00:00So, James, looking at the Welsh football scene and their proposal for the Welsh European
00:10plan for the EFL clubs who are competing in England but are by-country Welsh football
00:16clubs, I mean, it's quite an interesting situation in terms of their goals for the
00:21likes of Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham and Newport to possibly compete in Europe
00:27with the sort of revamped Welsh League Cup. What's your sort of take on it and how will
00:34Welsh football fans be feeling? It could have been a big sort of step into really improving
00:39the Welsh FA as a whole. What's your sort of take on it and how will the Welsh clubs
00:46and the Welsh clubs competing in the EFL be feeling after the rejected proposal as well?
00:54I think they'll feel hard done by in the first place. This was something that, you
00:59know, you can understand the EFL obviously made decisions based on what they wanted to
01:03do. They haven't said, they haven't officially commented as of right now about why they didn't
01:08do it, but there have been rumblings. Some of the club teams weren't happy about it.
01:12Obviously, it was kind of an easier route to Europe. So, the money they would make from
01:17being in European competition, that wasn't going to be included in any money they got.
01:21They were going to kind of forgo that money. They weren't going to financially benefit,
01:26but it's hard to not financially benefit from a few more ticket sales. It's hard to not
01:29financially benefit from players thinking, oh, I could play for Cardiff City, or I get
01:33to play in Europe. I don't mind going down the league to be able to do that. So, it makes
01:38sense from the English FA's point of view in that it was kind of a sensible just, I'd
01:43rather just not rub any feathers with this. But I think the Welsh clubs will feel hard
01:48done by it. The plans were in place. All four clubs had agreed to it. And it wasn't
01:56going to be this harmful thing to English football. English football as a juggernaut
02:01is huge. Hundreds of millions spent on grassroots money. There's about between 10 and 20 million
02:08spent on Welsh grassroots. It's just nowhere near the same thing. And I think that the
02:13Welsh FA, they're going to be pretty miffed basically with the English FA making this
02:18decision. And there's a bit, I think that the four, the fans of the four English league
02:25based Welsh clubs, they're going to be pretty gutted about it, I think.
02:28Yeah. And obviously you mentioned the gap in funding there. What could have this actually
02:33done for Welsh football, Welsh FA? I mean, it could have really put them in a great step
02:38going forward in the future as well.
02:42Absolutely. So the way the grassroots is in Welsh football, you've got some fantastic
02:47small clubs, do these things, grow. They can be growing in the future. And it's just, I
02:52think it's a letdown for Welsh football. And I think we now need to go back to the drawing
02:56board and think of something else.
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