldn't have a kick about with your mates. That was literally against the law. and it's taken a long time for that to be, for women's football to, you know, obviously there was women's football in the eighties and nineties and two thousands, but I think it's only in the last 10 years that it's become, you know, a really big thing. And I think it kind of mirrors, you know, women's rights more broadly, that if you look at any. Objective statistics on, you know, women working, or women you know, outside the home and doing all sorts of important things. It's completely taken off in every country, obviously not always in a straight line. And you look at the Taliban in Afghanistan and it can go backwards. Of course it can, but I think, you know, women's football tracks that just move to gender equality more broadly. And I think it's on a different, I think just pointless comparing it to men's football, you know? It had this 50 year handicap, so of course it's, you know, got less money behind it. And of course, and like, you know, women are smaller and the, the, the game's got a different pace to it, and it's, you

Richard Gillis, UP:

It's got the, there's a whole, the conversation is shifting and so, Laura Youngson at IDA sport, you know, again, women's feet are different. Who knew? You know, they need, they need different boots. There's, there's Baz Moffitt at the well.

Joey D'Urso:

the, the women's running shoes have been in any sport shop for 30 years. I didn't realize this. This is a thing. You go to any running shop, there's a women's section, boot football boots.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

at the last World Cup were playing in men's boots, which are like

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

injuries. It's crazy.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And it's just that, I mean there's, there's a sort of, and v Moffitt is the other person that I would, I would throw in there who's the well is, you know, again, it's, it's women's bodies, you know, and it's, it's sort of, it's how the research and the data is, is just almost entirely. And I think, you know, the numbers are incredible about how, what we think of as sports science is actually male sports science. Which some of it might be applicable, but actually it's a tiny fraction, which is of the research, which is women only. And so all of the assumptions within the data that is now built up, and there's huge amounts of it, is about men. So you start to make, making decisions about health based on wonky, you know, data. So there's a whole sort of question there. Say It's the 50 year problem. Um. There was a good piece. Charlotte Thompson did a good substack the other day. She's a copper 90, and she did a thing on how women watch football at the Euros in pubs, you know, so the pub experience. So again, the male, the sort of. Same but different, same or different question, it's just running through all of it and Mary up Sure. I think is a really nice, again, each chapter is a good tag into, that, those sorts of issues. I think, you know, it's fascinating. I think we can't talk about this without talking about betting, but we, you know, there's a sort of the question about. You know, the Premier League and where, how that betting has played a role. What's happened there? The relationship. Sometimes I look at it and think, okay, there is a normalization of betting that's taken place maybe over 25 years, and one of the, you know, I'm a huge fan of the Premier League, but one of the huge questions is that in terms of, of actually what's happened and, and, and our relationship and how central betting is. Societally now, and how that links back to the shirts, I think it was Richard Osmond said, you know, every, every generation's vices are on a football shirt, you know, where it's alcohol or betting or whatever it is. So what do you think about that?'cause sometimes I think, I think, Yeah. that I, it's a huge, you know, there's sort of. Unofficial betting crooked companies question, but there's also just the other one, which is a much more mainstream conversation is about just the, just it is normal now.

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah, so I did a lot of investigations when I was at Athletic about the sham betting companies on to Chinese gamblers gambling's Illegal in China. This is some incredibly shady web of companies

Richard Gillis, UP:

I.

Joey D'Urso:

from the Isle of Man to the Philippines to Vietnam, often linked to pretty horrible organized crime and money laundering and human trafficking, and really g grim stuff. Directly linked to Premier League football shirts. There's that whole question and then there's, yeah, the normalization of gambling. I think if you are British, which we both are, it's hard to, you don't appreciate the extent to which the UK was patient. Zero, for the sort of online gambling explosion. Nowhere else, no one else did what we did, which was basically passed the law completely liberalizing gambling in 2007, which was the same year the iPhone was invented. So it's a law designed for. You know, going down the bookies or going to the casinos or going to the racetrack, which was completely suited for having a casino in your pocket. Which I think has completely changed the substance of what betting is. yeah, I think it's pretty terrifying. I mean, yeah, I'm not anti, I'll put on the other accumulation and whatever else. I think, you know, there's. To an extent, gambling is fine, but the sheer prevalence of it in British society I think is pretty. And it's kind of think it's un not as understood as, cause it's so prevalent in kind of young male football college, just, it's

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah,

Joey D'Urso:

normal. And I think in lots of societies people just don't do it at all.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well we had other bit is that, again, it's a sort of the fantasy, which is a, again, culturally phenomenal and it's incredibly, you know, it's a great product and. It's, it's one of those where I remember the guy from, so Mike, uh, Faulkner from Sportradar, we did a thing about sports betting, and he said that the profile of a, of a fantasy player and a better, are almost like, you know, the, there's the vens are just almost overlapping. And he said it is a, you know, he, it's a gateway drug for,

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah.

Richard Gillis, UP:

betting, which

Joey D'Urso:

Interesting.

Richard Gillis, UP:

you then have to then say, right.

Joey D'Urso:

play it. I think it's good. I mean, I like the idea that, you know, Brentford can be playing Crystal Palace on a Tuesday night, and I can be, you know, I've got

Richard Gillis, UP:

Skin in the game.

Joey D'Urso:

so I'm a bit more interested. It's quite fun that, yeah. I, I, I can see that as a, I mean, and also the line between betting and fantasy is really blurred, not with FBLI think, you know, I think people might have money on it with their mates, but it's not a gambling product. Whereas there's something I, if you're watching the England India Cricket Series at the moment, dream 11

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah. Yeah.

Joey D'Urso:

Indian shirts and that is a, product. It's huge in India, which is completely blurred lines between fantasy and gambling.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Yeah,

Joey D'Urso:

like fpl l but you, you cricket game, but you like buy tokens and you get cash prizes and

Richard Gillis, UP:

A game of skill is the line, isn't it?

Joey D'Urso:

Yeah. So the Indian law is all over the place, but it's, it's completely free for all.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Well, one of the, one of the sort of working theories is, I mean, if you look at the American market. That was seen as a gold rush, you know, the opening up of the gambling market. And essentially what's happened is that it was more of a honey trap. So there were loads of billions of spent by gambling companies moving in. And you've got this duopoly that's existed for. Decades, which is fan jewel and DraftKings. Basically they've, they own the wallets and they are the, you know, they were fantasy businesses. And then the opening up of gambling. Now one of the questions is in the Indian market, which is much more, you know, it's not a straight right across, but what happens when or if it follows the American model? And then you've got Dream 11, which is the sort of, you know, both DraftKings and fan, your combined and. You're sitting on a, you know, a multi-billion dollar unicorn business. So that's the, that, you know, that's the sort of story that you sometimes hear. And then you get back to why is private equity interested in sport? And then you sort of think, okay, well that's a route I could see

Joey D'Urso:

Brazil is really opening up at the moment when it comes to gambling, as there are some countries, Brazil, one of'em I think, which was just completely clo, you know, gambling was illegal basically until three years ago. Online gambling, certainly. And I think there's a big shift, which it's very tangible in the uk, but maybe not elsewhere, that gambling. You know, you see James Bond at the roulette table with a beautiful woman next to him, and you think that's kind of cool, you know, that's kind of glamorous. Or going down the race track and, you know, Ascot with your suit on and it's cool. Whereas having a. App in your pocket, you know, maybe with a couple of cans of beer on the sofa, it's kind of grubby and like, not something you'd be bragging about. And I think that's the sort of thing we're very conscious of in the uk. But I, I was in New York recently and just watching on TV channel flicking, and they have these pi they talk about betting and it's these really glamorous hosts and they're like, you know, what better are you putting on? And it's like, you're like, oh yeah, I wanna be friends with these guys. Whereas the uk that kind of stuff is much more tightly regulated. So I think it's, yeah, it's that shift from. Betting as being this really exciting and glamorous thing to being something that can be really fun and sociable and interesting, but also have some pretty dark and un frankly uncool, undercurrents

Richard Gillis, UP:

Absolutely. Well listen. Okay. I'm, we're gonna, I'm conscious of your time. You've got a day job to go to, okay? I, I always think you are at the athletic, but you're not. You're at the times don't you?

Joey D'Urso:

for a year. Yeah. You're in a bit now. Yeah, so I do, I do, I'm a data journalist and I do politics and all sorts of other things. I sort of. Yeah, I, people kind of ask me what, you know, what's my thing? Is it football or is it politic? I, no one's asked me to decide which one yet, so I'm gonna carry on my cake and eating it. But yeah, I'll be doing all sorts today. Not, not football, really.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Brilliant. Okay. Well, listen, Jerry, I and, I recommend this, uh, book to, um, to lots of people. So, uh, and where, and the obvious questions about where, it's just the obvious places you can get this,

Joey D'Urso:

the big names. Yeah, you can get it, audio, but, but it's also, yeah, hard back. Please buy the hard back if you can. Yeah, thanks very much

Richard Gillis, UP:

no.

Joey D'Urso:

if anyone's kind enough to leave a review on Amazon or Good Reads, it really helps. Yeah. Cheers.

Richard Gillis, UP:

Brilliant. Good luck with it.

Joey D'Urso:

Thanks a lot.