Inside Soccer
Inside Soccer
Episode 6 - The EPL Returns. Crystal Palace CEO Phil Alexander
One of the best in the business joins Inside Soccer. Phil Alexander is a 25 year veteran executive in the EPL, currently the CEO of Crystal Palace FC. Phil will discuss the plans to manage through Covid, the players commitment, the challenges of staying in the top league and other topics of note.
Hello and welcome back. You're listening to another incredible episode of Inside soccer when your host bill Peterson inside soccer brings you a soccer fan expert analysis and opinion on the critical issues facing the game today. Bringing guests that have incredible stories and historical perspectives on the game. With soccer experience spanning 20 years, a Rolodex is open to bring you the voices and opinions you want. Sit back at wherever you are in the world. enjoy today's episode.
Unknown Speaker :Walk welcome listeners to inside soccer. This is episode six and this is also Premier League week here at inside soccer. We're celebrating the return of one of the greatest soccer leagues in the world. We'll spend today discussing everything you would ever want to know about the EPL and running a top level club in England. This is the show that brings you true heroes of the game the people who get their hands dirty any issues bringing you information and insight you won't get other places. This is Episode Six celebration and returning to Premier League. Today we're joined by Phil Alexander the longtime executive and now CEO of the Crystal Palace football club. Welcome Phil Phil to Premier League week on inside soccer. I feel good lucky to be with you. It's, it's obviously a very, very busy time for you. And, you know, that's that's how life works. I think you sit around and and probably we're looking for some things to do. And now all of a sudden, you guys are gonna play a lot of matches in a short period of time. So we do appreciate you being with us today. As always, we'll try to keep this to around 30 minutes. I've got enough questions last for three days, but we'll try to give the listeners a sense of what it's like to be CEO of a top club and some of the trials and tribulations and pressures and excitement of doing that. So if you don't mind, why not spend just a minute or two and share with our listeners sort of your journey you've been there a long time 25 years but share your journey along the way with Crystal Palace and what it's like being CEO
Unknown Speaker :yeah sure Percy's it's great to meet up with you again bill and could see your voice. I mean, we've we go back a long way. I mean, my journey in sport goes right back to pretty much all my life I've been involved at a youth level in soccer and I was fortunate enough to play bringing school boys 18 I then when Pro with New York City, which was a great experience for a couple of seasons play professional there, didn't quite make it and when overseas played over in Australia, New Zealand for a while, came back, played Semi Pro soccer. And eventually, I got an opportunity to join as my first coaching role and with the non league socket he did that for a year by basically learning my learning my trade didn't earn any money just just just beg borrow and steal really to make a team work. And then I got an opportunity at Swindon Town to go there as a head of commercial which was my probably my big break and I was there for three seasons before joining Crystal Palace and in the middle of that I as you know, I played the for the, for the London Olympics in the worldly for a couple of seasons, which was great fun and finally played at Wembley Stadium, which was always was a dream and that was our home ground. We won the World ball in 1991 which was one of the highlights in terms of my sort of American football career which was which is fantastic and really enjoyed that. So a lot of learnings I had from there as well that took into into soccer. And as I said, I've joined palace, and I'm now this is my 25th season there and it's been a it's been a roller coaster. many ways, but in recent years, which has been great and seven years in the Premier League, and hopefully another one to come out this season.
Unknown Speaker :So Phil, you mentioned to me that even though you've been with Crystal Palace for 25 years, it's felt like you've been with different clubs because of different management and different ownership. What's the key to longevity in that business? I mean, not many people have spent that much time with one club, and definitely not at the top of the pyramid. So what's what's your secret?
Unknown Speaker :I don't know. Basically, so you got a certain chameleon qualities, I think you gotta understand what your owners are after at that particular time, what the what the priorities are in the business. And to obviously know the culture of the club and know the fan base. And you know, the history is obviously really useful as well, it comes. It's useful to anybody only in a club, I think to have someone that understand that and also understands all the rules where you can become do in and around player acquisition, play contracts, and understanding What's where where the club has come from what what they're trying and what the what the sort of the general basis the brand values of the of the fan base are as well. I think it's going to be useful in the longer you stay the more you understand that of course. And you know, you're able to take advantage of, of knowing that with buy, buy, buy able to serve a an ownership or ownership group, if you like on a day to day basis by steering the ship through sometimes what are pretty choppy waters. But at the moment, the Premier League is arguably the strongest, strongest league in the world. And yes, it's done hugely well in recent years by generating revenues from all around the world, particularly from overseas broadcast around the world due to his popularity. Obviously NBC in the states have signed up on long term contracts and part of the challenges we had recently was firstly obviously to protect the safety of players and under that you know, the pandemic which is something we've never none of us have ever seen. Through so the players and staff was always a priority. But then we had to try and get to find a way of getting games back to protect some of those revenues that I talked about that were in danger, or at risk, simply because we weren't getting the games played. So that was very important to do that. And a huge amount of work has gone in by by the leagues and all the people at the club to get it away. And last night was a was a real particular moment when we got managed to get the season started and only got six and a half weeks to finish it off. And then we can concentrate on next year, but it's been a it's been a real journey in the last few months, something I've never faced in my time at Crystal Palace and obviously, you know, never really went through that again, to be honest with you. But it's it was better, you know, the league, the people in front of the league, even running the operation, certainly might seem at the club. I've been brilliant throughout the plasmid fantastic, very growing up very professional understanding what we're struggling with trying to do, and to enable us to get to where we are today.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I tell you guys To give credit to, to your league for coming back now, and you know, over here, we've got NASCAR, and I think that's about it so far. And so and that's, that's a whole, you know, I give them a lot of credit to, but that's a whole different environment. It's a little bit easier to drive race cars around 200 miles an hour than it is to play a soccer match with nobody in a stadium. And if you've been in this business, and you start thinking about all the precautions that have to go in, and all the risks that exist, you're right. It's it's a Herculean effort to get it done. But it also takes a lot of courage and a lot of faith from everybody involved, including the players. So, so how are the players? I mean, you know, we've upset their time clock, if you will, you've cut into their summer vacation for some of them, or most of them, I guess. How do they feel about coming back this week?
Unknown Speaker :Well, initially, there was obviously a lot of skepticism. There's a lot of young And with that, you get you get people who are not sure what to do. But I think what what what was very clear was that the the league, medical people, medical guys were consultation with the government and what was going on at the central government and what the direction and guidelines are shocking the general public and, and it was about consultation with the places about actually letting them know that their safety was was an absolute priority. And we had to make sure that they were comfortable with that they understood the the testing regime, they understood the protocols that we're going to put in place all designed to protect them from from infection, which would have been obviously horrendous from their own personal point of view as the last thing you need to do. But once we once we actually got over that initial kind of hurdle, got the got the consultation moving. They were generally very, very good and you know, full credit to them full credit to the coaching staff as well. It had some of the same protocols because they mixed with the players day in day out. And we've now got the issue of traveling to away games where we got to, again follow very similar protocols. I mean, the protocols we're following are much higher than the government months. So the Premier League put a raised a very, very, very high bar in place to ensure that, you know, there's the risk of infection is almost it's almost eradicated from their day to day environment, and you can't be 100% Sure, so you've got to be on your toes and alert throughout the whole program. But you know, we're putting it we've got hometowns, which we got to deliver behind closed doors, and the protocols as a huge document around the we produced which shows what we had to do to ensure that anybody entering the stadium has gone through a risk assessment that they can't enter what we call the red zone, which is where the players are and the officials. They can only go into the past they've got to wear face masks, they've got to you know, they've got to start staggered, precisely distinct in terms of where they watch the game from. So it's it's very, very strict. There is a very high bar that's been set, as I say, higher than the government high bar to ensure that we do have a very, very high standards to protect the players, the coaches and everybody involved in putting the games on. And, you know, so far so good. The testing has been going on for a few weeks now. And the numbers of positive tests are very, very low, which is, you know, which is a testimony to the standards, including flights but, you know, there's no room for complacency on this. We just got to keep going keep making sure we stick to it. There's no that people don't break down thinking or forget what they're supposed to be doing. Break away from from the regimented processes that are put in place. Hopefully we'll get the whole season away and and then on to sort of thinking about next season and when we can get fans back. What's in the games.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, again, extraordinary effort and a lot of really smart people thinking this through, but the fact remains that once you walk out of the Club environment and you guys aren't quarantining players, once they walk out of that environment, you know, the risk factor, I guess goes up some, some degree. Is there a number of players that have if a certain number of players all of a sudden contract COVID? Is that a problem? is there is there somebody gonna raise their hand and go, this is no longer a valid competition? You know, we've lost half of our starting 11.
Unknown Speaker :Well, we have we have a squad so you had a matchday squad at 25. And that was discussed the shareholder level with all the clubs and it was agreed that if you went if you if you've got a squad of 16, you have to play the games. That's simply where we're at. We couldn't be in a position where you, you lost one or two players, whether it be injury or COVID, or whatever. And you were canceling games because we just simply haven't got the time to do that. So have we missed a collective decision by all the leaks, I'd say that 16 is the number if you were below 16 you have the ability to put the game back, postpone it and put it back. But the moment you know, looking at the testing levels, which are really low, you talking ones and twos across, over over 1200 tests literally every time we do it, and we're testing twice a week now pretty vigorous. So everything everything's looking very, very good. But the number one number we decided on the 60, but it's unlikely to get anywhere near that the way it is at the moment.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. You know, interesting story here just happens to be down the street from where I live, some lady took 14 of her friends out last week and all 14 and herself and someone who works at a bar. So I think there's a total of 16 people now I've all tested positive. I mean, I don't even know how that's possible. But, you know, I'm not I'm not in the medical field either. So, let's
Unknown Speaker :see businesses completely locked down. You can't go out the pubs, the bars, everything So, it has been for months. So shows now some of the protocols that we put in place you could use won't be able to do that.
Unknown Speaker :And they started to loosen any of the restrictions.
Unknown Speaker :Now, there's a lot of pressure in moments. So with regards to the two meter distancing, because that's quite a step plus a lot on businesses and shops and places that on businesses trying to open and breathe some life back into, into their revenues. And I put a lot of pressure on so the moment I think the one meter distancing has been discussed, and it's the two meter is under review at government level. I would see that maybe relaxing in the weeks to come be only thing really, but everything else is pretty strict.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I mean, we've started to come back here on the beach and and it's still limited, I think the 50% on indoor seating, but the number of places closing down and now we've got another round of people closing down. I mean 50% revenues in that industry is not enough to sustain. I mean, they're gonna need 100 plus to keep this thing going and recoup some of their losses from being shut down and everything else so it's there's still a lot of bumps in the road out in the public and you know, we're gonna have to see what happens and how that affects sports in our in the games we love but let's let's move off of COVID for a minute and go back to the club level, you know, here in the States. There's always a discussion going on about promotion, relegation and the pros and cons of that as you know, MLS does not have promotion, relegation, actually, no one in the country has promotion relegation. So it creates this great talking point. You know, there's there's definitely two sides to whether it exists or not exists. That's not my question for you. It definitely exists where you're at. So, share with our listeners a little bit about those struggles. as CEO, you know, what are the stresses you're feeling you're in you're out offseason season. How much of it controls your thinking on a day to day basis?
Unknown Speaker :You're right, you're right relegation doesn't exist in the US sports and it kind of adds that it'll get to the Jeopardy really in terms of the broadcast appeal of, of the Premier League, I think because you've got, who's gonna win the league who's gonna qualify for Europe, etc. but also you've got the you've got the devil, if you like the Jeopardy at the bottom and the league who teams can get relegated. So you've got very few games in the season actually meaningless in terms of in terms of the intensity, and that's obviously quite appealing to broadcast perspective and adds weight to the to the value of the whole league but from, from my point of view, I suppose, you know, you've got to look at you got to look at the implications of relegation, which is usually financial news, and it really is a big hit. And you've seen plenty of teams go down One division and then not just one, they got down to the vision then consecutive years as well that's happened on quite a few occasions and happened actually when I was Swindon many many years ago. So it's because it takes a while for the club's to readjust from going down wholly with lower revenues lower interest in the general public and coming coming getting generally getting over what's been a very difficult period in terms of going down that division because the fans obviously very disappointed and negatively get changed managers and right and coaches around that period as well. So that whole period of instability in and around the club. And it's about you know, a couple of times of pilots now it's not it's not good, it's not not a good time to be around the business but you just got to focus on what we need to you need to do as a business focus on the revenues and into generate from a trend from transfers what the clients will want and keep keep keep the staff focused and motivated. The best. You can You know, you didn't come through it. And but it is a difficult very, very difficult period. And from a personal point of view Premier League down to the championship is a is a big call. And, you know, hopefully this year with pretty much cycle not mathematically safe, but sitting in 11th, we're in a good place. Hopefully we'll have another year in the Premier League. But every year is the same really, you've got probably half a dozen teams that can potentially win it and you know, they're going to be in the top six, maybe one or two. Add into that, and the rest of the teams, the other 20 on the starting line, really, and it's a race to 40 points. And once you get to that magical 14 points, you're pretty much assured of Premiership Premiership status The following year, and then you go back to look, look at going up the league a little bit, but it really is. It really is. An It's a challenging time, right, the beginning of the CCIE get off, get off to a good start. You want to make sure you don't fall behind too early. And you can get you can get some of the positions 38 games, so 40 points you pretty much need just want one again, on points again, if you dip below that average, you'll generally find yourself in the bottom three or four. And you're you're rolling up rolling against against stream really, and it's it's a challenge every year is a challenge. And I love it. I've done it for many many years and get into an annual cycle you know where you are in ticket sales, you know, you're on commercial sales. We've got some fantastic things done Crystal Palace now whether it's investment going into our academy in new structure, we've got a new standard plan for tape the tape capacity up to around 30 to 33,000 from the current 26. So plenty plenty going on at Crystal Palace. We've got a good strong shareholder base at the club, partly partly partly us own now, which you probably aware of, which is which is which is great, sort of a strong, strong ownership base, and, you know, based in London, so it's an appealing club to be part of. I love every minute of it. It's a challenge at times. But, you know, it's sport and then you can't win every game. We know that. But we'd like to like to punch away in many aspects.
Unknown Speaker :That's fantastic. And what a great setup to be involved in. So So let me ask you this question. It's a little bit out of the blue here. But if you had to talk about Crystal Palace, what what is it that you? What is it the Crystal Palace does that's better than other clubs and the same sort of range, if you will, same sort of size and range?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I think it's a great question. I mean, I think what we do is we know who we are. We've done a lot of work in terms of our brand, we understand the values behind the club. We're a very, we're a kind of a blue collar club. We've got a very dedicated, committed fan base, who supported the club for many years. And we we we pride ourselves on what I'm having one of the best stadium atmospheres and Biggest stadium but in terms of the atmosphere is very, very old school very gritty and very determined we keep our prices, our ticket prices, very, very realistically, that low to ensure that we can we can retain our traditional fan base at the ground. And, and we, we, we were very low fans are very loyal. So consequently we do lose a few games. It's not the end of the world. But you know, we know who we are. And we were very real, we're very pure in terms of a club. We don't do things that are not sort of natural in terms of a football fan, if you like we don't, we don't wave plastic banners around. We were, you know, it's, it's something that we in terms of our Valley brand values we were very determined to be to keep that way as well. And it's recognized and people come to the ground, they just, they just love it. I love the atmosphere. I love being part of what we do. very much a family club. We're very much open, growing In the local community there a lot of work through our Community Foundation. And we're known for doing that. We bring a lot of good kids coming through in our academy simply because of the size of the catchment area. And we got a carbon based in South London. And all these aspects of our club were well known for and we play to that every time we can. But we say it's about it's about real. It's about having integrity about what you what you are as a business. And we do things that we do, we do examine one of the things we do, we look at all the some of the some of the marketing communications we put out a great a very gritty and earthy and very engaging in terms of things we do, but they're very, very similar. You can look at things you can look at things that we do we put out and you know, we've got our own talk face, we've got to make sure that it's a very shouty loud type face. And we and we're very consistent how we how we do that and our fans really, really enjoy it and it's something we've tried I would enjoy being part of, and that's something we do very well. I think.
Unknown Speaker :That's fantastic. Okay, so switching gears for a second, we see a lot more us players headed to Europe and starting to play now I think though there's only one in the Premier League, Chelsea paluszek out of Hershey, Pennsylvania, but generally, and I'm not talking for Alexander opinion, but generally across your league, how would you characterize the feeling towards the American players coming over? And what are the challenges that you see that they face? You know, in their journey, I guess.
Unknown Speaker :That's, you know, quite quite a few American players have come over and played in the Premier League over the years. I mean, the obvious the obvious barrier at the moment is that they need to eat a work permit. If you're a non European player, you've got to have a work permit and to get a work permit to play in the Premier. You have been through some some fairly fairly large hoops in terms of getting that permit. So you've got to be an international player, you've got to play X number of games in your international in the last two years. So that's, that's one of the biggest hurdles you've got to overcome. But on leaving Brexit, there's every chance that that might change and the bar might be lower, which will enable more American players to come in who hadn't previously qualified for work permit. That's really good. I bet that's happening in the next 12 months. That's so that's gonna be an interesting time because the American players will won't face that barrier. And they'll be coming purely on a on a on a skill base base. If they're good enough, they'll get the opportunity so I think obviously they previously the coming if they played in the MLS is quite a big jump from the MLS to the Premier League. So they've had to understand what what it takes to get from A to B to play from to plus an American player in the Premier League. But in general now think that the the the Premier League clubs are open to all nationalities and If they're good enough, there's there's generally a feeling to give people a go. And that's been proven over many times by the American players. And as the MLS continues to grow and continues to improve its standards, the gap will get closed, I suspect, and you'll see more American players coming over because they'll be good enough to make the Great.
Unknown Speaker :So when you talk about the work permit, Is this correct? When I say what you're really talking about, is they really can't make the jump over unless they are a proven international star, which precludes them from coming in. It's 16 1718. and developing with a club like a person would from from Europe at this time,
Unknown Speaker :or exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, I'm gonna make a move overseas for non football reasons. But that's very few and far between. But um, yes, you're right. But that looks like that's gonna be changing when, because as you know, we're coming out of Europe. And as a result of that, there, there's gonna be affects all industries and in our industry, with the Premier League are working with its FAA to look at what what that bar was going to look like how high that's going to be in terms of be able to get a work permit, which is, which is going to be a lot lower than it previously was. The result of that will mean that it will be down to more ability than anything else for the American players to come and play in the Premier League. Hmm,
Unknown Speaker :very interesting. Well, we'll see what happens with Brexit, that's for sure. So switching gears, once again, and you know, I'm the father of a daughter who plays soccer. So I'm always curious about this and having lived in Europe, in the 90s when women's soccer was I hate to say it, but sort of an afterthought wasn't something that was taken so seriously, maybe now you start to see the growth of leagues and teams and more players and stronger national teams. what's what's the Feeling at Crystal Palace about this?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. It's a good point, though. I mean, but the whole diversity thing is right the way across sport and now women women's playing sport is far more prominent. And we have our own team, we've got our own ladies division, if you like this, there's 20 teams, believe it or not, we've now gotten our lady sex and all from from new teams up to up to our first team. So in terms of the structure over here, there's there's a woman superly, which is basically professional, and there's, as a group of about 12 teams playing in that and then underneath that, there's the championship League, which is which is National, as well. And underneath that you've got various regional leagues. We're in the championship in the second tier down for our ladies team. There they work extremely hard and they, they they've got their own. They've got their own set up their own structure their own board running alongside the Crystal Palace football club with our name, obviously we fund it, we fund it as best we can. And You know, it's never been as strong as it is now. And we're hoping to continue with that. And the team can go from strength to strength, but it's certainly something that we take. We take very seriously bill and as, as the soccer generally. And you know that that's reflected in the performance of the national team as well, which has done particularly well in recent World Cups. Then, like every team that wins and losses, but in general, it's come in leaps and bounds. It's very professional in terms of this operation now. And, you know, we were very much part of that and long may that continue.
Unknown Speaker :That's fantastic. Well, hopefully, it'll continue to grow. So look, we're coming to the end of our time with you, we appreciate it. The question is, do you have any interesting stories you can share with our listeners, something that maybe they haven't seen or heard before or you find very unique or funny, anything, top of mind.
Unknown Speaker :Nothing, nothing really.
Unknown Speaker :from someone that's played soccer all his life and involved in soccer, Announcer played American football as well as you know, my time with the monarchs it was it was a real deer time in close to my heart and those couple of years when we played when we played at Wembley, it was fantastic and to to be speaking to some of those guys stand elbow was our quarterback has went on to play for the Seahawks for a couple of seasons as well as chatting with him only a few days ago. For the first time in over 20 years, believe it or not, I spoke to him and he was talking about this time with the monarchs time in London and getting that worldly going and he rated at the high point of his career can when you consider he played he played it in the NFL and he wrote that he wrote you know, rewrite that so highly so for me to play at Wembley plan American football was a bit bizarre but I loved it I love all time there. And and that Polish now. You know, for 25 years I've been there now which is which is pinch myself sometimes I think we're Two years ago, but hopefully as many more years have come, but it's not really this the funny story that you're after, but it was kind of summarizes all my thoughts and how dear to my heart that time when we met Bill and plan and involved in the world legal many, many years ago. How were what a good time it had.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it was definitely barnstorming days. I'll share a quick one, which you'll find funny since I'm an American, but in our first year, so it's 1991. We're going to play in London. We're staying at the hotel across from Wembley, the original Wembley, and we walked down and, you know, do the sight check of the building. I didn't realize they still raced dogs there it was. But just standing there and thinking about all the history and all the great matches that had been there was really, really something for me. So we went back to the hotel and there's a couple guys and an older gentleman who had been in the NFL for a long long time and we said hey, let's let's take one of these vans and drive down to Piccadilly Circus you know, we're Americans we're going to drive right. So they're like Bill you drive so I get in this van I've never drove in England before. So it's a it's the opposite side of the road obviously. And I can't get the van to turn left out of the parking lot. I mean, I've made three laps around, and in my mind, just small let me go out there. Finally we get it out on the street. We go, Oh, I don't know not even a quarter of a mile. And the old gentleman looks and he goes, we'll take the van back he goes we'll find another way to get to that so we went back and took the tube and realize just how much easier that was. But yeah, those were there were a lot of lessons and a lot of interesting times back there but man, you've done an unbelievable job and we're gonna follow you for the rest of the season. And hopefully you guys have a fantastic finish to whatever this is going to be and and whatever your offseason is going to be retool and get ready to go again. So, so we appreciate you being on here. Good luck with everything we know it's gonna be busy. But a lot of a lot of faith in you and the leadership there and we wish you the best. I feel
Unknown Speaker :no worries. I'm gonna send you over a polished t shirt. I like your logo. It's great, fantastic. Maybe have a bit of fun. You're listening or someone that might want competition or something, you can give it away. But I'll send it over to you for in the next few days. We'll do
Unknown Speaker :that. We'll do that next week. That's that's our as soon as we can. That's a fantastic idea. All right. Thank you, Phil.
Unknown Speaker :Thank you, Bill. Take care.