Oh hmm, come on man, yps goo for dude, it's Friday Day.

It is in fact Friday here on Sdham John here you there.

Greetings, And no, this is not the imitation Palatial Studio.

It is a hotel room in Rome, Georgia.

And you might hear trains, you might hear Lord knows what, because there's folks out in the backyard.

They were there last night.

So greetings from Rome, Georgia.

I thought about wearing my room emperor's gear, but you wouldn't see a whole lot of it, so I just went ahead and stuck with the with the network gear this morning.

All right, So here's the rundown for today.

We've got some stories to get into.

We do have an opening kickoff and as sadly, it has to do with when fans get mad, and we'll get into that.

So that's opening kickoff this morning, and we'll get you ready for the weekend.

We'll go back over what happened yesterday in Europa League.

Grow up a conference league, go over the news out of Messy and friends, because you've got to come out with your contracts.

You got to come out with your roster decisions within forty eight hours of a match being final.

And now that we're in free agency and we're in all the re entry sections and all that kind of stuff, we're going to have that kind of continually here of the next little while.

So there's all of that.

There are talks apparently and they're being considered.

What was the wording make or break, make or break, make or break talks involving moss a law in arnest slut and that is supposed to be happening.

We'll get into that this morning as well.

Get you ready for the weekend overseas and any other news that might come across our bow here in the next little bit.

In our number two or earlier, depending on guest availability, we're going to catch up.

We're going to continue our series when it comes to host cities here with World Cup twenty twenty six, and it will be a visit this time to Vancouver.

We catch up with Host Committee lead Jesse Adcock and find out about what's going on up there, where they are in their readiness plan, where they are with their infrastructure, and how ready they are when it comes to getting everything squared away for the World Cup in six months.

So you got that to look into as well, and it's a nice wide ranging conversation.

They're no stranger to hosting the World Cup.

They did so with the Women's World Cup when it was in Canada, so they've got a knowledge base and so it was great to catch up with Jesse and find out what's going on there with them and their updates and all that kind of stuff.

And we're going to effort all the host cities and we're going to try to grab as many of them as possible twice before the tournament starts in June, and then we'll do a bit of a post mortem after with each of the host cities, find out what they learned about themselves and how they thought they did.

So it'd be grading scales and things like that.

So Jesse Edcock looking like our number two.

We'll start our number two off with that and once again get you ready for the weekend with all the news and things.

That's the official term.

I apologize for low gearing this morning because of last night.

And I will say this about Rome, Georgia in general, where the city has.

Really really grown, really really grown.

So it is uh, it's uh, you know, you're you're trying to figure out, okay, we had a game here last night, and as Ricky says this morning, the uh and this was accurate.

Yes, Gainesville whip Rome last night.

And in catching up with and catching up with folks in around the Room program, it's like, well, you know, they're just times when you max out, and folks were thinking that.

You know, Rome had a great run, but they're very young and they were just out physical and you saw that in Gainesville last night.

So Gainesville dominant when thirty seven to six, and if I'm not mistaken, they're going to be taking on Thomas County Central in the last championship h of championships that we're gonna have on GPB starting Actually crazy that it starts on Monday.

So let's see three forty nine and four for Deuce Lawrence new single game school record for rushing yards.

So it was a final forty nine to twenty eight.

Okay, So Thomas County Central and Gainsville.

That's gonna be the last championship that we're gonna have on GPB.

But yeah, Gainesville had over four hundred yards of total offense north of two seventy on the ground last night, so it was a big win for them as they continue rolling on and it's gonna be gainswel On Thomas County Central the last championship on Wednesday night at Mercedes Benz Stadium.

Uh ricky one of two things, and I guess this has kind of evolved into opening kickoff brought to his buy our friends at Kickoff Coffee and kickoff coffeeco dot com.

Or we're talking about the other football.

So if you make a trek for Buford and Carrollton, let's put it this way, it's gonna.

Be for the inter Galactick Championship.

I mean, you've got some poles that have Buford number one, some poles that have Carrolton number one, and it's going to be that knockdown heavyweight fight that we're all thinking.

It's going to be Tuesday night.

It's because remember, because of everything that Gainesol has had to deal with off the field and Georgia high school footballs had to deal with off the field, they flipped the two championship games.

So six A is going to be primetime Tuesday, gaines Old Thomas County Central primetime Wednesday.

So six days, six days, let's put it this way.

If you'll want to track down four w what you can for the environment and everything.

I mean, you could watch it on GBB and you do it within the confines of your own home.

Not that I'm saying that either is more that one is more important than the other.

You can come down and see the atmosphere.

It's going to be packed, it's going to be lowed, it's going to be crazy.

If you want to do that.

I think it's fifteen.

I think it's fifteen to get in the door for the championships.

So if you come in for Beauford and Gainsel, you come in for Beauford and Gainzel, it's gonna be off the charts for the record.

Nikkioto, Palmer and I will be at Gate two with our set and we will be there, so any of you that want to kind of keep an eye on the other football feel free to do so and come by and say hi and all that kind of stuff.

Gate two, you know where the inside Mercedes Benz, where the actual the Mercedes Benz is sideways, It's like, you know, at the forty five degree and we're gonna be like right there.

The DJU position is where we're going to be for set, and that's where we're gonna have halftime and all that stuff.

So we're gonna be right there the entire time.

If you come down, come early, because it's gonna be a lot of people.

It's gonna be a lot of people.

And so if you drop by and you say hi, that's where we're gonna be a lot of folks.

One versus three, one versus two, two verses one all that.

So if you come down, love to see it.

If you don't, it's gonna be on GPB the entire time time.

So however you want to consume it, consume it.

What you could do.

Maybe you come down watch and you have it on your device.

That way we get you we you know, we get to say hi to you twice.

So there's there's that.

So big win for Gainsville last night.

Getting ready for one versus two in the planet when it comes to high school football in the six A Championship.

So six A is Tuesday, and we have five flag football finals.

Say that ten times fast.

Five divisions now in flag football, and that's going to be taking up.

I think it's three on Monday.

Is it three on Monday?

I think it's three on Monday.

It's it's either two or I think it's two two and one.

So I think it's two flag on Monday, two flag on Tuesday because we get an early start on Tuesday morning, and then one flag on Wednesday to get you ready for everything there.

So it's thirteen championships in three days.

And I will say this right now, obviously I'm not going to be here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we'll have some of the elements Jason is scheduled to be with you.

I don't know what the timing is going to be with his real world existence and everything.

So when we have a morning show Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Jason will be hosting, and just obviously keep an eye out on the platform for all the other interviews and take content that we have.

So looking forward to going down to the Dome, seeing hide everybody getting ready for the championships there.

But it's gonna be thirteen championships in three days and you're going to see.

For those of you that will watch, there's gonna be a credit role of a lot of folks.

And.

It's gonna be a lot of moving parts and a lot of moving, a lot of moving folks and a lot of stuff.

Maddi Cruz is actually going to be doing sideline for the Private Championships and the single A games, So you'll see Mattie early in the afternoons.

She's gonna be paired with Sam Crenshawn Larry Smith, and so Maddie'll be doing some sideline on GPB.

I'll be hosting and doing sideline during flag So you'll have the SDH, you'll have the SDH come opponent attached to the championships with high school football.

So that's going to be the super Bowl at GPB for three.

Days, like thirty seven thirty eight hours of programming over a three day period, and it's going to showcase a lot of talented folks flag football on the field, coaching tackle football, coaching athletes, all the things and everybody behind the scenes that makes it all go together the way that it does.

So I can't wait to do that.

And that's, like I said, that's our Daytona five hundred, that's our super Bowl, that's our Olympics, and that's going to be starting Monday, I think eleven am, I think is when the first one starts, so basically after noon today.

My voice goes into filibuster.

I'm not really going to be doing a whole lot of talking, considering it was thirty something degrees last tonight in Rome, across the street and literally I booked a hotel because I didn't want to drive game ended programming into eleven o'clock.

I didn't want to drive two hours back home home, go to bed by one thirty, have to get up and be, you know, ready to go and be a shining light here this morning.

So I booked a hotel room in Rome, and shows you how much the city has grown.

I booked a hotel.

I'm thinking Riverwalk.

Yeah, okay, great, it's literally right across the street from Barron Stadium.

I love that, And so you know it's like I'm changing clothes before I have to go across the street to tape everything.

I literally came into here to the hotel room, change clothes, one across the street.

So highly recommend it if you can get away with it when you come to Rome and you've got something at Barren Stadium or you got something downtown.

The courtyard woman unsolicited, just from a convenient sake.

The courtyard ward man at right across the street from Barron Stadium.

Love every minute of it, very very whole unwarranted hijacking.

See now, uh, all right, so let's do it the old fashioned way here.

All right, now, I'm gonna apologize because I only have the one device.

My tablet's charging and I've got my phone, so let me do this unwarranted hijacking.

Well yeah, yeah, that's what you're trying to do.

That's very iron that you have that as a title.

By the way, unwarranted hijacking n Q.

So bot, next, come on, bot, can you give us more information?

Bot?

Tell us more viewer solicitation Bot.

There we go, twenty three characters, submit report, and we're often running.

Okay, so that's done, all right, and so bot's been reported.

But no, Alex, and that is absolutely true.

I'm not supposed to hang the shirt on the sprinklers.

Yeah, that would be bad.

It would be something that I would do.

But nevertheless, yeah, absolutely true, do not hang do not hang shirts on sprinklers.

Actually, let me check something here.

Uh oh, it's right above my head.

Okay, I was trying to figure out where it was, so yeah, the sprinklers right above my head.

If I tried to hang something there, Alex would be kind of weird because it'd be hanging in the middle of the room.

So there you go.

Yeah, this is well and Ricky, Ricky'd rather have you know, Rebecca black So and this lighting.

I literally tried to turn that light on behind me and it turned into too much of a fill.

It was too much light and it kind of drowned me out.

I'm sure that some folks would sit there and say that that's an improvement, but this is kind of I apologize that this is too you know, count Floyd Monster Chiller, horror Theater when it comes to the lighting.

This morning, so I was trying to figure out the best lighting and trying to figure out the best way to do it.

So morning David, Morning, Alex, Morning Ricky, and let's see So and morning Abby.

I saw Abby in here early this morning and see now this this is something that Ricky is leading on to.

Barry College.

And for those of you, by the way.

That that you have where Barry is concern, Barry's taking on John Carroll up here at Valhalla.

Tomorrow at noon we have on the other side of the isle the college football preview show, and we catch up with the sid at John Carroll to find out about what it was like for them to beat Mount Union last week in the snow in double overtime and all of the you know, all of the activity that was there.

So we catch up with John Carroll and we catch up at the Illinois State after their big win over North Dakota State.

So the College Football Show over doorsg Sports, the College Football X.

We catch up with John Carroll, We catch up with Illinois State.

So that'll be up today too at some point because of the action going on tomorrow.

So I caught up with the sideline Craig Burchie, the sideline reported of Illinois State, and we caught up with the sid at John Carroll about those two games.

So noon here in Rome, and if I didn't have anything to do or just just wanted to sleep late, I'd probably come back up here and come watch John Carroll and Barry at noon and then wait for that.

But if Barry gets a semi final, that'd be huge.

So keep an eye on that as well.

When it comes to Division three.

Well done, Ricky, expanding our horizons as we always do.

Okay, all right, that was opening something of a random opening kickoff this morning.

I know that that shocks you, that that happens.

Let's see.

Uh all right, so Maddie is sitting in on conference calls.

Okay, so that uh all right, So that gets Maddie started, all right.

So Opening Kickoff brought to us buy our friends at Kickoff Coffee and Kickoff Coffeeco dot Com.

I'm grabbing the QR code if I can find it quickly.

There you go.

There's your QR code.

Start your day there at Kickoff Coffee and kickof Coffeeco dot Com.

Use the code socker down here fifteen.

You get fifteen percent off your purchase.

They in turn take ten percent reinvested into youth games youth initiatives.

Brought to his buy our friends at Kickoff Coffee and Kickoff Coffee.

See all right, So that is that's Opening Kickoff.

Did you see this story?

And this is kind of what Opening Kickoff was going to be?

But did you see the story out of Finland?

And it was a club got relegated and that that happens.

But finished Club FC Hakka, the nine time national champs, relegated to the second tier back in October, and so they finished second from bottom and the table in the top flight and so they get relegated.

So now they're in the second they're in the second tier in Finland.

I don't know if you've seen the pictures on social media, but they're scary.

They went from a fire breaking out at the factory field, that's what they call the facility.

Sunday night, you had a fire breakout at the stadium, ninety four year old thirty two hundred capacity home ground had one of the three stands burned to the ground in a suspected arson.

So footage you've seen the footage online if you used to an FC hockea search on social media and you'll see the video that is there from it.

So the entire stand goes up and it's some scary stuff.

So they now have arrests in the case.

Three teenagers, all under fifteen, have all been arrested, local police confirming in a statement one of them confessed to starting it.

And so the fire, according to wire reports and our friends at Talk Sport, fire began when an unspecified object was lighted, then spread and fire spreads rapidly through one half of the stadium, destroyed all the four hundred seat wooden stand as well as damaging the artificial turf.

So they're going to have to replace the turf and they're going to have to replace that stand and so the Trio and this I thought was interesting.

The Trio are unlikely to face charges as they are below the age for criminal responsibility under Finnish law.

Team confirmed the news in a statement Chairman Marco Loson and revealed no people injured, unable to confirm the extent of the financial damage and there were a couple of a couple of sentences there.

Center Goals has the video on the two hundred and eighty character apps Center CNTR ce n t r E Center Goals and so we are not yet able to accurately assess the financial damage caused by the fire.

Clear the effects are significant, at least for a while.

The club's operations will be hampered many different ways and leave the support of the entire community to get back to normal everyday life.

Hawker revealed the incident won't disrupt preseason training.

Statement added the pitch is now unplayable at parts because of the fire.

Ali Huttonen, chief executive said, shocking when you think about how important the factory field is in Finnish football.

This kind of behavior where you don't care about other people's properties outrages.

Unfortunately, the world is like that end quote.

I didn't know right away.

When he was interviewed, he says, I didn't know right away what it was.

I have camera surveillance on my computer when I went to look and saw on the screen that the end stand was on fire.

Frame of the main stand remains and it will have to be demolished.

Procedure that the authorities and the insurance company will review the situation.

And so now they launched a fundraising campaign through the finished version of grand Stand and donations going toward both rebuilding the stand entering into a draw for match Warren jerseys.

According to the club, I'm probably going to donate entering the season in last year's relegation round.

Last year came in last in the sixteen Mini League, condemning them to the first season outside the top flight since twenty nineteen, and in the past in European competitions they played folks like Liverpool, Fulham and Rangers.

So scary stuff out of Finland where a stadium just you know, three miners decided to you know, put the stadium and have it go up in flames.

And so, because they are of an age below criminal responsibility.

They may not be charged in the case, so we'll keep an eye on that as we go.

But you know, scary stuff this morning out of Finland.

Now that we know the details on that, okay, So as of a couple hours ago, it is Arnestlott.

He says he's tight lipped over most Salon whether or not he'll return to the squad against Brighton this weekend.

The future has been thrown into major doubt.

We've talked about the word, the interview, the postgame scrum that he had where he felt like he was being thrown under the bus.

So punishment sala is not going to travel for inter Milan Liverpool wins adds to the intrigue.

So with Salat's his last match before he departs for Afkhon, and it could be his last at anfield if you look at what happens in January.

So Arneslott said, I will have a conversation with Mo this morning.

The outcome of that conversation determines how things will look tomorrow.

I think the next time I speak about Mo should be with him and not in here.

You can keep on trying, but there's not much more to say.

About it after the Sunderland game.

There were a lot of conversation between US representatives and hours between him and me end quote.

Arnest Slutt revealed it was the decision of the club as a whole not to take Salat to enter Milan.

In the midweek, he confirmed he was part of the conversations, insists that he has the final say on the Liverpool team.

Quote.

We decided as a club, and I was part of that decision not to take him to Milan.

I'm always in contact with them, meaning sporting director Richard Hughes, chief exec Michael Edwards.

But when it comes to the decision making of the lineup of the squad, they leave that up to me.

That's not to say I don't talk to them, mainly Richard, not Michael.

The decision to play a player or have them in the squad is entirely up to me.

Question was raised to slut do you want him to stay?

Quote?

I have no reasons to not want him to stay.

For a double negative, this club has won a lot of games with him en quote.

So that's the double negative there.

I have no reasons not to not want him to stay.

Just you know, I would like for him to I guess that's how you would translate it.

I'd like for him to stay, but if the situation is untenable, keep an eye on it.

Untenable in the eyes of one side or the other or both.

But right now, as of the press conference this morning, once again they're gonna have the talk of talks, probably capital t on both the talk of talks with Mosila on Arnestlot and figure out where their future is.

So coming in this weekend could be the last go round for most the Law at Anfield, could be the last go round for Moslaw Liverpool.

And so that's the palace intrigue that is attached to that, and so we'll keep an eye on, keep an eye on that obviously, and if there's any resolution that comes out of any kind of meeting or conversation or talks or anything like that while we're here this morning, obviously we'll break that down for you and let you know what the latest is when it comes to when it comes to mosts the Law, So juice boxes, since we are discussing Premier League, we'll get into juice boxes here and do your your weekend preview of the Premier League.

So here's your juice boxes once again.

Four matches tomorrow, Chelsea and Everton.

Chelsea favored at a minus one forty nine, Everton a plus four seventeen, Liverpool of minus one forty five, hosting Brighton at Anfield at a plus three fifty eight twelve thirty.

Burnley and Fulham at turf More.

Burnley is basically a plus three hundred.

Fulham is a minus one oh five.

Arsenal and Wolves Arsenal and minus seven sixty nine minus seven sixty nine.

Yeah, I went ahead and said ith minus seven sixty nine for Arsenal plus seven seventy six on the draw and you end up with oh boy, yeah, you end up with Wolves at a plus twenty two forty three in the composite courtesy of our friends of odds Portal.

So yeah, plus twenty two four three twenty two to forty three.

So that's what you have with Arsenal and Wolves.

Five matches on your Sunday, and you do have Monday Night football on Sunday.

Crystal Palace in Manchester City.

Manchester City favored going to Crystal Palace and the Selhurst Park at a minus one eighteen.

Crystal Palace a plus three Zho five Nottingham Forest, and these are all nine o'clock starts on Sunday morning Eastern Time.

For US Nottingham Forest and is the favored at home against Spurs at a plus one fifty six.

Spurs a plus one seventy seven draws a plus two thirty three.

Sunderland underdog at home is Newcastle comes to visit at a plus two thirty five.

Newcastle a plus one twenty four, and your draw is a plus two thirty one.

West Ham Ashton Villa the fourth match at nine o'clock.

It is west Ham at a plus two sixty eight.

Aston Villa is a plus one oh two draws a plus two fifty two.

Brentford and Leeds is a Brentford favorite at the g Tech at a minus one oh five draws a plus two to fifty nine.

Leads is a plus ninety one.

Obviously, Manchester United Bournemouth will discuss this one again on Monday.

Manchester United minus one twenty born Withuth a plus two to ninety heading two.

Old Trafford in your draw is a plus three zero five.

Standings by the way, and not to wonder why Wolves is a plus twenty two to forty three in the composite, but Arsenal on top, but they are only two points ahead of Manchester City thirty three points to thirty one.

Manchester City's one three in a row the unbeaten run for Arsenal stop last time out, so two point difference.

Each team has won ten of their first fifteen.

Villa is third, they've won five in a row, nine three and three thirty points.

Crystal Palace has won three of four.

They're at twenty six points there and fourth right now in the prem Chelsea is fifth at twenty five points, ahead of Manchester United on goal difference, Everton's at twenty four.

Then you've got Brighton at twenty three, ahead of Sunderland on goal difference, ahead of Liverpool on goal difference twenty and that gets you to eleventh, Spurs at twenty two, Newcastle at twenty two goal difference born Withouth is thirteenth at twenty points, so basically fourth through thirteenth, ten spots separated by six points.

And really if you want to get into real minutia, you're looking at Crystal Palace to Newcastle nineteen, separated by four points four through twelve.

Then you've got Brentford at fourteenth.

They've lost three of four, but they're at nineteen points.

Fulham has lost two in a row.

There at seventeen.

Leeds has hit each column once in their last three.

They are at fifteen ahead of Nottingham Forest on goal difference Noddingham Forest have lost two of three, by the way, and then right now relegation zone is west Ham who's drawn three of four, Burnley who's lost five in a row.

They're at three to one and eleven and Wolves, by the way.

Wolves here's why they're a plus twenty two seventy three for their matchup this weekend.

Among other reasons, Wolves no wins in their first fifteen two draws, thirteen losses, eight goals scored, thirty three allowed in fifteen matches, goal difference of minus twenty five minus twenty five in goal difference.

They're not good and so Wolves right now is two points on track to be one of the worst Premier League sides in league history.

Two and thirteen only scored eight goals in their first fifteen, so they're averaging about half a goal a game, and until they scored against Manchester United on Monday, they had gone nine hours since scoring their last goal.

Nine hours, five hundred and forty minutes longer than that before they scored.

Monday Night football didn't work out, but at least they did score, snapped that streak of five hundred and forty plus minutes of not scoring.

So that's uh yeah, Wolves is just not good this year.

So you've got that to up this morning.

So that's your rundown of everything in the Premier League.

I should fix my posture.

Let me know about these kinds of things, so posture and all that.

So that's your rundown of the Premier League and how it all lays out.

Give you a couple of notes from press conferences this morning.

It's the last opportunity to make sure that you are gassed up, ready to go.

Where the prem is concerned.

Colotore Is offered an update on Pep Guardiola, who missed his press conference because of a personal issue.

Colo Tore says, PEPs fine, small matter didn't bring him here, but everything's fine.

I'll be back for the Palace game for sure.

FA Cup third round TV schedule was released.

Crystal Palace's trip to Maclesfield has been selected as one of the eight third round ties shown on TV in January Friday, January ninth, Wrexham and Forest, Macklesfield, Palace, Spurs and Villa, Charlton and Chelsea.

Those are have been selected obviously.

All the FA Cup matchups here domestically will be on Paramount Plus.

January eleven, Darby and Leeds Portsmouth, Arsenal, Manchester United, Brighton, Liverpool and Barnsley Monday Night Football on the twelfth.

Mikhael Antonio is training with Lester as he's looking to find a new club.

Antonio, currently a free agent, leaving the London Stadium after his contract was done in the summer.

With a ten year run with west Ham, broke his leg in four places after the car crash remember a year ago.

Hasn't played competitively at the club levels since then, but did turn out for the Reggae Boys during the Gold Cup over the summer.

West Ham opted against extending his stay in East London, yet allowed him to continue his rehab and he even had him work with the U twenty one s when they played Nottingham Forest back in August thirty five.

Doesn't want to retire, but he wants to come all the way through and see that if he still can you know physically keep up with everybody, and so that's right.

Why right now he's working with Lester and we'll see if the team and the championship will pick him up.

Enzo Maresca nam Premier League Manager of the Month for November.

Cole Palmer's return cause for celebration there.

Liam Dlap set to miss up to eight weeks with a shoulder injury.

According to Talk Sport, Chelsea striker tore the shoulder ligaments in the goalless draw with Bournemouth and quoting MORESCA, now is for him, the focus is to recover.

It's a base inside the building every day, just to try to recover with teammates.

A matter of time now and he will be back.

Fabby and Hurtzler asked about Evan Ferguson's loan to Roma and if it's going to be ended early scored twice in Roma's three zero win away over Celtic in Europa League last night.

We'll go over Europa League and Conference League numbers coming up in a sec.

Hertzler replied, quote, Evan is a player for us, That's why he will always be an option.

At the moment he's on loan, but we follow it We're pleased with how he performed yesterday.

Of course we all follow it, so definitely he might be an option.

So basically that sounded like either a non committal committal from Fabby and Hurtzler or a non denial denial.

Michael Arteta has rejected claims he would consider selling Gabriel jay Zeus next month.

Quote, I don't consider that, especially with the situation we have right now a lot to offer.

The team proved that straightaway in the first minutes he was available to play.

He puts so much to be in this position again.

Now is the focus for him to be with us and Doni Iroola has defended in Kwan Semeno for his gold rout the mid transfer speculation.

He's got a sixty five million pound release clause that is active in the early part of the January window, broken down as a sixty million guaranteed and a five million in add ons clause was a deal breaker when Semeno signed the new contract over the summer.

Means a mid season exit is out of born Let's control.

talkSPORT understands Semenya would not have extended without the ability to leave in the next two windows.

Six plus three this season, but none of those, none of those goals have come in his last six appearances.

Quoting Eroola, we cannot only analyze the numbers.

He's not our number nine.

He's a winger, gives us a lot of goals, a lot of assists, gives us chances normally the biggest threat against Chelsea the other day, I don't feel the speculation meaning it because the quote was I don't feel it meaning the transfer speculation is affecting him a lot.

When you hear your name every day in the news, you have to deal with the situation.

I think he's committed.

I haven't seen a lot of changes in it.

Our Tetsa has insisted that the goals will come for Victor Yokarsh, who's managed six and eighteen appearances, quoting him this morning, the goals will come and will be very pleased with him.

Arteta also refused to give much away when asked about a number of players that are currently on the sidelines, Saliba.

When he was asked about Saliba, we have to wait and see.

He hasn't trained with us yet, Yuri and Timber.

Depends on how he feels today, Jaclan Rice, Let's see how he is today Troussard another one that's a matter of Dave.

So do you have mikel Arteta with four guys?

He was asked about Saliba, timber Rice and Trussard.

We will see basically, so he ain't given nothing away to nobody, and so Arnes Slutt, when he was asked about most Slaw, asked about other things, claimed he's almost happy that Liverpool are out of the Carabout Cup due to their current squad depth.

Gak Cody, Gakpung w tarar Endo said to be sidelined for weeks.

Esoch picking up a knock on the first half against inter Milan, Jeremy Frempong already in the treatment room, and then we mentioned mosts Law, so it says it's helpful in the upcoming week.

So we won't play as many games as we did until now.

Whether or not they could be addressed in January, we'll keep an eye on that.

So uh Celtic now and this is the thing that's that's bugging me, and keep an eye on this.

Celtic are at risk of Europa League elimination after having suffered a three nail defeat at home to Roma.

All three goals during the first half.

We mentioned Devin ferguson Liam Scales with an own goal third Europa League defeat of the season, and then now set twenty.

Fourth the final playoff spot.

Should they finish between twenty five and thirty six in either league, you're out early Champions League Europa League Conference.

If you're twenty five through thirty six after the group phase, you're done.

And so Bologna and you trekt are the opposition in January.

And I've seen on social media, and this is me getting on my soapbox here a little bit I've seen on social media fans and we all know about how rabid they can be.

And if Jarrett joins us an hour number two, we may circle back to this idea.

People are already jumping on Wilford Nazi and how bad a higher this was, and how this was an awful idea, and he doesn't know what he's doing, and all of these things.

I know that surprises you that you would have, you know, folks jumping on Wilford Nanci.

He walks in the door.

We've had the conversation with Chris Doran earlier this week about Wilford Nanci and the opportunity and how Celtic was a bucket list item for Nanci and he wanted to go there and if he was to go back to Europe, that would be one of the places that he would go.

After a handful of matches, obviously, the world is falling down.

This was the worst.

Higher known to mankind.

And you're seeing a lot of this on social media.

No patience at all from the Celtic fan base.

This either had to work from absolute jumper, it was an absolute failure and Celtic fans live in the extremes except for Jarrett who jared with his knowledge base with Wilford Nancy knows what is happening with Wilford Nanci.

Boom.

But you're already seeing social and this is from even like pundits and writers and everything, and so it's annoying, is all you know.

Bleep ay bleep that you're already seeing folks sitting there and ishing all over Wilford Nanci after he's basically been there for matches for a week.

It's rabid, it's silly, and I will guarantee you that wants Wilfrid Nanci gets things.

It gets the investment that he needs because he's having to do this with a roster that was poorly constructed in the first place, and so have to take that roster mid season with European competition and have to try and turn it around to have it be what his reflection of the sport is.

It's gonna take some time, but you end up with all of the fans at Celtic that are the rabid ones sitting and going, oh my god, this was so bad.

This was so bad, This was so bad.

So keep an eye on this because we're seeing it already where fans are ishing all over Wilford Nanci and it should really piss you off because what you will have is you will have all the stereotyping going on.

As you know, he always coached in America.

Therefore American coaches are ish and they should never be hired or considered or anything like that.

Yes, let's get Sam Allardice back in.

How'd that work?

Wouldn't surprise me if Sam had sent resumes and all those other kinds of things that way as a part of the process with Martin o Martin O'Neil comes in, he knows he's going to be a caretaker.

That's it.

I think that if you had Martin O'Neil come in and say some cool stuff to back up Wilfrid Nanci, I think that'd be great.

I don't know if that's gonna happen, but Wilfrid Nanzi is already getting ished on and you know, literally two matches and there haven't been any goals and oh my god, this guy's falling.

Holy crap, everything's wrong all of that.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

So that's where we are with Wilfrid Nanci.

So speaking of Europa League yesterday and Conference League yesterday, and we'll go over the standings here as well.

So Villa Beat's Basel.

So it was a homecoming for for blanking.

Who is it?

Uh?

Who amory?

Uh?

Two to one win for Villa.

They were favored Fenerbacci with a win Bologna with a win on the road at Celta Devigo Roma once again freaking everybody out.

They were favored going in at the plus one thirty seven.

They got to win at Celtic three to zero.

Porto Big Favorite Day won FCSB in a shootout with fine Ord seven goal thriller.

Fine Ord was the favorite.

FCSB was the underdog of the plus three sixty seven got the win.

Freiburg over Salzburg, big favorite, Leon over Go Ahead Eagles big favorite Panathoniko's Pilsen draw plus two twenty seven Rale Betty's over Dinamo Zagreb Favored on the road, Ferrence Varro's Favorite beat Rangers.

So both Rangers and Celtic lose yesterday.

Nobody's happy in the country except for maybe Hearts than everybody else.

So Rangers lose at Ferrence Varro's Roma beats Celtic at home.

Two the top teams in Scotland.

They're just getting I can just imagine.

I can imagine what all of that nonsense was about in the morning morning talk shows with that goodness gracious, let you see what that's like.

Seasons over Sky is falling.

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god.

Lutigarettes and Pouca six gold draw mitchelland favorite at home beat gink Braga favored on the road beat Niese Red Star Favorite on the road beat Strom Graz Nottingham Forest favored minus side beat You Treked on the road, Stute Guard big favorite of Vermacabee tel Aviv Young Boys beat Leal.

So that was a league phase.

That was league phase.

So standings, just so you know, once again we discuss how things are for Celtic going off the rails.

Leon still has not lost.

You have three teams at fifteen points, Leon, mitchelland Aston Villa.

Gold difference is the separator.

Three teams at fourteen Betty's Freiburg, Farrens, Varas, Braga, Porto at thirteen Stutgart and the top eight you're automatic qualifiers for that next round.

They get to sit and wait with everybody else.

They get to sit and fig knocking each other around.

Stuttgart Roma twelve points each.

They have won three in a row.

Goal difference the separator Nottingham, Forest, Fenerbachev, Bologna both they're all at eleven and you've got to go to like the nineteenth tiebreaker for finner Bache to be ahead of Bologna right now, same number of goals scored, same number goals allowed, all the stuff.

Goal difference is the same that gets you to thirteen fourteen.

Victoria pills in there at ten.

Goal difference with them Panathoniko's Kinkin Red Star nine points, Pouc and Celta Divigo who've won lost two in a row to drift all the way back to nineteenth's three of four.

They're at nine points.

Their goal difference is at my plus three and the number of goals scored is your differentiator with Palk, Celta, Divigo and lel Young Boys in goal difference far inferior.

That's why they're in twenty first, bron Is twenty second, Ludigarrat Celtic, Dinamo Zagreb and Dinamo Zagreb first out along with Basel FCB go Ahead, Eagles, St.

Gros, Fine Ord, Salzburg, Utrecht, at Rangers, Malmo, Macabee, Televiven, Nice Niice.

By the way, zero for six, they've only scored four goals in Europa League and so yeah, look for them to be out when we get out of the League of the League phase.

So now next up next week is the new round in Conference League.

But results in Conference League just to give you the greatest hits of some of the teams that we look at on Monday nights, Strasburg in a big win for Liam Rossignor knocks off of course, Aberdeen beating Aberdeen favored at at Aberdeen.

On the minus side, they get the win.

Shack Tar wins on the road, KuPS Lawsana draw posed on mines of draw, Lincoln Red Imps with a big upset at a plus five thirty five at home get the win.

Rocke Shostakova favored one at home sk Rapid v N and Ammonia Nikosia.

They were both within the margin of error, so it could have gone either way.

Road Team one slight favorite Rieka gets a win on the side, Crystal Palace one at Shelbourne Brada Blick over Shamrock Rovers.

They were favored os thatt Alkmar favored wins, Fiorentina favorited home wins draw with Hacken and Larnaca ryle Vayacano wins.

On the road they were favored upset slight.

Lasia Warsaw they're awful.

They are next to last I think in the league right now, and you can watch the extra classa on Finatis at FNTZ dot co slash Soccer down here being has added the Polish League this year.

Lasia Warsaw is awful and they lose on the road at Noah.

I don't even know who Noah is.

Oh Noah Laysia.

Okay, so uh all right, we're gonna do We're gonna do a quick We're gonna do a quick soccer over there.

Look at Noah FC Noah.

They are Armenian founded in twenty seventeen.

Is FC art side, but they are currently FC Noah based in Abovian founded in twenty seventeen and they are the champs, the reigning champs of the Armenian Premier League.

Coached by Sandro Perkovich.

Capacity of the stadium, thirty nine hundred and forty six and eight year old club and they got a big win yesterday over Laysia Warsaw, so.

Big win for them.

Congratulations to our friends at the year Avan Armenia Football Club Noah.

And so they have I'm just checking the roster a lot of Armenians.

They have a gudmundor Torodensen on defense, so they have an Iceland defender.

They have a Ghanaian defender.

They have a Brazilian forward, Dutch forward imran ulad Omar Takuto Oshima.

In the midfield.

You have a dear Congo keeper in Timothy Fayulu.

You have let's see Gustav Sungare who is Burkeinan.

I think that's the proper term from Burkina Fasso you have a Nardine Mulahshunovich from Bosnia Herzegovina.

There's some Portuguese there, Portuguese players that are there.

You have a Guadalupe player, Nathaniel Santini, marinjakalish Ford out of Australia, Croatia, you have Cameroon, You've got Russia, You've got France, You've got Armenia.

So a lot of Armenian players.

But the current Armenian champ gets the win yesterday over Lasia Warsaw.

That's how bad Laser Warsaw is.

Right now, Samsung Sport loses they were a dog at hum to ak Athens Schenjia within the margin of ara they won yesterday and Crayova loses to Spartaprogue who are favored on the road.

So get you into the standings in Conference League.

Strasbourg up top at thirteen points, Shaktar with twelve, rock of Schestakova with eleven, ak Athens ahead of Samson's Spor on goals scored, spart A progon goal difference right have ayakono Wan goal difference minds on goal difference.

That's your top eight nine points to get you to nine through twenty four.

Crystal Palace, Larnaka who's drawn three in a row in Fiorentina, a lot of folks at nine points, Seljia and azed Alkmar.

Differences in gold, goal scored in goal difference gets you to fourteen.

You have won two, three, four, five six teams at eight points.

Once again, goal difference and goals scored takes you through Ryeka, Ammonia, Ammonia, Nicosia, Lasan Noah C Noah your Arminian champs.

With that win, they rocket into the play in spots.

Out of that they go from being out to being in.

If everything stopped today, Jagielonia, Bjelostok and Drita, then they get you to seven points like Posh Non Skeenjia, Olamuk Krajova red Imps.

With their win, they're now in the play ins and so that's your top twenty four.

Those who are not involved, if they are everything ended today, they'd be going home.

Some of the big names Denom o' Kiev, Hocken, Lesier, wars Up Selvan brought Uslava, Aberdeen Aberdeen by the way, five matches, no wins, two draws, they are thirty third to thirty six, three goals scored in five matches.

Shelburne thirty four Shamrock rovers with our friend with our friend Pico Lopez from Cabo Verd.

Right now they have one point in five matches.

In sk rapid VN is dead last with five losses, two goal scored, thirteen aloud and minus eleven goal difference snowpoints.

They are thirty six.

So that's your rundown before everybody kicks back in next week with a new round in the in Conference League and in Europa League.

Morning four card.

Glad you could be here this morning.

Like I said, I apologize ahead of time for the low gear of the voice, but yeah, having having been in thirty degree weather last night, it was it was trying to get through it.

I had five layers last night.

I had five layers on and it took me like ten minutes to completely take everything off last night when they got back to the hotel.

So low gearing it Today Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Once again reminder, since I'm gonna be at Mercedes Benz, it will be Jason in some form of fashion doing morning shows and things like that.

We'll find out about guests and things like that as we go.

But money Tuesday Wednesday.

I'll be back next Thursday to get you ready for the weekend once again.

But yeah, Monday Tuesday Wednesday, in some form or fashion may not go the full two hours, don't know, just depends on how much is going on and guests and things like that.

So Monday Tuesday Wednesday, in some form the morning show will exist, could be just morning Espresso.

But once again, set your notifications and then that way you'll know what it's going to look like, and then everybody will be caught up to date on anything and everything going on on the planet as we go.

Here.

When it comes to when it comes to what we talk about every single day, we mentioned Rodrigo de Paul, and we mentioned the moves that Messi and friends had to make once again, forty eight hours.

I think it's either the forty eight or seventy two.

You've got to make your decisions after your championship win, that last two teams play, you've got to make your decision.

So Messi and friends make their decision on players after the season was up.

And so the biggest one came in with the Rodrigo de Paul.

They're picking up the option looks like it's going to be in the neighborhood of seventeen million to keep him, and so Rodrigo de Paul will stay going forward.

So guaranteed contracts for twenty six.

Noah Allen, Thomas Aviles, Israel Boat Right, Janick Bright, Falcone, Frey Tyler, Hall, Luhan Messi, Morales, David Ruiz, Silvetti, Segoviat Ustari, so Oscar Ustari guaranteed for twenty six, already under contract.

Auction exercised rodrig Go to Paul declined faf Apico.

William Yarborough.

No real surprise on Yarborough considering that he was really the fourth keeper that they had.

So the way that it worked was you had Drake Calendar, Calendar gets injured, then you bring an Oscar story and you bring up Roco Riosnovo.

We remember Rocko from Messian Friends too, getting a couple of reps there and then now he's up with the parent club.

Then they bring in William Yarborough because of you know, competition's injuries, what have you.

Yarborough was the guy who was in the keeper kit when Messi and Friends won the championship.

You see everybody's either sitting or standing before they raised the trophy.

Yarborough was the guy and the keeper kit Low left.

I'm gonna check his minutes here in a second.

But William Yarborough comes over.

Spent time in Lega Emeki's before he had time in Colorado.

But yeah, he was just he was just sitting at Inner Miami on so no real surprise the option was declined.

I'm intrigued about Fafa Pico.

I want to.

See, you know, if you put Fafa Pico in a position where he can succeed.

You saw what he was able to do.

Ryan Sailor out of contract, Chellawagan's loan has expired, and the club makes a notification ongoing negotiations with Alan Obondo whose loan has expired, RockA Rios Novo whose loan has expired, Luis Suarez who is out of contract, Baltasar Rodriguez whose loan has expired.

In today, Agenda whose loan has expired once again.

It is being looked at River Plate is looking at Selta Divigo to see if Selta.

Divigo and enter Miami.

They don't agree on anything, and then we'll find out if Agenda is going to stay the club recently and once again announced a new contract for defender Ian Fray.

So those are your decisions with Messian friends, and so that is that's where their current contracts and negotiations and statususes are all hanging out right now.

Dom Kinear it was announced yesterday BYFC Cincinnati he is not going to return to the club.

He is going to move on after four seasons, and the club announces that and they're going to immediately begin the process to add a new assistant coach to the staff.

Yesterday we mentioned what was going on with the City of Vancouver and the white Caps, and we've been discussing the Hastings racecourse project and that has been away from BC place where you can get fifty four thousand in and you remember Hugo Laarice talking about the turf.

And all that kind of stuff.

So City of Vancouver has been looking.

And remember this is a team that is also still for sale.

Team that makes it to the last game of the year when's the Western Conference, They're probably going to hang a banner, but they're still for sale.

Don't know how many folks are active in pursuing the Vancouver white Caps, but they are still for sale right now and with all the moves they made, they get to the last game of the year.

But as the conversations you've heard from Don Garber, the commissioner of Major League Soccer, that this is what Vancouver needs.

Vancouver needs their own barn.

So yesterday they have the press conference that we talked about.

So City of Vancouver and Vancouver White Camps have signed a memorandum of understanding to enter an exclusive negotiation negotiation period through twenty six to explore a new stadium in entertainment district at Hastings Park live work play.

The agreement marks, and this is from the Vancouver release, the agreement marks a significant step toward creating a world class sports and cultural destination for residents and visitors.

The MoU establishes an exclusive negotiating period through the end of the calendar year twenty six.

City and White Camps will work collaboratively to negotiate terms for a ground lease, including stadium design, financial terms, community benefits for the proposed development.

Quote from Mayor sim then you have a quote from Axel Schuster.

Proposed lease area is within the current Hastings Racecourse footprint, which includes space recently used for racecourse and casino operations.

City will retain ownership of the land at the Racecourse Park.

Both parties also recognize the Slale Waaldtooth Nations agreement to purchase the casino business currently operating on site, so you have First Nations involved with the casino part City has got the Hastings Park real estate squared away to try and develop the stadium there.

As a part of this project, will undergo all required regulatory approvals and public processes, including zoning and development applications.

City and White Camps committed to transparency and engagement throughout the planning process.

Next steps include preliminary planning and design proposals and intensified negotiations for a potential ground lease.

So the fact sheet they give you the link to the fact sheet and to the MoU so key facts.

Land remains public, City owns it.

City's going to retain ownership of Hastings Park once again.

All of next year is your negotiating period exclusive negotiations.

Stadium funded by the white Caps and partners.

If any and any city financial contribution requires council approval, that's key.

So it's got to be the team that's going to foot the bill.

But if they ask for city help, then that means that the city council has to approve it.

So keep an eye on that part of this whole thing and how much they're looking for the cost of the facility underlying idea.

Once again, remember team is for sale, so the team is the team has signed this that they have this MoU and you have right now the way that it's laid out, stadium funded by the white Caps and partners if any for a team that's for sale.

I want to know how much this project's planning on costing.

I want to know what the team slash partners are willing to invest.

I want that first number early in twenty six, when everybody comes out with the models and the vn rs and things.

I want that number.

I want to know what that number looks like.

And then as we go through twenty six, especially as we get into this part of the calendar, that MoU that exclusive negotiating windows starts to fade away.

What does the team say about how much aid they're going to need from the city going forward, So keep an eye on that over the next twelve months.

Regulatory compliance, all decisions must comply with the Hastings Parks trust.

City bylaws undergo required regulatory approval process, so it's not a final decision.

MoU is a starting point for negotiations, not an approval of bill.

This is written by the city.

Any proposal requires City Council to approval.

Cities keeping ownership.

Once again Hastings Park.

We've discussed that and why Hastings Park unique opportunity to create a sports and cultural hub, enhancing community amenities leveraging existing infrastructure.

The MoU does not require or trigger closure of the racecourse or casino.

Interim uses can continue during negotiations and beyond until a new lease begins or an earlier agreement to terminate such use as is reached.

And once again both parties acknowledge a slow well toothed Nations agreement to purchase the casino business currently operating on site.

City supports twn's operation.

White Caps will not oppose the interim uses.

Negotiations continuing through twenty six updates shared with Council public as the process moves forward.

So obviously they discuss the jobs, boost of the economy, new community spaces, and transforming Hastings Park.

So that's the fact sheet that was given by the city and by by the white Caps.

And so also there is a decision, there's a land use negotiations, there is an MoU.

So let me click on a couple of these things.

Okay, So they have in Schedule A, they do have the layout of what the stadium would look like.

I'm going backward.

The appendix has the MoU which has confidential written across it, so we're not going to be discussing it.

And so then the decision once again land use negotiations heritage part for a Hastings Park.

Council approves it legally binding MoU as of December first of this year, goes through the end of December next year exclusive negotiating period Hastings Park Schedule A.

And that was the graphic that they have as a part of the MoU that's got all the lines and where the stadium would be and all that kind of stuff.

So MoU for Construction Operation, New Stadium Entertainment District authorized Director of Real Estate Services to sign and deliver the MoU on behalf of the city.

Further that, subjected to the approval, Council authorizes public release of Council's decision with respect to be only indirect staff to Community Council's decision to slial Wildtooth Nation.

So that is.

The rundown from that's the rundown from Vancouver.

As to what their next steps are when it comes to a stadium away from BC Place, big, it's a big idea.

I love the idea of them being in BC Place, being fifty four thousand, being loud and crazy.

I haven't seen anything about how big the stadium in Vancouver at Hastings Park would be as a part of live work play.

I hope it's north of thirty so that way it can have that consistent audience that we talk about.

If it's twenty to twenty five, like Dillan Butler estates in New York, a little too small for me, make it thirty thirty two somewhere in there, then I think you're on the right path.

A couple of other notes.

Let's see mcquali acale has signed with LU City after being at New Mexico United, and a lot of folks might remember mcquelai acala returning to the US and being a part of Tormento where he won a league title back in twenty two.

So Aqueliacale goes from Tormento to New Mexico United.

Now he's going to be at Louse City.

So this city's just getting all the people.

FC Cincinnati this morning announcing that teenage Hadebbi has been added to the Zimbabwean roster for the twenty twenty five AFCN And so you have those announcements with roster decisions that are coming out as well.

So we'll see what all of that looks like.

And I'm sitting here and I'm trying to see if there's anything else that has popped up this morning in I don't think they have, so I think we might be okay for the moment.

So what we're gonna do since we mentioned Vancouver, it's a natural jumping endpoint we're we're doing this year is that while we're getting ready for the World Cup here in twenty twenty six.

And I agree with you, Alex absolutely.

I'm glad that they gave Ian Frey the extension because Ian Fray has been a favorite of ours and with everything that he's gone through to get to this point where he gets the extension, it's good faith from Messi and friends to sign e and Frey.

I love that.

But with all of the host cities that we have here getting ready to host the World Cup in six months.

We're taking a tour and we're catching up with as many of them that we'll get back to us as possible, and we're going to find out where they are when it comes to their progress reports.

We're going to try and visit them twice before we get to the World Cup itself.

Then after the World Cup we'll catch back up with them.

How'd you do, how do you think you did, what'd you learn?

Those kinds of things.

The interview that we did with Toronto that's up on the network, So starting now, the interview with Vancouver will be up on the network.

Caught up with.

Host Committee lead Jesse Adcock and found out what's going on with them as they're getting ready as well.

So the Vancouver White Camp story in Hastings Park natural transition for a guy who's barely awake.

He's doing okay in hour number two.

So here's our conversation with Jesse Adcock where we find out where Vancouver is as they're getting ready to host the World in twenty twenty six.

So it's once again really informative and it's a good comparison.

As we go here, how's this city, how's this city?

How's this city going?

So we get to find out this time with our friends in Vancouver.

So, Jesse, I guess my first question is it was a big reveal.

Yesterday was the first park where there's going to be practices and things like that.

What was it like to finally see grass laid and purpose there and sprinklers in the whole thing.

It was a big day for you What was it like out there?

You know, it made it all feel really real.

There's been people working on this project, you know if you date back to when Vancouver won the Big so you know, it started off with you know, the big team, and then it slowly moved on to adding a couple here and there.

I joined the team about two years ago, and a lot of what we've been doing is you know, making sense really of like what's coming our way, what do we need to do?

What are the schedules?

And yesterday and this weekend actually very much felt like the starter's pistol went off, you know, like all the planning.

Was sort of you know, evaluated in.

That moment of time, or that forty eight hours of time that was this weekend and seeing that, you know, grass and we mentioned this in one of our press conferences yesterday.

You know, ninety seven and a half percent complete on budget, ahead of schedule just really made us feel confident, you know, that we are up to this and that we are going to do a good job.

So for me, it was you know, the first kind of test of readiness, and it was also a wan of pride as a leader, you know, to see that the team even though we've you know, had major events like the Olympics and like, you know, we've had really high profile concerts like the last Taylor swift Eras concert took place in Vancouver, and you know, recently we held the Invictus Games.

The World Cup is kind of a different entity and so it involves a lot of guesswork, and yesterday just really made me feel good about the work that we had done and the ability to complete the work that's left ahead.

No stranger to World Cup formats because of the Women's World Cup that was a part of the hemisphere when it was here.

I guess how different a city is Vancouver when it comes to infrastructure, hosting, knowing what's coming since the Women's World Cup, How different a city is it?

How much was learned, and where do you think you are at this point?

Yeah, you know, I used the I think I coined a term yesterday.

I called it a layer cake of legacy.

You know, really, every time you do one of these large events, you not only build up infrastructure, but you build up capability too.

You upscale your talent you you know, create opportunities for innovation, You make your local companies more competitive, you create talent pools, you know, you create companies that can that can service the needs of these major global sporting events.

And what I really felt yesterday was that, you know, we have taken the legacy and the foundation that has been built by every event, and we're building on top of it.

So, you know, I've never felt like we were starting from scratch.

It felt like we were building on top of something and that we had to live up to the previous events that we've hosted and done a really good job of hosting.

How many people are we talking about here, I guess in the in the host committee itself.

How many different committees are within the committee to make sure whether it's infrastructure, transportation, volunteer, all these kinds of things.

How many moving parts are there in this jigsaw puzzle that leads to this layer cake of legacy that you're creating here.

Yeah, I call it the biggest group project ever.

I love to tell my daughter, like, you know, don't be put off by group projects in the school, because I tell you, like, as your career progresses that they only get bigger and bigger.

Look, this is probably the most interconnected project ever.

You have a number of moving parts, and you're going to talk to all the host committees and you'll see that they're all kind of you know, made up a little bit differently.

But the kind of the standard components is that there's FIFA, who is a large central player in all of this, and they have their sort of you know, event oversight, and then we the local host committees are obligated to create similar circumstances in each one of the sixteen cities.

We've all signed up to these host city agreements that have, you know, a set of guidelines that need to be adhere to.

And ultimately, people coming from overseas if they decide to pick two or three cities, you want to make sure that they have a World Cup experience, right, not a local city.

I mean, well, obviously we want to have the city there too, because that's why we do these things.

We want to create tourism legacies as well.

But in the case of Vancouver, this is very much sort of a government led initiative.

You know, we've got the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia who are generously like ensuring that we have the resources that we need.

You have the City of Vancouver that is sort of acts as the key delivery agent here, but we're also working with our transit authorities.

We're working with eighteen core security agencies, not to mention the international cooperation.

We're working with our destination marketing partners.

We're working with you know, we've got our fan festival happening at one of the most popular parks in the city, the Pacific National Exhibition that takes place, and so we're working with them.

And then you know, I would say that you know, the host committee, you nailed it.

It's all of these workstreams.

So you know, there's myself, I lead the team, but the team is a number of leaders who who have tapped in a combination of you know, businesses that excel at doing this event, production companies and entertainment companies and sporting companies, legal firms, you know, like procurement companies, finance companies.

And then we have all of the internal structures as well.

We're organized around work streams and our big ones are fan festival, mobility, safety and security, those types of things.

This to me sounds like one of the largest PDF files or Excel spreadsheets humanly possible to try and get everybody on the same page for all of these kinds of things.

I mean, this is how how big.

Do you have to rent out the you know, do you have to rent out BC place or the old P the old P and E Coliseum to sit there and get everybody?

Do you have to go to like Abbotsford or something to have everybody under one roof to make sure that you're all talking in the same space.

How does this work with all of these different places and all this communication.

Yeah, you know, it's really interesting.

It is really like a project management masterclass, Like communication is really essential.

And one of the really interesting things about this is if your structure is not right and you can't convey the communication effectively enough, you're not going to be successful.

Because a lot of what happens in this tournament is dynamic.

So for example, forty eight hours ago, we just found out the teams, and so you need to be able to assess, analyze, and compute based on that information, like very quickly.

I feel really good about the team structure we have.

You know, we have a number of different forums where people are kind of regularly meeting and you know, thanks to modern technology, sometimes we get in a room and sometimes it's hybrid, but we regularly have you know, over one hundred people on the leadership positions talking every other week, talking about what's the latest in every work stream, what's new, you know, incoming from FIFA, what's happening, you know, just with the teams, et cetera, and doing change management to use like you know, project management lingo, but you know, change managing on the go.

When it comes to the fan experience.

Transportation, you know, the conversation that we had with Toronto the times that I've been there, you know, dealing with traffic coming from Pearson, You're coming down the QEW, you're going into into town and it is gridlock and they're trying to figure out ways around that.

They're trying to introduce folks to public transportation and TTC for those that aren't familiar with Vancouver and transportation in and of itself, What is the plan to make sure that everybody's getting to the p and E for fan Fest, getting to BC place and making sure that while there is traffic, which is an understood it's not overwhelming to the infrastructure, into security and all these different things to make everything go as as swimmingly as possible.

Lucky for those coming to Vancouver.

I mean we are we are often referred to as one of the most sort of advanced active transportation networks in North America.

You know, our our local transportation engineering teams here in Vancouver have been trying to get people moving in active transportation methods rather than vehicles for a very long time from a policy standpoint.

So we have a really really robust skytrain system, we have commuter rail system, we have a really really good like our transit system is very effective and it's very full and it's very well used, and so working with Translink, which is our authority here, we've been planning around sort.

Of our match dates for a long time.

We also have a committee that involves you know, British Columbia Favery Corporation, our airport authority, our provincial government, like the equivalent of the Department of Transport, those types of things, and we've all been working really hard to make sure that whatever we can do to ease, you know, the movement of people, whether it's from the land border through our cruise ship terminals or through our airport, that we are thinking ahead, you know, understanding where the hotels are, what the patterns are, what time people will be coming, the movement into matches out of matches.

We've been doing some pretty great modeling.

And then to supplement our you know, already robust transit network.

You know, we we we are very much a ride share community, a line bike, line bike, sorry, a shared bike bike system.

It's a Rogers biking system that's sponsored by them, and then Lime scooter and our cycling network is really great too.

So our key message to people is don't drive, you know, take the transit system.

It'll get you there and back much faster.

Do you have conversations with other host committees about question and answer bouncing ideas back and forth.

Is it a three dimensional kind of a thing where you're asking advice, getting advice that kind of stuff.

Yeah, for sure, I mean I think we have to some of the problems that we're problems are maybe not that's the wrong word.

Some of the questions that we're answering our novel right, like, these are things I don't think we've done at sixteen if I'm mistaken city coordinated North American event before, I think it's the first time.

And also we're operating within the same guidelines provided by FIFA.

We're really close with Seattle, for example.

We talk to them a lot.

We're very close in general, both culturally from a geographic perspective.

There's lots that you know, concert happens in Seattle, you see Vancouver Rights going down there, and likewise people coming up from Seattle to go skiing at Whistler, what have you.

You know, we have a label for that.

One of the things we hear often is, you know, there's seven matches in Vancouver and there are six matches in Seattle.

But oftentimes you'll hear there's thirteen matches in Kescadia, you know, and so people see it as a bit of a cluster of matches.

We're really close with Toronto, obviously, one of the only other Canadians, the only other Canadian city.

We talk to them all the time, you know, and obviously we share national interests as well.

And then you know, FIFA does a really good job of bringing all the host cities together a few times a year where we sit in the large rooms and we share and ask questions and get to talk to one another, and then also have you know, one to one meetings with FIFA, and it's it's a well structured system to enable information sharing.

Jesse ed Cock, host committee lead for Vancouver getting ready for the World Cup in twenty twenty six, hanging out with us here on the SDH network.

I know somewhere in your office, and this is a question that is a universal question that I ask everybody I know.

Somewhere in that office, there is a to do list and it's either on an Excel spreadsheet, it's a document, it's like a Google doc.

It is maybe on one of those big six foot by eight foot dry erase boards that I didn't see in your office earlier today.

That's off in a corner someplace, and it's got a bunch of different colored marker and it's got a bunch of different lines and squiggles going all over the place.

Where is that list?

Where is that to do list between now and June, And what do you think the next thing that you can cross off that to do list is as your preparation gets right to zero hour in June when it comes to Vancouver and the World Cup.

Well, I can tell you exactly where we are on the plan.

We just crossed the draw off, and now what happens is calculus.

You know, equations that have been sitting there in scenarios that we've been modeling.

You can now actually plug the variables in.

You know, we can plug in what our match times are, what our teams are, and start to actually refine our kind of more broad plans.

Yeah.

I mean we have a robust set of information.

We have risk registers, we have issue registers, we have traffic pattern models.

You know, we have data around.

I guess, up until forty eight hours ago, anything is possible, and so up until this point, you know, the goal was just be at the moment in time where now you're ready to plug the data in and then let the math happen.

In terms of Okay, now we know that the first match is a nine pm match, that's a very different model than it could be, which is, you know, on Friday, going into the draw.

Our models were it could be anywhere between twelve and eight pm, So you know, we were thinking we could have a noon start, a three start, a six start, you know, and then in the end we've ended up with we know exactly, we've got a nine pm start, we've got a noon start, we've got a morning start.

And so where we go now is we take all of that stuff, we plug in the numbers, and now we can actually spit out some more accurate forecasts.

And I feel like the team was ready for this moment at this moment.

You know, it's not I did never got the sense and I don't have the sense that we weren't ready.

We were basically like, okay, like catchers gloves probably wrong sport, but like we're ready, you know, for this to happen.

And so now now we're ready to go, and the next few months is really going to be dropping all the planning that no longer has a place and going with the models that do.

When it comes to capital investment, whether we're talking local government, provincial government, Canadian government, how big a number are we talking about here?

How much investment has been made to make sure that Vancouver as a host city is going to be what it needs to be across the board, and I'm talking I guess everything from infrastructure to stuff that's in place it needs to be renovated, new things that need to be constructed.

How much of a capital investment has there been so far in the Vancouver properties.

Yeah, you know, so I love that question.

The way we always ask that question is people always want to know how much is it going to cost?

And we don't often figure out like the new side of the equation either.

Right, So, yes, there's a lot of investments that are made, but we also have like revenue sources.

You know, we're going to be making money at the FanFest.

We're also going to we have a commercial program that we're able to generate revenue off of.

For example, like we we should have a revenue share with FIFA on certain things like our merchandise, and so between everything we net out between it's a range up until this point of eighty five to one hundred and forty five million dollars net.

So that's taking the costs and then netting out the revenues.

So I mean that that was the predicted bottom line that said we've only been planning up until this point.

So you know, we we shared yesterday that the pitch that you know, for those of those you know, fans that are following, we shared that it was a twenty four million dollar investment and that it was you know, relatively complete, ahead of schedule and on budget.

Unlike that, a lot of the costs that we're going to incur have yet to be incurred, you know, in terms of the stadium investment, that's one that i'd prefer the stadium talks to.

But you know, those numbers are pretty out, you know, out in the public, and I will say that that stadium is a world class stadium, you know, and it's hosting world class events, and without those investments, we don't attract the events that we're attracting.

So they're much needed infrastructure upgrades and they're much needed investments.

And I have no doubt that, you know, some of the economic modeling that's been done has shown that the event is going to have over a billion dollars of productivity you know, in the province, and there's been some economic studies done that say that it'll be double that, and I have no doubt that it will.

When it comes to volunteers, and I know that they are a key part of the process.

The Toronto had I think six figures worth of volunteers for like maybe five thousand volunteer spots.

What has the response been from the community and from the province and really from Cascadia to want to be involved as a volunteer to help the process out from a manpower and boots on the ground kind of approach.

It's really fascinating.

So the volunteer slots have been almost as competitive as tickets, I will say.

So in our case, we're looking at about you know, thirty five hundred volunteers, thirty eight hundred volunteers that we're going to need locally, and we're working with FIFA on the volunteer program.

And we really enjoyed watching the applications go through all summer because you could see that Vancouver and Toronto, I mean, I know, like I didn't keep track of all the American cities and where they were on the leaderboard of that, but like Vancouver and Toronto were consistently top three in terms of domestic and international interest for volunteer positions.

So that tells you something about people wanting to visit your city.

So super proud about that.

We're now it's starting our volunteer tryout.

So we've got folks coming in and we're starting to try out people for leadership roles and the Volunteer Corps and in the new year start to you know, put out offers and assignments and that type of thing.

But again, the interest to become a volunteer far outweighs are as far less than the demand to be a volunteer.

And I mean it's yeah, it is one of those where you feel like you've almost gotten a different kind of golden ticket when you get to become a volunteer for for your city or wherever it is.

For someone who's never been to Vancouver and they are interested, you know, they're trying to figure out, Okay, where where can I go?

That's a host city that I've never been to.

Why should someone go to Vancouver to c matches at BC Place and be a part of the experience there in British Columbia Province For someone who's never been, why should they go?

Because there's so much to do.

I think the first thing is is that we have to take a look at the stadiums.

You know, our stadium is truly unique.

It is in the heart of our downtown.

And when the stadium is in the heart of downtown, it's a completely different experience than you're if you're driving out to a stadium, not just not any of the big stadiums, fair enough, Like the stadiums in the US are like, you know, they've got that like large atmosphere or big capacities, et cetera, and so they create a different kind of atmosphere what we offer.

You know, I think BC Places is a pretty robust sized stadium.

It's you know, going to have a capacity of about fifty four thousand people.

But it's right downtown.

So you know, you come in, you can walk in from your hotel.

You know, when you come in, you can stop at a restaurant or a museum or a tourist attraction or you know, world class shopping, world class eating, all on the water, beautiful stunning imagery, tons to do.

You know, you can be swimming, hiking, like in the winter.

You know, you've heard that.

You know, in the same day, if you're really really like outdoorsy, you can kind of you know, swim in the ocean, ski on a mountain, do all of the play golf all.

In the same day in Vancouver.

You know, it's that kind of city.

It is really really a stunner, and so I think that the combination of the concentration of things to do in and around the stadium in a walkable environment truly provide you with a way to maximize your time.

In the city.

And we are looking forward to continue to find out what's going on, what else is on that list, what else gets crossed off as you're getting ready for all the matches that you're gonna have there in cascading at BC Place.

If I'm looking at it correctly, and my old man eyesight on the two hundred and eighty character app on x FWC twenty six Vancouver, and then there are links to a bunch of different other things that you can do there and keep an eye on the process there in Vancouver.

Jesse, it was great to catch up with you.

I'd like to put a bookmark right here and come back and visit and find out what else is going on there in Vancouver.

Thanks for dropping by SDH and we're looking forward to catching up soon looking seeing the progress as we get ready for the world here coming up this summer.

Thank you.

Rod, Jesse Adcock, and the host committee lead for Vancouver, and I am not Jesse Adcock, so I'm gonna go ahead and heard of that right now.

So that's what we're doing with all of the host cities that can come across our bow.

We sit there, we reach out to them all.

We sit there and it's like, hey, we want to tell everybody what's going on with your city.

We want you to share notes, we want you to let everybody know about your process, all those kinds of things.

And so the interview with Toronto is up.

The interview obviously with Jesse Adcock is going to be up later today, It'll be up this weekend.

And so as we do these interviews, they'll be up on the network.

You can listen to them in audio form and you can catch up on cities that you might have tickets in.

You get to find out where they are in their process and find out what they're working on as they get ready to host the World coming up here in about six months.

So in the queue we have Bay Area, Kansas City, and Gotham, New York, New Jersey.

So hopefully catching up with those folks pretty quickly.

We'll have those out as well, and we'll continue to just sit there and knock off all of the knock off all the host cities.

We go here and get you ready for everything in twenty twenty six.

It's a freestyle Friday.

Whatever is on your mind, actually, let me go through and I'll let I'll let the eyes kind of see what's going on here.

So whatever's on your mind is we get into your weekend, we'll get into that.

We do have a new episode of the Soccer for USPOD episode see Triple X Triple I one thirty three, and they're going over the group with US Soccer.

They with the World Cup draw.

Barton Thomas are going to take a peek at what else is going on in group, what they think about that and January camps and things like that.

So new Soccer for USPOD coming up later today, probably as soon as I can sign off and get edited and all these kinds of things.

So that's coming up in just a little bit as well, to add to all the programming which you might have missed from yesterday, that's going to be posted today as well.

So this show, the interview with Jesse Adcock, Soccer for USPOD one thirty three, all the segments from Thursday that involve Braydon Dunham as they get ready for the national semifinal with with Furman and Washington and then Saint Louis and NC state your national semifinals today.

Then you've got to the interview that we had with Glenn Davis.

Great to catch up with Glenn, and then we had Nina and Nico in the Power Hour yesterday.

So Thursday was wall to wall.

Those segments are going to be posted today as well and go through the weekend.

Jesse Adcock from Vancouver that's going to be posted up as well.

And Soccer for US Pod one thirty three that's going to run down and we'll let you know what's going on there.

I'd be good to see you and great to catch up with you as always, So last thirty five minutes of the show, So let's take a peek and see who's in this morning.

Once again, David, you'd rather have Rebecca Black it's too ominous.

Well, the drop in and of itself came from you know on as someone who was raised on the Friday five o'clock whistle.

That literally comes from that.

Someone mercifully posted that to the youtubes and so of course, you know me being me, I'm like, ooh, let's get that.

And so that's where the Friday that's where the Friday five o'clock whistle comes in with that, the the intro and the outro that you hear on Fridays.

As a ninety six rock kid from both AM and FM heard that growing up, saw it was on YouTube.

I'm like, ooh, but the one thing that I can't find, and this is bugging me.

Christopher Rude back in the day did a mashup of two zzy top tunes and it was my Head's in Mississippi and Lagrange and he mashed them up together, and I thought it might be posted to YouTube, but it's not.

And so that's one of the things that I'm looking for.

I'm looking for it.

My Head's in, My Head's in Lagrange.

It was a mashup that he did when he was on the morning show, and I can't find it to save my life.

It was one of the first mashups I'd ever heard, but really good stuff there.

But yeah, the the homage to the old days of ninety six rock, that's where that comes from.

And I found my ninety six rock license plate the other it's in the other office.

It's not in the office at home, it's in at the office upstairs.

I found it.

Not gonna put it on the car, but I might put it in the office and have it hanging.

Let's see.

So morning Ricky, Morning Alex, and glad that we could get into the whole stadium thing involving Vancouver is a bit of a lead in to our conversation with Jesse Adcock this morning.

So that was good to see.

And Bart to remember the George Jones hit finally Friday as the sign off for the work.

Yes, yeah, the Root Awakening was exactly when it happened.

Yes, David, the Root Awakening, and that was the morning show on ninety six Rock at the time, So I remember.

And for those of you that listen, and I know we're going sideways on a Friday, I know that surprises you.

We're gonna talk about the NWSL in just a second.

When I was growing up, ninety six Rock was both AM and F and you had ninety sixty AM and you had ninety six Rock, And so what they would do is they would simulcast the signal on AM and FM, but then they would break away for a couple of blocks and you'd have like Greg Clarkson doing midday stuff like that, so you'd have Root Awakening AM and FM, and then you'd have like Greg doing midday and then you'd have Katie and Willard and that would be simulcast.

And then when you know power goes down at nine sixty, then you just list you go to FM and then you know, you know Katie, Kylie and Willard everybody else, and then that gets you into the nighttime.

So that was where it started for me.

So whenever I have those moments of everything that's that's there, I'll always drift back to ninety six Rock and Bart's joining us on Friday.

This is this is a surprise, So Bart as he as he as.

I'm sitting here looking in the green room going what's going on?

So Bart's here this morning on a Friday, and greetings from Rome, Sir, what's on your mind?

You said n WSL, and I did what I have?

I have thoughts, John, I have thoughts about WSL.

Okay, So yeah, the George Jones song Finally Friday was what Because I listened to country music growing up and still do so for me, that was the song that I always got on Friday afternoon, Why did you get into your car?

And uh, that comes onto country music radio stations, So number one, it has a way to celebrate the fact that it is Friday.

What are you doing in Rome?

John?

What happened?

What happened in Rome last night or tonight?

I was, well, it was last night.

It was make me freezing my butt off for the Gainesville and Rome game.

I mean that was totally worth, wasn't it.

That was a very exciting action pack game.

Well, but it showed that it showed the dominant as the Gwennett County kid stairs at Hall County football.

Uh, it was dominant from Gainesville.

And we're seeing what's what's going on with Josh Nibblett and that and that crew, And I mean they've been road warriors the last couple of weeks.

And I mean I had this hot take for the longest time, John, we need to put some sort of soccer team up there in Gainesville in that stadium.

And you can put the red elephant on the badge too, because that's a great, great, uh look for the high school.

And I think it would be really cool for a soccer team out there.

But I don't know if Buford would would uh that beautiful stadium, they need one up there.

Well, we need more soccer teams in.

This I mean, I would agree, I absolutely, I mean, and I don't know if I don't know if the soccer team at Buford is going to gravitate over to the Beard or not.

I'm if they do, that'd be great.

Right now, they're in one of the side stadia that's there on campus and it seats twenty five hundred.

And when we were there to broadcast the Brookwood Girls semi final last year, you couldn't get a seat, You couldn't stand it, you couldn't find a place to stand.

People are sitting on the brick wall.

I mean, it was a great atmosphere for twenty five hundred.

I wonder if they just keep it there instead of moving it to the Beard, except for maybe big events or anything like States finals and things like that.

But they were I'm talking a semi pro issue.

And the and what they want is what they want with the city because it was paid for by city funds, no extra taxes, no nothing.

It was a part of the budget.

It was put aside.

And mister Beard and the city Commission were like, Nope, this is city funds.

We want to do more things here.

We went concerts here, we want all this kind of stuff at the Beard.

And so if you had stuff in the off season where you're getting you know, in PSL, USL, League two, those kinds of things or other franchises in the Beard, I think it would be great.

I think to your point at City Park in Gainesville, that what they've done there with the city and what they've done to renovate that press facility there, that's where you have when Johnson Gaines Will plays Gainsville for the home games, it's at City Park and we were there a couple of years ago and it was just absolutely insane the environments there.

So if you go down that road of League two or in PSL or something like that, shoot, you get somebody with a League one budget to sit there and go in there and have another natural rival in the Southeast.

I think it'd be cool to be in that footprint.

Okay, the reason that I was going to bring up the NWSL was that we might be having discussions about and the board is in advanced talks and this is from Meglenahan, So this is me kind of catching up on this, and so we'll walk through this, and if you want to play Cliffhanger and tell me to stop, then we'll stop.

NWSL boards and advanced talks to add funds to pay players like Trinity Rodman competitive salaries.

And so here's Meg's article.

NWSL Board of Governors currently having advanced discussions to create a new roster mechanism allowing teams to pay players significantly, and that's the word that was used beyond.

The current salary cap.

According to multiple league sources not authorized to speak freely, rule change proposal, which could pass ahead of next week's board meeting, involved team owners and Commissioner Jessica Berman.

Potential rule change comes as the NWSL and the Washington Spiritor working to make sure that Trinity Rodman re signs with Washington, doesn't go to DC Power, doesn't go to England, and go across to Europe.

However, the sources indicated that the change and approach to the salary cap is quote bigger than one player, and while it may resolve the ongoing negotiations with Rodman and a representation, no solution yet, no contract has been signed.

There is and we got into this before I came up to Rome the issue of aggrievance filed by the NWSLPA against the league on Rodman's behalf over collective bargaining agreement violations, which the rule change would not directly resolve.

Even if Rodman signs a new contract under a proposed new rule, the grievance over the league's flagrant in quotation marks violation of her free agency rights would not necessarily be settled.

Then they go into a couple of details.

As currently proposed, there will not be a penalty or luxury tax for any team that opts to exceed the salary cap, helping teams sign players who are increasingly demanding salaries upwards of a million dollars.

Teams are not limited to using the money on one player as long as salaries meet certain requirements that are not yet clears.

Believe the approach to the rule change has been to keep it as simple as possible, allow for flexibility in terms of players that can add apply to, and potentially allow for further realignment.

Currently, the NWSLCBA has a minimum based salary cap each season for the length of the agreement, which runs until twenty thirty.

In twenty twenty five, the figure was three point three million, increases to three point five after the team's revenue share added for the CBA board proposal allows spending beyond that final threshold up to a certain amount.

That approach is reminiscent of allocation money, which the league introduced ahead of twenty twenty.

In twenty twenty three, the league also allowed teams to use allocation money to minimize cap hits for players by using it to pay out bonuses and benefits.

NWSLL announced it would phase out allocation money is a part of rule changes that were announced this summer, though teams would have until December of twenty twenty seven to use those funds.

Key difference between am so, I guess.

It would be what it'd be bermanbucks it was what it would be.

Key difference between allocation money and the new proposed mechanism is that rather than going through the NWSL as a middleman for transactions, teams would be able to spend directly on players' salaries outside the cap.

If the board approves the changes, Rodman and her representations still need to agree on a new contract.

The team's initial offer, which she agreed to, was four years multimillion dollars, which would have paid her significantly more than a million dollars a year.

Berman vetoed the agreement, saying it violated the spirit of the rules, and so you end up with national attention, so on and so forth.

NWSLPA argument Caucus requested regular updates, and the Spirit's President of Soccer Operations, Haley Carter, said she was cautiously optimistic and quote quote quote Alyssa Thompson leaves for Chelsea for more than a million dollars.

Now, I mean Gearma leave San Diego a couple of months before that, and so the rule.

Let me tell you what.

While I'm searching for the actual rule rule, go ahead with your opening statements.

I think that NWSL has to reckon with the fact that they are probably the only sport in North America, the only league in North America, I should say that is truly involved in a global marketplace.

I have said many times on the show.

NWSL is the most competitive women's soccer league in the world.

I think it has the best collection of players in the world from top to bottom.

The problem here now is there are plenty of teams in Europe who play in leagues that are not as competitive because they are.

Those clubs are very rinch.

They have a lot of money to spend, or in the case of some in the WSL, are willing to spend Liverpool and NWSL has to realize that Lyone, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, even to an extent, Bayern Munich.

These clubs are willing to pay money to buy good players, right and so well, yes, Manchater, City of Manchester, United, Arsenal, Chelsea are are spending a lot of money on players to hoard them.

Leon Ward's players.

Chelsea, Chelsea hoarding players.

What are you talking about?

This is what we want equitable practices across men's and women's teams.

Right, they just buy a bunch of good players and somehow don't have space for them on the roster, you know.

They They definitely do a lot more of this in the women's game, because obviously the market is a little bit different than the men's side.

But the point is, unlike MLS, unlike even I said, North America, even unlike Legs, Unlike obviously all the big four you know, uh, maybe the only one that's somewhat comforable would be Legams, maybe w n B A but meth Mi Miselle is trying to get the best players, and they're competing with clubs, not leagues, clubs that are able to pay the best players more money, and they don't have these silly salary cap rules that restrict how much money you can and can't pay on a player, And this is going to be a problem for NWSL.

Now, I still agree with the thesis that I've always held that NBATSLA is going to continually continue to be the most competitive league because when you just look at the pure talent, I mean, John, we just watched Platt was Monday.

Yeah, still this week Monday, your girls win a national championship in a game that you know, featured some of the talent that a lot of top flight teams in Europe would love to have.

The talent was always going to be here in the United States, between US Canada and even being able to get a lot of the CONCACAF talent that exists in this hemisphere.

But if you can't pay your best players and keep them in this league.

And Trinity Rodman, despite what I think about Alyssa Thompson, despite what I non, Trinity Rodman is a star player.

Obviously, her name has a lot to do with that, but the way that she plays on the field, the way that she has her media presence off the field, she is the face of not just the league, but I think the face of the US women's national team going forward because of who she is and how she carries herself and how she's willing to do that.

If you lose that player and players that will come after her, that is going to diminish the product of your league.

And I don't mean the play, the competition all that.

I mean the product, because unfortunately, these leagues are still products.

And if you do not have Trinity Rodman in Washington, that's going to be a problem for this league spirit.

And it's being referred to in the Jeff Cassouh article as a high impact player, and so, yes, so I'm gonna there's a there are too many yeah, too many, too many rules and to it, there's too many There's too many things I could carry with that acronym.

It's just that, but I'm gonna leave it alone.

High impact players.

So it's so it's so you're a hip, So you're hip.

So Trinity Rodman is hip?

Uh, you know, she she knows the ones in threes.

I'm searching for the twos and fours.

Trinity Rodney's she's hip in this in this setup.

I'm sorry, y'all.

So, uh, here's here's how it would be.

Spirit of the rule, however, from Jeff casu guidelines for teams on who qualifies as a hip.

I'm gonna read through this and then we will discuss funds should be spent on retaining and attracting the world's best talent.

UH.

Guidelines would vary from the league's previous form of allocation money used for freely by teams and all sorts of transactions hip must meet.

The hip must meet some requirement from a list of both sporting and commercial benchmarks to be eligible for the funds.

Sporting benchmarks discussed include rankings on lists like ballon d'Or appearances in Best eleven or WNTEAM minutes earned all in recent years.

Board also discussed players commercial profiles, sources confirm, further indicating the profile of players being targeted by these new funds.

Among the qualifications discussed were even third party media outlet rankings of top four players in most marketable athlete.

Sources said, although it's unclear If those qualifications made the final criteria, cap charge for hip was still being finalized.

One source said that the told Kasoof that the cap hit of a player's salary will need to be twelve percent of the team's total cap before hip funds can be utilized.

New mechanism is at least eleven of needs at least eleven of sixteen to pass, according to ESPN board approval, not necessarily the final hurdle for the rule.

Section eight point one six of the CBA with the NWSL Players Association says NWS quote.

NWSL may, in its discretion, after consultation with the NWSLPA, reduce or eliminate the salary cap charge against the team's salary cap for certain roster classifications.

End quote.

The way sources layout hips concept league is creating a reduced salary cap charge for a specific roster classification.

Then once again, the board is next week.

So here's now.

Let me this is just me being amateur sleuth.

Here in Major League Soccer.

You have, you have the designated player status, you have three dps available to you, You have a salary cap, you have x number of funds available to you for those designated players.

You have a salary figure that you are allowed to put on the books for them that applies toward the larger cap.

Then you have other compensation.

But then you get into the messy stratusphere and what they did with Lionel MESSI basically turned into an nil contract.

And as you're talking messy like an adjective which to be honest at the same in this particular instance, yes.

Yeah, so what I you know, what I would posit is that a Trinity Rodman in context in comparison with the nw would be a messy like transaction for the league.

So I would say, if you are going to have Trinity Rodman be hip and you know here, there and everywhere, obviously I'm too hip to be square.

So that's just how this.

If you have Trinity Rodman as that hit as a hip whatever whatever you want to call it, I'll just call herw NWSLDP for lack of a better phrasing, because it takes too much thought to sit there and say high impact players.

So NWSLDP Trinity Rodman.

I would think that if you put into your bylaws and coordinated with these with the NWSLPA, that you could have provisions that were somewhat messy, like for a Trinity Dan type player, where if you had endorsement deals, and you had piece of the action, and you had all of these different categories that were associating with a Lionel MESSI that you could associate that with Trinity Rodman in the NWSL, and you could pay her what you want to pay her base salary.

You could add that extra compensation.

Okay, cool, Fine, But then you have all of these other markers and all these other categories that you could hit and it won't go against your cap and it won't hurt you, and you may not have to play with those percentages even though they would be in places as your FAILSAFS.

I would just say, look, go and treat her like a DP.

Treat her, give her the messy like deal where okay, nil is fine, the league coordinates with her, she gets this piece of the action here, she gets her own deals.

Whatever.

I think that am I oversimplifying it here?

Where if you just treated her like that, then it might be a little easier to navigate this whole thing.

Well, I think that's the problem here, when again, Trendy Rodman is is that player now?

But there are probably some others in this league that maybe justify that.

I mean, let's be real honest, she's aging, so unfortunately, I don't know if she falls into that category.

But Marta should have been this type of player, right Marta is Martin is at Messy level in terms of let's belonged MARTA's I'm just saying she's the goat.

Yeah, and so there.

I mean, they're NWSL does this right.

They're always going to have a collunction of these hip players who deserve the money they're making.

That's just what it comes down to, is they deserve the money they're making.

So you don't even think it needs to be endorsement level like MESSI did.

I think you.

I truly believe and I know this this Rubs and w SOL fans the wrong way, because if we're not going to go full on any people what you feel like, I think you do need to have certain roster slots for these high impact players, people who not just make your team better on the field, but add to your club's value and most importantly, for the rest of the league, add to the league's value and marketability.

Because let's be real honest, if you you lost Alyssa Thompson, you lost name mcgerma to be you know, you don't have Lindsay Heaps playing here, right who And she's played overseas a long time, and.

I would think that's going to be closer to her husband in San Diego.

Team opening in her hometown, her home state.

Anyway, in the next year, you know, even to an extent, Kat mccomery and who.

I think all you know, pant Stanford was a Herman Trophy win, not decided immediately to go overseas.

Right.

If you're talking just women, a US women's national team, which we know is the standard in this country and produces many of our stars for the league, you're losing your best players.

From a US women's interesting perspective, I don't think it's a bad thing that they're playing Abron.

I think it's okay to go where you feel like it's the best fit for you and you're going to get the best competition for you.

That's fine.

But from a league standpoint, you're losing out on those names, which means you're losing out on there And this found this sounds icky, so I apologize to everyone.

We're talking about the value they bring to the league.

Not how great of a player they are in the like in a.

In an economy, in an economic property sense, which great like.

Unfortunately into USL and Missioner Berman are and there looking at this from an economic standpoint.

So if you're losing value, if you're missing out on potential value, that means you're missing out Jean John potential revenue.

And that's kind of a problem here.

Now it could be endorsement related.

I don't disagree with that, but I think you just need to give teams the ability to say this player, I'm just paying her a lot of money, because there are players in the league right now that deserve it, not just Trinity Rodman.

I mean you could even make the argument up at Gotham that you know Rose Levella is at that level.

I mean they've got esther as well, who's kind of there.

You know, there aren't players in this league that deserves.

I would say that even the likes of a Barbara Banda, a Temils Shewinga.

Uh literally, you bring in Shawinga to Kansas City and she's placing it from her effort with current she's placing in Ballon d'Or so I would.

The we can talk about those metrics, because that's silly as I'll get out.

But Tamo Shawinga is absolutely, Barbara Banda is absolutely at that level.

And again the African continent, that's something that has not been tapped into by a lot of the European countries outside of the normal colonialism.

So we don't love to do well.

Yeah, so so it's so.

Happen to that pretty well.

Yeah, in the in terms of underappreciated or under recruited regions, I would say to your point that AFCON is one of those places where you can get an underappreciated and we're gonna go economics here, you can get an underappreciated asset and bring that underappreciated asset over to the NWSL and then eventually, if that player is what you would imagine they would be e g.

Shewinga, that you would end up perhaps needing that player to be hip Further down, I'm just gonna an NWSLDP, I mean, because there are too many there are too many things that run through my head when I'm thinking that particular acronym.

But if you bring in an NWSLDP, you create that for for Trinity Rodman, the metrics I would just go eye test.

I mean, look, don't pin it down to numbers in math and everything.

Look, you see what this player is worth.

Okay, cool, I don't need ballon d'Or and best of Levins and all that kind of stuff.

If you can't judge it from the eye test, then maybe you didn't need to judge the player in the first place, and maybe they're not worth an NWSLDP status.

Just if they're worth it, you'll know.

And so it's like I can't define it, but I know, and so just you know, have the NWSLDPS.

Just go with your own judgment if you if you want, If you want, if you are front office person for soccer for us PO DFC and you're in the NWSL and you're playing in Gwennette County and you want to bring in a player and you want them to be an NWSLDP, you just got to sit there and say, hey, look I'm paying them n wsl DP money.

I don't need a metric, I don't need a math equation.

I'm paying them in WSLDP money.

It should be just that instead of sitting or saying, well, if they meet this math equation then then they're an NWSLDP.

Not that.

If you really wanted to.

No, I don't want to know.

I think you should just be able to pay a player the way that you want to, and you have sure you can have I don't know, John, Let's pick a random number, like three, totally random.

They didn't get that from any other example out there.

You know that you should be able to pay them what you need.

And I think what this does also for NWSL at a point in time where investment in women's sport and women's soccer in particular is growing daily afterally, it feels like it forces clubs to actually pony up and and commit to paying players, and more importantly, commit to paying a team enough money that they can be competitive.

I mean, look it, it would not that there are going to be teams in this league that are going to pay money to be competitive, right.

I think we see that obviously in Washington with Michelle Kang.

I think probably you're looking at Angel City is looking at at that type of yeah, we're willing to pay some money, you know, But there are others in this league that Houston that aren't truly paying the money to be competitive, right, And there are still a lot of them are owned by people who can do the pocketbook pocketbooks a little bit, and and I think that is I mean, Gotham is signing a bunch of players granted to smoke deals, but they're willing to spend money.

And and that's as you have teams come in.

Denver seems like a team willing to spend some money, right Boston.

Boston is looking at players, but they're more focused on making sure that their stadium situation is taken care of.

And I think that they're looking at for more the Economica ble way of bringing in players.

I'm not too optimistic about Boston's first year.

I think den.

Zero optimism for Boston coming into the league soon that we know it's going to spend money.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

And first off, someone get me a live shot of Michelle King and Arthur Blank sitting down together, because that would be fun.

I want to I want to see what that what these two people talk about.

But you know, I mean, that's the thing.

You have teams coming into this league that seem like they want to spend money, and you have to allow I mean, we have how many times we have this conversation with MLS The difference is MLS is not at despite what we want to say, they're not at that level.

NWSL is.

N WSL can attract the very best talent in the world, and for the most part does.

But if you're gonna sick hold back clubs from keeping players at this point, this is not I'm gonna sign messy from random, you know, from PSG.

This is the world that we signed when she was eighteen years old, who has grown and developed, won US an NWSL championship, won gold medal for the US while playing for our team.

Maybe that's the only cipulation you need, is this is a player that you've had to have already signed to a contract.

Like maybe that's and you get into a little bit of the I don't know all the interest cacies of of the NBA salary, but like there are mechanisms in the NBA where you can pay more money to a player that you've already had.

Yeah, burn rights, luxury taxes, like all these things are are ways to uh keep it in check while still allowing teams to you know, maximize their spend.

Let's just put it that way.

Yeah, I mean.

That's just where I'm at.

John is NBSL.

The owners have to realize that.

And this is this gets into that conversation of oh, that's the rest of the world catching up to the US and women's soccer.

Well, yes, because they are literally just spend money.

But the reality is the talent is still here.

And you can talk all you want about Spain developing all these players, and by Spain I mean Barcelona.

You can talk about all these clubs in England finally putting forth money and investment in coaching development into their play and their women's players, their you know, their girls programs.

You know, Spain and Germany they're doing great, France doing great, you know all these all these European countries that are doing it.

The reality is, and John again I'm saying, we saw this on Monday night, and we saw this throughout the entire tournament.

The talent is still in the United States.

Yeah.

The depth, and it's a depth.

It's depth versus first team because you can sit there and you can take a national squad and you can have a starting eleven, you can be twenty five deep or what have you.

But when it comes to the depth of personnel in a league setting, with what you have with the NWSL, whether it is college town don't that comes through systems, whether it is academy folks for the established franchises, whether it is making those purchases in the underappreciated markets or going head to head with someone else to try to bring in that kind of attractive talent.

NWSL top to bottom and this is probably a conversation that we should have with with Jen Hildreth next time she's on is discussing top to bottom in WSL.

If you were to take the NWSL and do a you know, a TST like thing, but it's eleven v eleven.

You take you take all the teams from the NWSL, and you take all the teams from say the Women's Premier.

League Tournament on an NWSL team, just one.

John, last time I checked.

Yes.

And so if you go top to bottom in WSL and you were to take say six, I'll say the fourteen that exists.

Now I don't want to put I don't want to lump Denver and Boston into the discussion yet because they ain't played nobody.

So you take the fourteen teams from the NWA, and you were to take them and have them go head to head against say Lega MS Feminil, or you take them and go head to head with a League on Feminine, or you take them and go head to head with the Women's Premier League.

I would say top to bottom that the NWSL, and we've seen it in the CONCACAFF Champions Cup, We've seen it in the Women's Triple C where you've seen Gotham make their runs again and all these heavyweights from the NWSL, but go top to bottom.

I think if you did one of those, if you did a League's Cup Feminil, that I think that you would have the NWSL as a group going further than you would have say the teams in Lega Mchis and so on and so forth.

I don't think I'm far off.

No, I don't think you are either.

And that's just kind of what we keep coming back to is l.

M hmm.

Okay, this is basically how I break it down when it comes to domestic leagues.

Is the most competitive.

I'm not gonna say each team INWASL like if you take the champion Gotham and put them against Chelsea.

I'm not gonna sit Henry and tell you that I know for sure Gotham is better than Chelsea.

But if you take the fourteen teams in NWSL and put against all the teams in the Women's Super League over in England, put them all against league and feminine lega f you know, uh frown Bundesliga.

I'm telling you we're we're.

Most of our teams are finishing in the top half, right and a couple of them are probably finishing top two or three, John, And this is where NBSL is always going to kind of lag behind.

The Wold's Champions League is a better competition just factually right now.

Yes, you have some teams in there that aren't great, but like you have to concede that the Women's Champions League, you wait for, Women's Champions League is a better competition than NWSL.

And while we do have the punker Cap Champions Cup on the women's side with LEAGAI teams and hopefully we get some great you know, we finally build some teams and get good talent coming from the Northern Super League.

Look, you can't beat a competition that has Leon, Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona, Byron Munich playing each other you know frequently.

And so that though is a John money maker, and so again, NBSL is doesn't they have to understand that their ability to bring in to bring in revenue, right.

Like.

These you went for Champions League clubs.

Right, There's a reason Chelsea and Arsenal and Barcelona and Leon are able to spend a lot of money on their players.

It's because they I mean, Leona, Barcelona when the damn thing almost every other time when Arsenal is not winning it.

But like that is.

That speaks money depth, and that also speaks to the depth of that tournament and what you have in Europe across the board in a Champions League format whereintment.

Of Europe has a much better depth of team than the full US as a country.

But are like just because I think that's just where it is.

I mean, if you have more teams spending more money, that's what it comes from to you, John, They're spending more money because they.

Can't Chelsea spending money.

Who knew.

Yeah, So we're waiting on NWSL to figure out what they're going to do with with the NWSLDP situation.

I know they want to call it hip.

It's just easier to call it an NWSLDP and something along those lines.

So waiting for the decision on that.

So the Board of Directors Board of Governors meeting is next week and we'll see what the the end result is of that.

Now that you are here, sir, before we depart on yet another week, if you would please promote soccer for US PO D one three.

Three episode the World Cup draw and specifically the US team US draw Group D.

So Thomas and I sat down, and you know, it's hard to not feel good about the draw, and that's just what we kind of tried to poke holes and be like, Okay, well are we overlooking this?

And the reality is because we got I mean, look, you have to assume, fairly or unfairly, you have to assume that Turkey is probably the fourth team in the group.

The things that you played all the four of these teams, and we kind of talked about why it's not a tactics think but like, there are reasons why this is helpful.

But also just from a rankings perspective, you got teams that especially you know, Australia was the lowest ranked Pot two team Paraguays in the middle.

So it's it's hard for us to not feel confident.

John.

We do try to things.

But you know, it's hard to not feel confident about the draw that us Men got relative to what we're used to seeing U for us Men's ash.

And it comes down to the fact that we don't have a big boy in the group.

And that's that's just a name.

We're the big boys at the group's weird.

Hey, hey, you're a host country and they want the host countries to try and at least get their way out of group.

You know, I mean, I get the sketch too.

It was this was not this was And it's nice they gave a third place option so Canada can get out of their group.

You're right, I mean, I mean, yeah, there you go.

Bang uh.

That'll be posted later this morning as we're posting a lot of everything from yesterday and posting the stuff from this morning.

This show.

The catch up with the host of the Lead Committee host for Vancouver, Jesse Adcock.

That was a that talk well, and it's we're trying to we're getting as many of the host cities that want to knock on our door.

It's like we're banging on doors.

It's like we want to hear from you guys about how you're prepping and We thought it was something that was important, especially with all these different cities, all these different infrastructures, all these different approaches to traffic, all these different things.

How ready are you and how ready are you going to be in six months time when you know the entire planet is ascending on this hemisphere, And we just thought it was important to kind of share notes and have everybody sit there and go, well, you know, hey, I'm going to Dallas.

You know, I want to catch up with Joe trey Han.

I am going to Toronto and Vancouver and we're catching up with the host committee leads and that kind of stuff.

I want to find out what's going on in Bay Area.

I want to find out what's going on in Gotham.

But to have those conversations, I think is it's important, and we're going to continue to have them consistently all the way leading up to the World Cup.

As always, my friend, great to see you.

Obviously, I will not see you on Monday because I'm busy.

I get to wear a suit and makeup Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be at Mercedes Benz.

Don't know what the broadcast plans are, so just kind of keep your antennae up as to what's going on Monday Tuesday Wednesday.

Something's going to happen in some form or fashion.

Don't know what it's going to be, but it will be Monday Tuesday Wednesday.

And when we know, obviously we'll let everybody know.

So as always, my friend, great to see you, Thanks for dropping by to in my week.

Y'all enjoy There he goes, there's Bart Keeler everybody and there.

So all right, real quick before we get out of here, Uh, what to watch?

Where to watch it?

How to watch it?

And thanks again to Bart for coming in for discussing everything in WSL in the final twenty minutes.

All right, so today today, today today it is Paramount plus two forty five.

You got Sirie, I Letcha and Pisa on the Plus, which you can no longer find ESPN three, so it's just the plus.

Note A League is on this afternoon and this morning a couple of matches Women's A League is going on.

They had one match at six o'clock this morning, twelve forty five to one thirty.

That's also on the Plus.

Bundesliga is it two twenty, Bundesliga b is it twelve to thirty, with two matches to choose from Bundesliga Bundesliga TRAI.

The Try Bundesliga is at one o'clock.

In the league is at three o'clock with Real Socio DoD and Jirona.

The zone has the frou in bundesligat twelve thirty.

The French ship Premier League get three with PSG in Montpellier Deportees.

ESPN Deportas has the over the air version of Rail Socio Dodd and Rona being an Espagnol has Anger and not from league huh.

It's also on being in glas Fox Soccer Plus Serie B.

Palerma and sam Doria is at two thirty.

College Cup semifinals Washington and Furman's at six.

Saint Louis, NC States at eight thirty.

On the you, Anger and Nant is at one o'clock.

And so since that is the end of the week, it's yet another week here at SDCHAM.

Thanks to all the guests.

If you subscribe to the Off the Woodwork podcast section on the Odyssey app, you'll be able to hear the best of SDHAM tomorrow to get you into your weekend.

We got a lot of stuff.

We got a post that's going to be on our network as well, so set your notifications there as well, and as always, to all of us, From all of us to all of you, and thank you Lokeville for hanging around as long as you did.

Today.

It is the end of yet another week and.

We'll be back at it again Monday Tuesday Wednesday.

Like I said, I'm a Mercedes Benz.

I don't know what the hosting plans.

I know that Jason will be around in some former fashion, but I don't know why versus tape and all those kinds of things.

Soccer over there Monday night and all all that stuff.

So just keep your notifications ready and we'll let you know what's going on with the lives Monday Tuesday Wednesday.

I'll be back Thursday and we'll keep rushing toward the holidays and I might be able to buy some Christmas presents.

So from all of us here to all of you there, thanks for getting another week.

See you later from Rome, Georgia.

And since it is the end of the week, guess what we go here one more time?

The war.

The jetsamp our fingers, dictating equipment starting to excuse us questions and our papers sends electric shocks just threw our.

Body like a cattle prod.

I'm in the warehouse.

The trucks kept banging into the docks, not even thinking about stopping.

Oh.

Our frail bodies were strapped.

To the chairs, and our chairs were changed the desks our please for justice, We're ignored card.

And the end seemed near, but we busted O save drivers, little bitty balls.

We've judged higher.

Break fortress.

The streets are harty gods Cat Friday, Friday dayDay