 In May 2020, a nine minute video of police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck until he died of asphyxiation was shared around the world. The video sparked a political movement. Yesterday in a court in Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd was killed, Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder. It was a result which led to relief across much of Black America, principally due to the rarity of why officers getting convicted for such crimes. But the emotional impact of that court case, like the murder itself, has spread far beyond the US. To discuss what the George Floyd trial says about race in America and the relevance of the case here in the UK, I'll be speaking to two expert guests on both sides of the Atlantic. I'm also joined throughout the show tonight by Dalia Gabriel. How are you doing, Dalia? I'm doing all right. I'm really excited for this show. We have some incredible guests for some really much needed analysis immediately after this historic court case. So I'm just as excited as everyone else is to watch how this show unfolds and I'll chip in a bit, but I'm just really excited to even just be a viewer today. You can be much more than a viewer today, Dalia. We are also spoiling you tonight because you're also going to get some bonus time with Aaron Bustani. He'll be joining us for the second half of the show to discuss the epic collapse of the European Super League. It really is a story that has everything, so do make sure you stay tuned for that. As always, we want to hear your thoughts on tonight's stories. You can do so by tweeting on the hashtag Tiskey Sour. Now, the George Floyd trial, like the murder itself, was being to millions of viewers across America and across the world. Last night, the verdict of that court case was being across the world, and this was the moment the world learned that Derek Chauvin was guilty of murdering George Floyd. Now, in this clip, you'll see the judge, then it will cut to Derek Chauvin as he listens to the verdict being read out. Vertic count one, court file number 27 CR2012646. We the jury in the above entitled matter as to count one, unintentional second-degree murder while committing a felony, by and the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this 20th day of April, 2021, at 1.44 p.m. Signed jury four person, jury number 19. Same caption, verdict count two. We the jury in the above entitled matter as to count two, third-degree murder, perpetrating an eminently dangerous act, find the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this 20th day of April, 2021, at 1.45 p.m. Signed by jury four person, jury number 19. Same caption, verdict count three. We the jury in the above entitled matter as to count three, second-degree manslaughter, culpable negligence, creating an unreasonable risk, find the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this 20th day of April, 2021, at 1.45 p.m. That was Derek Chauvin being found guilty of all counts. So murder and of manslaughter there. You saw his eyes there switching between the judge and the jury. Not much emotion beyond that, although I suppose with the mask it's somewhat difficult to tell. For George Floyd's family, the emotion was one of relief, but that relief also came alongside a commitment to keep on fighting and an appreciation of the political movement that led to Chauvin's conviction. This is George Floyd's brother, Philanise Floyd, on hearing the verdict. It's been a long journey. And it's been less than a year. And the person that comes to my mind is 1955. And to me, he was the first George Floyd. That was Emmett Till. Wow, wow. I did on CNN with Deborah Watts, and she just brought him back to life. People forgot about him. But he was the first George Floyd. But today, you have the cameras all around the world to see and show what happened to my brother. It was emotion pitching, the world seeing his life being extinguished. And I could do nothing but watch, especially in that courtroom, over and over and over again as my brother was murdered. Times, they're getting harder every day. 10 miles away from here, Mr. Wright, Dante Wright, he should still be here. We ought to always understand that we have to march. We will have to do this for life. We have to protest because it seems like this is a never-ending cycle. Revan Al always told me we got to keep fighting. I'm going to put up a fight every day because I'm not just fighting for George anymore. I'm fighting for everybody around this world. I get calls, I get DMs, people from Brazil, from Ghana, from Germany, everybody, London, Italy, they're all saying the same thing. We won't be able to breathe until you're able to breathe. Today, we are able to breathe again. Incredibly powerful speech from Philanese Floyd there. Now for context, Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African-American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. And Dante Wright was a 20-year-old black man killed by police six days ago after a routine traffic stop. So you could see that George Floyd's brother clearly putting that murder. We can now call it a murder with no legal qualms, no legal concerns in the context of a history of violence by police officers against black men in America. To discuss the impact of this verdict on racial justice in America, I'm now joined by Maurice B.P. Weeks, who is director of ACA, a group dedicated to campaigning for racial and economic justice in America. Thank you so much for joining us on tonight's show, Maurice. Yeah, good to be here. Now, in that clip we just showed, Philanese Floyd said, today we are able to breathe again. Now, he didn't say that to say, yeah, now's the time to relax, but he was saying this, there is a moment of relief here. Is that something that's being felt across the US today? You know, I think that, you know, this is such a rare occasion where we have a police officer who's murdered a black person in cold blood, which we, you know, it seems like we see almost every week these days be held accountable for that crime by the justice, the same justice system that employs him. But I use that word accountability and I don't use the word justice for a reason. And that's, you know, we know that just convicting this officer is not the end goal, and we know that the system that we're up against will, you know, offer up different people as little kernels that never quite add up to the justice that we're looking for. And the justice is, you know, that George Floyd should still be here and that we shouldn't have to deal with these police murders at all. I think that there is, you know, a wave of shock that's going through people's system that, you know, we saw something that even in previous cases where we've had, you know, concrete evidence of police murder, we haven't seen convictions. There's a bit of shock in actually seeing one and seeing the judge read out those three counts. But, you know, we have so, so, so much further to go as we get to anything that resembles real justice for the Floyd family or, you know, for any black Americans. I mean, obviously the image of America that that horrific video, nine minute video of George Floyd getting killed. I mean, the image that put across to the world about the institutions of America was one that was brutal, that was racist, that was horrific. What has this court case, what does this court case tell us about America and how it functions at this point? I mean, a couple of things I suppose stood out for me from it was that you did have the chief of police who was a witness for the prosecution who was essentially saying you should prosecute this police officer, my police officer. At the same time, he's the leader of the same police force who, when that murder took place, released a press release which was basically saying, oh, there was a medical accident, not much happened. What have we learned from the trial about America and about policing in America? Yeah, I think one of the main things that we can take away from it is there was a tremendous amount of evidence in this trial. You had the full nine minute video as the murder was happening surrounded by crowds. You had many, many, many witnesses. And I don't think that there's any questions, certainly not in my mind that if you didn't have that video, there's absolutely no way that officer Shobin would have been convicted on three counts of murder. And I think even furthermore, I'm not sure if it happens without the global movement that was sparked by the murder. So that should say a lot about what our justice system needs to provide just one single small kernel of accountability towards itself, a global movement and a full murder caught on video. And I think, you know, for me and several of my friends, I know we were still shocked even after seeing all of that overwhelming evidence because we know that the system's just not made to provide those types of outcomes. So, you know, like I said, I think that there's a long way to go until we get to any sort of justice and certainly a justice system that can make sure that black people in America are allowed to live and thrive like we should. And, you know, I think that there's been a really clear rallying cry for defunding the police here in America. This is such a good example of why that needs to happen. We just cannot rely on this institution to keep us safe. And, you know, I think that that's where the momentum is carrying and that's where we're going. What do you mean by that? Because I suppose what many people would say is, look, when his body comes, if you look at this situation, it actually could serve as a bit of a deterrent because, yes, I think, as you said, if the video camera wasn't there or the mobile phone wasn't there, this person wouldn't have been convicted but at the same time, because everyone has mobile phones now, maybe the police will think twice before they behave in such a brutal manner. You don't think that's enough. You think something more radical. No, I mean, yeah, absolutely has to be something more proactive. As that verdict was being read in Columbus, you know, also in the Midwest in the United States, a young girl was being murdered by the police. There was video of that as well. So you would think that, you know, and I will say this isn't the first police murder that was caught on video that was very obvious and egregious and that hasn't stopped those murders from happening. And, you know, just having one person locked away when we know that this entire system, you know, targets black people and torments black people is really, really not enough. That's not the justice that we need. And the real justice would be, you know, a radical re-imagination of what safety is. And the only way that we get there is by defunding the police and rethinking what that is. I want to bring in Adam Elliott Cooper, who's an academic at the University of Greenwich and author of Black Resistance to British Policing to talk about the UK angle on this. Thanks so much for joining us, Adam. I want to start off by saying I was, I mean, I wasn't surprised, but it was quite striking to me how much this court case in America resonated with so many of the people I follow on Twitter. You know, really, you know, reactions which showed how emotionally invested people were in this case. And way more so than I think almost, you know, any other international story I can think of. I'm sure there are a few we can think of. But, you know, it seems quite rare for people to be on such tenterhooks for the result of a court case in another country. Why do you think this is something that has cut through so much here? I think there are probably two or three reasons. I think the first, of course, is that we didn't simply all watch George Floyd die. We watched George Floyd being tortured to death effectively. So George Floyd's death was, I think I would argue, potentially one of the most watched lynchings in human history. And it's very, very difficult to not be moved and pained by that footage. So I think that's the first thing. But I think the second thing is that it's also, of course, come in a wider context of far-rights and racist nationalism, whether it be the Trump administration that was in power in the United States or, of course, the Boris government here in the United Kingdom. So again, I think people were angry in that wider political context. I think thirdly, of course, people were angry about this lockdown. And I think that I think the combination of the mismanagement of the dealing with this current pandemic, as well as the wider context of far-right nationalist governments across Britain and the United States, I think bolstered the anger and rage which emerged from the rebellions against George Floyd's murder in the summer of last year. There seemed to be a relief from people in this country about the verdict in this court case. Now, suppose is that because people feel like these things will now get taken more seriously in this country, or is that just, you know, solidarity? That's just a relief felt for comrades in the United States? I mean, I just want to echo a lot of the things that were said already. I mean, I don't think that even Minneapolis or America could have survived any different outcome. I think that the Minneapolis police have sacrificed one officer in order to save the whole institution. And I think that if the verdicts went any other way, then the United States would have another summer of black rebellion that it wouldn't be able to handle. But I think the other thing, of course, is that we've seen people like Sadja Javid and others really proclaiming and being very pleased with this particular outcome. And I think that's because they hope that people will invest their time and energy into assuming the criminal justice system will become a self-regulating body. And we know that that isn't the case either. And so I think that it's incumbent upon us to continue to argue the same kinds of demands and platforms that were popularized in the summer of 2020, that we need to dismantle the criminal justice and policing system and border regime as we know it and produce and create something different, something that provides care and safety from the grassroots and within our communities. I want to take a look at some of the political responses in America. You mentioned Sadja Javid. We'll probably go to him a little later. It was quite a ridiculous response compared to what he said in the past. Another ridiculous response was this from the speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice, for being there to call out to your mom. How heart-breaking was that? Call out for your mom. I can't breathe. But because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice. That was clearly a mind-blowingly inappropriate and offensive response to the verdict. George Floyd did not sacrifice his life. He didn't go to war to fight for a cause. He was murdered in cold blood. And I mean, the whole 30 seconds I found just incredibly bizarre. Joe Biden, the president, made a statement that was slightly better received. It was a murder in full light of day and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see. The systemic racism the vice president just referred to. There was systemic racism that was a stain on our nation's soul. The knee on the neck of justice for black Americans profound fear and trauma. The pain, the exhaustion that black and brown Americans experience every single day. The murder of George Floyd launched a summer of protest we hadn't seen since the civil rights era in the 60s. Protests that unified people of every race and generation in peace and with purpose to say enough, enough, enough of this senseless killings. Today, today's verdict is a step forward. I just spoke with the governor of Minnesota and thanked me for the close work with his team. I also spoke with George Floyd's family again. Remarkable family of extraordinary courage. Nothing can ever bring their brother or their father back. But this can be a giant step forward in the march toward justice in America. That was Joe Biden. It was easy to forget how recently that speech would have been given by Donald Trump and would have sounded incredibly different. Maurice, I want to bring you in on that. Joe Biden, I think as many of our viewers will know, doesn't have a brilliant record when it comes to race relations in America. But to see a political leader stand up there and talk about systemic racism seemed somewhat significant. What did you make of that speech from Joe Biden? Is it, even if he's not, is it relevant that he feels he has to say these things? How would you respond to what you said there? Well, you know, I think that as you mentioned, the president has a really long history in his political career of being on the wrong side of criminal justice issues and was one of the architects of the bill that led to the mass incarceration and destructive policing that we see in America today. So I don't take those comments, you know, very, very seriously at all. I mean, he mentioned, you know, the protest being such a great thing. And I didn't hear him say that or commit to not sending the National Guard or other military force into cities when inevitably, inevitably these protests will happen again. And we know that he will. We know that he'll certainly approve of that because it's just, yeah, those were those were empty words. You know, we saw before that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, which, you know, with a totally ridiculous statement. And, you know, I think that her pushing forward a policing act, the George Floyd Policing Act, which not a single thing in that act would have actually acted to save George Floyd's life himself, is really a good summation of what, you know, mainstream Democratic leaders have to offer for us in this moment, lots of lip service and no real action, no commitment to actually looking at the nature of policing, incarceration and criminalization of black and brown people in this country and upending it and changing it for the better. You know, there were this trial lasted for 23 days. In that time period, the police killed 32 black and brown people across the country. In just 23 days, while this trial was going on, 32 black and brown people were killed across the country. This is a systemic issue that needs more than just politicians draping themselves in kinte cloth or making empty statements about how they talked to a particular person's family. It needs real action. And unfortunately, we don't have the leaders that take that seriously at the moment. I mean, I agree. Yeah, it seems like you don't have the leaders that take it seriously, but they do take it a bit more seriously than our ones. I'm going to go back to Adam in a second. I just want to bring up a couple of tweets from Sajid Javed. And so he's the former chancellor of this country. In response to the verdict, he tweeted Justice Black Lives Matter, RIP George Floyd. And immediately after tweeting that everyone very quite rightly mocked him because last year he'd said that Black Lives Matter was not a force for good. So as has been discussed on tonight's show, it's pretty inarguable that one of the reasons why at least accountability has happened here is because of public pressure, popular pressure from below. That's the kind of thing that the politicians such as Sajid Javed would have opposed or did oppose at the time. Adam, I want to know from you how you think, I suppose the politics of race compares in this country to the United States because I mean, obviously on a very basic level, less Black people get killed by the police in this country. We have a less violent police force. At the same time, I mean, our prime minister is not going to stand up and talk about structural racism. He's just commissioned a report whose sole purpose it seemed was to say that there is no systemic racism in this country. Do you think on some levels Britain's actually behind America on race? So I think in some ways Britain and America are kind of similar. So in that video we saw Joe Biden, he described racism as a stain on the nation's soul. And of course, isn't a stain on the nation's soul. It is the nation's soul. It is a nation which was founded on the settler colonialism and the genocide of indigenous peoples. And of course, chattel slavery and a whole wave of other forms of racialized governance. And there's never been a break in racism being a fundamental part of American power both nationally and its foreign policy. And so therefore it is also inaccurate of, I think, the US presidents to describe these killings as senseless. They're not senseless. They're a very integral part of American governance. And I think we could say similar things about Britain. Britain would say that if racism does exist, it's a stain on the British nation, which is generally quite tolerant. And of course, that isn't Geneva. Britain is a nation founded in 1707 on empire and imperialism and all of the kind of racial governance that comes with it. And again, and similarly, that when black and brown people are killed in this country, we should also understand them as not being senseless, but part of a wider system of racial control, discipline and violence. But I think the differences between the United States and Britain are important because while both Britain and the United States, of course, incarcerates black people at very, very similar rates, almost identical rates to each other. And while we don't see as many black people dying at the hands of the police, we do see similar forms of disproportionate policing when it comes to black communities. I think one of the key differences are on the one hand, of course, this history of anti-racism. So whilst on the American mainland, you have this very long history of anti-racism that goes back centuries, much of Britain's anti-racist history hasn't taken place on the British mainland. It's taken place in its colonies, in the Caribbean, across the African continent, across South Asia and what have you. And so it's been very easy for Britain to pretend that both racism and anti-racism are something very new to Britain. It's a language and a problem which is only really coming to grips with when in fact that history goes back far further, but because of Britain's kind of colonial amnesia, it hasn't really, there's definitely a lack of memory in that regard. And while we could go into details about, you know, the extent to which British police are armed or the differences between how police forces are funded and all of these different types of things, I think what's really crucial is the fact that when people saw the police killing in the United States, they saw very similar kinds of patterns here in Britain. And the big slogans that we saw in the protests of the summer of 2020 in cities and towns across the United Kingdom was the UK is not innocent. And that isn't simply because they wanted to shine a light on the problems taking place in Britain, but because the UK continuously projects itself to the rest of the world as being innocent. And it was a really vital correction to this self-perception and this self-image that Britain projects around the world. And I think that correction was even more vivid with the attacks on statues like Colston in Bristol, which forced Britain to face up to those histories of racial slavery, which it too often likes to pretend happened far away to people that it's got nothing to do with. Adam Elliott Cooper, thank you so much for joining us this evening, incredibly insightful as ever. We'd love to get you back on soon as well. Thank you. Maurice, I just want, I know we've got to let you go as well. I just want super quickly to ask where is the state of the defund the police movement in the United States? I've heard you mention it a couple of times. I mean, there seemed to be a big drive towards it in sort of the summer of last year. I think even the Minneapolis State Assembly decided they were going to disband the police, and then they sort of rolled back on it because it didn't seem that popular. Where is that particular demand going right now in America? I think this is just the beginning of the defund the police movement. And I think that as more people get introduced to the politics of abolition and the fact that we can imagine a future without the police defund the police is really going to be sort of the baseline of what it means to be to have left politics in America. So I know my organization is working with folks in several different states and cities around the country who are planning campaigns and thinking about it. I know that comrades like Miriam Kaba are writing about it and there's lots of other popular literature about it. I think we're just at the beginning. And it's really the only step that is going to make sense in terms of really structurally changing the nature of how the state interacts with black people in this country. Super interesting. One, an issue I'm sure will be coming back to very soon. Marie's BP Weeks, thank you so much for joining us this evening. We really do appreciate it. My pleasure. Let's go to a couple of comments. Joshua Youngerman with $2. Important to say this is bare accountability. So that distinction between this being justice and just mere accountability. Darlia, I want to bring you in at this point. You've been very patient. I want to know your thoughts on this case and what was just said. And especially I suppose on how you think this is viewed from this country. I was really taken aback by how much relief people seem to feel in this country because of a court case in America. People really, really related to this case felt it so closely to themselves. How did you respond to this verdict? I mean the reason that it resonated so strongly I think is because in the UK, despite there being over 1500 deaths in police custody in the past 30 years, we haven't had a single conviction of a police officer in any of those deaths. So, you know, we have barely seen extensive investigations into these deaths to find out actually what happened. So it resonates very strongly here because it is a reality in the UK as well as in the US. You know, we often think that as was mentioned earlier, because police officers here are generally not as heavily armed as police officers in the US, and that that's somehow not a problem here, but police don't need a gun to kill people and get away with it. But I also think it resonates here actually because we are on the precipice of the police crime and sentencing bill being passed, which not only dramatically expands police powers and expands the remit of behaviors that are criminalized. You know, a lot of that focus has been on the right to protest. But there's so much else hidden in that bill that increases the presence and the intensity of policing in people's lives, especially people who are obviously working class, who are migrants, who are black and brown. For example, the police, the bill includes an expansion of the relationship between schooling and policing, again, much more closely to the model in the US, which we know from the work done by organizations like No More Exclusions, like Forefront, that that relationship between policing and schooling is not only an incredibly harmful and destructive practice, and is a racist practice, but it's incredibly, it's part of that school to prison pipeline that condemns so many people to further incarceration and further criminalization. But also I think because while we often focus on the injustices of policing, when an event like this happens, you know, so when someone has died, and particularly when there is video footage, that's often where we see the most heavy scrutiny for police. Obviously that makes sense because it's horrific and it deserves attention. But we also have to remember that the injustice and the harm that is caused by policing in our communities happens at so many different scales. And the sense that police can sort of come into your community, come into your neighborhood, do what they want with the full power of the state behind them is not limited to these particular instances. And every day occurrence, you know, from being stopped and searched to poor neighborhoods being excessively policed to people in mental health crises being responded to with handcuffs and being, you know, hauled into the back of a police van to, you know, kids who are just either behaving as a kid or have, you know, learning difficulties or mental health difficulties being faced with, you know, punishment and sort of a form of pseudo criminalization. And these are all ways in which the police harm people, traumatized people affect shape their lives in very negative ways. And that's the stuff that, you know, is totally above board police practice, you know, you can't prosecute for that because it's part of the police handbook. It's actually part of the way that policing exists. And so that's why we feel so connected to things that happen across the pond, because the issue of police being presented and understood as an institution that confers safety and protection, and yet is a source of fear and harm for so many is something that we all feel. But obviously, and I wanted to kind of comment specifically on on this case and what it means for kind of the broader, broader anti racist movements, and the broader kind of mobilizations that we're seeing around criminal justice, you know, obviously, it's not, not a secret. I'm a prison abolitionist. I don't think that the criminal justice system that policing and prisons are an effective or a humane way of dealing with and preventing social harm. I think it actually create tends to create more social harm than than what it solves or present prevents. So naturally, in many ways I don't see this as justice being served because justice being served, as Maurice mentioned, would be George Floyd being alive today. It would be black and brown people being able to exist in their lives without fear that something similar could be done to them. And, you know, within hours of this verdict, we had yet another instance of a 16 year old girl, Makaya Bryant, Bryant getting shot dead by a police officer. So clearly justice is not actually happening. I'm not even sure if it's even as as far as accountability. But what it is, I think, and the reason why this is so powerful is because it is recognition. And that is small, but it's very powerful because for so many years in the UK and in the US, instances of black people being killed by the police or being harmed or being mistreated by the police either hasn't been going to trial, or it went to trial and police were found to do nothing wrong. And the message that that sends is that violence experienced by black and brown people at the hands of the police is not considered violence. It is, it is merely necessary force used against the population that have to be contained and, you know, who who are treated with contempt by by our system. And this conviction was merely recognition that violence occurred that what happened was not justified. It was not so it should not be run of the mill that it was violence and it was harm. And that's why even as a prison abolitionist, even as someone who can see how this problem is not going to be solved in the courts. I cried when I heard that verdict it was incredibly emotional it was incredibly powerful, because that recognition was so simple is the first step towards something more profound. And it took so long to get there you know having this kind of act recognises violence even just one time and I think that Adam and Mary's right that in many ways this was a calculation to sort of sacrifice one officer to save the institution. But this moment was not handed down benevolently by the courts it was fought for tooth and nail it took a lot of work and organizing to just get this case in the courts. And you know not to mention the years of organizing that have happened for generations now to kind of get to the position where we realise that this is something that needs to be taken seriously. But for all the reasons I mentioned before it is very important that we don't let this demobilize us in our demands for transforming our criminal justice system for abolishing our criminal justice system and replacing it with something with a system that is focused on care and accountability because just prosecuting police isn't going to change a system that is predicated upon detaining and disenfranchising and repressing black and brown working class people overall. So I think I hope that kind of explains a little bit why we can be like super critical of actually the implications of this and be modest about our understanding of what this means was also understanding why it was so powerful and why it had such a which for many of us maybe we didn't even predict that it would have such a big powerful such a powerful implication but might go a bit of a way to explain why why it did. We'll have to find time on a future show to properly have it out on this issue of abolition versus reform because we're definitely in different camps there but we probably should move on at this point. I thought your point about recognition though I completely agree with that for that was really I completely agree with you there essentially we're going to go on to our next story though in one moment. In fact if you do want to see us discuss whether or not defunding and abolishing our sensible demands or good demands. I think there was me and Ash and Aaron discussed that at length and last summer during the Black Lives Matter protests in this country but something we should definitely come back to as well. And before we go on to the football stories we missed out a birthday shout out from Monday show Ian story. Can you give a big birthday shout out to my wonderful partner Ellen who can't stand football but is more than happy to hear about it when ashes spitting straight facts. So a belated birthday to Ellen apologies we didn't read that out on the day you're going to get Aaron spitting straight facts on football now he's Aaron here yet. We'll get we'll get him after we Aaron is here yes. Thank you so much for coming back on on a Wednesday. We're getting 1.5 Aaron this week is going to be on a full show on Friday half a show on Wednesday and we have. I mean yet a whirlwind story coming up for you before we do that do like the video on Tuesday night after only 48 hours since coming into existence the European Super League collapsed. The plan to create the breakaway European Championship had been concocted by billionaire club owners who assumed they held all the cars and who believed that by acting unilaterally they could force the hands of the Football Association who opposed the move. How wrong they were and how pathetically incompetent they all now seem. Let's take a quick look at the sequence of events that led to this most dramatic of unraveling. We'll start we're going to rush we're going to go through this quite quickly but it's it's worth running down so on Sunday at midnight the Super League was announced with no PR no public appearance from anyone defending it. Just a statement by three teams each from Spain and Italy and Liverpool Man United Man City Chelsea Tottenham and Arsenal can see here the tweet from Liverpool. No one came out as I said no one came out to defend this just a few tweets from a few clubs. However while the owners supporting the plan was silent the opponents of the Super League. Were not by Monday morning as we discussed on Monday show politicians pundits and fan groups all came out against the Super League and by the evening it was the turn of the teams themselves live on Sky News after their game against Leeds. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp and Vice Captain James Milner were the first to express their opposition to the Super League. Jürgen not too long ago you said you hoped there wouldn't be a Super League what are your what are your thoughts what are your feelings today. Didn't change didn't change since that or my feelings but my opinion didn't change. Can only say my personal opinion I don't like it and you know hopefully it doesn't happen. Why don't you like it what is it what is it. The reason is that everyone else have been talking out of the last day obviously it's been difficult for us with our only game. We're trying to prepare on the game but I can only imagine what's been said about it and probably agree with myself. Really strong statement there on Tuesday it was the turn of Chelsea's owners to hear the disquiet among the team and fans. Here's goalkeeper Petr Cech pleading with fans who had blockaded the team coach from entering the stand. Petr Cech there was saying give us time pleading with the fans give us time for us to sort this out. And the fans didn't need to wait long and the BBC Sports Editor tweeted I understand Chelsea are now preparing documentation to request withdrawing from the European Super League. And once one domino fell they all began to collapse because not long after that Manchester City followed suit and then all six of the English teams had quit by midnight. As an example of the statements that came out Arsenal tweeted the following. As a result of listening to you and the wider football community over recent days we are withdrawing from the proposed Super League. We made a mistake and we apologize for it. Now most dramatic on Tuesday evening was that Manchester United withdraw came alongside the news that their chairman would resign with immediate effect. It would have been due to resign at the end of the year but the controversy over the Super League meant that decision was brought forward. So a remarkable unraveling Aaron I want to know were you surprised at how quickly this whole thing fell apart. I think everybody thought it had last longer with the exception of you. I mean I think you know your take was your Insta analysis was this won't work but what we knew on the night when the sort of story broke which is on Sunday was that contracts have been signed that you know people were now in for a penny and for a pound. So you think well there is no going back and there's precedent there you know in the Champions League which is you know the present elite competition amongst European football clubs. That was founded in a similar rich way. It was expanded beyond just the winners of domestic leagues that happened in a similar rich way right so you can see you can see how unilaterally the biggest clubs. Try and take the game in a certain direction but it's never been done like this this unilaterally with no consultation with players with fans with associations. UA for FIFA the FA nobody nobody knew about this. So there was there was a kind of double feeling right on the one hand while people have signed documents on the other hand wow we've never seen anything like this how the hell can this go through. I didn't think it would fall apart in 72 hours. Well what seemed so surprising I suppose is because you know on Monday when I had asked on the show we were talking about this you know some game theory going on here who's going to fold first. Presumably I assumed they wouldn't have done this they wouldn't have launched the European Super League unless they put in place the steps which would allow for it to happen. Because yes you know there have been dramatic developments since the announcement on Sunday but they could kind of all have been predicted. None of them were surprising but they you know they seemingly hadn't foreseen any of them. I don't understand what they expected to happen that would have been different from what actually did happen. So I have to disagree with you there slightly because what I don't think they foresaw was the intervention of politicians in the way that we did we did see. So Boris Johnson comes up very quickly you know he's saying I will use a legislative bomb to stop this from happening. He was saying I will you know impose potentially new legislation and says explicitly that was you know that's the pretext of the pretext of subtext. I will impose legislation whereby you would lose equity in these football clubs because he would introduce something like 50 plus one in Germany where actually fans have a majority of equity in the football clubs effectively expropriation. Now that may just have been rhetorical but if you're Abramovich or if you're you know you know the shakes at the top of Manchester City you think I don't need this right. This is a really valuable asset. I don't need this you've got the you've got a bidding war or bidding war almost between the leader of the opposition the Prime Minister about who can sort of bring football back to the people. You've got Prince William tweeting about how it's not acceptable and I think at a certain point those kinds of political interventions probably did rattle people and even yesterday you saw it in the statement that came out from Manchester United. There's been pushback from fans from from players and I think they did say explicitly from from government and I think the government bit was the bit they didn't expect and this is folding the way that it has because of the six English clubs. Not because you know they're so wonderful and they're so much more enlightened than the other than the other clubs but for two reasons really firstly the Premier League is already very lucrative. You know AC Milan into Milan Juventus need this a lot more than the English clubs do their debt piles aren't quite as big but at the same time you know they're not making as much money as they would like. And then secondly I don't know if we can bring this up probably not actually what was super interesting was that the fans most opposed to this tended to be fans of English clubs. And the only club whose fans supported the European Super League and by a tiny slither and majority was Juventus like 5248. But for all the English clubs you know it was a tiny minority that wanted this whatsoever so I think the absence of consent from fans the intervention of politicians and the fact that Premier League is already so lucrative. I don't think the incentives lined up for them even though some clubs really did need this to happen they looked at the European Super League as a kind of bailout. Manchester United and Tottenham in particular are facing massive massive debt piles and they really need this to happen because you know the Champions League is not bringing enough money for them to kind of continue as they are. So it applies to Real Madrid which is why Florentino Perez has been the kind of the driving force with this whole thing. So many dynamics at work but what's really instructive is that the two English clubs that broke first were Manchester City and Chelsea and of course they're the two clubs that are sort of independently wealthy. You know they're not based on shareholders and debt leverage buyouts and loans from JP Morgan. They're owned by one's you know astronomically wealthy Russian oil oligarch. The other one is a shake you know from the Arabian Peninsula effectively a sovereign state that's involved in Manchester City like the Paris-Azure man. So there were a lot of dynamics at work and I think that's why that's why the English clubs you know pulled away first. And the moment the weakest links fell the whole edifice crumbled right the moment Manchester City and Chelsea who didn't really need it dropped out the whole thing fell apart. Apparently Chelsea and Man City weren't that keen to sign up in the first place. They were incredibly angry at the other clubs who launched it because I think I mean the subtext for me seemed to be that they assumed that those clubs kind of sorted out some sequence of events that would make this thing actually happen. But they signed up because they didn't want to be left out of it and they assumed that the Manchester United's and the Juventus's and the Real Madrid's had sort of worked out a way to make this work and they clearly hadn't. I want to focus on the players for a second. We showed you a couple of clips of Petracheck and James Milner. They weren't the only players to speak out against this before the whole thing collapsed. Manchester United's Marcus Rashford tweeted at two in the afternoon. On Tuesday, this image says football is nothing without fans. It's a quote from Sir Matt Busby and then Liverpool players put out this collective statement at 9 p.m. This was a statement they all agreed of each other. We don't like it and we don't want it to happen. This is our collective position. Our commitment to this football club and its supporters is absolute and unconditional. You'll never walk alone. Aaron, you sort of said that the politicians getting involved was one of the unforeseen things by the owners. I think they probably could have foreseen that because if the fans hate it, the players hate it, the managers hate it, then there's a real opportunity for politicians to come in and also hate it. The collective action among players was really interesting because I think what many people assumed was these people won't bite the hand that feeds them. They're essentially paid by, well, either these other garks or these businessmen who wanted to join the Super League, but they came out and felt able and willing to speak out against it. Were you surprised at how, I suppose, vocal players and managers were? Yeah, that's super interesting. And again, that's another stakeholder which wasn't consulted. And I think you're right. I think they certainly wouldn't have seen what has happened. I think a lot of it does boil down to changes in technology. And I think particularly with the Glazes, Manchester United was purchased by Malcolm Glazer. He completed the purchase of Manchester United in 2005. And that, you know, presaged huge process, massive process, the biggest process that, you know, I think to this day, I think they're the biggest process we've seen in sort of elite English football. I could be wrong, maybe I'm forgetting something, but I think they were just giant protests. So a whole new club, you know, FC United was founded out of those protests. And it's a perfectly successful, you know, sort of non-league club. It's doing pretty well, lower down the football pyramid. And I think, well, they thought 2005, yeah, there was loads of kickback, but ultimately we managed to get through that and report a club for $800 million. It's now worth $4 billion. You know, that was definitely a win for us. We've taken a billion pounds out of the club ever since. You know, we managed to buy it with loans guaranteed against the assets of the club we were buying. Wow. I mean, it's almost criminal when you think about the Glazers' purchase of Manchester United. But, you know, they managed to get through it. And I presume there was a sort of recency bias, right? Which is the last time we did something this absurd. We got away with it and it was very lucrative for us. So why will this time be any different? Well, this time is different because I think of technology, social media. And I think the players lost their inhibitions because they saw Twitter. They saw Instagram. And then, of course, you're seeing television. And it helps that, you know, Sky had a vested interest in screwing this up probably. I mean, maybe not. I mean, maybe Sky would have, you know, still bid for the TV rights. You know, I don't know. The people have said that, but that's difficult to qualify. But they certainly didn't want it to go ahead. And so you've got on Monday night football, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, who are very established figures in football punditry saying these things. You've got BBC pundit saying something similar on Sunday night. So if you're a player, you're looking at the pundits, you're looking at the fans, you're just getting abuse on your Instagram account whenever you sort of say it or do anything. And so I think that does take the inhibitions away. And it's a very different context 2005. Pre-social media, you know, pre-YouTube, pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram. And again, I think that's where the glazes fell apart. And people say, well, surely they foresaw this. You know, I think we really shouldn't overestimate the extent to which these people are detached from reality. The glazes look at Manchester United. I can't speak for John Henry in Liverpool or any of the others. I think John Henry actually doesn't apply to whatsoever. He did a relatively impressive, I think the bare minimum groveling apology, you know, but he's the only one to really do that. But the glazes are completely detached from reality. They are American. They are the children, the prinslings of an American sports billionaire who really don't know the rest from their elbow, never worked down their lives and look at this football club like a piggy bank. And they thought that this deal with the Super League would make that piggy bank even bigger. And I think their eyes grew bigger than their capacity to fight this fight. Their father was around the last time he wasn't now. So a bunch of things at work. But I think the big, big, big one is how we conduct these debates. The capacity for collective action growing out of social media just wasn't there 15 years ago. And it makes you think, you know, would the glazes have been able to buy Manchester United in 2005? I would wager after the last week looking at what's happened, no, they would not. Now, the European Super League might have been short lived, but could the failed attempt by a group of billionaires to steal football cast a longer shadow? Could it spark a wider backlash against the plutocrats who own England's football clubs and lead to reform of club ownership? Now, I'd imagine a lot of that will depend on where the efforts of a newly energised fandom goes after this win. Win and Chelsea fans, at least, have got a lot of momentum here. They are protesting the league and then celebrating, protesting the Super League and then celebrating its downfall. Now, the experience of, I suppose, mass mobilisation and then winning can be quite radicalising. And Aaron, what I want to know from you is, you know, what did you make of those scenes? Are there quite, you know, seemingly reasonably well-organised protests? And within 48 hours, they've got what they've wanted. Will they be going on next to completely transform the ownership model of English football? No, I suspect not. One thing I would say is that, at first glance, I didn't realise this, but now on, you know, in the subsequent days looking at pictures of the protests, particularly Chelsea yesterday, the people there were incredibly young, shockingly, shockingly young. And so what I think this could sort of speak to is the fact that you are looking at newer generations of football fans priced out of the game, can't afford tickets, can't afford all the merchandise, just as passionate about it as their parents, their grandparents' previous generations, and, you know, they want change in the game. So I think that's definitely true. But the idea there's now sort of this sudden mass that wants fan ownership. I don't think it's correct because if you ask the average Chelsea fan, are they happy with what Roman Abramovich has achieved in that club in the last 17, 18 years since he's owned it? They would say yes. If you ask the average Man City fan, are you happy with what, you know, Sheikh Mansour has achieved since he's been there? They would say yes. You know, before Roman Abramovich, Chelsea had won a single championship in this country. I think it was in 1955, they won the Old First Division. Since then, they've won the European Cup, you know, they won the Europa League, the League Cup, FA Cup multiple times, etc. They've had the biggest period of protracted success in their history in Abramovich. So I don't think City and Chelsea fans want big money out of football because they're really happy with how things are working out right now. Where I think it's different is with Manchester United because what you had there before the Glazes was almost uniquely, in fact, a very profitable football club, the biggest stadium in England, state of the art, you know, a huge business, usually profitable, but most importantly, hugely successful on the pitch. And actually, in 15 years, the Glazes have, you know, for want of a better word, fucked that up completely. They've taken out a billion pounds. They've not made any changes to our Trafford. It's actually a bit of a state of disrepair now. It used to be a world-class stadium. Now, when you compare it to what you've got, for instance, with Tottenham, what you've got with Arston, with Liverpool, it's kind of like a run-of-the-mill, frankly. Chelsea, it's looking, you know, run-of-the-mill. And so I think Man United fans, in particular, would find the 50-plus-one model very alluring because they've seen, you know, the worst, most egregious consequences of billionaire ownership at a football club. They've not just, you know, had a very profitable team, get into loads of debt, football fans don't really care about that stuff, but it's hugely impacted what's happened on the pitch, massively, massively. And of course, it's a very different story for Manchester City and for Chelsea. But I do think they aren't alone. I think there are a bunch of clubs. You've got Manchester United. You've got other teams that have experienced these kind of cowboy owners. Portsmouth is another one, was fan-owned a couple of years ago. Fans brought Portsmouth out of administration. And so I think you've probably got 10, 15 clubs across the country where fans, the supporters' trust, the wider sort of support base would say, yes, we want fan ownership. Does that apply, you know, across every team, across every league? No. I think for most sort of support bases, the dream is a guy worth 300, 400 million pounds and just had to spend it all on their team. Like you saw with Jack Walker and Blackburn, also John Hall, Blackburn and Newcastle at the end of the 20th century. That remains their dream rather than fan ownership. But there is clearly a growing demand, particularly amongst younger supporters. They look at the kind of the consistency, the sustained success of Bayern Munich, of Borussia Dortmund, of Ajax, Amsterdam. And they say, you know what, we want our clubs run like that. Cheap tickets to get to watch the game. A sustainable business model when actually putting fans first. And so it's not quite at the tipping point, but I think it could be. And I think this new demographic of football fans could be the ones that push it over the edge. Dahlia, I want to bring you in on this because I know, like me, you're not that passionate about football, but this is the story which is completely, I mean, it's one unavoidable, but also like an incredible political story. And are you now convinced that football fans are the new revolutionary frontier? Can't really bring the detail to this conversation. My partner is a Tottenham fan. And the only thing more distressing than being a Tottenham fan is being the partner of a Tottenham fan. I feel like the mood of my household is determined by like the ankle health of a man I've never met and will never meet, but that's beside the point. I know it's so naive, but this whole super league thing just like it just flaws me how under capitalism there is literally never enough money. There is never an opportunity to concentrate wealth that will be missed. Like it is literally insatiable. These are some of the wealthiest institutions out there. And yet, you know, they were willing to sacrifice all of this reputation that the buy-in and loyalty of their fans just in order to kind of concentrate wealth and power even further. And it also showed me how quickly something that is organized by powerful people and seems to be set in stone can be defeated when the media isn't blocking you. Like when the media, when you have this kind of like, and I guess that is the nature of the media. So we can't kind of imagine a world in which the media aren't normally on our side. But it just goes to show how powerful the media being on side is in making these kinds of things happen. But, you know, I think that for me, what this is so, you know, what this is so kind of interesting and why I think it's maybe galvanized people so much is because, you know, when you look at sort of from what I know of the history of football, that this is sort of this attempt to do the Super League was kind of a too much, too fast, accelerated stage in what has been a very long trend of the movement of, you know, football from a kind of more local working class, you know, locally enjoyed sport to this sort of multi-billion dollar industry controlled by people who have no interest or access or relationship to the communities that the football clubs are named after, which is oriented around finance capital and which is becoming increasingly accessible to the very people that sort of make the sport happen in terms of, you know, the fans. And that story is the story of so many other things in our society, right? It's the, not to romanticize the past, but it kind of registers this shift that we've recognized in so many parts of our lives from, you know, political system, education system, healthcare, et cetera. This intensification of inequality, this concentration and endless need to concentrate even further resources and power into the hands of never decreasing minority at the expense of an increasingly dispossessed majority. So I think that's why it ignited such a response because it felt like a tangible sort of specific standing for so many of the other broader issues that we are facing, but perhaps feel more complex or mystified or inaccessible in exactly the way that they work. But, you know, it's good to see our side kind of win, I guess, not to sort of romanticize the Premier League and stuff, but, you know, there's so many things in here. You know, there's the issue of corporate ownership. There's the undermining of local political autonomy, the undermining of community. And I even think there's a really interesting question to be had here about alternative models of ownership. So, you know, we often think that the only two options are, you know, corporate ownership or state ownership. And the conversations that we're now having about, you know, fan ownership of these clubs does, you know, introduce that other angle of what can it mean to have public ownership that means something very different, how would decision-making work in that context? So it's an experiment in public imagining that if we can harness it, it could be, you know, a really, like, interesting political education moment. But I'm not going to want to deliver that because I don't know what I'm talking about. That was very articulate. It's interesting actually that the... You say how this could be a model because in Germany where you do have fan ownership of football teams, you do also have co-determination in firms. So it's normal to have workers on boards. It's normal to have fans on boards in football teams. So it could be the case that if pressure brings through some reforms to footballing, that could extend to other sectors of the economy. Before I go back to you, Aaron, I want to show a couple more clips. You said the people who should be, you know, living in most fear right now of, you know, losing some of their assets are the glazers, the owners of Manchester United and Gary Neville, who I mean has done really well over the past four days. I think we all have to agree. He's now turned his guns towards the glazers. Let's take a look. Edward Wood is the trunk of the tree. We now need to go for the ropes because I said last night I felt complicit. They've declared their hand. While they were peacefully sat at the club not making a statement, never showing their hands, never doing media conferences, yet they were taking money out of the club. Yes, they've leveraged against the club. There's nothing that we could do about that once the club became a PLC. But they said last night they attacked every single football fan in this country with what they did. And Jamie's just talked about FSG having no place in Liverpool. The glazers have no place in Manchester anymore. And we have to work hard together to ensure that ownership rules in this country are changed, that we have a system whereby this cannot happen, whether that is government intervention, independent regulator, whether it be a fan-owned club rule, whatever it is, we have to make sure that this is the catalyst for change. And the people have spoken. We were on the brink of anarchy if this continued. The Chelsea fans that have turned up tonight, the Leeds and Liverpool fans who turned up last night, the social media presence and these six sets of owners in this country and obviously the other ones in Europe have misread this situation badly. And again, very, very persuasive. And he, yeah, talking about alternative models of ownership for football, which I think probably could extend to other forms of the country if it's demonstrated to work, as it has been demonstrated to work in, for example, Germany. That was Gary Neville pushing for a change of ownership among the football teams. What about the owners themselves? They haven't been as noisy as others over the past few days. They've mainly had their tail between their legs. John W. Henry, this Liverpool's American billionaire owner has come out in the public and explained what went on and basically he's sounding very apologetic. I want to apologize to all the fan supporters of Liverpool Football Club for the disruption I caused over the past 48 hours. Goes without saying, but should be said that the project put forward was never going to stand without the support of the fans. No one ever thought differently in England. Over these 48 hours, you were very clear that it would not stand. We heard you. I heard you. And I want to apologize to Jurgen, to Billy, to the players, and to everyone who worked so hard at LFC to make our fans proud. They have absolutely no responsibility for this disruption. They were the most disrupted, and unfairly so. This is what hurts most. I love your club and work to make you proud every single day. I know the entire LFC team has the expertise, leadership and passion necessary to rebuild trust and help us move forward. How pathetic was that statement and how duplicitous was it? We always knew we wouldn't be able to do this with the fans. They announced this at midnight on a Sunday with no consultation with anyone, not the players, not the managers, not the fans. They thought they could use coronavirus as an opportunity to do it because no one was in the stands and was allowed to attend the matches anyway. The fans and the players and the managers were inventive enough to effectively campaign against this. Suddenly, they said, we never meant to upset you. You knew you'd upset them, but you thought you could win and lost and now you're humiliated publicly. I think he knew he was humiliated there. Although he's a billionaire in America very far away, he probably doesn't care that much. Aaron, do you think Jeannie has been let out the bottle here? John W. Henry clearly thinks he can rebuild some kind of trust with Liverpool, with the fans, the players, the manager. I mean, it seems pretty difficult for that to happen. Once you've tried to attempt to do this you've failed. I mean, how do you crawl back from that? You can't. I think the fact that he thinks he can apologise and make amends shows he still doesn't understand the gravity of what he's just done. He still doesn't get it. Liverpool Football Club is the most successful English club in European competition. They've won six European championships and that is the basis of that club. It's the memories of those victories, those triumphs with Bruce Grobbler doing the crazy legs in Rome, Istanbul when they came back against AC Milan. It's those memories that kids share with their parents, with their grandparents they pass on. That's what binds that community together and what the Super League effectively was was saying, you know what? That doesn't mean anything. The European championships, the European Cup, the Champions League since 1992 those triumphs don't mean anything. This thing which gives you the most pride and satisfaction as a Liverpool supporter are meaningless. We're going to create a whole new competition independent of UEFA. Of course they would try and present it as a continuation of the Champions League but if UEFA carried on running the Champions League it's not going to be, is it? I don't think it will ever be forgiven. If you look at Manchester United, so Matt Busby the second greatest manager in Manchester in the United history but you know after Sir Alex Ferguson what he did with that club was phenomenal. He came to a club after the Second World War Old Trafford had literally been bombed. They used to have to play games at Main Road, Manchester City's old stadium because they'd been bombing of the old ground of Old Trafford and from there he built a team through to the late 1950s the Busby Babes who were on the cusp of winning the European Cup at the time, 1957-58 and Celtic were the first British club to win in 1967. They were looking to do that nine years earlier and of course that tragically never happened because there was the Munich Air Disaster and these young men a few other women as well it wasn't just footballers that support staff, huge to tragic but principally the focus was on the fact I think you had three or four England internationals die and they were in their early 20s and one of the biggest comeback stories in the history of sport, I mean it's phenomenal the fact it's never been made into a film that shows you how little Americans understand about European football is because it is the greatest comeback story of all time this guy who literally helped to build a club from the ruins of the Second World War he then goes to Munich he then in hospital as wife sees him he says I don't think I can come back to this she says I think the boys that have gone would want you to and in 1968 he wins the European Cup with a whole new team and that history is there for Manchester United fans forever and Joel Glazer and Edward Wood basically shat on it they basically said that doesn't mean anything or Solskjaer and Scheringham in 1999 in the last two minutes against Bayern Munich and Barcelona that's meaningless because we've got this new competition which allows us to drain even more money out of this club which we've already parasitised for 15 years so no they're never going to be forgiven because the most important thing to these fans is that history that's all they've got that's all the football is, it's the memories right it's the sort of the shared stories and the narratives bringing people together I remember this, this player who was better, was Kennedag Leish better or was you know you know, I don't know Sulla, most Sulla or Kennedag Leish or who was the better goalkeeper Bruce Grobler or Alice these are the silly debates and the memories but they're intergenerational and that was just disregarded by these people, I could go on to other clubs I won't, AC Milan another beautiful European history completely disregarded, just kind of forgotten by these owners who've come from nowhere and so I think principally they will never be forgiven and I think particularly the American owners just don't get what European football culture is about which is that you don't have a western conference, an eastern conference and nobody can get relegated you know, and we have the same leagues every year because by the way if you did the European Super League 60, 70 years ago you know the teams that would be in contention like Blackball and Everton and Portsmouth 1-2 back-to-back titles after the Second World War you go further back Newcastle, Sunderland you know, the point is in English football over the years, maybe that stopped we don't know, but we've had you know, teams have come and gone even 30 years ago it would have been Newcastle and Blackburn with the big challenges to Manchester United nobody's saying you should be in the Super League Nottingham Forest have won two European Cups more than Arsenal and Tottenham put together nobody's saying they should be in the Super League you know, teams rise and fall, that's life and I think that was lost on these Americans and you know, I'll finish with this, Stan Cronkey who's the owner of Arsenal he's the owner of the LA Rams which is I believe an American football team or I think it's an American football team I don't really care, I don't really like American sports is a remarkable thing right? and you know this our viewers will know this you know, you get these American teams they were the St. Louis Rams and now they're the LA Rams and now we have a team from one city to another kind of completely ahistorical well if it makes money, if it's the right business decision you know, in an ideal world for Joel Glazer and for Stan Cronkey you know, if it meant they could make money by turning Manchester United into the kind of into the Tokyo Red Devils they'd do it, right? if Stan Cronkey could turn Arsenal into the St. Petersburg Gunners you'd do it, right? that's the sporting culture they come from because of course, American culture is utterly saturated in in capitalist ideology obviously, right? it's the heartland of modern of modern capitalism the idea that everything is subordinated to profit and commodification and actually, in this country that hasn't happened to the same extent and so people go, what the hell are you doing? there's history here, there's meaning here there's tradition here, you have to respect some of it we don't mind you coming here like Sheikh Mansour and Abramovich and you can spend a load of money you can't change the fundamentals and actually, we'll talk about fan ownership but there's an interesting thing you get with Portsmouth which is they were taken over by the fans when they went into administration after some very dodgy owners I mean, literally criminal owners, and I'm not saying that lightly there was criminal charges and they were found guilty and so on the producer Fox doesn't need to worry about me being legal here and the fans bought the club and of course they sold it because running a football club is a really tough thing whatever but what they did do is they had something called I think it's called a legacy share which is basically the owners can never change the name of the stadium they can't move the stadium they can't change the color of the kit fans have to be consulted on really large decisions and I think at the very least even if you don't believe in 50 plus one and I do, I think fans are such a major stakeholder in the game they should at least have 10, 20% equity in a club the table when these decisions are made about something like a European Super League or the Premier League clearly, because you don't have football clubs like the fans, clearly they are a stakeholder so supporters trust I think supporters trust whether it's the top of the Premier League or the bottom of League 2 should have equity in those football clubs Super interesting, you mentioned American sports being completely saturated with capitalist ideology you'll be pleased to know that when you're back on the show on Friday we're going to do a segment with Lars Sankara who is an American sports fan and we're going to be comparing sport in both countries because even though the European Super League was just an outrageous undemocratic money-fueled project Baskar was actually telling me that some of the sports leagues are actually the most liberal parts of of America so that would be super interesting for now Aaron thank you so much for joining me on a Wednesday I really do appreciate it Darlia, final question for you what can us non avid football followers learn from all of this I mean I kind of agreed with what you said before which is that let's not get carried away with the idea of people power because to be honest the reason the fans won is because they also had the media on side they also had the conservative party on side not every campaign could just be like oh how do we win campaigns let's have the media and the conservative party on side of it that's pretty difficult for most campaigns but I mean I suppose is there anything we can learn from the past 48 hours when it comes to campaigns not involving football I think it's probably and you know this isn't really what's necessarily happened on this particular campaign it's more about looking at the kinds of conversations about ownership models and you know what we want these different institutions to actually do and understanding that things aren't set in stone in this way and I think that what we can learn is that oftentimes when it comes to political story making and political narrativising we need to kind of like start in the specific and the local and in stories of how things have changed or of how we want things to be in these kind of like tangible things for example like you know how has your relationship to a local football club changed over the past 10 years and how would you want it to be different and how can we go from that kind of localised specific easy to imagine concepts to then draw out the bigger themes to then draw out the more abstract things so I think really it's about it's a lesson in how we conduct political education and how we can use those kinds of moments in order to have those other conversations that often we are trying to talk about but happening quite abstract ways and this is something that you know I think Corbin tried to do in a sense with things like free broadband and all of that and you know I think that there was some some stuff that came out about how you know there was conversation I don't know if it was in the 2019 manifesto but like these conversations about football ownership were happening a while ago and the structures of football but basically I think it's just an easy way that you can kind of cut through a lot of that is through taking these localised specific issues and drawing from it into and connecting into those more abstract concepts that we sort of harp on about because it's actually quite popular a lot of the things that we want to get done but it's just when you do it in a jargonistic way sometimes it can be kind of difficult but it is also worth pointing out as I said before that the reason this one is because you know of the coalition that it was able to form and also because I think in general you know football fans are kind of a more I think this is probably actually contestable but you know they're not it's not like kind of like black teenagers trying to fight for an end to stop and search in their community they're not a stigmatised community as much although that is probably contestable maybe I'm talking about my arse but I think it's worth I think it depends on the time period so I think if you talk about the 80s then probably they weren't seen as a core demographic when it came to voting patterns right now given the electoral geography of the country and who are the people I think clearly they are a much more contested demographic in the country than black teenagers as you say yeah it's been an absolute pleasure as always being joined by you on a Wednesday and thank you for your help putting together the show today as you say that you help with more than more than one of the guests so thank you so much and thank you everyone for watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media this evening as ever you know this show this organisation is only possible because of your kind support if you are a regular donor thank you so much if not please do go to Navarramedia.com forward slash support for now you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media good night