 Ladies and gentlemen, the American Toffee podcast is back. We're here on Toffee TV USA. We are talking Super League, of course, the biggest news to break in soccer and potentially years in football, and we just did a quick segment earlier with Alex, of course, talking about the getting us all caught up to speed, Ryan. And as of yesterday evening, all the clubs are basically out. There's been a domino effect. There's been a collapse of the proposed plans. So just give us the the latest and greatest news. Well, we know all the English clubs are out. Hurray, I think that's a good thing, considering actually no one was in favor of it. Turns out the clubs were in either. We'll look at some of the American club owner statements in a second. Inners out. AC Milan is set to leave. But I don't think we've seen anything official from them yet. Really, we've got Barcelona who always said or claim to have said is their way out that they were going to defer it to the General Assembly, which, frankly, is the right thing to do. You've got Juventus and Mr. Agnelli, Andrea Agnelli is still out there holding on strong and Fiorentino Perez, Florentino Perez at Real Madrid is still out there as well. So it's really two teams. I think they're going to play each other 2,700 times over the next couple of years. Now, in all seriousness, that's it. Yeah, right, exactly. And I mean, we'll go through the statements real quickly, too. But ultimately, it looks like it's more on pause, which I think calls for some concern. So so let's let's look at the two. I mean, those are the major culprits, really. Let's look at Andrea Agnelli's Juventus driven statement. Let me let me quote it here. While Juventus remains convinced of the soundness of the project's sport, commercial and legal premises, it believes that at present there are limited chances that the project be completed in the form originally conceived, not entirely surprised. Definitely doesn't seem like a stop. And then we kind of go to the overall Super League official statement. And Florentino Perez gave a lovely interview again today. And it's we are reconsidering the appropriate steps in order to reshape the project. We're proposing a new competition because current one isn't working. English clubs have been forced to leave due to outside pressure. Again, doesn't sound like it's dead, does it? No, it sounds like they kind of hopped in the ring for the first round and got knocked out, but the ref didn't call the match quite yet. And they're not willing to concede the fight. So it's a really interesting sort of sequence of events because obviously the English clubs were forced to capitulate, forced to put their tail between their legs and beg, hopefully beg for forgiveness. We'll see how they don't really seem too sorry. If we're being honest, it seems like they're more angry that this didn't go perfectly as they had planned. And frankly, frustrated that they can't just come in and snatch everyone's money and destroy the game as we know it without any repercussions seems to be the way that I'm reading all of these apologies and official statements that have come out. Yeah, some of them seem a little bit hollow. So let's take things from a U.S. perspective because there's been a lot of scuttlebud about the greedy Americans behind this. Yes, the Yanks. Hopefully that's not characterizing everyone in America. I think you'll find it very quickly here in America. That is not typical of every American out there. But I think some of the statements, I still got some questions about them. So first of all, Arsenal's ownership, the Cronkies. You know, the headline of the Twitter feed was as a result of listening to you in the wider football community over recent days, we're withdrawing from the proposed Super League. We made a mistake and we apologize for it. I mean, you know, the detailed letter, you know, maybe isn't that wonderful. But hey, that's actually an apology. I think there's no argument about that. I mean, they said we apologize. And so by by definition, it's an apology. It's not a particularly, you know, you don't get the real feel that they mean it all that much. And that's and maybe that's the byproduct of, you know, official corporations releasing these sorts of statements. They always come across as very hollow. But if you were a PR person crafting something like this, you got to do a little bit better. You've got to seem a little more sorry. You actually have to seem genuine. Yeah, I think going to go to John Henry's to recorded message to Liverpool fans, this makes a lot to go. I just want to say the flannel that he's wearing in that video. I have the exact same one and I was like, sick to my stomach watching it this morning. So I was burned it. So maybe you should. But I'm sure his might be a little more pricey than yours. You probably at least were smart enough to get yours on sale. But that's another story. But his apology and it was kind of an apology. My issue with it is, I mean, they took some responsibility for it. But I never got this feel what I would have done if I'm a PR guy and I'm representing him and I'm in touch with the English game and your true consumers. Unfortunately, that's probably how they think about it. I would make sure that they understood that. Hey, we wouldn't do anything like this going forward without consulting the fans, the players, the coaches. We never really said that, actually. I found that very, very curious. He just said that was not the right thing to do. A lot of people weren't real happy with this recorded message. I still got this vibe from him. And I did from the Manchester United joke laser wrote an open letter. And initially Manchester United issued. I mean, no apology. What's their statement was wild. Right. That was wild. And they should have said, you know, we'll follow up with something. But it was just basically like, yeah, we're not we're not doing it. We listen to the fans. That's it wasn't like an apology at all. I think even looking at Joe Glazer's letter and kind of decomposing it, I mean, do you get the feeling that they still don't quite get English soccer? It just feels like they are a bit out of their element in a lot of ways. And I think you could probably say that about, you know, Cronkie and the Glazers in general, since they've taken over ownership of both these clubs, ownership groups in America for professional teams do get a fair bit of scrutiny, but I don't think it's to the same degree. I don't think there's that same. Like I don't think there's this broad of an intense local fan base for a lot of these like giant basic. The point I'm making is that a lot of these teams have been giant corporations in America for a really long time and it hasn't been that way until very recently with most of these English clubs. And so I think they kind of just thought that we could take our playbook from America and just slap it down into European football and there's going to be no problems. We're going to make all the money we want. We're going to lock in our profits for our investment and it's all going to be well and good and it did not go that way. No, and they should know better. Of course, they underestimated some of the reactions, but I got that feeling too. I felt like they were talking about sports in general, almost as though Henry was talking to the Red Sox fans and it's different. Like there is a Red Sox fans. Well, yeah, maybe. But they're probably closer, maybe to, you know, a sense of community around things. You know, I grew up in Pittsburgh. So I mean, I'm kind of familiar with the runes and the way they are. And like they would, I mean, this would never, ever happen. But it's American sports ownership is a little different. They're in different positions. We'll get into some of those details in a second. But the one thing too that drives me crazy is they continue to use the pandemic as an excuse. I mean, if you're talking to a PR person, how tone deaf do you have to be to continue to echo that's why? Because no one is going to cry or be upset that you're not making money. That's one thing in America that would never happen. It's ridiculous because you don't own a sports team in America to make money off it. That that that is unheard of. We expect you as an owner on a sports club knowing the landscape for American sports and the lack of risk there. And I mean, truly that you're going to spend even more. You shouldn't make money on this because it's your hobby. That is literally the expectation in America. I don't think that's quite the same way in soccer. But either way, when you kind of look at these things, you kind of say, OK, the Ventus Madrid, OK, they're still they're still going to push this thing as long as they could. Chelsea Man City were the first to drop. So you kind of got a vibe that, I mean, frankly, Man City, I don't understand why they would ever entertain this. They don't need the money. If anything, it kind of gives people more money to kind of combat them with. But when you read the American owners, I mean, do you get the feeling that they would still entertain some form of it? I mean, do you feel like, oh, they've learned their lesson. They're really going to go about doing this differently next time. Are they going to still do it? It almost felt like we're sorry we got caught. Yeah, it felt very much like that. Now there's a lot of what you just said. I don't know if I explicitly agree with the fact that owners in America don't necessarily want to make money. I mean, I think these like, but maybe that was a little extreme. But in what they care more about is they want to take, they believe in a lot of profit sharing in the league and protecting those revenues and distributing it. They believe in the league as a product more so than like any one individual club. Really good point. And so, you know, the NFL, all the Jersey distribution centralized through the NFL, the teams all split the profits and all that sort of stuff. That just doesn't exist. And so when you have this sort of cash grab trying to replicate a similar structure in European football, it just doesn't fly because you have all of these competing interests, all these clubs. And I think they really underestimated their own power within this structure. And frankly, just in regard to Chelsea and Man City real quick, I don't know. It doesn't surprise me that they were kind of the catalyst for dropping out first because to me, United and Arsenal, it makes sense that they would want to try to preserve this status that they did not earn. Arsene Venger and Sir Alex Ferguson and all of the people that came before it established that precedent and built these clubs to what they are. And the Americans just come in and said, Hey, we're just going to try to capitalize on that, preserve it, and hopefully it'll be a good investment. City and Chelsea are obviously, they've built what they have now. Roman Abramovich and Chikmansor have built these clubs up to what they are. And they're competing for the title. Arsenal and United, I guess, are to some extent this season, but they haven't been near it in a really long time and they're not really at that same elite level that they have been. So this is a last ditch effort to preserve that status. And it failed for now. Yeah, I think it's very interesting to kind of peel back and understand why it died and what will stop it going forward. But before you segue into that, your point about American sports is important because it's more competing league to league. You're competing for entertainment dollars. The clubs within the leagues with the possible exception of baseball are on equal footing. So that's the attraction of it. The competition is accepted. So the small, there's no big club and small club. That is a very strange concept for, I think, an American to get their hands under. They understand big cities. They understand big revenues. They understand big market, small market. That's what we use as Americans, not big club, small club, because let's be honest, my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers are a massive club. A Pittsburgh's not a big market, but it doesn't matter in the NFL. Truly doesn't. And that's why those things, those guys kind of band together more to sell the league as a collective. You know, that's the important thing. And that's why, and again, we have a whole college system, too. So this whole idea of open, you know, MLS is a little bit unique, too. I think that's a potential be a pro rel type situation and open competition because it's also governed under FIFA. I think the future of MLS is going to look very different in 25 years. People forget MLS was broke. I mean, there was literally one owner, not very long ago. So there's a whole strange history in that. But the other sports in America, the college system is what fuels them. I mean, there aren't going to be local teams that would eventually compete and go up and down. You'd have to dismantle the entire college system, which is incredibly popular. And people probably are more emotionally drawn into their college teams and universities. I mean, people don't realize outside of the rest of the world. College football games, there's seven or eight teams that get consistently 100,000 people, 100,000 people a game. Think about that. And we've got like 10 stadiums that seat almost 100,000. I mean, England doesn't have a single soccer stadium besides Wembley that's even close to that. So that's a little bit of a different situation. But but I digress the real question is, why do we think it really? It really died. One thing that I thought of is government intervention. We think that was a legitimate threat. Do we think that really scared them or surprised them? I think it did. And it doesn't it doesn't surprise me that the government was against it just because of the, you know, if you're constituent, you want to be popular with your constituents, they're all writing and not writing, protesting in the street, excuse me, peaceful protest, peaceful, simply 100 percent. It's a it's a layup for you to come out against it. And frankly, like, again, money kind of is at the root of all of this. I don't think any of these giant institutions were altruistically stepping in for the good of the fans. It was its money, right? If the Premier League is if these clubs, for whatever reason, left and then were not allowed in the Premier League, depreciates the value of that league tremendously, at least initially, we could have that argument if it what the long term impact might be. But I just think that they the government intervention was a big part. But they also had basically no other people in their court. They didn't have their own managers, their own players, their own fans, any key stakeholder that you would need to get this through work it vehemently opposed to it. And so I think it just became I and one hit I can't see how they wouldn't have foreseen I know action. On the other hand, I think they somehow did and just thought it'll just blow over and people will just let this go. And they could not have been more wrong if that's their line of thought. Well, I question it from a business standpoint, frankly, you know, we both have business background. So I mean, I'm trying to get in their heads a little bit. Yeah. So let's assume that they really thought that there would be a great audience for this product. I'm not so sure there would be to be perfectly honest. So number one, they were banking on being able to play continually in their domestic leagues, which it seemed like that was definitely questionable. The government could certainly tax them from outside income and some other aspects. So even if they let them play, they could have hurt their economic advantage that they would have had coming back into the league for sure. But I think as a business investment, like one thing I really am struggling with is why do they think the Super League? And first of all, I don't know how they're getting three more teams out of the 12. I mean, PSG said no, you know, all the German, there's no way anyone under a 50 plus one ownership situation is going to say yes to this Porto told them to go pound sand. So to me, is this really good investment? Like, what about the Super League would make it more compelling? And Perez thinks it is. And McNally thinks it is more compelling truly than the Champions League, which is much more open. And if that's the case, let's just say it's the case. Say it's not any more compelling. Where are they going to get the money for this? So number one, Network TV, good luck with that. They basically alienated every domestic leak holder by setting up the structure. So number one, PSG was never going to join because their chairman is the president of being sports or their president is the chairman of being sports. There he had the Champions League rights. So why would they think that would happen? Sky, BT, all the pundits trashed it. Partially their self-serving for their channels because they're hurting the existing contracts in America, NBC Sports, they're not going to deal with it. Are you kidding? You just killed their Premier League deal. ESPN Disney, no chance when Amazon came out and said, we're not having any part of this, they had to be thinking twice. Dazen would have been the big company to do it. So think about this. Is there any attraction weekday games as a direct streaming service to people know how big viewership really is in America? Because maybe that's part of the issue. I mean, a big Premier League game on the weekend, on like NBC Sports Network, you know, not streaming is maybe getting 750,000 people direct on TV. They make it some more streaming, streaming midweek. Paramount Plus has the rights to the Champions League midweek streaming. They're getting nothing. The only ratings that are really happening are the Spanish language stuff, but that's available on over-the-air broadcasts and Tundin and things like that. And they're not even getting massive ratings, but, you know, it's a couple hundred thousand people. So I just kind of wonder if maybe they sat back and said, OK, J.P. Morgan's putting up the money for this. They're going to find private equity. We're still going to pay that back. We're going to promise some returns on this. If Amazon's out, Dazen doesn't have the expanse of this. I can't speak for China and Asia and Africa or Middle East markets. But the market for America, I just it's a growing sport here. But I don't maybe it's not that good of business investment. Is that possible? It's confusing to me because the way that I've understood what these clubs really want this whole time in terms of revenue would be the ability to market directly to their own fan base. Well, that's not what they want. Florentino Perez said he's saving the Soviet universe. Sorry. Yes. He's been working on this for three years because of the pandemic, which started two years ago. I mean, I just think, you know, I've always thought that these clubs would want to, you know, if you want to watch Manchester United, you go to Manchester United's website, you pay X amount of dollars or pounds or you on or whatever it may be. And you can watch Manchester United. And if they have a global fan base of 150 million, you rake in $150 million a match, and that's a great, great return. Now, if you're going to try to package this and sell it, you're going to need the fans. You're going to need the demand for it. And I just, yeah, I agree, Ryan. I think what attracts international fans to the Premier League and to European football in general, if that's the audience that they're indeed marketing for is the tradition, is the exceptional nature and the rare nature of these fixtures in the Champions League or it just goes against all of the compelling things that are what make it a unique product to make it exactly like American sports. You want to watch this structure like watch, you know, there's all sorts of sports you can watch. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, it's unique in America. It's unique, the passion, the rivalry is the great part of it. And Americans love that stuff, man. People don't get it. You know, that's why people still watch Army Navy for heaven's sakes. You know what I mean? It's not for the quality of the game. It's the pageantry. It's the rivalry. Imagine if fans took this very seriously and didn't show up. No one wants to see an empty stadium, you know, after the pandemic. That's not exciting. It's not a compelling view. And frankly, watching these teams play each other all the time, it's not that compelling to begin with. I also say this to I can understand someone saying I want to see the best players because the product itself in isolation is really entertaining and exciting as a sport. I don't think Americans quite have that love for the sport. Some people do, of course, some people not, not maybe in massive numbers. But, you know, the threat of UEFA stepping in and I think supported by FIFA to a certain extent of saying, that's fine, we're going to ban anyone from this unshanced sanctioned league to play in the World Cup. That matters because now suddenly if you've got some elite players out there that don't want to play in this league and they never consulted the players to begin with, too, which is the most ridiculous thing about this. The players and you think the fans want to travel overseas for every other match, matches in the Middle East and America. I mean, you're starting to get a little ridiculous here. But the players just that doesn't seem as attractive. I think a couple of Champions League nights are lovely, but you heard all the players complaining like on spurs, traveling all the way, you know, pretty far distances for weekday games and stuff. I mean, that's that's hard on players. They don't want to do that, nor are they used to doing it if they're from continental Europe or they're from the UK. That's a strange thing for them. And I mean, we're we're used to that in America. The trip. Well, most of us are used to kind of traveling. It's a big country. Dreams stay with you. That was for Scotland, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that we're kind of used to that. But a lot of foreign players come over here and it's a shock to them and they struggle with it. So I mean, these are reasons why players would be a little skeptical and they not want to do this, frankly. And I think I think the players, too, like every professional player was a fan growing up in some capacity. And so they, even though they're all multimillionaires now or the vast majority of them, I do think there is a genuine appreciation for the fans from at least the players and the manager. Like they recognize the impact that fans have. They truly mean it when they say we've missed the fans desperately in stadiums. I don't think the owners care about having fans in the stadiums. And I tweeted this. I said, you know, if the owners could shut of these clubs, could shut the doors to their stadium and never let another fan inside. And it meant X amount more dollars in their pocket. I think they do it in a heartbeat. I don't think the players or managers or anyone even remotely close to the actual on the ground aspects of these organizations would support that. And so again, they had no buy-in from even within their own organizations, much less all the external stakeholders. And anyone knows who's done businesses. When you got a lot of the stakeholders involved, you might want to check to make sure that they're OK with you doing whatever you're doing before you just decide to do it. And it just it for guys who are supposedly brilliant businessmen, this is just flat out embarrassing, honestly. I just think they don't understand it. They don't get it. You know, I think we've been a good person. You know, we've experienced it to some extent. We didn't grow up with it necessarily. But we felt, I mean, oh, God, can you imagine if that place is down the road for you? I mean, I was blessed going to see all the sports I did growing up. And, you know, these were I got to experience some really compelling teams, but that place is magic and it's different. You know, and when you get into it, it's so special and so unique that none of these guys could ever possibly understand that. You would think Henry might understand that walking in a Fenway, but they clearly don't get it. Farhan Mashiri, to his credit, we talked about this on the podcast, talked about the romance of football and what matters, talked about people want to see Liverpool Everton. They want to see the Darby. They want to see that passion. That translates through the TV to a certain extent, too. And that is compelling. And I think they just maybe don't don't get it. Well, either way, that leads us to another point, because Farhan mentioned some things about that they should be punished with points deductions. Now, it's a little complicated to do that, but it is hard to argue that they didn't violate some of the rules. So if we look at the Premier League Handbook, I mean, it says very clearly, you know, except with the prior written approval of the board during the season, the club shall not enter or play its senior men's first team in any competition other than and at least anything really sanctioned. You know what I mean? Now they didn't play in it necessarily in the bottom of it says qualification for UEFA Club competition shall be unsupported. Now, obviously this thing, this thing, well, apparently the Super League doesn't care about that. It's an open pyramid, man. It is the five slots that are good. I know, I know it's sad. But but anyway, the point is they didn't play in anything. So I guess by the letter of the law, maybe the Premier League won't punish them. The one argument I've heard, though, and keep in mind, UEFA could certainly punish them. And I think that's the more likely scenario, even though Seraphine seemed very happy that they were coming back. I mean, their vice president actually was pretty harsh about it, you know, telling him they were going to punish them. But the one argument that I'm really tired of hearing Grant Soon has contributed to this. And frankly, there's not much I agree with that guy about. He didn't. Well, you know, I haven't met the guy. I don't know if he's just posturing for TV. You kind of get this feeling that he's not. OK, I hope we never meet him. No, I just square up Graham. Yeah, he doesn't have my reach, so I think he'd be in some trouble. But but anyway, the point is the line I've heard is, you know, who are you punishing if you punish the club, you punish the fans. That one drives me crazy because in that way, you can never ever punish a club for anything because anything you do to the club punishes the fans. I think we have some great counters to that that I read today in social media media that I really love, like Mr. KJ Banks, Everton should flagrantly flout financial fair play laws this summer and spend massively. If they can punish the club, they punish the club. They're punishing the fans. If fines don't do it either, I hate that idea. Well, we'll just find them to hit them where the owners, you know, feel it the most why so they can pass on the cost to the fans. That's if these guys care only about money, do you think they're going to care about charging a $2 extra fee on tickets? I mean, I've been an info. I know what it costs to go to a game there. It's absolutely ludicrous. I don't know. John Henry will just sell some bricks and make up the difference. Yeah. Yeah, right. They love to do that stuff. Yeah, or he'll knock down some more, you know, houses and build an extra stand. I mean, it's it's absolutely ludicrous. But yeah, so there have been a lot of examples doing history that that have all hurt the fans. Every one of these punishments and that stinks. But part of that is necessary. The fans need to also put pressure on their owners. In some cases, they've done this. So it's Paul, actually, at its Paul, actually. I like this line. Middlesbrough refused to play a game in 97. Doc, three points. Any team enters admin. Doc, 12 points. Wigan, a great example of that. They would have made it. They would have been free. You docked them for going into administration. Who does that hurt? Was it the fans who sent them into administration? No, that's it. So what are we talking about here? You know, the big six tried to destroy the English game and break PL rules in the process, hurting every club out there, potentially. No, don't punish the players and the fans. Premier League plastics are deluded, is the quote. And this leads me to one of my favorite quotes of all time by famed American coach, Jerry Tarkanian, of UNLV's Run and Rebels, National Champions. His comment, because the NCAA is functioning very much in the way I have a feeling the Premier League will. The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky, they're going to give Cleveland State another year of probation. It's one of the best lines of all time, but you get this feeling like, yeah, fine, you'll hurt all these other clubs. So is this not a gratuitous? It seems like a violation of the rules to me. I know there's some voting aspects to they handle these things individually. Should they face points reductions? What are your thoughts? There's a lot to unpack, right? I mean, it's a big issue. And look, despite the fact that these clubs are probably rightfully embarrassed and have to kind of come back with. Are they? Should be. They should be. You read those things. They sound embarrassed. I mean, yeah. I mean, just like Project Big Picture, when Denise asked Woodward and Liverpool's president, Tom Warner, to apologize, what did they say? Nothing. I don't think that you're right. I don't think they're sorry. I don't think that they feel bad, I think. But I do think that this was, again, a part of a very small concentrated group at the top of each organization. That said, if you're an owner of a club, you represent the club and you do bad things that hurt other clubs, like there needs to be punishment for it because we talked about it. If there's no precedent set here, then they'll do it again. They'll just be another couple of years. It was Project Big Picture. Now it's Super League. Two years from now, it will be Mega League and it will be Gargantuan League. And like, they'll just keep trying it. So there has to be some sort of punishment because if you don't punish it, there's incentive. It's like, well, we didn't... But at the same time, these clubs still do have a tremendous amount of leverage, I think, in terms of what they can bring to League. So what is their kind of... I think the problem is, I think they've kind of put all their cards on the table and they've got nothing in there. And so now it's like, I don't know. It's going to be very interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. I feel like this is an opportunity where the fans are almost going to be sympathetic to the rest of the Premier League owners punishing their own teams. I mean, it's kind of... No, you don't think so? Because I've seen it already today. Oh, John Henry, he apologized. He's sorry, we should just let it go. He made a mistake. Okay, but that's... Give me a break. That's a lot of Liverpool fans rationalizing. I haven't heard as much from some of the other fans, but yes, you may be right. You may be right. I will say this, though. It's at least an opportunity at a minimum to enact some rule changes that would prevent leaving. Now, I don't know if Boris Johnson is going to jump in and demand a 50 plus one type ownership paradigm. I don't even know how you would unwind that at this point. I don't think that sounds likely. It has been nice to see some of the owners come out and say we would never do this, including Americans as well, too. Fullham's owner came out very early and said, this is ridiculous. We would never do this. And Jaguar's owner, American, not by birth, but lives there, does business there. I could see some rule changes. I don't know exactly what they'd be, but certainly some aspects to changing of the governance for this and maybe governance of punishment because I think you need more people now than maybe you would have. I do think, I mean, really, the big impact and easier thing would be is European ban straight from a competition standpoint from UEFA and I think they'd be supported by FIFA. That would be interesting. Frankly, you have some teams that probably won't make it anyway. Boo-hoo, assuming that we don't have a super league to save it. A billionaire lost money, oh, no, it's so bad. I know, obviously, I'm not going to be too upset about that either. Who could ever have sympathy for that? But I don't know what else would be, but I will say this, if there's one thing worth noting, and I knew this a long time ago, but it was nice to see evidence of it again, I feel pretty darn good about our club today. Amen to that. And frankly, I expected nothing less, but it was still amazing to see them live up to even the loftiest expectations that we might have had. Truly a top class organization, a top class club. And again, as one of the clubs who have in recent years been on the fringe of this big six, you know, there were all these tables coming out about who, if you remove them, how many titles would be bought. Yeah, it's a pretty good picture. But, you know, I do think that there is a certain responsibility felt by the Everton board to be a leader in this regard and speak out and speak strongly out against this sort of behavior. And I think they'll advocate for harsh penalties, whatever that might look like. I've also been, for a long time, from an economic standpoint, been a true believer that being ethical and behaving in certain ways can pay dividends to, not just in goodwill, but, I mean, literally financially. And I think the Everton brand, it's an easy brand to attack, though, that some of the challenges around it, if people are nefarious, but in the business of football, I mean, this is obvious plastic stuff. I mean, who are you competing with here? Some of these guys come across as like, I think I called one of them a Bond villain, basically, before. And so when you see things like this from people like Stan Collymore, who I, you know, don't agree with everything he says, but man, this is some pretty great stuff. So here's his tweet. Everton created the first in the community, engaging supporters on everything for mental health to education. Your point was in the first session, Bramley Moore doc, that public consultation, can you imagine Liverpool would ever do anything like that based on their behavior? Heck no. Farhad Meshiri himself, people keep saying, oh, you would join if you got the chance. Would he? Really? Would he? He said he wouldn't. So stop saying that garbage because that's once again, that's the problem. If you really think that, oh, you would anyway, because you're not a good person, like that's accepting of your ownership behaving that way. That's garbage. Change your mindset, man. That's wrong. Farhad is spending 50 million pounds of his own money to retain some heritage aspects of the doc. Are you kidding me? And that just really shows like how low these people had to go. Like you had to go to the what about, what if it was you? You would have done the same thing. That make you feel better. That's your justification for the horrible thing. Oh, it just, it shows that they really had no defense. And it was nice to see, I will say it was nice to see for a short period of time, virtually all of the footballing world united in one, in unison, in what is a typically very tribal sport for everyone to come together against what I view as just frankly like an evil influence on the game was inspiring in a lot of ways, I think. And most of the fan groups too. I mean, the Manchester fans, I think are, they have a lot of real true football fans truly. Of course. And they've been through tragedy and lots of things too. And they're very loyal group that have, I mean, FC United was created for partially this reason and they've been through a lot. Wrapping up with Stan, Stan said, I think is really good. He said, a club I never played for, but still drops me a line to ask about mental health initiatives. So not surprised at all, their stance today never change. Everton, I think any club can get behind this. And one last one I wanted to add too, and I never include Paul's commentary on our post match because he tends to talk more esoterically. I don't know what to say, but he's one of the most balanced guys out there. And always has very good intelligent, well-thoughtful messages. And I just think that this sums it up very well because I don't quite have, I mean, I'm older, but I don't quite have the history that many people do. So Paul Tran at Paul Tran Trainer. I've seen us win championships, FA Cups and the Cup Winners Cup. That statement yesterday was the proudest Everton have made me. I mean, can't say it better than that. It's a proud moment when you know that, the thing that you spend so much of your emotional output, supporting and rooting for and energy, even across the pond here in America, supporting and doing the podcast and everything, to know that you feel like your personal values are reflected in that group. And it's the best club in the world to say it time and time again, very fortunate and grateful to be an Everton fan after days like today when Americans around me, fans of other clubs were just disgusted by what they saw. And so it is great. You just feel chosen, you know, I've always felt that way. Absolutely. I felt like this wasn't a choice, you know, from that first day I walked into Goodison and hung around Liverpool and met every fantastic, I'll tell that story one day, the true long story about how I became an Evertonian, but the place is magic and the people are wonderful. And I mean, it's just so nice to have everyone singularly rallied around this theme. And I don't think it prevents us from winning at all. I think that's crazy. And it just, you know, look, it's still gonna take a little bit of time, but let's hope we carry over that spirit onto the pitch. We still have a lot of important matches left, but man, I'll tell you what, off the pitch, God, best club in the world. And I can't wait, you know, obviously we extended Marcel Brandt's day. We'll talk about that in another episode. Three more years. Yeah, I think that's really important. The point is going forward, you know, I think this is a nice feather in our cap. But yeah, some things definitely need to be done. It's nice to see Everton take a leadership aspect in this. And I think it's only gonna translate and result into more positive things downstream for Everton. So, and hey, we were true to the motto the last 48 hours for sure. 100%. And it's just karma, right? You get out what you put in, you get good energy out there and you'll be rewarded. I believe that three more years of Marcel into Bramley Moore and we'll really be cooking. But I think that's a good place to wrap up this episode. Thank you for ever. Thank you everyone for tuning in and listening to us. Really appreciate it. As always, be sure to give a like and subscribe to Toffee TV. Follow us at American Toffee Podcast. You can find all our stuff at linktr.ee slash USA Toffee Pod. Otherwise, until next time, up the Toffees.