00:00No, it's a really significant moment. It's great to be on the show and talk about Salford City, which is a passion of mine.
00:05I think to get a Fortune 500 business like AIG and Peter Sofino, the chairman, support, it's a landmark moment for us.
00:14It's something that leaves me pinching myself.
00:17When I think of what the journey of Salford City over the last 10 years that we've had and we've got into the Football League,
00:22which was a sort of momentous occasion, I think about this next chapter with even more excitement
00:27and the fact that AIG have come on board as a minority investor and as a commercial partner with us as well
00:33means that we're set up to be able to achieve what we want to do on and off the pitch.
00:38Football clubs are a passion project, but we've got to turn this into a serious business in the next five years
00:44that performs on the pitch but also performs off the pitch.
00:50Thanks for coming on, Gary.
00:52I deal with, write about the business side of things and of course, like most clubs, Salford has struggled financially in the last few years.
01:03How do you, I think it's 28 million or something in the last 10 years that you've lost.
01:09How do you change that outlook?
01:13I mean, where is the revenue going to come from?
01:14Yeah, I mean, you point towards that number over a 10-year period, but we have sort of built stadiums in that period.
01:21There have been big infrastructure projects that obviously go into that.
01:25We have invested heavily in the club.
01:26I think that when you look at the investment of the last 10 years, it's people who are really passionate about football
01:32who are investing in a local football club.
01:34I think what differentiates maybe the next five years is that one of our key elements and KPIs is for us to achieve sustainability.
01:42That means that we're going to have to grow revenues off the pitch.
01:45Obviously, deals like this one with AIG are vital to that.
01:49We've got a deal that we've just signed with Coca-Cola.
01:52We're looking at a big deal and have signed a deal already with Dreamset Go in India.
01:56So we're looking at big commercial deals to go on with a really fantastic CEO that we've just brought in
02:04who's going to introduce a player trading model.
02:05And it's important that we also have those fourth and fifth revenue streams and tap into the sort of what will be expertise and intelligence that we have within the shareholder base now.
02:15So, you know, within five years, yes, we want to get to the championship, but we very much are looking at sustainability as well.
02:21And you're right to highlight that.
02:22You know, I believe in a sustainable football, but what you do have to do as an owner in a football club
02:26is invest in the club to make sure that the facilities improve, the training ground improves, the matchday experience improves,
02:33and then what you start to build together is a fan base through the success on the pitch that can get us to where we need to be.
02:41I mean, in the past few years, we've also seen a massive rise in American ownership.
02:45We wrote a piece last year showing that like a third of football league clubs are now owned by American owners,
02:52and some of them have been like Wrexham and Birmingham City last season were very successful.
02:59Others haven't, like Carlisle, haven't been so successful.
03:02What do you see as the trend in the next few years?
03:05Is it more Americans to come or more sovereign wealth or even some local ownership?
03:12What do you think?
03:14Yeah, I mean, that's the great thing about the Salton City ownership, that we actually have got a mixture of sort of local ownership.
03:19Obviously, you know, I'm local, very local to Salford, but we've also got international ownership,
03:25including partners from all parts of the world, which I think is really critical.
03:29I think when you talk about American ownership specifically, I think they see real value in English football clubs
03:35because of the cost of buying sort of franchises and sports projects over in the US.
03:40So I think when they look at actually sort of English football and the reach of English football globally is enormous,
03:45and they look at the price tags that are associated with clubs and think actually it's really good value
03:51and presents good growth opportunities in the future.
03:53You know, when you think of the weight and the calibre of people and the volume of people
03:57who've come in from the US into English football, you know, they can't all be wrong, can they?
04:02You've got some pretty smart people and intelligent people there who know how to run sports businesses,
04:07but also have a passion for sport as well.
04:10You know, there is a concern that obviously we want to make sure that we keep the heritage
04:13and the traditions of the game in England.
04:15We had the Super League obviously a few years ago, which was obviously very importantly stopped.
04:21We've just got to make sure that the things that we hold dear in this country are kept,
04:25but I think we're on the right side of that now.
04:27And I think that the ownership, to be fair, of the Premier League clubs and other clubs in the EFL are very varied.
04:33Local, international, Middle Eastern, Asian, sovereign wealth funds, as you've said, and obviously US.
04:39So we've got a real sort of, you know, attractive base in England, and the game's in great shape.
04:48Gary, you talk about the Super League.
04:50If that was to rear its head again, how much of a threat would that be to clubs like Salford?
04:55Yeah, it won't rear its head again in the form that it came last time.
05:00That was just completely, it was wrong and it was pushed back heavily.
05:04And I think the clubs that signed up to that will never make that same mistake again.
05:09It was incredibly damaging for them from a reputational perspective at that time.
05:13So I don't think we'll ever see the Super League come back.
05:15But what we will see, like we've seen with the FIFA Club World Cup,
05:18we will see new proposals for elite tournaments.
05:21And as long as the actual entry and accessibility to those tournaments is fair,
05:26then there's no problem with that.
05:27The problem with the Super League was it was a closed shop for the top clubs
05:31and that basically other clubs were going to really struggle to be able to compete.
05:34And it would have damaged not just the game in England, but the game around Europe.
05:38So, yeah, we won't see the Super League in anything like the same format that it came forward before.
05:42And actually the Premier League at this moment in time is a little bit like the Super League in the world
05:46in respect to the sort of global nature of it, the money in the game, the fans that watch it every single week.
05:53And we obviously want to be part of that with Salford City.
05:56You know, we're really passionate about our football club, the drive and ambition within the ownership set,
06:00including AIG, and to have Peter Zofino, you know, AIG's chair and CEO,
06:06backing us in the way in which he has gives us real confidence to where we can take this project.
06:10I was wondering what you think about the regulator coming in.
06:17Some people have really been against the regulator, but can the regulator improve the situation that we have?
06:24You know, we've got clubs like Sheffield Wednesday struggling to field teams, you know, Macclesfield.
06:31I mean, Morecambe.
06:34What do you think of the regulator?
06:36Do you think that would be a benefit to the game?
06:38Look, I really hope so.
06:41I've been championing the regulator for a number of years now because we do have some blockages within the game.
06:46And what the game has created in England, which I don't think was ever the intention, it's created cliff edges.
06:52So you've got the top six clubs which have huge revenues, but then you've got the 14 of the Premier League clubs,
06:57which are really struggling to compete.
06:59And I think we need to make sure we can just keep an eye on that.
07:01You've then got the drop between the Premier League and the Championship,
07:05which the revenues for the bottom of the Premier League for broadcast income are Ā£100 million.
07:09The top of the Championship is about Ā£6 to Ā£8 million.
07:12So you've got this huge gap in revenue between the two leagues.
07:16And we need to make sure those cliff edges don't exist.
07:19We need to make sure we smooth them out so that there's a real opportunity for clubs to be able to go up into the Premier League and compete.
07:24The regulator doing their job properly, I think, can be good for the Premier League,
07:29but also good for the rest of English football.
07:31And it can set a precedent in terms of how we protect and guard the game.
07:35We need, if you think of when you go temping bowling, you have those guardrails up that stop the ball going down the edges and falling off.
07:41That's what the regulator should be doing is making sure that, you know, it's a,
07:45we know that football clubs are owned by owners.
07:47We know they're going to run those clubs and drive them forward to the best of their abilities.
07:51But we need guardrails.
07:54Gary, in just ten seconds, who wins the English Premier League this season?
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