Hook, Lock and Squeeze: Football's Enshittification ft. Mark O'Neill

What if football is following the same path as social media: hook the users, lock them in, then squeeze them for everything they're worth? In this episode, we talk to Mark O'Neill, a doctoral researcher at Westminster University, about the “enshittification” of football—how the relentless pursuit of revenue is reshaping the game, from ticket prices and fan culture to player welfare and the never-ending expansion of competitions. As clubs chase global audiences and governing bodies create more matches, are loyal supporters being treated less as a community and more as a captive market? We explore whether football is slowly consuming the very authenticity that made it the world's most popular sport—and whether new regulation and supporter power can stop the rot before the game becomes little more than content.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Football Podcast. Podcast where Football meets politics. I'm one of your co-hosts, Francesco Bel Castro. And here with me is my other co-host, Guy Burton. Hello, Guy. How are you? I'm good, Francesco. How are you doing today? I'm okay. I'm I'm good. I'm looking forward to today's topic. Before we do that, Guy, um, could I ask you whether you have any other podcast that you would recommend to our listeners that maybe comes out on a Tuesday every week?

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Yes, my little mini sort of 10-minute on podcast. Yeah. Shameless plug right here. But thank you very much. I'm a big fan.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I'm a big fan myself. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

So I just do a short 10-minute uh style format, uh, really kind of uh essay, if and if you want to call it that, which covers a s uh c covers a topic or a news event from the previous week and tries to sort of dive into it in a little bit more detail. So previous topics I've done have included the El Nino phenomenon and what this means for things to do with politics and economics. Um, I've also done things that look at um oh my mind's gone a blank, but I'm sure you can go and check it out in my content in the look at conflict in different countries and in Sudan, for example.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yes, you've looked uh and it's not always obvious topics, that's what I like. It's not always if you're fed up with something that we uh the news I've been talking just about wanting guys podcast, it's always very refreshing in terms of the topics they pick. So I would really recommend it.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah, I mean the idea is to do something that's a little bit off the beaten track, you know, don't want to sort of follow the HUD. And frankly, I'm not a journalist, so I'm like you, you know, and also like our guests who we're gonna be talking to. We're academics by training, so we're much more interested in sort of the deeper, you know, patterns, work, the issues that are going on. So that's called 10 minutes on dot dot dot, whatever the topic is that week. And you can probably and you can find it on on various podcast platforms. So uh, and also I post about it on LinkedIn on uh you know Tuesday mornings, so keep your eye out there.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

But yeah, thank you for the the other good news, guys, that we got our guest today for more than 10 minutes. So who is our guest and what are we gonna be talking about?

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Yeah, we're we're really really lucky actually today to talk to uh Mark O'Neill from Westminster University. He's going to be talking to us about the inchitification of football, and it's a fascinating topic. So, Mark, hi, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Hi, hi, hi, hi, both. Yeah, thank you for having me on. Uh, pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

No, no, our pleasure. It's really great to have you. And uh just to give um the listeners a sense of who Mark is. So, Mark O'Neill is a doctoral researcher at Westminster University in London, and there he's doing his PhD on the design of football club ownership regulations and the extent to which they align with supporters' expectations of what constitutes a good owner. The project analyses existing regulatory frameworks, most notably the various iterations of the owners and directors test, their evolution over time, and broader historical trends in club ownership. Alongside this work, he is employed at the Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology at the University College London, and he serves as an independent disciplinary panel member at the Football Association. He's also worked previously with Fair Game, which is a major uh think tank about football in the UK as well. And he's finally a qualified solicitor. So I'm I'm I'm sure you'll agree, Francesco, that uh Mark's quite well-rounded to talk about the shot subject that we're going to be discussing today, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, I was I'm really, really fascinated by the title when you suggested this topic. And I've been wanting to learn more about this for a while. So I'm really looking forward to our chat with Mark.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

So, yeah, so Mark, can we just start? Because you you wrote this thing about inchitification of football, which which caught my eye. And so I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the concept itself, what it is, what it means, and and how the context in which it was derived and how you apply it to football.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Um, so the term uh insitification is kind of it describes a term coined by uh uh an American academic um Cory Doctoro. It basically describes the process of which um online social internet companies or social media companies um and how they're the process of how they've evolved over the years. So they initially when they they start out, they start out as good to attract users, kind of low costs, um, kind of great features to kind of attract users, get them on board, and then over time they start to shift um in um perspective. Uh and so they try to and they shift towards kind of like business customers to try to start extracting more kind of financial value, so kind of towards advertisers and um online sellers and kind of um kind of tweaks to the algorithm to experience kind of businesses over users, and then you get that third stage, which is they try to start squeezing both the users and the businesses to extract as much financial value as well by and also at the same time they don't maintain that fundamental product quality, which made the made the thing great in the first place. So it's um yeah, so it's kind of like it's a three-part kind of process where it's um so it's it kind of it kind of starts, kind of takes the takes it away from the the end user and kind of focuses more on kind of um the bus the uh the the financial maximization of financial value um instead. So it's um yeah, so it's quite a kind of cultural and kind of like philosophical kind of um concept as well. So it's it's um it's quite neoliberal in its approach. It's kind of on that, you know, focusing on the market power and um you know, so it's um and how it kind of extracts that value from um from its customers and users. So um I think anyone who kind of follows modern football will kind of identify how the game's changed over the last 20 to 30 years or so. Um so if you football kind of kind of um exhibits a lot of those kind of um aspects of inchification. So um if you look at the in terms of um, so you know, take fans, for example. So for fans uh, you know, can't just switch, won't just switch clubs, they won't just kind of switch to um other teams or anything like that, because a a lot, especially those kind of hardcore supporters, will be um highly um invested emotionally in within their club. So it's not like you can just go from like one supermarket to another, for example, or so it's um so they're kind of locked in, they become locked in, like like you are on a like a social media app. So your Facebook or your Twitter, for example, where you kind of you get on there and you're kind of locked in, you feel like you kind of have to use it to kind of maintain your social networks and things like that. Um so and then you also kind of you look at in terms of how players, the how it affects players as well. So they operate in quite tightly regulated um markets as well. So it's it's difficult for a player to just kind of move clubs, they're quite kind of tied to contracts and kind of like their their employers are kind of um have quite tight control over them. Um and also in terms of like the and and the regulation of the game as well. It um, you know, there's look at there's there's never expanding kind of match calendar as well. So it's kind of create so all new tournaments. So the Club World Cup, for example. I don't think um anyone was really kind of in favour of that or kind of was really particularly excited over it, but it it was an opportunity for kind of clubs to make millions of pounds at the expense of players who could really have no real kind of end-of-season break in between seasons. So you get Chelsea, for example, kind of finished one football season, kind of literally and a week after the season ended, that was straight over to America to play in the club World Cup, and then a week after that, week or two after that ended, straight into the new Premier League season. So it's uh it's just the uh it's creating all these new matches and all these new competitions to kind of keep fans in um kind of uh financially invested all throughout the year now. So um and that's that that's that kind of extraction process in kind of full flow. Um and it's that kind of feeds into a little bit the kind of such as like the how um say so football fans are not real mere consumers at the end of the day. So it's like um you know the consumer can, you know, the the idea of the rational consumer can think, okay, well that it's it's this product is better or this product's better priced, I'll go over X rather than Y. Whereas football in football it's it's tribal, it's it's more visceral, it's kind of it's more emotional. And so people don't make those rational decisions. So the the the regulators, the clubs know that the the fans will always be with them. So whatever they do, the fans will always be there. So that so they're captive, they become captive, and so they they know that they can extract that value from them in the in the end as well. So can I speak one thing, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Sorry, to jump in. I mean, obviously the the reference to the the the neoliberalism and the economic system, it's it's already sort of giving us a big hint, but is that where the connection with sort of the football and politics aspect is, according to you? Is that is that where the nexus is? Is that why entertification is political?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, very very much so. You've you you kind of look at how football's regulated, it kind of has a strong sense of regulatory capture about it. Um, you know, in the in the English context, I think the regulation um has been quite laissez-faire in quite in a lot of aspects. And um, so club, so football's always regulated itself, so it's always kind of always been that separation between between a kind of formal separation where where politicians don't necessarily get involved formally in the running of the game. So football's always been and sport generally has been left to its own devices, but um so this so it and that in itself it kind of creates this kind of dual role for bodies like the Premier League, the FA, the uh the EFL, FIFA, UEFA, for example, that they're they have this dual role of being both regulators and commercial actors. So, and then in situations where those roles kind of butt heads, the commercial aspects will always win out. So it's kind of that the um market forces will always win out over that the the regulatory aspect. And you um, you know, a good example of that, if you look at um f financial fair play regulations in in European football that are enforced by UEFA, um, they've kind of been in place since the early 2010s. Um the bigger clubs have never, you know, like the the real historic kind of elite level clubs um have never really been held to account for for breaches of the financial fair play rules where smaller clubs have been. So that's kind of that kind of butting of heads of the commercial against the regulatory, is that comes on kind of full display there. So that it kind of reinforces that idea of um of regulatory capture, um which is similar to kind of the social media space when you look at like the the big social media companies historically um kind of have basically had a huge influence on how social media is regulated, and which that that kind of aligns with the um with how football at elite level has been regulated, where the big clubs have like a an outsized influence on on um the people who regulate them. You know, so look at the the evolution of the the Champions League since the 1990s, yeah back in the um uh the 1980s, early 1990s, the the competition used to be a straight knockout kind of competition where only the top team in each country qualified, where gradually it's kind of moved to these side of league stage and group stage formats to come um, and where more clubs from each country have been allowed to qualify for the for these competitions to maximize the opportunity for these clubs to earn um prize money in these competitions. So you have these and and that has kind of come about through the pressure that applied by the the leading clubs, you know. So they're saying that we want to play each other more often, we want to kind of generate these kind of more prestige-level games rather than the run-of-the-mill kind of um league games, which doesn't really present those kind of revenue generating opportunities. Whereas the other, you know, the these Champion League a lot of the great kind of um Champions League kind of European nights have been based on kind of knockout football. So is they have that real big kind of sporting integrity aspect to it. Whereas now you kind of the these league stage kind of and group stage kind of um formats tend to favor the big clubs because over an extended number of games, the bigger clubs will tend to sort win out and kind of finish in those in those in those positions.

SPEAKER_03 14:23

Yeah, can I can I ask, Mark, because I'm I'm one thing you you you sort of preempted something I wanted to ask, which is because you were talking initially initially when we we approached you, you were talking about inchitification really in the kind of the in the English context and in in the context of the Premier League. But you've already alluded to the fact that it is more of a global issue than that, you know, what with the Champions League, uh UEFA and FIFA. And I guess even sort of the extension of the World Cup to 48 teams could probably fall within this. But I'm I'm curious, you know, was this always ever intended? Because I think, you know, when the Premier League was first conceived of, I mean, was the idea, you know, sort of built in that ah, we'll create a good product with the intention of then, you know, having this um fixed uh market that or this fixed consumer base that can't escape. Uh, was that really intended? Or is this simply something that is sort of the core, the the result of unintended consequences? I mean, I guess to what extent does inshitification of football constitute a recent phenomenon rather than one that was built in from the start? Because I think when you talk about the social media uh relationship to inchitification, I think this is certainly an idea that's sort of come about in the last few years, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Yeah, I think it's the the the the term itself is a very kind of new one. And um so but the the concept itself, which probably goes back a bit further. Um so I think kind of to the to the question of kind of um whether it is kind of conceived by design. So you just go back to the Premier League example, it um a lot of the motivation behind the setting up of the Premier League back in the early 90s um was to allow the bigger clubs or the you know the the big six of the time to kind of um generate more, start start making more money, generate more revenue and and so forth, and kind of to start because there's that um they they felt at the time that the FA and the Football League weren't doing enough to kind of maximize commercial opportunities within the game. Um you know so as soon as the the the Premier League came in from 1992, there was there's been an explosion in in TV broadcast um revenues that have that have come in since then. So um so whether whether it was kind of by design, um I get I guess it's there it's a I guess it's probably a bit of both in a way. I dare say it probably wasn't with explicitly done as kind of uh let's kind of let's kind of take advantage of the of the fan and kind of you know it it maximise that you know what we can get out of them. It was kind of more of like a business decision to kind of generate that um to kind of maximize their own commercial opportunities. So it's it's I guess it is and it isn't in a way.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

In the way it kind of like Yeah, I mean I suppose one thing, I mean, I I guess because one of the things I've I've been struck by um in following sort of conversations about football and particularly sort of how football clubs and you know, foot and leagues seem to be approaching the fan these days. There definitely seems to be a reference to what you were talking about. It's kind of this historic traditional fan that cannot move their club versus this increasingly more sort of I guess nomadic, diasporic, um, you know, sort of rootless fan called a fanur. Um, and I wondered, you know, to what extent the sort of the fanur is kind of the the manifestation of what you're talking talking about, this this phenomenon of insitification.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, so to yeah, so to explain this like in academic opinion, there's kind of like four categories of fan. So you have like the um the the supporter at the top, which is kind of like your hardcore kind of fan, kind of huge, highly emotionally and financially invested in his team. Um, then you have the the fan which sits just beneath that, which is um uh what the easiest way of describe probably isn't doesn't go to quite as many games, but is is still emotionally invested to the same degree. Then you have a follower which kind of loosely follows one club and has that emotional connection to a club, but not on the same level. And then the flaneur is something that I've seen a that that casual football fan who doesn't really follow a particular team but just likes to take in a game every now and then. It's like a best example is probably like a tourist, you know, you goes to the tourist who might go to kind of Manchester or or Barcelona or something and wants to go and visit, goes go and see a game while they're they're they're in the while they're in the city, so to speak. Um, and the kind of research has shown that the you know that the the flaneur tends to spend more money on a match day when they go to visit a club. So they might buy a slightly more expensive ticket, they'll spend more in hospitality, they'll go and visit the club shop and kind of buy a um a little bit more while they're there. So clubs are starting to kind of focus a little bit more on the flaneur as well. So you can kind of see that um there are some clubs who are starting to reduce season ticket allocations and the um and and quite quantities so they can get more pay um more kind of um people through the gates who pay on the day, so they can kind of maximize those revenue generating opportunities, which it creates a uh uh a kind of a competing dynamic in a way. Um holders who are though you know hugely emotionally invested in the in their their club, create the the atmosphere of them, kind of that that passion and kind of the magic that kind of makes the game that you see on telly so you know emotionally visceral, and kind of that's what makes the the hairs on your uh on the back of your neck kind of stand up when you're watching a game. Whereas like the the the flanur might not get so emotionally invested in the game, they might not make kind of the same kind of noise or get it so involved as well in the match day, so it might affect the the match day atmosphere kind of experience. So there's that kind of competing dynamic there, um, it's kind of which in a way probably symbolises the you know this this kind of battle between kind of like the the tr traditions of the game and then kind of the modern, kind of more consumerist kind of approach to the game as well. Um so it's yeah, so it yeah, it's it's it's tough to say to kind of like how that's that's gonna play out over time, but it looks like that kind of um more consumerist aspect is starting to win out a little bit more, but it's the the the hardcore kind of um fan um element isn't really going down without a fight. You know, if you look at um what's happened at Liverpool recently, kind of fan pressure um regarding kind of season ticket prices and kind of the pushing back on um the the increases in season ticket prices as well. So they they've been very successful in kind of forcing the the the management of the club to kind of um ensure that they they uh keep the the season ticket right prices to

SPEAKER_00 22:00

uh a minimum or or even not at all i think so i think they've managed to kind of keep the the season ticket increase to three percent and then the following season they've frozen and i think they've managed to do that a couple of times as well as um so there's um yeah so this uh as you say this there there's that battle going on um i've just realized i'm a flanner i just i i didn't i never knew it but i actually i actually am which is a bit of a shocker guy on the other hand is a fifth level you know the the fourth level is the very committed fan guy is a fan who's trying to buy his his football club stop being silly financial advice is about how to buy so is a it's a further level guy francesco as you know we have had people on this podcast who have given us very strong advice about buying football clubs that guys don't buy the football club can I ask one thing sorry can I ask one thing to Mark so I mean it's incredibly interesting what you're saying and this distinction between kind of occasional fans and and the flanners and um it seems to me that kind of because there's a kind of gradual decay of the product the the the core fan is really central to this argument but I want to ask you slight something slightly different before we go there if obviously if you you know um we can edit that if it's not really something you've looked at or you're not happy to respond that is there a risk that we there's a bit of overlapping between these and a sort of nostalgic lenses through which we look at football in in another era well I perfectly agree with the argument is that kind of do we can is there a risk of romanticizing a bit the relationship between you know clubs and fans before or or or is that or like more in general the the before the shittification kind of aspect of it um yeah I mean it's it's it's not to say that everything before the Premier League was kind of like perfect and stuff there's always that kind of um uh element where everything in the past was you you kind of view through rose tinted spectacles and and things like that so um you know you look at the the eight seventies and eighties you kind of huge problems with hooliganism and things like that um so um yeah so not everything was necessarily better kind of in the in the pre-Premier League era um or in that more traditional kind of era but there was I think it's it was I think you can argue that foot it is perhaps a more kind of authentic and kind of experience for for the fan and the the fans kind of fans felt closer to their clubs so to speak especially those kind of at the at the top end but um yeah it's to be fair it is a difficult balance to strike for clubs you know because obviously um the clubs have got bills to pay as well so they need to get they need to generate revenue through the door and kind of trying to do that in a sensitive way to their fan base is um it's it's it's not going to be something we get right um so and it is tricky because obviously that it's um you know you want to um respect your tradition and history and and part of that comes through your your fan base um who have that emotional connection to kind of forge through the history of of the club um but the club clubs also can't live in the past as well at the same time so they need to be able to look to the future to you know so to kind of get money through the door to you kind of invest in play the playing school uh and and things like that so it's um yeah so it's it's it's not an easy answer question to answer but it's um I think most clubs kind of go about it in a reasonable way but there's probably one or two that probably haven't yeah I mean what you describe Mark is particularly interesting in the case of the Premier League because in a way the Premier League has been so successful because it's been selling abroad this kind of authentic old school experience. So is that kind of a continuous paradox there the kind of you know that the the product is successful globally because it's it's perceived as authentic and that's where does in what does initification tell us about this is that kind of is that does it make it harder for for Premier League clubs because they kind of you know at least they need to keep some sort of uh continuity there to be successful globally is that is that a thing yeah I think I I think clubs are kind of cognizant of this of this issue it's like they like they recognize that the you know the um the kind of that the the match they a kind of at atmospheric experience kind of needs needs to kind of um it's all part of generating that emotional connection you know to kind of people kind of remember where they were when they watched a certain game or kind of where their you know those hardcore fans remember their first time going to watch a their team and the things like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

So the you know the the emotional kind of pull is is is there as I say it's but as um as kind of said a little bit before it's that balancing that against the need to kind of get um to maximize that match day revenue to an extent um is tricky um although kind of paradoxically some of the Premier League clubs they're less reliant on um match day revenue than they are the broadcast revenue because I I think there was um analysis a few years ago which showed kind of more than half the Premier League um seems uh could survive on purely their match day sorry their their broadcast revenue alone um so it's um but the kind of as I kind of touched on a little bit before it's like the the the authenticity of the matchday experience is kind of what makes the uh the Premier League's um and kind of the the championship and and and that as well kind of such a um attractive uh product to people because it because people care that much and it kind of generates that much passion that you can kind of feel it through your TV screen at times. So it's yeah so it's yeah so it's it it it's um so it it's kind of the core tenant of it but it's how but yeah it it it's kind of it's that that um aspect of how the clubs balance that it is which is kind of an almost impossible thing for them to to figure out because so if they they start take chipping away at season tickets and to kind of create more kind of um on the day kind of um match day goers then the the the the supporters themselves uh the the season ticket holders are going hang on we're being pushed out here whereas you know if they if you kind of it's more focused on the season ticket holders then those fans paradoxically might say it's like well you know why aren't you investing more money in the team it's because you haven't got enough more money coming in through the door so it's it you know so clubs in in a way can't can't win.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

You know the revenues are so high at the top of the game that they could tech you know theoretically survive without fans and yet we saw what happened when we had COVID and there were no fans in the stadium and then they had to pump in fan fan noise to make it seem like there was some degree of you know authentic experience going on. So I mean that's while I'm talking but this brings me to the point question I wanted to ask as well because we've been talking an awful lot about fans and the fan experience and you've been pointing out that you know historically fans particularly the more sort of hardcore devoted fans don't really have anywhere else to go. You know they've been sort of caught up in this process that the product has deteriorated in front of their eyes or rather has priced them out of the game. And they're constrained by this. But I also noticed that what when you were talking about this you said that this sort of referred to that a similar sort of thing was happening with the players themselves. But I I wondered whether you could if you could elaborate a little bit upon this because my understanding is that the players are actually much freer to to move around um particularly since the Bosman ruling in the mid in the mid-90s. You know they're no longer constrained by football as regulators because basically the European courts prove you know made the point that you know football can't can't be a closed shop here that uh players should be free as any other workers to to do that.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah so that's a fair point. So players do kind of generally have more freedom of contract these days. So the the Bosman rule kind of allows them to kind of move clubs freely at the expiry of their contracts whereas pre-Bosman the uh the club they were moving to still had to pay a fee of some description so uh um so so it was it's kind of fair to say that they do have a little bit more freedom of con freedom of um freedom of contract and freedom of movement these days it's um they they they are still quite tightly regulated in the extent that's uh so in terms of like their the the the playing contracts and stuff like that they they they their behavior and still is it's still quite tightly regulated by their clubs and that as well um and if you kind of look at the levels below the Premier League and kind of more much further down the pyramid kind of your League one league two level um the players there kind of have a much um uh have much less kind of stability there in their their employment prospects um and you kind of look around the world where players are kind of um uh especially in some of the more developing leagues in kind of uh country some countries in kind of um eastern europe or kind of uh in parts of uh Africa and Asia and all that as well where players struggle to get paid on time. Um you know there's there's many a story of a club of players going to Greek or Turkish clubs where they they struggled there's but it's it's kind of common practice for them to to not get paid. So it's there are kind of regulations there which kind of help protect them against that as well. And in terms but in terms I think the wider point is kind of in terms of like the match calendar as well. So they they you know in terms of like their their kind of um their that so kind of like a general employee will have kind of like a number of days off over an annual leave entitlement where footballers don't get that now at the top of the game you you know the average person might say well boo hoo they get paid hundreds of thousand pounds a week I think everyone would cope with um would cope with that um but if you know in terms of like the the physical toll on their bodies you know so people might say well you're playing twice maybe three times a week it's like they these are highly tuned athletes surely they can cope with that but the the physical toll which uh a 90 minutes of that intensity takes and if you're doing that um you know two or three times a week kind of um well twice a week throughout the season you know players will kind of will get injured much more easily um so which and if they're injured more often that affects their earning potential as well because it's not just the weekly salary these kind of things that they're the bonus structures and things like that as well so they kind of miss out on kind of the these kind of earnings uh opportunities as well so there's that that player welfare aspect that sometimes gets missed out kind of um as these kind of tournaments and kind of like the number of games starts to proliferate as well so it's um you know people um I think was it um Ruben Diaz at Manchester City kind of like mentioned this kind of like was it last year just before the the club World Cup or something saying it's like you know the players are starting you kind of being worked to the point of exhaustion so to speak and not given enough rest and it's kind of people kind of push back saying it's like well multi-millionaire footballers is complaining about having to kind of work a little bit more but you know you have appreciate the it's the physical toll which the game takes on a body and the fact that footballers have such a uh a considerably shorter career span than the average person as well so it's there's that um so yeah so it's I think it's that that that kind of like that welfare aspect that kind of gets missed out and it's gonna it kind of ties into this this whole inchitification process so so it's kind of like the the the the clubs and the kind of the the regulatory bodies start to pump out more and more product more and more games so you see things like the Club World Cup these kind of pre- and postseason tours and kind of um that the clubs go on you know to go the the Far East or you know to the states or something to kind of these money making opportunities so players are kind of dragged halfway across the world to go and go and play a couple of relatively meaningless friendlies um so it's um yeah you kind of it takes so you kind of maximise putting more and more product out there more and more and it it kind of dilutes it a little bit as well because you can have too much of a good thing so that scarcity factor goes because there's so many games out there if you miss one or two as a fat of as like a a spectator or a follower you you know you can quite easily catch up whereas you know you start you you got um you know whereas games are like once a week or something it was always that you know there's that's kind of more scarcity value to it.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yeah so yeah it's it's I think I guess it's becoming harder and harder to be a regular follower of any club given the most the top clubs at least uh play no now I try to mention community clubs into every episode of football but I think now it is relevant because I mean the question that comes to mind is what is the antidote what what what can be done against uh the process that you described and it seems if not community clubs at least more like fans participation fans involvement at some level both within established clubs but also like clubs that are running a different way becoming more popular it seems by logic logic to be the one of the few things that can push against uh the process you described is that correct and where are we with that what's the stage at what stage are we with that so in terms of our fan participation yeah you mean yeah um so in so there's a little bit of progress been made on on that um so you do the the the new independent regulator that's um that's signed to come into operation from or or take over the start performing its full role from next season um so it has some fan engagement requirements part as part of the licensing process for clubs so it probably doesn't go quite as far as what someone but it it kind of makes some progress is there so part um or what it requires from like the fan um the fan aspect of it is that um clubs are required to undergo meaningful consultation with fans um on on certain decisions so things like is should they move to a new stadium or they change their club colours or the badge or the the club name and uh and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

So it's un so the the regulator would inquire require them to undergo meaningful consultation on those issues. Now as to what meaningful consultation means is an open question because the the the the regulator isn't too prescriptive on that aspect so it's up to the clubs themselves to to demonstrate that they've they've undertaken some form of consultation um so some of this might might mean um you know fans on uh a fan representative on the board or a kind of a a shadow board for fans or you know uh you know uh fan engagement um mechanisms such as fan forums or um you know or you know um so yes it's it's it's those kind of things but so it's it's it's not really overly prescriptive in kind of what it requires um the fans to do.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

So I think when the the fan led review which this is the um the the the government the the review undertaken by the um the the conservative government back in 2021 by Tracy Crouch who led that um initially uh um argued for um some sort of fan representation on boards but that kind of got diluted a little bit um so there's so there's that a kind of um so yeah so it's it doesn't quite go as far as what um as as what um many would like um so it's kind of thought that having the fans on the board can kind of help to kind of create that oversight of decision making and kind of like and kind of the input into the the fan perspective of uh and the fan experience um of what they experience in in clubs and and kind of that bridge between the executive powers at the club and you know the supporters so unfortunately it's it kind of falls a little bit short uh on that but it is a it's a step in the right direction at least so I mean what I mean if you if you had a blank slate mark if you were doing it I mean how what would what would you uh want to see um done to actually sort of you know counter this this process of inshitification but actually is there even if is it even possible that inshitification will eat itself I mean if you pump out more and more product and you've alluded to the fact that it dilutes the the quality eventually people walk away no um theoretically yes but I I think because football is such a tribal kind of thing it's like um I think the fan fans will kind of stay with their clubs um you know almost for you know for forever so to speak so it's yeah it will take a lot for a fan to walk away from their club um yes I whether it'll be itself um I think if it does it'll take a very long time to do so but I think because of there's that that there's that such huge kind of fan loyalty to the game and their club that it's um it yeah it it probably wouldn't happen quickly.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Yeah so in terms of kind of combating the whole kind of process of inchistification is like so the the independent football actually takes some steps towards it. So kind of outlined a couple already but it could in terms of creating a a an independent kind of regulate regulatory body so that that's an important first step because it it kind of takes a significant chunk of that dual role that we spoke about earlier where the where bodies like the Premier League or the football league kind of have that dual role of commercial actor and regulator whereas this the the new independent regulator takes some of that regulatory function away and just allows the these leagues to kind of focus on the the commercial side of it and kind of being that competition organizer which so to speak so um so the independent regulator kind of it's a good first step towards that but it's it's quite narrowly focused on kind of financial sustainability as aspects and um so it's it and it doesn't really cover the sporting tech sport and integrity side of it and kind of like some of the more kind of um supporter focused issues such as ticket pricing and those kind of things. kind of put too fine a definition on sustainability so to speak so that there will be kind of some crossover with the the the regulatory functions of the leagues so to speak so um so some might be familiar with like the various acronyms of of previous years things like PSR so profit sustainability regulations FFP financial reg fair play and those kind of things so from the the next over the next next season so the Premier League's bringing in the new financial system called squad cost management pro protocol which kind of allows club which ties uh a club's ability to spend um tied to its its revenue um to a proportion of its uh of its revenue um so it's it's kind of a it's a more flexible approach than from PSR for the which I think we've we've heard a lot about in terms of kind of like the Manchester City case as well um kind of Everton Nottingham Forest um uh so Chelsea have been kind of sailing quite like close to the wind with it as well over recent years as well um so there's lots of cases kind of focused on on that aspect how clubs are kind of trying to get round the rules so to speak and it's um so and this should be a kind of much more flexible way of allowing clubs to kind of and and um allowing clubs to kind of be a little bit more ambitious and kind of invest more in certain years to try and kind of front load that investment a little bit more whereas kind of PSR tries to keep it fixed within like a certain level of allowable losses. Kind of argument where you know by the intification kind of concentrates kind of power within a within a few where if you kind of maintain a more broader competitive balance it makes for a better better product and a better market overall.

SPEAKER_03 46:16

So it's the um so that aspect so it's yeah so the financial regulation is important um as the kind of uh to to kind of balance those two kind of um objectives there mark thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us it's been that's been really interesting and fascinating for us to understand this idea of insitification and what it's meant for football and how we actually sort of counter it.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Francesco it's been absolutely great I've I've really learned a lot so thank you very much Mark for for your time. Guy what do we need to remind our listeners before we go?

SPEAKER_03 46:54

Well just the usual kind of things. So if you liked what you heard and you and you enjoyed it um please do share the episode and the podcast with your friends family work colleagues uh anyone basically that you think would find it of interest and and value. They can also uh reach out to us and contact us uh with topics that we should perhaps be exploring more of as well as guests that we should be uh approaching um as well as providing us with feedback on what you liked about this episode as well as what you didn't like um about other episodes and they how can they do that Francesco? Well they can get in touch with us in different ways um we have um the uh with the podcast or individually with us so with the podcast we are on blue sky uh we are on Facebook and we are on Instagram are the main ways they can reach it reach us and they can get in touch with us at uh football footballpodcast at gmail.com yeah if they want to email us and they can also find us individually there on LinkedIn on our emails so it's very very easy to get in touch with us um that's uh and we we always really really keen to have suggestions on topics and speakers and yeah yeah we've had it we've had it we've done a number of uh episodes which have come from fans uh or you know um listeners of the show suggesting that we uh we do it and so we are always open to hearing from from you and um we should also probably mention as well Francesco that uh this is you know we are coming out every two weeks so the ep the next episode won't be next week it will be the week after but of course if you haven't already done so consider subscribing to the podcast as well and that means you will get it and after you subscribe please remember remember to um rate us and and like us whatever your app allows you to do uh as well as sharing as guy mentioned that's that really helps us get um get a good place in the in the tough world of podcasts and not just tough world of podcasts but tough world of football podcasts there are so thanks and so many out there yeah so so that so great so and thank you once again mark for for taking the time to talk to us we really appreciate that and um we'd love you HD no thank you thank you guys for having me on this we enjoyed being here and um yeah yeah no thank you it's been a it's been uh been really interesting conversation thank you thank you thank you and we'll speak again next in a couple of weeks time then Francesco bye bye