Was this the summer the Premier League ate itself?

Hello, welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me Kate Mason. This summer the Premier League smashed the record for spending within the division with £1.7 billion worth of transfers between Premier League clubs alone. Today we're going to be getting into what that means for football here in the UK, why player prices are so high and how the wealth gap is affecting clubs in Europe. Joining me in studio is former England goalkeeper Rob Green, good to see you in real life and on the screen. In New York we have our reigning sports journalist of the year Adam Crofton, hello Adam, lovely back job. Hello. Thank you, my curtains, pajamas are behind me and they've turned into a back drop so that's nice. Really gorgeous and likewise in the New York of the North, Mackelsfield it is our senior news and investigations reporter Matt Slater, hello Matt. Hello. So Premier League clubs then spent around £3.6 billion this window and according to analysis by the Athletic 48% nearly half of this was spent on players in last season's Premier League shattering the record for spending within the division. In the six summer windows between 2017 and the 2022 seasons the average Premier League spend on Premier League players in the previous season was 418.2 million which means we have seen a comparative fourfold increase this summer. Now Adam you've written a piece on this which is up on the Athletic right now, what have you made of the spending within the league this summer? Well as we just said it is on average four times higher than what we were seeing just a couple of years ago over an extended period of time. I think that tells us a few things. I think it tells us that the league is no longer scared to trade with each other. The idea of Chelsea selling one of their best players to Manchester City, direct rival a few years ago probably would have scared many fans and maybe it still does but certainly coaches and executives a lot more than it seems to do now but I think more than anything it tells us there isn't a market anymore outside of the Premier League. There is a lack of clubs with the money to actually be able to do these deals anymore. So outside of Bayern Munich, PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona may be certain summers Athletico Madrid or Dortmund if they've made a big sale, a random one sometimes like a Galatasaray. There is a real lack of competitive tension in the market which means these clubs can now only sell to each other which means that all of that big Premier League TV money ends up swishing around within the Premier League or at least a big portion of it instead of going to the rest of Europe. So what it basically means Matt is that the Premier League is pretty much operating in its own football economy. Why do you think there's been such an extreme increase in spending within the league? Well, I think Adams summed it up quite nicely so if we just sort of think about who the top 20, 30 teams are in the world once upon a time and I am actually talking about quite a long time ago now, this bit isn't that new. That would have been a sort of a good representation of the biggest teams across Europe. It is still the very, very biggest, it's still the sort of top four or five, you know, Barcelona, Real, PSG, Bayern, maybe a couple of Italian teams. The rest is the Premier League. The Premier League has occupied the sort of top 25, 30 teams. They've all moved up a sort of as a block. Right. So that's the first thing and then if we sort of think about kind of why, you know, what why is it all up? Well, those richest clubs who are pretty much the Premier League now, they're revenues have gone up 10% this year. Right. So they have more money to spend. I think the end of we sort of like drill into the Premier League part of the story. Well, that's a fairly kind of, again, not new reasons, nine new managers, nine of them are playing in Europe now. The Premier League has annexed that fifth spot in the Champions League. Right. The wind is all blowing in the Premier League's direction. So you know, I think those are sort of the, if you like kind of the big picture reasons. I think the thing that sort of strikes me though when I sort of kind of look at this window and maybe the last couple really is, it's kind of a lack of imagination going on from our very biggest teams. So I keep hearing Premier League proven, all right, and I'm sort of going, well, yet he is, he is, then I sort of start going, well, is Premier League proven the same as played in the Premier League? Was it appears to be or they're in the country already? So it's almost sort of seems to be a kind of lack of willingness, certainly on the bigger clubs to say risks. And that's a very kind of investment economics. That's not football specific, you know, trade, trade shares, trade bonds, trade, you know, open businesses, you know, people are like risk. And I think sort of, you know, buying players that they've seen before and look, ideally, they've been really, really good in the Premier League, but some of them have just been okay in the Premier League. And almost that's enough now to get a premium. And I think just the sort of the related part to that, though, is within the Premier League, there has been a kind of everyone kind of knowing their role a little bit. So the ones that do the interesting stuff are still your kind of your Brentford's, your Brighton's, your Bournemouth's. They're the ones, as far as I can tell, who are going off and buying a 15, 20, 25, 30 million pound player from abroad. And we've seen a few of those in the first few weeks. And then it's the bigger clubs who go, yeah, yeah, well done, thanks. You've now filtered through the ones that can make it or not. We'll have that one for 60, 70, 80, 90. So there's sort of a kind of, everyone is kind of finding, finding where they should be in the pecking order. But at the same time, the entire pecking order has, you know, elbowed past, enfica, fine order, Iax, Roma, you name it, they've all been left in the rearview mirror. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point. And in fact, if you want to hear more about how the three Bs have been doing just that, Friday's Tactical Preview Show has a deep dive into that with Rob Green and me and Liam Thaum as well. Rob, thinking about this Premier League experience question is, is Matt onto something here that it's not so much Premier League proven as here in the Premier League. Premier League schools, I think is another way of pushing it. How strained, how strained, yes, we're all how strained in a way in a football club. But it's, you walk into dressing room, you have to make yourself known and prove your point. There's no harsh or critic than the dressing room itself because you're all experts, you all know the game in there. Then you had to point where if you were buying someone who was Premier League proven or, you know, knowing within dressing room, you have one or two lads or maybe more who knew that player, you're walking to a dressing room and they say, oh, he's good at this, he's not so good at that. So you'd have that, if you had been around a while and you had players who they were taking a chance on that Matt talks about, now everybody knows each other. They're all from a school. They're all from an academy of sorts. They're all from the Chelsea Academy. They're all from, they're all, they're all, they're all played together in summer academy somewhere or there will be a player no matter where they are in Europe. And it feels like the players that are of that schooling are just being cycled within the Premier League or being loaned out to assist the club, but everybody knows each other within that system club and it's all moving back. And the sources of that are becoming younger and younger and younger throughout Europe. So they're getting into the systems earlier. And I think you've got two facets of a player, which is the power along with the skill. And if you've got one but not the other, you might end up in one of the European teams. If you've got both, you're in the Premier League. And a big example of that I felt was Aston Villa against Freiburg in the Europa Final last season, where it was many against boys, apart from one player for Freiburg, who now plays for Aston Villa. Oh my goodness. So you can see where it's coming. They just cherry picking the ones and the others are already in the system. Okay, so it's a quality question. And then what the result of that is that the money is not getting spent in your review of it from a player's perspective, the money's not getting spent aboard to such an extent. So the Premier League didn't sign a player for over 50 million pounds from either Spain or Italy and spent only 187 million in La Liga this summer, a quarter of which was because of film unexpectedly collecting young players from Real Madrid. Now, last week on this very podcast, Adam, you labeled the spending a disaster for the rest of Europe. Does this mean that the Premier League, we already have the Super League. It is just the Premier League. Yes, though, actually since then, I've slightly reconsidered whether it's a disaster and whether it's actually more of a mild disaster. I think it is in the sense that the money is contained in the Premier League. But the advantage of it, though, is maybe it means that some of these teams are actually able to now keep hold of their players as well. So they're not being gutted of their best players, which gives them more of a stability and a continuity, which could go and give them an advantage. So if you are, perhaps like Juventus into Milan, AC Milan. and Como got into the Champions League this year and haven't really lost so many players, which I think is a good reflection of clearly that they are well capitalized as a club, but also that they're able to keep hold of players mostly because the Premier League has decided it maybe it doesn't fully trust players from other leagues in quite the same way. So I suppose that's one advantage of it. I think there is a downside for sure for the rest of Europe and that I think the hope is that if the Premier League is so strong, if the revenues are so big, that there will be this trickle-down effects where it is kind of spray guned around the rest of Europe, but we're not seeing that to quite the same extent. The only league that's really done well out of the Premier League this summer is League on in France, which has probably made more in transfer fees than it gets in TV deals anymore. In fact, I think that is the case. However, when you kind of drill down into, I think it's around 620, 640 million pounds that were spent in Thrant by Premier League clubs, probably 400 million of that is between PSG and Leal, because of Barcola, Buaddi, who's the guy that went from Leal to Newcastle, Fernandez, Pardo, is it Pardo Fernandez? Yeah, another 50 million there. And then also Strasbourg, I think got 50 million issue. Well, a lot of Strasbourg deals. Yeah, so although you look at that top-line figure and you see, oh, the 600 million going into France, well, most of it's going to clubs who have been in Europe in the last couple of years. Now, again, that's not necessarily the worst outcome if you trust those clubs to then spend that money within their own league, it trickles down, it goes to other clubs within Thrant, but it does leave you very vulnerable, I think, as an economy in France or Spain or Italy, Germany, when so much of it now is just contained within the Premier League. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) I want to get another voice in on this. Joining us now, we have Tim Bridge, who is the lead partner of Deloitte sports business group, hello Tim, good to have you with us. We've just been talking about this staggering level of spending within the Premier League itself this summer. Has it surprised you? A little, yes, within the Premier League itself, proportionally the highest since 2017, so that we're nearly 40% of all transfers spend being within the Premier League itself. It's something we kind of actually warned about in one of our reports, about three or four months ago now, because what you've got is you've got this model evolving whereby the Premier League is so dominant financially, and the only way in which people can compete now is with the search for talent. And so actually the talent that people want is then within the Premier League itself. So you've created this kind of almost like non-virtuous cycle at the moment, really of spending. And yeah, it could be quite concerning, to be honest, in some ways. - Yeah, well, this is a point that Adam has made last week and then this week is slightly dialing down. I think, but we'll come back to Adam in a moment. But what do you, you mentioned the impact? What do you think the impact is likely to be on European football as a whole? - It's not like Adam to dial anything down, but the reality of the situation, right, is if you step back where the Premier League is at, in the last reported numbers, they needed to be over a billion pounds injected into the Premier League in cash, in order to maintain the kind of status and liquidity of the courts. And for years and years and years, Matt Adam, myself, we talked about these topics, right? We've talked about the concept of is the Premier League or is football's bubble going to burst? And I've been a big staunch person who said, actually, I don't think it is going to burst because I think that there's always something next. And I might be completely wrong here, but it feels as though the lead is banking at the moment on the ability to have the next big revenue kick. So either a new broadcast contract or a new commercial partner. And if that happens, everything's rosy again, right? But fundamentally, what's happening here is you've got a real need for cash in the Premier League. And then the kind of the transfers are almost being passed around from club to club. So if you actually were to look at the cash flowing between them, then it's almost all within the Premier League itself. And we know that the demands on the debt market, the demands on short-term credit are at an all-time high amongst Premier League clubs. The whole factoring market is absolutely rampant at the moment. And so we do have a situation whereby there's an awful lot being brought forward and predicate on the future and that on future changes. And that is a situation we have not seen at Premier League level. Tim, I wonder when you said that your initial answer that you were a tiny bit surprised at the level of spending, was that because you thought the new financial rules, the score cost regulations, what have you, would have more an effect? Or was it maybe to do with the fact that the regulators here now and there'd be sort of downward pressure on spending? Well, why did you think the clubs wouldn't go so hard this time? You know this better than anybody. Deloitte are kind of the biggest advocates for regulation being the driver of spossing integrity and ultimately the value of a sports property. We've championed that for years and years and years and have implemented it with the likes of Formula One with a very different outcome to what you now have across the Premier League, which is a situation where, let's not forget, it's the clubs themselves that voted for and put in place the financial regulations. And they are on the lot for the large part all seeking to operate within those financial regulations. And it definitely has bitten. So the activity or the actions that the clubs are very conscious of those regulations in their discussions with agents or in their discussions with players. And it's front of mind and every club has their financial analysts running kind of their scenarios and the different ways in which they are going to comply. But fundamentally, what one of the outcomes of the situation we have at the moment of which financial regulation is one factor of many is that that inter-premially spending is the way forward. And that feels to me like it's Premier League clubs just competing with themselves almost unnecessarily and exacerbating the financial position on paper. And if that is being held up by the debt market or being held up by short-term financing, that is a concern. - Just a very quick follow-up 'cause I know the others will have questions too. Do you think it's biting maybe more at the UEFA level at their 70% level? So if you look at the two big clubs that have come in with net games, Chelsea and Villa, they're both under sort of special measures aren't they? They're both under UEFA scrutiny, whereas the Premier League is always going to be more generous at 85%. What I'm looking at is it's not really 85%. In some ways we've slightly kind of misreported this. It's 115%. It's a luxury tax system that no one's breaking. And I think the clubs have realized that. - I think what's happened to the UEFA level is that everybody has accepted and understood how the UEFA system works over time. And some of those, the processes by which clubs then have to operate within certain guidelines in order to participate in the competitions, they've worked very effectively actually. They really have because they've created a world in which the clubs respect them to an extent. However, the concept of a Premier League club competing in the Champions League, having to make nine or 10 or 11 signings, I don't know how many exactly it was in the case of Ashton Billet. It just feels out of line with where we've been previously. And that's the sea change here. And the question is, does that become the norm? - I just wonder from a player's perspective, Tim. You look at the movement of the players as we're touching on, I think. You're just equating it to the movement of money now, really sickly. And that homegrown nature, of a homegrown player, of a player being brought up within a system to see a style of play or whatever it might be. Are we now looking at as a thing of the past? You are, we are purely at the very precipice of a commodity within an organization. - I really hope not. Rob, to be honest, I really hope that's not the case because the fundamental butt coming up. - Yeah. - Because the fundamental difference between European, UK sport and American sports is the franchise model. The franchise concept has always been about making money. That's nobody's ever been shy about that. A franchise is there to run as a business and have sport as its proposition. In the UK, in particular, the root of a football club is around the community and the opportunity and the development pathways that it provides to people. And it just so happens that we created this like global bear mouth. by living those principles. So actually, I think we have to, as people working in the industry and people with a voicing industry, I think we have to really stand up to that a little bit and make sure that those, the essence of what has made the Premier League so brilliant for the past 20, 30 years, as being many of those stories that you talk about there. And if you've got a situation now, which, which we have, you know, much of the England front line from the World Cup this year plays their football abroad. Is that not a warning sign? Is that not something we haven't seen previously? Therefore, what does that, what does that mean for the future? I think that needs collective action. I think it needs real thought about what is the approach of English football and how are they going to remain as the biggest league in the world, but in a way that is true to those values. And that's the really interesting debate. Tim, you mentioned the next big bet that these Premier League owners are making in terms of what is that next big, I guess, surge of cash that comes in and allows them to keep doing this. Where do you see that coming from? I mean, the next big Premier League right still in the States, for example, I think would have to be starting 2028. You've got the NBC deal coming up to a close. Is that realistically their best bet? Is it what's currently happening again? Is it Singapore this season where you've got the Premier League experimenting with its kind of prem flicks in how subscription service whereby you would watch every game on a one stop subscription services? Are those really the only levers now that they have or is there something that's a little bit less kind of obvious that we should be thinking about? Good question. So a good few years ago, I sat in front of a group of Premier League executives at 10am and they asked me what would happen to Premier League broadcasting rights when they were next announced and being conservative and from Deloitte we kind of sat there saying, oh, maybe 20% at best and growth was announced at 5pm of sort of 80, 85% and blew everybody out of the waters. And I absolutely think that can happen again, right? Because we, this product is and people maybe won't like me referring to it in that way as a product. But ultimately, this is the greatest sporting competition in the world that goes round the world on a week by week basis. There are channels dedicated to it. It's part of the identity of the UK and of England when you go abroad. So that growth opportunity is still there if it can be leveraged. And of course, there are ways to grow the value from where we are today, not every football match is on television in this country, for example. Is there a model where you go direct to the direct to the consumer? But the balance there is, are those things actually only going to put more pressure on the fan? And is the fan only going to have to end up spending more in order to access the product? And at that point, what do we want the fan to be? Do we want the fan to be just the people who are paying for the experience? Or do we want a mixture and we want people who ultimately are there in tribalistic and more visceral kind of manner? They're the people who they live and breathe it. It's what they're like. It's what they do with their free time. And I absolutely believe that the future is a combination of those things. So on a club by club level, I think it's opportunities for growth by getting the model more appropriate to what we have in our society and the demand for the various kind of ticketing options or the various different hospitality options that may exist. At a central level, there is the opportunity around around more games going on to domestic television, but that it just feels like doing more than it doesn't feel as though that's a strategic route to growth. And so I would suggest that a more kind of approach is for those 20 clubs of which 1314 are consistently consistent. They need to work more closely together. They need to think about what is the Premier League going to be in 2035. And how do we access that? Because then when you get those moments that you're not expecting like somebody new comes into the broadcast market or there's a change to regulations which means that more games can be broadcast at different times. Actually, you're going to benefit in both ways. And if you benefit in both ways, then the outcome could be outsized. And that, that to me is the, is the Holy Grail of things. Okay, so let's get into how some of the key stakeholders in the game are viewing this question. Matt, people like Lily Gaffer isn't having a tabour. So they've been hugely outspoken against Premier League dominance. And I think this summer seems to be something of a cutoff point for people who are having these concerns because it has felt so extreme. What are you hearing from people in the game about how they feel this is going to develop? Well, as we first have, yeah, he hasn't sounded off about this particular window yet. Normally, I'd expect him about kind of now, really, to sort of say something ludicrous about how, you know, the kind of the brits have gone completely insane and they're ruining it for the rest of us. I mean, he certainly said that in the past. And what he then likes to say is, well, it's because, you know, they're all run by American, private and sovereign well funds, which we don't do in Spain. And he likes to talk about his version of the financial fair play rules, which are different to the others. They are they aren't tighter. They're they're much more bespoke and they are kind of a real time. Now we have moved in that direction. But I think it is fair to say that the Tabas, you know, La Liga under Tabas four or five years ago, you know, tighten things up and they and they and they came down hard on their on their big two, particularly Barça. So, you know, I think that that is fair to say on his part. To be honest with you, to go back to your like your question, I've heard more about this in the past in previous windows, like I remember sort of two or three years ago. I think it was, I can't remember which particularly window it was. It was it was a window where there's a lot of talking Italy in particular that kind of like Brentford and Bournemouth, who in earth are these are outbidding, you know, kind of their their aristocrats. And you know, it's amazing how quickly that's become the norm. I don't I don't think, you know, Gazetta and the kind of our equivalent in Italy are up in arms about it anymore. I think they've accepted it. It's like, yeah, Brentford and Bournemouth have got more money than our clubs. And just look at the look at the promoted teams, look at our three promoted teams. You know, they've come up and look, is that because they're copying Sunderland or Forest before? Yeah, baby. Yeah. But it's not that complicated, is it? You don't need to have, you know, have this amazing sporting director and a massive data team to say, do you know what, when you get promoted from the championship, you might need to invest in players or by the way, we can. That's it. They can. And then, and this is the reason they can, right? Because even if it goes wrong, they get relegated, they get to sell those players. So if I look at the numbers from this window, you're right, you know, if you go, where have they been shopping? Well, they've been shopping amongst themselves, France number two. And then it is just the ear fell just next. Not so much in value, but in terms of quantity to deals. I think there's been 15 deals. Nearly all of those were from relegated clubs. You know, so you get to sell on the way down, you know, I think it's only about two. Was it was it saw by Thomas and as he's from Millwall about the only two non-parachute clubs in the FL that have sold to the Premier League? So, you know, I think Europe has accepted this. And I did sort of say before about everyone kind of knowing their place. I'm afraid to say I think Lee Gunn knows its place. You know, it's TV deal as, you know, over the last 10 years it's been recurring story. They're a selling league. They know they're a selling league. Everyone apart from PSG and PSG gets a, gets a sort of, you know, take their pick of the best of France. We're going to get letters. Talk to me, Rob, about what this looks like from a player perspective in dressing. So I'm fascinated to understand how fees like this weigh on the humans involved. If they do it all right. Yeah, where's your motivation? And for years, for a long time now, the talk of European dressing rooms or clubs of European teams is to get to the Premier League. Get to the Premier League. It doesn't matter in what facility and what deal it is, get there, and then maybe you can prove yourself. It's about doing it, getting that deal. So there's one thing getting there. There's another thing getting the deal that makes you the big, big money. And so if you are a 50, 60 million pound player, you're going to get that move. You're going to get that money. If you are a player moving in, Mangalita moving, Sangalita moving into, to Brentford, it might not be this one. It's the, you've got that move. Now it's the next one that's going to really make the life changing amount of money. It's the move within the Premier League. You've got to get into the Premier League, then the move within the Premier League. That's the one that sorts you out. When you're in the Premier League, it's about, do you benefit the team? That's all anyone can. about. No one, when I was at Chelsea, spoke about the money. Because everyone knew that the money that they were on was great. It was about what you proved for the team. Once you're in it, that's it. You're going to get sorted out. It's about moving, getting there, and then getting that one next deal. That sounds like if I'm understanding you right, like they might be another factor that slightly artificially depresses the fees paid to European clubs. If everybody knows that this is the aim, then these players are saying, get me to the Premier League. Get it done. Yeah, that was part of the question. Yeah, in towards the team. And you're there saying, doesn't matter, I'll go for 10 quits. Yes, the motivation is there now. And the motivation isn't, you know, I play for a small Italian team. I want to create something, you know, a history with a Sussolo or someone like that. It is. I'll do really well to get that move into the Premier League. And then from there, you're saying, how fucking to take this? No, Rob, it's essentially, you mentioned Sassuolo, because I interviewed the new lead defender, Mohar Remavitch, who was come over from Sassuolo for about, I think that was about 34 million pounds. And he said to me, you know, I had interest from Inter Milan and Juventus. But the Premier League is where, you know, is where I wanted to play. It's where I saw my future. And I think also, you know, leads when they make their pitches, you know, to these players, they're able to say, look, you know, we had Raffiniar here. You know, we brought him in from, I think it was from Ren in France. And we got him for about 17 million. And then we flipped him and he went on to Barcelona. So once you developed to a certain level, you know, we, you know, we also recognize our place in the food chain and recognize that you may have a dream to go and play one day for, whether it's Liverpool, Chelsea, Real Madrid, etc. But the big, I imagine the bigger point is leads could probably pay bigger wages than what intervals Juventus would play to what may be a squad player for them. And that, that is just where it is now. And leads, you know, although they have a famous name, historic name, they've been in the Premier League for one season, you know, and this is their second season up. But that is kind of the clout that they were able to have. As a former leads player, I would have picked him over Juventus and Inter any day of the week. Quite a big rivalry with leads and Chelsea, though, wasn't there? Well, to go from what and once and the other, you know, on one of the few who got welcomed with both hands and both, both clubs. Well, I've just noticed Rob, just in terms of like conversations with the dressing room, I imagine this probably isn't freely spoken about because, you know, these are British dressing rooms and we don't talk about money. But did anyone ever talk about things like tax rates, I think about upper tax rates in particular, which, you know, with rising in our country, still relatively low, actually, if you look at EU averages, but not as low, perhaps as Italy, was that ever discussed? The cost of coming here? Every, every deal in for a European player got dealt with net. So it took every deal out of the equation. It was whatever country is just talked to me net and then it was then, then you make your pick, then you come to the Premier League. Yeah, got it. The question then is how much do UEFA really care if Premier League teams keep getting stronger and dominating the Champions League and winning, let's face it, all of these other UEFA competitions as well. How, how, how much they care? Well, I think UEFA would care and probably do care a tiny bit, probably, you know, because if we're talking about sort of domination, it's really just sort of the conference league and maybe the Europa League at the moment. Well, I think a few more years yet, before we really start talking about kind of, you know, it's the Premier League's, we've had a good run in those competitions. I think the key thing is, and this is where I do think there's enough excitement still and UEFA will, whatever their relaxed might be overstating it, but we'll be okay with what's going on. It's all the best players aren't in the Premier League, right? So the Premier League has been talking a lot over the last couple of years that they're share of the best players and they, they have used the agency consultancy to sort of measure this. They've got a kind of, a kind of probably a wall chart somewhere at PL HQ. If the top 100 players in the world, they've been saying for some time that their share of those players is going up. They think they've got nearly 50% of them now. That feels about right to me. But the very best, I'm sure if we were to look at the top 10 or top 20, they are still at real, they're still at bar, so they're still at buy and they're still at PSG. I mean, how many, I don't want to go off on a, again, I feel like I'm starting other podcasts. If we just have a sort of, how many of the very, very best players are playing in the Premier League, the very best loads of, loads of like the next lot loads. But you know, I sort of think about Arsenal this year, like this, this window, you know, they, they, they, they talked about, finesseous, they talked about Alvarez, but they didn't, they didn't get either of those over the line. Did they, they, what they did was be very Arsenal. They've absolutely gone big on, loads of really good midfielders and another really good defender. So I don't know, I think you wait for a sort of would be like, well, the Premier League aren't winning the Champions League every year. That would be dull. But we have had runs before of British success, Spanish success, a talent success. I think they would say, look, these things are, you know, these are dynasties. There are cycles. And at the moment, the Premier League is clearly got the most money. And they're clearly, maybe we need to think about what's going in in our second or third competitions. But there isn't an English Premier League problem yet in the Champions League, which is the one that drives everything. But there I say there's almost a, a conference league problem for Premier League teams. It's a bit marginal. It's a bit like kind of a marginal tax rate. Yes, we want to be in Europe, but hold on a minute. Now we are under the 70% limit. And you wait for actually taking seriously, and they do actually sort of dish out fines and do squad restrictions. Is the conference league worth it? It's just about worth it if you win it. Europleague is just about worth it if you get to the semis. I think being under the Premier League regime, where you can go to 115%. Well, we've seen what Tottenham are doing. I would say also, I'd make two points, which I think would give some hope as well to European clubs in terms. So first of all, I would say, I think this trend that we're seeing a Premier League club spending on Premier League players, I think it's possible that is a trend that reverses. And it will be based very much on how it will either be reinforced or completely ripped up based on how this season goes. If everyone who's been signed for the Premier League is fantastic, it'll continue to happen. If it doesn't really work, you know, if you're Tottenham who have signed 10 players this summer all from the Premier League, and you go on and have another 14, 15, 16, 17th place finish, sorry, then they're not going to do the same next time around. You know, Man United, I think, between 2020 and 2025 signed one outfield player from the Premier League. So they clearly made a conclusion that our problem is we're taking too many risks outside of our internal Premier League market. So we're going to flip back, we're going to sign Embermo, Kanye, three central midfielders this summer all from the Premier League. If they have a bad season, I imagine they'll flip back and start spending outside the Premier League again. So I do think it's possible the trend reverses. And I think the other thing is, although the Premier League revenues are so much higher than many European clubs and they are spending this money, they aren't retaining this money. You know, the money is coming in and it's coming out. They're not they're not healthier, really, as you know, on the profit and loss sheet at the end of the end of the financial year. So one of the hopes I would give to these European clubs is Premier League clubs seem quite stupid at times. They make bad decisions. You know, they they are making strange decisions. You know, particularly one of the things we've not spoken about is the valuations that they continue to do. Yes. Yes. Yes. A player like, and I'm not picking on individual players, because you could pick so many of the intro Premier League deals this summer. Shall I suggest a few? Go for it. Lim de la Savio. Yeah. Yeah. Nicholas Jackson. Nicholas Jackson is a great player again. Yeah. The fee is just, Nico Gonzalez is fantastic as well. But it's just interesting that the levels that are what they are. Even Enzo Fernandez. Why is Enzo Fernandez going up in value? Yeah. The value to me and the way I'd explain it is, if we think about most values as supply and demand, you know, so someone wants someone and the demand comes from there might be one, two, three, four, five, six people who, six clubs who want it. In the case of Nicholas Jackson, who else was prepared to pay, you know, he went in the end, I think, 65 million. Who was prepared to pay 60? Who was prepared to pay 55? Who was prepared to pay 50, 45? So how is that happening? I don't know. I don't get it. I think it's one of the things that Morgan Rogers. That was my answer to how. Sorry. Sorry. Right. Oh, I see. Yeah. Point taken. Yeah. So the theory there is Chelsea spend, you know, what is it? 117 million or whatever are Morgan Rogers and then 65 million went back to Chelsea from Aston Villa for Nicholas Jackson and maybe that gets up to 100 if gone atro joins and then the balance sheets even out. You know, counter viewers who and I am really, really, really, really wanted Nicholas Jackson and made villa hit that price and they are strange. These are strange deals to me where who is the under bidder that is driving these vows up and I don't know if it matters to players or not and say the same thing gone when agents are asking for this for so much. money as well on both sides of it. Why aren't the Premier League clubs coming together and saying we're going to start saying no? Because your market isn't there, you know, in terms of other clubs to take these players to in many cases. This has taken us in all sorts of directions and it's built up a lot for future episodes of the Athletic FC. So I do hope you will join us for more of those. Before we go, if you're an NFL fan, the Athletic has something really exciting starting next week, it is the Athletic Live presented by Google Gemini. It's a brand new YouTube watch along on NFL game days featuring the biggest and best beat reporters the Athletic has to offer. You can even become part of the show in the interactive chat on YouTube and it all starts from September the 8th. Thanks gang, that is it. From us, Matt and Adam will be back with us next week. Rob and I will be with you tomorrow for our tactical preview of the weekend's big games and what trends we're noticing so far this season. We'll catch you then. Take care.