Joey Barton SPEAKS OUT About Female Football Pundits
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 28 minutes
Words per minute
205.92493
Harmful content
Misogyny
46
sentences flagged
Toxicity
72
sentences flagged
Hate speech
59
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of the Inside Elland Road podcast, we speak to former Bristol Rovers manager and ex-Bristol Rovers boss, Joey Barton, about her career and her views on the current state of women's football commentating in the Premier League.
Transcript
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I just believe the best person for the job should get the job and that's quite
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radical at this moment in time. What I'm saying is under qualified women
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shouldn't be in there because they're taking qualified men's jobs but
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we're sending the wrong message. I think we're sending the message of be lazy, be
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controversial, be a victim, cancel people, be a victim. The joke you made about
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Fred and Rosemary West. I knew I was gonna have that response because they're
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so fragile these people as uncomfortable as it is you have to be
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able to speak the truth to power. Joey welcome to the show you are pissing more
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people off than even we are which is an achievement so welcome to the show yeah
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you you've been talking a lot and we wanted to have you on to talk about you
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know your life and where you come from and stuff you've been through but also
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the stuff you're talking about now you as I say you are kind of upsetting
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triggering you might say a lot of people because you've dared to point out that
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some female football pundits are not perhaps they're on merit is that fair to
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say yeah yeah absolutely yeah and I just believe the best person for the job
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should get the job and that's quite radical at this moment in time yeah I
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just think we send the wrong message you know certainly if we're if we're putting
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people in position not because of their skills and their attitude and you know
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the ability then I just think we send a dangerous message going forward and look at
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societies you know I'm only 41 but it's changed a hell of a lot in a short space of time and I don't
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think it's changed for the better because of you know kind of DI and inclusion I'm all for it
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I think when I look into sports teams you know any team I've been a part of the more varied
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the better but it is underpinned on on merit you know we need the best right back for the team
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you know meet the best left midfielder for the team to make the team function
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not you know quota quotas and and boxes to tick and you know sport is is the ultimate meritocracy
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isn't it you know another the doping and the financial doping and all the other stuff that
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goes on off off the pitch but on the pitch sport is certainly football is is a true meritocracy
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I think that's why people love sport because at least they have the idea that this is like one
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of the few places in life where you're either good or you're not you're either performing or you're
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not and I'm curious because you must have known that saying what you're saying is going to get
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it's going to make difficult for you to work in football let's be honest yeah yeah is that fair
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to say well I knew I was burning the boats yeah so it's you know that was and why have you decided
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to speak up I mean let's be honest you've always been a bit of a troublemaker one way absolutely yeah
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um whatever I didn't decide to speak out it just kind of came out um I got sacked the Bristol
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Rovers um we were taken over by a couple of Kuwaiti investors quite different principles culture
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just not aligned principally with with the way I see the world you know tried divide and conquer
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strategy relatively early and at that point I'm like okay this is uh this is not for me I'm away
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from my family I've been down at Bristol two and a half years to change the club's uh culture and
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then coming out of the management space I knew with this women's commentating in football issue
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I knew it was frustrating a lot of people certainly when I'm watching it I'm like because I'm listening
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to the the technical nuances and knowing how incorrect they are like I watch the game at the
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weekend I shouldn't um um keep banging on about it but I watch a game at the weekend the Everton game
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and I'm on the dodgy box you know so I can watch all the streams from all different countries the
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only way you know you can get the only way you can get football you know live football at three
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o'clock on a Saturday afternoon you can't get in our country and yet all the other countries go on
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so I'm watching Everton Luton because for me sins I'm an Evertonian in the FA Cup and the first
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the first goal that Luton score is a foul like it's just it's just if you know what you're looking at
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it's a foul so they get the goal you've got the male commentator and the female co-commentator
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I believe the co-commentator's role has to be experts I think they have to have spent a long
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time either playing the game or time served in the game to give that nuance the expertise to
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to the audience you know if I'm a young kid out there listening I want I want to I want to know
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what's happening so I can apply that to my game and they miss it and they get it wrong and then
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the male the female co-coms is talking about something else entirely she gets the goal she
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got it wrong when they show multiple replays then you then see Ross Barkley push Calvert-Lewin
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in the back blatantly and that little nudge is the difference between Dominic heading the ball in
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the front post or not after about the fourth or fifth replay where she should be now saying look
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VAR should intervene and disallow this goal she then says oh it's really clever I'm just like I'm just
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defuriating to watch and I'm like god and I'm not that I'm not a mad football fan anymore because
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I played the game once you play the game being a dyed in the wool fan goes because you're a mercenary
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you're a gun for hire you know I've played against Everton as a Newcastle player Man City player and we've
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scored goals and I've celebrated them and I've been desperate to beat them so I can't no longer claim
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to be a true Evertonian because I don't want Everton to win above anything else and for me the
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difficulty lies in if I was watching the golf I'm a keen golfer or the UFC or the boxing and the person
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who was in the co-coms role or the pundit role was given the wrong information then that would
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that would give me nonsense I wouldn't be getting that you know stuff I could apply to my game or stuff
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I could really interpret and use in me in me boxing career or whatever or MMA career
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and the fact that this is going on on every single media platform and it's going on unchecked because
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people are either listening to people make mistakes and fearful of pulling them up on it for the
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repraisals or given you know you've seen a few guys I think in I've seen Jensen Button doing a few
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times in the Formula Ones where it really looks at the I think it's Danica Stewart or Patrick is it
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and he's just like she's talking about something to do with her driving and you can see he's just
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like what the fuck you know what is Checo supposed to do he couldn't just lift off before the corner
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and pull in behind because looking at that there were cars there so they would have had the opportunity
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to dive down the outside of him and cause mayhem you know so it's a tricky one but it's when you get
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to that point of deciding I'm going to turn in now but I need to give them room maybe I just run
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off track a bit and come back on I think he should have I think he should have lifted and pulled in a
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been next to Carlos and been two by two and just it's still a good start the problem is lifting
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as well it causes accidents so you can't just suddenly lift because in an f1 car when you lift
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there's so much drag that it does slow you down very quickly and the guys behind get affected by
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that and it just just funnel it goes all the way back I haven't driven one so fair you know he's
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obviously been an elite level driver and and it's just like and I think we want to see a decrease
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in misogyny a decrease in racism a decrease in sexism and and that is the whole purpose of
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DEI you know bringing down these barriers but when they force it on you and they force it on you and
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it's poor quality poor journalistic standards then you get a rise in everything it was meant to defeat
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so it becomes it just becomes upset I agree with you it's a good point Joey I think what I would
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say and a lot as someone who is a football fan when you listen to the cold comms role and even
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people who played at the elite level frequently the standard is pretty crap as well do you know what
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I mean yeah the males like I'm I'm watching lots of male you know this has ended up being a bit of a
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of a volcano because if you can't say anything now about certain groups or people who've put
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themselves in certain groups there's a lot of poor male commentators out there really for cold comms
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pundits as well the problem with them guys is they've actually got equity they've got credibility
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they've played the game and as stupid as their opinions can be they're doing it from a from a
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knowledgeable position of experienced uh you know the intensity or the speed at which the game moves
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out or the physicality or they've experienced it and again you know good bad and indifferent in in all
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the problem I have with the women ex-players is they have no experience of it you know in in essence
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it's pretty much a different sport I know they'll argue the same rules into the same sport I'm like
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you know we have to accept that women's cricket and men's cricket ain't the same you know same with
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rugby women's rugby and men's rugby now I prefer if I watch the tennis I prefer to watch the women's
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tennis firstly the better looking than the men secondly the the rallies last longer you know the
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men's games pretty much power serve ace bang you know I prefer the women's golf sometimes to the male
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golf because they hit the ball so if they're playing a course I've played they hit some of the shots
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that I can hit the men don't they just hit it like a hundred yards further so I can't relate to it
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you know so when I watch women's I'm not against women's sports I think women's football's done
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fantastic in our country you know I've never seen more of it on tv you know there's you know
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the scene Trafalgar Square I couldn't get into Trafalgar Square for the Lionesses final so it's great
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but men and women's football like if I as an ex-player I watch women's football trying to be as
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kind as I can to it but it's just not very good I look I agree with you compared to men's yeah
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compared to men's you look at like the elite level champions league for instance in the women's game
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no no in the women's game it's nowhere near close when you get to that elite level of male game
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they they just can't compete the reason that I find you funny on Twitter Joey is you do like being
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provocative mate you do like making a joke and it is funny seeing people have a meltdown for instance
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the uh the the joke you made about um Fred and Rosemary West yeah that is yeah I knew I knew I was
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going to have that response because they're so they're so fragile these people like like I don't know
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whether this is a blessing or a curse I've had that much abuse in football stadiums and you can
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imagine the articles written about me in the commentaries and people passing comment and stuff
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I've done or said that you just develop a bit of a thicker skin yeah you know when you've had as much
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said to me as as what I have in the end you realize it's it's me who's taking offense to it yeah you
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actually can't offend me you know it's not possible for you to offend me I have to at some level let you
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win to to be offended so me and Blackie used to work on this thing of visualizing and the only
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time I'd done Constance and the only time I'd done the vim off breathing every single morning
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was in the Burnley promotion the year we won the league I religiously used to get up and do it every
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morning I've never felt clearer you know that was a great working environment that the manager built
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there and for me in in terms of um you know provoking people Blackie we would talk about
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stepping into this like like almost like as you know a bubble of strength and no one we're not
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going to let anyone in the opposition players the opposition fans the referee we're not and if we
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choose to open the door and interact with it then but we know what so I asked it worked on this kind
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of visualization concept I didn't get sent off that year lowest number of buttons team of the year
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so there was a few factors vim off and and some of the stuff we just for people we were talking
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before about Wim Hof breathing vim off and your mentor is a mentor Steve Black yeah he made a big
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difference in your career so in terms of I then moved that concept further out in terms of like words
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and offense and you know I I've I've used it I think to benefit my life because you know you can
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be offended every time you open the curtains if you want to be you know I find it bizarre that people
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follow me on Twitter or X as it's now called and get offended at what I'm putting out there when no
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one asked you to be here no no I also now have worked out because I've been in Twitter a long period
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of time although I haven't used it but I've always kind of monitored what's going on and I do think it's
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got nuts oh yeah lots but if you use it for what it is a tool you can you can use it for benefit as
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as we clearly have um and I just figured out I can't be I can't why am I taking offense to that
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just just block it out it's the same way if I came in here now I called you a fat bastard
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you'd be like well I'm not fat so you wouldn't get offended by it you only get offended if there's
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an element of truth in it or the more close to the truth it is the more it clearly offends or
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triggers people as we want to call it and you know I've just got to the point where I'm actually
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you know I'm not trying to cause anyone any offense like purposely want to make people upset or unhappy
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but if me just saying like basic truths is going to trigger you to make you unhappy then fuck you
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you know you know what's interesting is like I'm actually not that big a football fan the boys here
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the studio much more so than no but when I watch some of the stuff that you're saying and then I
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look at the stuff you're talking about it's hard to argue with what you're saying and when I talk to
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people who are not in the media space just normal people I'm look people can agree or disagree with
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your opinion about female pundits but most people in the country actually do share that opinion men and
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women by the way they they just do yeah and again I see the feedback I have never had positivity or
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feedback positively on on the stuff I've talked about over the years as much as this so this is
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clearly hit a nerve the fact that was still it was a month about a month ago I tweeted about you know
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let's be serious here the women shouldn't have any authority in the men's game like
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and I'll I'm prepared to sit in front of any ex-woman player anyone wants to have a chat about
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but yet they just keep attacking the messenger not the message um and even Emma Hayes I went to the
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Leeds in Sport conference Emma spoke there she's seen as the best woman manager in the WSL you know
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she could be the crossover I know there was a lady who stood in last night in the Bundesliga for Union
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Berlin and they won 1-0 because the manager got suspended for I think pushing Leroy Sane in the face so
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you've got a three game five game eight game ban something like that and a lady his assistant
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manager's a lady she stepped in the woman so obviously you know they can manage in the women's
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I'm not saying they can women can manage in the men's game I'm not I think playing in the men's game
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really hell of a lot harder for them but men going the other way which is inevitable if they if they
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don't um if they don't change the law because it's only a 12 month cooling off period I looked into
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because I thought I might just fucking poke the box entirely you know I'm fairly fairly overweight
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now for for what I was when I played I'm 41 but I still think I could be Erling Harland next season
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in the WSL even if I have testosterone suppressors no danger I'm just bigger stronger faster
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you know they wouldn't be able to deal with that but then also that the brain you know the little
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nudges the new the dark arts the the stuff that um you know would be very very easy for me to apply
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in in the WSL and be very very successful and then they would be fucked wouldn't they because
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they couldn't attack me if I woke up and I said I'm Josephine Barton and I'm playing in WSL next year
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well now they've got a they can't write negative articles about me you know it's a good move in many
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it is it is but then when you're running by your kids I'm like shall I just piss these off completely
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and they're like dad don't we you know this is the last thing we need uh so if I didn't have kids I
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would I would I would be tempted just to poke the box almost to say look this is how absurd your
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position is but then you know you don't want to make fun of what is a serious topic you know serious
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conversation and I'm just seeing now um obviously the swimmer in in America is trying to get in the
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Olympics yeah yeah and then you've had um obviously the woman golfer uh the the man golfer win the
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women's golf um we've covered this issue a fair bit on the show because it's ridiculous yeah and this
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is the problem is it's it's I'm just like okay objectively in a thousand years so you're going
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to bury this person it's got all this sport and achievements on the gravestone what a great you
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know women's champion golf bang bang bang bang bang and then they do a dna and they're like
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these must have been stupid because that's a dude they did not know the difference between
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and and and again if we can't agree on simple things like you know the basics then we've got
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no no chance of solving the really complex stuff that we've clearly got to get through if we're
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going to survive on the planet for another 500 years I mean we'd be fortunate at this rate
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Joey do you think it's quite bizarre almost because like you said football is in many ways the ultimate
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meritocracy it doesn't matter who your dad is it doesn't matter your background what color you are
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blah blah blah blah you can either do it or you can't and it's pure meritocracy and then on the
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other side you've got this I mean it's it's utterly bizarre isn't it yeah it is strange isn't it because
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you know as I say most sport is is meritocracy the best person who gives you the best chance of winning
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gets the jersey um which I think it's not a right it's not radical it's just common common sense I'm
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like yeah you want the best people we know that diversification I read a book called teams of
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teams by uh general stanley mccrystal and they talk about you know diversity is massive in in terms of
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it does help you you know get different perspectives different and we know it it leads to better
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performance but diversity for diversity's sake or equality for you know equality it's inclusion for
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inclusion's sake is bizarre you know the the highlight of this being the current uh she follows
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me actually we were with this um I don't know whether it's a real person but has been um taking
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mark cuban on um about you know saying dallas mavericks should have she wants to play for the
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dallas mavericks because they haven't got a chinese uh five foot two chinese girl in the team you know
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if you've got in your other businesses and I think it's somebody's parody account but I think it's got
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quite big traction it's and she's still cubans actually was interacting with her for a bit and has
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then blocked the block that's gone but again you know the the message we've got to send to people
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is work hard be as be a be as diligent as you can in upgrading your skills and and if you do that and
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you and you put the time and effort in you will get rewarded and you will get on but we're sending
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the wrong message I think we're sending the message of be lazy be controversial um be a victim
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cancel people be a victim and what would that just I just think we're just it's just gonna
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society's just gonna spiral off the back of it and you know I think I think we've I do think we've
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gone past kind of that peak wokeness when I'm watching the states now um I've been you know I always
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watched American kind of uh culture because it ends up in some form of fashion by the weird osmosis
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of television you know uh um ruining our society when I look at the you know the message the
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Kardashians send to young girls I mean it's just so so dangerous I think that the worst kind of people
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you know change your body you're not good enough alter yourself you know you know these girls look
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up to them you know if they release a mascara and tens of millions of these young kids are watching it
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and it over sexualized and everything you know basically make yourself a superstar by doing a sex tape
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and then exploiting everything that comes afterwards um and yet they celebrated and I'm like
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this is just we're just sending the wrong message we won't realize for 20 or 30 years what the
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consequences of this are and obviously Yuri Rezhov and and the it you know the the stuff that they'd
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been saying about kind of what the Soviets were going to do to universities we're kind of seeing
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you know that kind of and I know Peterson Jordan Peterson was talking about you know language a long
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time ago and he was really really strong on not letting the woke take control of language and
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and we're seeing why you know the the crazy situation we're in now for me I didn't think
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we'd be this stupid because I I want to work on the premise that most people are rational
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and most people are reasonable but what I'm finding now is and COVID for me was the big
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change point when I was seeing people driving around in the cars with a mask on and they were the
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only person in the car I'm like when I'm seeing people you know banging pots and pandas and I'm
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getting locked in the house and phoning um the authorities on the neighbors because they've had
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three walks today I'm just like where are we going and and it's a strange like I didn't get vaccinated
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because I watched um the the the companies basically say if anything happens we're not gonna
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and I was I'd got COVID relatively early I was just watching it unfold I was like there's not enough
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information here you know anything I knew about vaccines and I kind of read a book I shouldn't
00:21:25.920
have read it really called Merchants a Doubt About the Tobacco Industry and I would kind of um you know
00:21:30.420
corrupted the medical industry to say smoking was great for you and obviously we all now know that
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not to be true and I just had this this I was just like this just isn't right this is this kind
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and I didn't want to kill anybody's gran I didn't want to pass the infection on as well you know so
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you know I end up volunteering because we got shut down in football obviously we all got stopped so I
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end up volunteering for the royal volunteers and and you know ended up doing a load of washing and
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getting a few messages for for a guy who was living near me who obviously didn't have a washing
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machine and would go to the laundrette so obviously COVID happening um and it didn't obviously want to
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you know cause any problems for society and and luckily got COVID so in early March natural
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uh fought it off it was wasn't that nice lost me sense of smell taste for 10 12 days
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did feel different to the flu yeah no we we had a couple two or three times and
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one of the two one of them was really barely noticeable for me the other two pretty brutal
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it like it wasn't a flu it was yeah I felt that like I was in the back garden we'd been shut down
00:22:36.020
for COVID and just felt really really cold to the point where I ran a hot bath and knowing you know
00:22:42.500
the bath's hot you get in there and it felt freezing but like steam's coming off me so I was
00:22:47.080
like this is not right I only felt like that for two days really cold really like fluy and then but
00:22:53.200
the smell and taste had gone so that why would I need a vaccine if my body had built up natural
00:22:58.840
antibodies towards it it doesn't stop you getting it it doesn't stop you passing it like
00:23:02.040
and then when they were starting to say like you know for me the big thing was when they started
00:23:07.260
offering people in America like burger and fries and I was just like what's going on here and then
00:23:11.980
luckily I didn't you know didn't need to get vaccinated to carry on playing I probably would have
00:23:17.780
done if you'd have said to me you need to take this vaccine because we want to go back playing we want
00:23:21.020
to start the football season back up and get the season finished I probably would have taken it
00:23:24.900
because I'm that desperate to play football and if the you know the club doctor was telling me
00:23:28.580
which I think's gone on at lots of these clubs you know I know they've put off the vaccine
0.99
00:23:32.520
conversation till after the general election because it's clearly going to go right across
00:23:37.680
all parties but and I would have you know for the for the pressures of our industry I probably would
00:23:45.680
have got at least one one vaccination you know I've taken flu vaccines if I go if I go on you
00:23:50.720
know a far east trip or I go to the Amazon I would take the required vaccines to not get you know
00:23:56.560
the tropical diseases that are out there so I'm not anti-vax and by the grace of God if there is a God
00:24:04.080
I didn't get injected and at the time my wife was pregnant with my youngest son Etienne now and
00:24:10.060
her family were kind of in that limbo that everyone was in trying to do the right thing
00:24:15.300
and her brother got vaccinated and got rushed to hospital within 24 hours and had to get his
00:24:21.440
appendix out just you know definitely as a as a in response to what what he'd been injected with
00:24:29.660
you know these the 91% of the UK I think that was what I read had been vaccinated up one dose at least
00:24:37.920
so there's a lot we're in the minority the people haven't been vaccinated so it's no good going
00:24:43.260
because you're not gonna you're in the minority and I think a lot of good people have made poor
00:24:49.960
decisions because of the information that was at hand or the pressure to keep the economy moving or
00:24:54.420
the jobs moving and I don't think it's a case of going back and punishing everybody you know
00:24:58.980
the same way I think we just have to draw a line under it and it's easy for me to say I haven't lost a
00:25:03.700
loved one I wasn't forced to bury a loved one behind a plastic sheet or with a funeral of two
00:25:08.840
or three people I haven't had uh covert injuries you know because I never took the job the job
00:25:14.080
so it's easy for me to say look I think we have to just draw a line and say I think a lot of good
00:25:19.600
people made bad decisions you know we're all subject to change when new information comes to light
00:25:25.820
and I think they tried to do the right thing in the midst of a global pandemic where the government
00:25:30.060
clearly were incompetent or incapable and everybody was trying to do the right thing to protect
00:25:35.460
vulnerable people and in the midst of that they've done some um irreparable damage to people's
00:25:42.040
belief in in government to people's belief in um authority and also to to people's um bodies and
00:25:51.520
families and and some people if that's happened to you I'm not sure I would be able to forgive and
00:25:55.700
forgetful yeah I mean you raised some very good points Joey the thing that I noticed as well is
00:26:01.260
there was football before COVID and football after COVID and I'm going to be honest with you as someone
00:26:07.760
who really loved football really loved it from the age of eight seven eight years old mad keen football
00:26:13.380
fan I'm not sure I like the football after COVID do you know where I'm going with this well VAR is more
00:26:19.780
prevalent now isn't it that's ruined it hasn't it you know I think I think we have to accept that
00:26:23.800
the Black Lives Matter thing was tapped on the back of that don't forget we were all kneeling I had to
00:26:29.040
kneel because my brothers and my cousins been involved in a racially one of the biggest high
00:26:34.520
profile racial murders in in the country imagine I'd have stood when everyone was kneeling so I was
0.98
00:26:40.100
like they just because they write whatever they write about me anyway so I'm like well for me to
00:26:43.620
kneel for two seconds stops them calling me a racist because that's what they would have done
00:26:47.240
and also is if I what I felt it was is showing the black people and people of color in the
00:26:54.060
where would you like there's no you know you don't need you don't need to do it every single week and
00:26:59.360
every single game has it kind of got hijacked and then then I've seen people stop players stop doing
00:27:04.540
it and I thought well you know now there's no point just carrying on doing it because there was a lot of
00:27:09.520
players of color who stopped doing it said this is a load of nonsense it's been hijacked by
00:27:14.200
people with nefarious purposes and and it doesn't it doesn't do the cause you know reducing racism any
00:27:21.600
any any any benefit and I and I do agree with you I think it fundamentally changed us who were in the
0.80
00:27:27.740
industry because the amount of shit I've had our fans over the years home and away fans by the way
0.87
00:27:34.100
when it's going well it's great football but when it's not going so well you know the the people
0.99
00:27:38.680
clearly let you know it is in that regard to meritocracy and players and fans and the wages
00:27:46.560
players were getting paid and fans were kind of taken for granted it was kind of like the clubs
00:27:50.860
were trying to exploit fans to get as much money out of them players players were had lost the
00:27:55.640
connection you know working class game the players because the salaries certainly at the top level
00:28:00.240
and even cascading down filtering down you know they were still earning a lot more than the average
00:28:04.740
person and I think that you know certainly for me it was kind of like tv money was what was driving
0.99
00:28:11.360
you know the big salaries and it was kind of like I got the feeling players were like fuck the fans
0.99
00:28:16.680
fucking annoying in the stadium and there was a bit of a disconnect and then the stadiums were emptied
0.99
00:28:23.260
and I think everybody in the industry realized just how important fans in the stadium were if
0.98
00:28:28.220
if not as important as the players you know what's the point in it's a Sunday league match in essence if
00:28:36.740
the fans aren't in there you know they make it and what what I think players realized in that period was
00:28:41.280
how fan noise and you know the the momentum the energy that fans can can bring can lead to incredible
00:28:50.180
performance that is just not reachable without the live stadium audience so I think from that regard for
00:28:57.680
players I think it was a really interesting reset and I think players and people in the industry
00:29:03.140
really appreciated the fans in the stadium what it takes to you know to shell out your hard earned
00:29:08.160
wages and travel to a stadium and support your team with the energy and I think from that regard it was
00:29:12.540
really good because I think there was there was a disconnect happening and I think that reset that
00:29:17.760
but I do agree with you in terms of the product we came out of um you know we there's no doubt that
00:29:24.420
George Floyd Black Lives Matter thing irreconcilably uh disrupted our culture you know beyond I think it had more
1.00
00:29:32.800
impact than anybody's even figured out here and it shouldn't because America is a you know there's a completely
00:29:40.300
different entity to to to the UK but then you know with social media and YouTube and all of a sudden people who are
00:29:47.940
bored people who are unimportant or unimpressive hijack these um movements you know to add pronouns
00:29:56.680
on and add you know whether it's Ukraine and anti you know whatever it is anti-Russia or Middle East now
00:30:02.800
or you know whatever a crusade it is and the problem for them is they hijack and and and and they take so
00:30:07.620
many positions that eventually as we're seeing now in some of the communities they end up cannibalizing each
00:30:12.220
other because although they stood on the same thing two years ago now they're in direct competition
00:30:17.560
you know so for me I lowered the drawbridge you know in football I would I was the one who've done
00:30:23.040
the first interview with Amal Fashnu about her uncle killing himself who was I think a gay footballer
00:30:29.820
Justin no one would do it she kept emailing me and I'm like go and ask one of the other you know
00:30:35.800
the ones who'll big profiles who'll do any you know who should really be speaking out on this
00:30:42.120
because they're of color and and and Justin's more aligned to them than me and she just kept no one
00:30:48.700
would do I don't want to name the players names but the big profile even today ex-players now but
00:30:53.640
like massive media profiles didn't want any part of it I said why she's like well they're fearful that
0.84
00:30:59.540
they'll get homophobic abuse in the stadiums so I'm like well if I get homophobic abuse in the
00:31:04.140
stadiums it's a positive it's a positive from what I'm getting so and also my uncle Tom's gay
00:31:11.420
and he was one of my heroes growing up and I didn't know he was gay till I was like 19 or 20 and it
00:31:15.940
wasn't it at that point it wasn't okay to be gay in the 80s and 90s certainly in rural working class
00:31:22.820
like uh offsprings of Liverpool you know so you know can we talk about that a little bit yeah I'm just
00:31:30.960
so what I was going to say to you then is so I got asked to do this interview yeah I didn't want
00:31:35.880
to do it because it's not my course I've got a gay uncle it's not to do with me she couldn't get
0.99
00:31:40.920
anyone to do it so I said to her look I'll do it for you because I'm not bothered about anyone saying
00:31:45.000
I'm gay and the off spin of that I think it was for the BBC or whatever she did of it the off spin
00:31:50.520
of that was Paddy Power and Stonewall came to me and said look we've got this idea for rainbow laces
00:31:56.220
you we've seen you do that would you be up and so I was like okay what is this and and so I end up
00:32:03.540
being the first person to wear rainbow laces and got all sort of some of my teammates to do it and now
00:32:08.340
it's become the premier leagues it's taken on by them they never you know when they put my CV out
00:32:14.280
or never mention me because that would give me credit you know so you don't want to give me you
00:32:18.640
know this like let's just call him a bastard for all those things but let's not uh you know shine
00:32:23.000
light on the on the stuff he's used as profile for positive for so so I end up do do that that's
00:32:28.340
become a big thing now so I actually lowered the drawbridge because I was like if there's got
00:32:34.100
one in ten men are gay how many professional footballers is in the UK law of averages like
00:32:39.140
just just logic who says here there's got to be some lads in the dressing room I know for a fact
00:32:42.920
I've played with three or four but they couldn't they weren't out they couldn't come out publicly
00:32:47.280
why not Joey I just think for the abuse that you would get in a football stadium you know because
00:32:51.960
like anything you know you've seen it with you see the clip going online yesterday about the guy
00:32:56.000
he's doing BBC Radio Wales from the Newport Man United game and he's saying oh this is great the
00:33:00.880
fans are singing Anthony's the Greatest you know the Brazilian winger yeah and when he goes can you
00:33:05.020
not hear it and as he slows it down you can clearly hear them singing Anthony's a Rapist
00:33:08.860
which he's been accused of in Brazil Anthony's the Greatest is the latest chant from the
00:33:19.200
apologies if you understand that and then he realizes but obviously it's just brilliance in terms of he
00:33:29.280
actually as thought the fans were singing there because again football stadiums you know you
00:33:34.520
misbehave you can't tell 2,000 4,000 8,000 drunken football fans what to sing and what not to sing
00:33:42.460
or what split is so if you think about football it's concept it's a working class game so we still
00:33:49.060
have a huge class system in this country I think and I see it every single day when I watch and I see
00:33:52.780
it especially now when I watch the Guardian journalist attack me Guardian that was once an ally of mine been in
00:33:58.380
the officers when I was talking about um you know quote Nietzsche and I was going to art galleries and I
00:34:03.480
was talking about Rembrandt the Guardian were all over me when I was doing Stonewall and Rainbow
00:34:08.700
Guardian could you know I could have got my own uh opinion column in there no problem and then all of a
00:34:14.800
sudden I take this position of um the class is right wing I don't I don't I don't see I suppose if
00:34:21.440
you're that far left anything's right yeah um and again you know you know take take the position
00:34:27.140
has said my truth about what I feel about the female uh standard of commentary in the men's game
0.98
00:34:32.200
and also that it's it's taken men with credible credibility and equities jobs that's what they're
00:34:36.760
forgetting you know a lot of white and I don't want to be a victim here and play instead has it but
00:34:41.340
a lot of white ex-players are no longer a viable option because it's not politically correct to have
00:34:48.400
them on the tv really so in the industry now if you're an ex-player who's a white male of a certain
00:34:53.760
age you just wouldn't get anyone I've had so many people reach out to me who obviously you know
00:34:58.720
petrified to say anything because there will be replay ramifications of like
00:35:04.020
I'm seeing low 90 percent 95 positive in in personal feedback about 80 20 on twitter
00:35:14.480
never about 70 30 on instagram they're the only kind of ones a gauge and and then
00:35:20.720
I always think there's lots of people and I've met these people who come up to me in person they
00:35:25.820
say I completely agree with you but I can't say anything if I said that I'd get sacked by work and
00:35:29.520
they work for like a car manufacturer like because they're on like zero hour contracts whatever or I
00:35:33.920
can't say that because me I get in a dispute with me partner or but totally agree with you yeah
00:35:39.380
so I'm only seeing a small kind of synopsis of people's real sentiments and feeling as you're
00:35:46.160
saying you smelling it and sensing it as well and I think you know it's only one thing here about
00:35:51.180
female commentating the male game but clearly in society in businesses across it this is um infected
1.00
00:35:58.660
for the negative a lot of these other industries so you know I'm seeing because I get a lot of uh
00:36:06.380
feedback in terms of they put me a lot of you know racism misogynist whatever they want to call me
00:36:11.820
from day to day but they haven't actually come for me on the homophobic one the reason they can't is
00:36:16.580
because I've done the rainbow laces campaign they probably will after they still attack me in grade
00:36:20.020
um but now what you're seeing in that community because I interact with these because I was the
0.88
00:36:24.580
first person to to you know certainly in the modern era to put a you know to put put my balls on the
00:36:29.600
line so to speak to say we should make it absolutely fine for to be a gay footballer clearly there's been
00:36:34.780
thousands of them but they haven't we haven't made the landscape um safe enough for them to be able
00:36:42.840
to come out whilst they're playing I know Thomas Hittelsberger and a few lads I think there is a
00:36:46.640
guy playing in the lower leagues at Blackpool um who's who's who's out but on the whole I think a lot
00:36:53.100
of people and I think if you're a good player I think it would be wise at the minute wrong but wise
00:36:58.080
at the minute for all manner of different things to to stay in the closet is that really true Joey
00:37:02.980
because I look I don't know the game as well as you obviously uh but I find it hard to imagine
00:37:09.480
that in the society that we live in now thousands of people are going to chant homophobic abuse at
00:37:14.720
somebody in public well you've seen someone do a monkey scientist to a black player at Sheffield
00:37:19.640
Wednesday last week so clearly they're gonna because they say stuff designed to hate you so
00:37:24.260
they'll say that the stuff they've said like I remember getting out of jail right came out of jail
00:37:29.340
for assault I've had a fight in the Liverpool City Centre my first game back was at the Emirates
00:37:33.720
I was on the bench Kevin Keegan put me on the bench for Newcastle against uh Arsenal it was my
00:37:37.920
reintroduction to Premier League football so it's the Emirates which is a sanitiser stadium you know
00:37:44.900
it's soft in terms of you know there's no levelance in that stadium like some stadiums you go
00:37:49.920
viral clip right look it's a fantastic stadium I know what you mean it's filled with graphic
00:37:56.500
designers yeah it's been it feels a bit manufactured and forced to try to create an atmosphere in there
00:38:01.740
which is different to the you know I'm old enough to have played that hybrid multiple times and
00:38:05.840
really on yeah really narrow pitch you know you can feel people breathing when you're taking a throw in
00:38:11.000
all the corner you can feel you know you can you can you can touch you these old football amphitheaters
00:38:15.880
the modern stadiums change a little bit now you know obviously you know they've got a got an
00:38:21.120
upgrade and I do think it's for the best but I'm at the Emirates as I say not the bowling ground not
00:38:26.880
West Ham or something where the fans are on yet and I'm warming up and as I'm warming up this guy is
00:38:33.160
just shouting abuse abuse abuse at me basically because I've been to jail for assault and he's but he's
00:38:39.940
telling me he's going to slit my throat so he's saying to me I'm going to slit if I can if I come
0.92
00:38:43.500
here I'll slit your throat and and he's sitting next to his son who must have been five or six
0.99
00:38:47.600
seven at the time shouting his abuse at me and the reason he's shouting abuse at me is because I've
0.99
00:38:51.680
been involved in a violent altercation and he's been taught to me to shout abuse nobody around him's
00:38:56.620
checking him like everyone's kind of sitting there like it's not happening and I'm kind of like
00:39:00.400
now there's part of me because I'm fight or flight and I'm fight there's part of me that's like
00:39:05.820
okay let's see what this is about like so I I would always turn and meet it head on look him
00:39:12.280
directly in the eyes because I'm like well if you said this to me where you knew there was going to
00:39:17.920
be a chance of of you being held accountable not that the fact that you're sitting in a stadium in
00:39:22.420
the stand and the stewards and there's a there's advertising orders and about five rows of seats in
00:39:26.880
between me there's no way in the world you would be able to do what you what you what you're professing
00:39:33.600
that you're going to do to me if you get your hands on me plus you're sitting next to your son
00:39:36.500
and like this is meant to be a football stadium and and that for me is is the absurdity of of the
00:39:44.100
world like of football at times you know you cannot sanitize football stadiums you're going to get
00:39:50.800
people shouting mad stuff because it is it is the modern version of a church in terms of people go
00:39:57.180
there religiously it's everything to them you know being a Liverpool fan a Man United fan well it's
00:40:03.060
everything to them it actually makes them a success so there's lots of people who aren't
00:40:07.880
successful but support a successful team and they almost become successful as a bike brother because
00:40:12.960
they're a winner because they support winning team which is peculiar it's there's not many
00:40:19.100
there's not many sports I think that have the reach in the world that football has and I think
00:40:25.620
when used positively it can be incredible you know you look at I've just read a book and I don't know why
00:40:30.880
my first war I can remember was the Balkans so I remember that being on the TV obviously
00:40:35.820
Slobodan Milosevic and all the kind of you know Sarajevo and the UN stepping in and then the guy who
00:40:42.300
fixed me foot was a UN doctor and told me some of the stories graphically what had gone on you know
00:40:52.040
Croatian football doing well you know way achieved you know population of five million
00:40:58.680
producing Luka Modric, Davos Sucher, Robert Prisnek it could be and I remember the Yugoslavian team
00:41:04.680
breaking up because if you ever remember the Euros was won by Denmark who weren't in it
00:41:08.420
Yugoslavia had disbanded and Denmark took the place and ended up winning I think in 1992
00:41:13.100
it was yeah the Euros England were crapping it the Graham Turner Turner period where we were terrible
00:41:18.860
we didn't make the World Cup 94 so I my Irish heritage kicked in I became an Ireland fan 94
00:41:25.580
because England weren't there but Italia 90 was my first World Cup I can remember but then there was
00:41:30.120
two wars at the back end if you remember there obviously the conflict in the Balkan states
00:41:33.780
Yugoslavia breaking up and the first Gulf War and I read a book about it and actually
00:41:39.680
the war was in it took it started the rebellion and and the revolution took place in the football
00:41:46.400
stadiums when I've got a book Yugoslavia politics and football because I was like how is this how is
00:41:51.840
this country I wanted to know how it produced the caliber of players because if you look at
00:41:56.720
Yugoslavia without a shadow of a doubt would if Croatia have got to World Cup finals and semi-finals
00:42:01.180
Yugoslavia with the talent pool he had would have no doubt been very very close to winning a major
00:42:07.440
tournament so you know they'd won I think the youth tournaments preceding and and they were they were
00:42:12.320
you were about to become a golden generation you know Croatia get to the semi-final of France 98
00:42:18.060
and you think you add in what is it you've got Slovenia is it in there Slovenia Serbia obviously
00:42:25.280
Croatia Kosovo Macedonia things like six countries in there and then when you when you know football at
00:42:31.800
the level I do and you go through and you go oh Pandev play for Inter Milan and play for Macedonia he would
00:42:36.560
have played for that and you know you know you would have had an incredible talent pool and reading
00:42:43.520
it for me made me realize how important football is for social debate it's been the place you could go
00:42:52.720
when the stars you were in or when you know the the government was not maybe how you wanted it in
00:42:58.160
Yugoslavia and you could rebel you could you could you could group together you could share ideas did go and
00:43:05.040
travel to games you know it became quite revolutionary fans in Iran now chanting against the regime and
00:43:10.320
stuff like that and and this is the thing where we have to be careful with the sports washing you
00:43:14.400
know one of my clubs Newcastle bought by the Saudis doesn't really you know an excellent mind man city
0.96
00:43:21.840
obviously got a nation-state owner in in in Abu Dhabi government it is interesting isn't it because
00:43:27.040
there's that contrast you know you gotta be the contrast between like what some people at the
00:43:32.960
forefront of let's say sports coverage say about you know the signaling virtue about this and that
00:43:41.600
so imagine for instance James Milner so I see James Milner as like I played with Millie at Newcastle never
00:43:46.400
drank drinks tea every like the ultimate professional if you want to be a footballer if I if I'm a manager
00:43:52.160
and you say who can I what attitude can I take and give to all my players it's Milner gets the
00:43:58.000
maximum out of him so if he's been forced to play in the Premier League and he needs to take an injection
00:44:03.760
I don't know whether he has and I haven't asked Millie this but like so so dangerous now if he came out
00:44:14.000
and said look I've had the vaccine and and I had this reaction to it and I don't think you should get
00:44:19.200
it think of the the power that would have think how dangerous that is for people who don't want that
00:44:24.800
to be the narrative yeah so if you look at football now I had Latisse talking I was listening to a
00:44:29.520
podcast uh with Matt on uh uh Michael Anthony because I've done a podcast with him a while back
00:44:36.320
in totally different energy to you guys interesting guy and and and Latisse is on there and he's talking
00:44:43.920
about how character and like footballers now there's just no characters it's just very very bland and
00:44:50.080
you get like a Marcus Rashford who goes on a you know does the the the I think really good to go and
00:44:55.200
get the school dinners thing and holds the government accountable there but it's very seldom you see them
00:45:00.800
come out and have and have a message I do remember when I was growing up you had kind of Robbie Fowler with
00:45:04.720
the Dockers and I think because of the way the salaries and the way clubs are now and the media
00:45:12.640
control and also the all the training these players are given they're just robots you know you see
00:45:17.040
interviews after the game you can almost verbatim kind of predict what they're going to say can't
00:45:21.360
you you know you can almost you can almost but Joe this is what I was getting at right it's just
00:45:26.000
just sanitize it boring uh well right except it also seems to me that there are some people who are
00:45:31.840
allowed to express whatever opinions they want do you see I'm getting that I mean is a good example
00:45:37.360
of this right because this is someone who expresses quite a lot of opinions that to a lot of people in
00:45:42.480
the country are wrong or controversial or whatever but it just seems like when you say what you say
00:45:48.160
about female pundits or whatever shock horror outrage etc Gary Lineker can say whatever he wants
00:45:54.080
while working for the national broadcaster yeah and again you do you know and I know there's people
00:46:00.960
within that the industry that kind of find that uh absurd but then it's it's about power isn't it
00:46:07.040
really when you think about it so judging from the outside I don't know it looks like
00:46:13.360
Gary's had a coup d'etard he pretty much does what he wants at the BBC because he's he's probably got
00:46:17.760
them by the short and curly's you know if you don't do this I'll piss off and work for CBS or I'll go and
00:46:21.840
work for Al Jazeera or I'll go and work for the highest bid at Amazon or whatever so he's obviously
00:46:26.880
in a position where they're petrified of losing him um and again you know I know a bit more about
00:46:34.880
that that character and kind of what they get up to and if people actually knew the truth about what
00:46:38.800
he get what he's done what he gets up to it wouldn't last five minutes you know with the virtue signaling
00:46:45.200
yeah I mean absolutely like despicable uh and then to say the stuff he says I'm like
00:46:53.120
but that's a lot of these people Joey because you know Jordan Henderson you know he was an LGBTQ
00:46:59.120
role model coming out and you know talking about acceptance and whatever else Saudis waive a 350 grand
0.75
00:47:06.480
a week tax-free salary in his face and he's see you later boys I'm off to I'm off to Saudi Arabia
0.52
00:47:12.240
yeah and look I mean you have to be careful I would fucking take that deal I'm not gonna lie
0.59
00:47:18.240
again you have to be careful telling the truth because you know you can be principled and stand
0.81
00:47:21.760
for something but again it's out the window if if you take that the the biggest bundle of cash isn't it
00:47:28.480
you know so yeah so again you know do you think he's a bad person no because if someone offers you
00:47:32.400
that I mean he's it's not lasted long as he's on his way back or he's gone to Ajax now so
00:47:37.120
you know most people are virtuous until enough money is put in front of the face
00:47:44.320
you know you know what I mean like for me I'm lucky and I don't value money I have no
00:47:50.400
like it doesn't make me happy and I've only only know that because I've not had it and had it
00:47:56.240
so you know it's easy life's well easier if you've got it like I'd rather have it than not have it
00:48:00.560
you know so I can't ever begrudge anybody but it can't be why you do what you do like I made one
00:48:07.200
move in my career for money and I hated it I hated every moment moment of a QPR and I've been vocal
00:48:12.640
and a lot of the QPR fans don't like me because I've said I only signed for the club because of
00:48:18.240
the contract there and and I didn't enjoy my time there because I knew I joined for the wrong reasons
00:48:23.440
it wasn't I didn't like the club or the people like and I had a great moment with winning the
00:48:27.120
playoff final within the last minute when we're down to 10 men stuff I'll 85 I'll never forget
00:48:31.600
like life affirming moments and always look to that club positively but because I was honest and
00:48:38.960
I said I signed for the money you know I was leaving Newcastle and I fell out with Mike Ashley the
00:48:45.360
owner there and and I went to the highest bidder sorry I'm a mercenary like you know at that point
00:48:50.160
I was 30 you know you know I haven't got 10 15 years left I know I'm 35 36 whatever you know
00:48:56.320
it's very ageist my sport unfortunately I'm very ableist as well once your body fails you
00:49:02.240
as much as I'd like to stay there for another 10 or 15 years I'm open with the if this DI continues
00:49:07.280
you have to go for an old gray-haired white person in your team I don't think that's ever going to
1.00
00:49:10.640
happen Joey you're going to have to wait for 700 years but I'm in the category now of as they say
00:49:14.960
and we'll get back to it of white male and stale yeah so as I said to you when I'd said what I'd said
00:49:19.920
about the women lots of ex-players lots of ex-media personalities have reached out to me
00:49:24.880
said look you can't quote me on this but this is the landscape this is what's going on you know
00:49:28.400
behind the cameras there's no DI all the people who are producers and executive producers financially
00:49:34.400
uh beneficial jobs are all white but everyone in front of the camera or where it matters have
0.53
00:49:40.080
obviously they're petrified now because of the George Floyd black lives matter all the marches
0.96
00:49:45.120
and the petrified that the woke mob turn on them and then shut them down and if if they didn't
00:49:49.200
they're like how do we defend our ivory tower right let's let's let's diversify in front of the um and
00:49:56.080
all the people who've got equity who've been in our organization and and and and done great work
00:50:01.520
for years now we're gone because this doesn't fit the public uh face and arm of of our corporation
0.98
00:50:08.160
and for me I'm just like every time you turn the tv on I'm like fucking hell like
0.94
00:50:13.920
so so what it's done and this is the bad the bad thing for me I'm driving
0.89
00:50:19.600
I shouldn't say this out loud but I end up in the house and I'm unemployed at the minute so you
00:50:24.080
obviously do a lot of daytime tv surfing so I'm watching some documentary finishes and I flick over
00:50:30.560
and I don't know why I like this but every now and again if the bowls is on you know the crown green
00:50:35.280
bowls I find myself watching it I don't know why I find it incredible unemployment will do that
00:50:40.000
to you no no I've played every a lot of pubs by ours used to have a crown green bowling uh thing in
00:50:45.920
the back garden so and there was a couple of lads in our road who whose dad played crown green bowls
00:50:51.040
so I wasn't into crown green bowls there was one in our park um but we used to use it for football
00:50:58.480
which obviously wasn't great for them because it was the best surface oh yeah you know we only had
00:51:02.880
trainers on we didn't wear boots on or anything but we would get chased off by the by the parkkeeper
00:51:07.200
if you've seen us on there but we would play on it and and every now and again my mate would bring
00:51:11.200
us bowls and you'd have a game and it is actually a fascinating game if you can if you if you play it
00:51:16.080
only after an hour you wouldn't want to play as a career I wouldn't certainly and you know so
00:51:20.400
I end up flicking over and I'm watching the bowls and there was a woman co-coms on the bowls
1.00
00:51:25.520
okay and I started thinking to myself all these women are in football and they're usually wrong
1.00
00:51:32.080
so I wonder if there's a bowling ex-player like me who's played bowls for years who's now sitting
00:51:37.280
in front of the tele going mad because she is technically incorrect in her analysis of the
0.99
00:51:42.960
crown green bowls and then I was driving yesterday and um was it yesterday or saturday and I flicked
00:51:49.520
radio five on to try and get the footy commentary on and it wasn't it was the netball um New Zealand
00:51:55.680
against England was on the live commentary which you can imagine it was quite riveting for a radio
00:52:00.800
commentary and it was two female comms and co-coms but I was there talking I was the same I was like
0.93
00:52:07.120
these could be waffling shite yeah I've no longer any trust in other sports female commentary because I feel
0.99
00:52:15.600
the ones we've got in the sport that I'm I'm I'm known for I've got credibility in
0.98
00:52:20.640
if we work on pretto's law of 80 20 80 of the time the poor or incorrect there is some good women
1.00
00:52:30.320
pundits out there not denying that but we've got overkill now there's too many and lots of them aren't
00:52:35.680
good and you can't remove them because if they come with a couple of box six and they play certain
00:52:39.840
cards which lots of them do they're actually really really difficult to remove because they sue you and
00:52:44.960
they go down all the you know you're seeing with Eni who's sued me suing me she's joined with Jeremy
00:52:49.920
Vine's lawyers to sue me so I've got a letter they kindly sent me a message on Instagram to tell me I
00:52:54.400
was going to get it which is obviously uh well a lawyer's contact so Jeremy so Jeremy sue me for
00:53:00.080
bike nonce saying I'm calling him a pedophile or whatever and I'm not I'm like no for me noncing
00:53:05.440
about on a bike with a camera on your helmet trying to get people points he's on his phone
00:53:09.760
at traffic is a peculiar way to spend your day yeah um and then he asked me to after I first said
00:53:17.120
this I've got so so how this happened I I wasn't planning this I I knew this would be a topic that would
00:53:24.640
cause outrage women's commons because so many people were pissed off with the standards of and
1.00
00:53:30.240
it was just annoying people so I said to Noah and Josh we're going to launch a podcast I said I'll do this
00:53:35.040
15th of Jan I'm going away on all day get back about 10th of Jan I'll talk about it here so that was the
00:53:39.520
plan and then I've joined the snooker league to get me competitive fix with my mates in the winter
00:53:44.720
so we play snooker on a Wednesday and it's in the working men's clubs in and around uh the area I'm
00:53:49.520
all ex-mining villages so it's like £1.50 a pint which you won't understand if you're in London
00:53:55.360
but it's like you can't spend your money in there you know but and it's they're all you know ex-labor
00:54:00.560
clubs or conservative clubs or like but but the working men's clubs and amazon were doing the games that
00:54:08.240
on that Wednesday so every game you could watch and everyone had a different commentary team
00:54:14.800
so whilst the other lads are playing I'm waiting for my game I've got a couple of pints and then
0.92
00:54:18.080
I played I'm like what the fuck what are they on about every time I kept changing the telly over
0.94
00:54:21.920
because they were that bad played my game come back and now about five or six pints in and
0.99
00:54:27.040
I ended up sending that tweet because I was like what are these on about then I went to bed that night
00:54:33.760
and I got up the next day I turned my phone off to the avalanche of wokeness attacking me and I
00:54:39.600
thought oh fuck I'm I've got two options here I had to say apologize for what I've tweeted and say
0.58
00:54:45.680
I didn't really meant it I was playing snooker I had a few pints or whatever or I actually do mean it
0.99
00:54:50.480
and fuck yes which is my take um so my take was that Piers Morgan reaches out to me and says look
0.81
00:54:57.440
do you want to come on and defend you know I'm like oh come on no problem and I didn't think it was going
0.98
00:55:02.240
to be what it was because he didn't tell me anybody else was coming on so it'll be 15 minutes I'll ask
00:55:06.240
you a few questions I thought it'd be quite safe because he's aligned with this anti-woke policy
00:55:11.440
and I go on and it was obviously an ambush set for me which I knew I said to Noah this won't be
00:55:16.000
straightforward even no Piers there'll be some there's something coming here so I was pacing
00:55:19.520
around before trying to think of the attack what's the attack gonna be where's it coming from who's it
00:55:24.080
gonna be I do the first bit and if you're not if you've seen the interview after 15 minutes says
00:55:28.960
we're going to come back after the break and we're going to have three female ex-players on so I'm like
00:55:32.960
so I'm like I'm off I was shouting I'm going because he didn't tell me come back on and it was Bianca
0.77
00:55:37.600
Westwood off sky some of a woman who had written a football podcast or had an interest in
00:55:43.360
football inconsequential and a young girl who's an anti-feminist called Pearl Davis who's online
00:55:50.000
is youtuber I'd never met I don't know youtube I'm a 41 year old ex-footballer
00:55:54.080
no no no listen Bianca do you think Bianca can I just ask you a question and I respect your
00:55:59.520
opinion massively I respect your opinion massively do you think the women's game and the men's game
00:56:08.080
the laws of the game are exactly the same the same rules apply you know whether it's yellow card red
00:56:13.840
card offside you can read the game it's still exactly the same there's two goals and 11 players
00:56:20.000
play have you ever been tackled that full speed it's not about that have you ever been tackled
00:56:25.600
that full speed by a fully grown man and the velocity that that involves that really doesn't
00:56:32.960
have anything to do with it you seem to have changed your opinion joey when you were
00:56:37.040
but it not appears earlier you had a problem with women who weren't qualified to talk about
00:56:41.440
the game who didn't have the journalism background to talk about the game and now you're saying the
00:56:46.560
game's different he's saying that he's changing his mind he's changing his mind all the time
00:56:52.160
have you got a problem with the journalistic coverage or have you got a problem with the
00:56:55.360
playing of the game please don't all talk over each other Bianca you're just shouting at me
00:57:00.000
i can't hear you being a top player doesn't mean you're going to be a serious conversation
00:57:04.640
this is becoming a farce the first Bianca comes on and she's just attacking me just just coming for me
1.00
00:57:11.440
it was kind of i'm just sitting there smiling because i'm like you you've done my work for me
00:57:16.400
i don't even have to say anything like there's going to be so many people who are now in my camp
00:57:19.600
because of the stance you've taken there was another woman they tapped on second who was trying
1.00
00:57:24.000
to like get involved she was a bit politer so i expected pearl to come on and she was i was like
00:57:28.240
who's this american she must be really smart she's going to put a hole in me yeah so i'm like what
0.99
00:57:31.840
the other two didn't really they were just confirming why women shouldn't really be talking about
0.66
00:57:36.400
football really or certainly about the men's game and then pearl comes on and was like you
00:57:41.440
aren't listening to him and she'd actually taken the time to listen was like no no he's not saying
00:57:45.120
that he's saying not saying women out of football which i'm not saying far from it some of the some
1.00
00:57:49.600
great friends of mine in football women but what i'm saying is underqualified women shouldn't be
1.00
00:57:55.280
shouldn't be in there because they're taking qualified men's jobs and i just think that's wrong
0.98
00:57:58.640
you know men mainly in football um i've played the game mainly all right there is the other exception
00:58:04.640
who've become exceptional but on the whole it's it's people who've played the game and if you put
00:58:10.560
a lot of women who play football are lesbians to be honest you know it's not feminist women it might
1.00
00:58:15.360
be a bit more now it's a bit cooler but it's usually lesbians who play women's games so they're not going
1.00
00:58:19.200
to have kids unless they adopt and do madonna or angelina jolie and kind of do that virtue signaling one
00:58:25.600
so you're taking away men's jobs who've got equity in the game whose careers now beyond them because
00:58:30.400
the body can't do it anymore and they're breadwinners they usually got kids to feed and families to put
00:58:34.560
to look after and because it doesn't fit this cool agenda of having a female on there or a person
1.00
00:58:40.640
of color on there or a homosexual on there or whatever it is or a transsexual on there
0.98
00:58:45.120
all of a sudden their earning capacity is gone and the amount of people on us they're kind of
00:58:50.320
ex-players and i'm saying would you say and they said can't say publicly letis goes on about the
00:58:54.720
people dropping down dead and he's contacted the pfa and fifa pro and he tells a great story about it and
00:59:00.320
say way way more credit credible than me in this space and you know when when i look at the attacks
00:59:07.680
on him you know he's not me he's very well behaved he's one of the most loyal players i've ever known
00:59:14.960
didn't leave southampton when he could have gone anywhere a true individual channel islander you know
00:59:19.600
so so um i found out today they're actually called donkeys weirdly because they're that stubborn which
00:59:26.320
fits for matt's personality because um he's he's taking a stance and i think it's cost him his media
00:59:32.880
career and further opportunities beyond that and the amount of um women i see in in those roles who are
0.98
00:59:43.760
taking men's jobs now those women must be the best of the best because they're on the best shows doing
1.00
00:59:49.760
the best matches and they're not very good on the whole some are but it's in the minority
00:59:56.240
they could be commentating on the women's game where they're credible they could be building
01:00:00.880
making the mistakes that they're making on the tv in the men's game now and getting ridiculed for it
01:00:04.800
and getting abuse online and having to close the profiles in the women's game and eventually someone
1.00
01:00:09.760
will go you know what she's really good let's get on the men and that's the way i think it should work
1.00
01:00:12.800
the cream should rise to the top they've got enormous credibility in there
01:00:18.160
but they've got none in the men's game this is absolutely zero and and any man
0.96
01:00:22.560
ex-player who tells you the women's women commentators or pundits are taken seriously he's a liar
0.93
01:00:27.760
he's a liar and and i'm telling you there's none of them that take it serious it's just they want to
0.97
01:00:32.320
keep the job like you can see on the overlap all the stuff they do they don't think that deep down
0.99
01:00:37.200
but they're getting paid for it and they've got profile and they've got power so you can't blame
01:00:40.800
Gary Lineker i don't i don't um i don't know how he gets away with what he gets away with in the bbc
01:00:47.520
because it's it's obviously taxpayer you know through the license fee funded but again i would
01:00:54.000
imagine that he just it's checks and balances isn't it there's no checks and balances on him and that
01:00:59.280
was evidence the other day when the wayne rooney tweet was put on by bbc sports about the peaky blinders
01:01:04.560
and he came and said get it taken down within 15 minutes it was down when you see the uh sports
01:01:10.400
personality there is well it's a joke like but when you see obviously the keeper when you see who's at
01:01:15.200
the front and center of that there he is again you know the the woke diversity nonsense that you see
0.97
01:01:20.800
in there it's just running them off and even when i look at ex-teammates of mine who've attacked me
01:01:27.120
we didn't like each other when we played and when i look at the personnel who were in certain roles
01:01:34.240
it's so racist it's untrue what do you mean by that joey well it's racist because it's against white
01:01:39.360
people so that the that exclude them white people specifically because they're white so we did that
0.92
01:01:45.280
if that was done any to any other race we got but we go oh well you know white people have owned
0.98
01:01:49.920
slaves and had tobacco i'm like i haven't i'm from liverpool working class estate irish immigrant
01:01:58.480
family you know i haven't owned any tobacco plantations or uh cotton plantations and you
01:02:04.160
know that wasn't me that from what i know they did landed aristocracy who were sitting in houses of
0.97
01:02:08.560
lords or in buckingham palace you take it up with them you know i i i don't get how we've gone from
01:02:16.960
you know 82 percent of the british population are white and yet we're excluding them based on the
01:02:25.280
fact that they're white what can you do about being born in britain unfortunately there's not
01:02:28.480
enough sunnier to get any other shake like once we exclude people on color it's just bad we would
1.00
01:02:35.360
never do it um you know to to any other race i think it's fundamentally wrong to do it and it's happening
01:02:43.680
to white people and everybody's just kind of going oh well you know the white people have done some
0.99
01:02:48.560
bad things in the past i'm like yeah so what you can do what the fuck you want to them now you can
0.99
01:02:53.120
pretty much just exclude them from um having the opportunity to use merit and and use their ability
01:03:00.640
to get as far as they can in life and i just think it's wrong absolutely wrong at its core uh i'm not i
01:03:06.320
quite agree with you joey there's one thing that i really wanted to talk to you about which is
01:03:10.240
mindset okay what makes a premier league footballer why is it that some people
01:03:16.320
who have the ability i'm thinking of someone like ravel morrison who was at west ham and probably
01:03:20.880
the most ravela qpr yeah yeah who is one of the most talented footballers of his generation if
01:03:26.560
that's what rio said and lots of other people yeah really talented why is it someone like him
01:03:31.360
never made the top and yet there are other people who are less talented like your gary nevels
1.00
01:03:37.360
who then go on and win champions leagues twice leagues etc etc yeah look to win trophies you've
01:03:43.840
got to be at certain clubs you know there's only so many teams that can win a trophy at the top level
01:03:49.120
there's only so many teams that can win the champions league you probably count them on two hands
01:03:54.160
similar with when it comes to the premier league you might get the odd leicester who you know the
01:03:57.920
old curveball team but on the whole pretty much all the top leagues in and all the top countries go to a
01:04:03.840
certain select amount of clubs so to play for a certain team at the right time can mean you end
01:04:10.720
up with a trophy laden career or like use latiss for example clearly a player capable of uh magic but
01:04:18.240
won't have won much because he stayed at southampton and constantly fought relegation and never went to
01:04:23.360
you know join chelsea or tottenham or liverpool or man united so so massively decrease your chance of
01:04:30.560
winning all these trophies like harry kane prime examples had to leave tottenham to go and try and
01:04:34.320
get the trophies he feels like he's going to need to be held in the same esteem as some of the greats
01:04:39.520
that have played the game um you know playing for bayern munich i do think is is a chance for him to
01:04:47.840
cement his his legacy he obviously negates his chance of beating shearers uh premier league record but again
01:04:55.040
he's probably good enough player to come back at some point in the next two three four years and
01:05:00.960
and still get to that record i think um and then what people what people miss with footballers is
01:05:09.280
addictive personalities who get addicted to football at a young age and then dedicate everything in their
01:05:18.080
life to that in terms of you know every waking moment you know remember me being in school all
01:05:24.720
i'm thinking about is the training i've got to do after school finishes or the game i'm going to play
01:05:29.520
in or what the teachers talk and i'm trying to pay attention but i'm thinking about the game i'm going
01:05:33.760
to play in or training i've got that night for you know for everton's academy at the time or man city's
01:05:38.080
academy and what people miss with footballers is it takes enormous discipline over a long period like i
01:05:45.520
sacrifice being a teenager which is probably a good thing because there would have only been trouble
01:05:50.080
or the stuff that's out there and i look at all my close peer group i grew up with who've
01:05:54.560
either been killed killed been involved in uh crime at a high level and i've either had to leave the
01:06:03.120
country or i was living in other countries now that you know so i go well that was that was the kind
01:06:08.080
of group i was in luckily for me at 15 16 my mum and dad got divorced at 14 i went to live with
01:06:14.480
my grandmother who was a lot more strict than my mum so i was kept on a real tight leash my brothers
01:06:19.040
weren't they stay with my mum on the council estate and i just moved off but was with my gran
01:06:24.160
and she would go when i was at that age where i could have just slipped like i'd say i'm staying
01:06:28.560
in my mates and i was going fishing or about with my mates and she got if i said i was staying in my
01:06:34.880
mate she'd want to speak to my mate's mother or she'd visit the house to make sure i was there which
01:06:39.040
my mum never would have done and loads of people's parents didn't so they could fall in the cracks
01:06:43.840
of being you know a little bit mischievous as a youngster i couldn't because my gran had literally
01:06:50.800
if i if i said i was um staying somewhere or was late coming in she'd come and get me and pull me out
0.99
01:06:56.320
of it only happened once twice i never done it again because i thought she'll drive me out make a show
01:07:00.640
me and she'd done that to me dad but but it worked with me because i had something to to get after
01:07:05.760
a career i was touching over a long period but something to get after and then it was the sacrifice
01:07:12.160
you know 16 17 18 people are wanting to drink drug experiment girls whatever's coming in
01:07:19.200
i knew if i did that i wasn't going to be good enough to make it because i'd seen lots of people
01:07:23.040
get in trouble with all of those vices who were talented better players than me
01:07:28.720
and it didn't make it ravel you know would be in that category of incredible player play with
01:07:34.400
revela qpr strange character in terms of just being allowed to get away with lots because of his
01:07:40.080
talent he actually just needed someone really strong with him to to show him he didn't need
01:07:46.160
a disciplinarian but he needed someone to to you know i i believe men men need male mentors who
0.91
01:07:53.680
fucked up and changed their lives like blacky for me was one peter k from sport and chance
1.00
01:07:58.480
clinic former drug and alcoholic changed my life fundamentally um and when you when you meet
0.98
01:08:06.080
these older people who aren't perfect who say look i've felt that and i've done that and i've
01:08:12.320
fucked up and i've done actually 10 times worse than you're here you know i've done next all of a
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01:08:16.080
sudden you're you realize oh my god like i'm not a bad person i've just made a mistake here and
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01:08:23.440
i think when we go through in the world and we try and make everyone perfect you can't make a mistake
01:08:27.200
i just think it's really dangerous because for me life is a series of fucking up and trying to
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01:08:32.560
improve you know being prepared to fail whether that's on your bench press if you're trying to
0.86
01:08:36.640
lift or in a race or i think failure is very very important and lots of failure obviously you don't
01:08:42.320
want catastrophic failure because you know you don't recover from it but i think you've got to put
01:08:47.120
yourself in a position to fail you know to be ridiculed to you know you it's the only way for
01:08:53.120
me you make real progress and when i look at like a gary neville like you spoke about i feel like i'm
01:08:58.080
going around a little bit gary neville would be somebody who did everything right trained slept at
01:09:03.360
everything right and that increases your chances of making it it's very very difficult to make it
01:09:08.400
because someone can tackle you and that's the end there at 15 16 17 or you might grow you know your
01:09:13.600
genetic constraints might kick in or you know a manager might fancy it you know in a key
01:09:18.080
window where you need an opportunity to play so it is finally balanced but i think the people who
01:09:23.360
have a fantastic attitude like you know gary neville would i would say would be you know like almost like
01:09:29.040
a perfect a prefect in school he would do everything he could you know that's not every character because
01:09:34.800
sometimes as you know with great football with that addictive personality comes quirkiness you look like a
01:09:39.520
gaza clearly incredible football based on his his quirky mindset but obviously that's caused him a
1.00
01:09:45.760
lot of problems in in his life and i think someone like that you know gaza probably needed an alex
01:09:51.920
ferguson type role model and everyone thinks if he decided for man united that would have been different
01:09:55.600
for gaza but then you're right to point out ravel morrison was under fergus tutelage and i've seen a lot
01:10:00.960
of my you know the way i'd behaved as a younger person where what you were actually wanting was someone
01:10:06.000
to mentor you because what we're all looking for is structure and boundaries and this is why i worry
01:10:10.400
about society now if you just left you know the evergreen thing i don't know whether you've seen
01:10:14.160
this did you see that yeah we've had all the people so when people when kids are telling adults what to
01:10:18.880
do i think the lunatics are now running the asylum and now remember being 20 me i'm on a hero's journey
01:10:25.280
i've just got in the first team at man city i start getting into you know 20 to 24 is is when my world
01:10:31.200
kind of changes in terms of i become what i've always dreamt of becoming and i get financially
01:10:35.520
rewarded for that and i remember the arrogance of of of me thinking i've cracked this i know
0.98
01:10:40.320
everything i look back at it now i think my god how naive and how stupid you was but i remember the
0.68
01:10:44.880
energy i had that you know i said i turned atheist in that period i'm like no i've done all this reading
0.99
01:10:49.520
and you think you know everything plus you're really really motivated in terms of you know people
01:10:54.080
go to war in them in them age categories you come out of university or you come out of school and
01:10:58.800
whatever and you're ready to take the world on and you think you know everything and it's only when
0.99
01:11:03.040
you're 40 or you're 30 you realize how stupid you was in your 20s you know you only have to look back
0.98
01:11:07.360
at old 40s to see the clothes you've got your haircuts etc um and and that energy now is going
0.99
01:11:15.440
unchecked because that's scaring 30 40 50 60 year olds to death and they're petrified to say anything
01:11:23.280
so now the lunatics are running the asylum that's what we've got and and again i do think society is
01:11:29.040
broken down because people have forgotten what it's like to get slapped or punched in the face
0.86
01:11:33.120
you know you you do some of these radical things that these are doing and someone punches you in the
0.96
01:11:36.720
face once you don't do it again no because you think fucking hell don't don't fancy that you know
0.95
01:11:42.320
don't agree with it but i got hit as a kid you know when i stepped out of line i got whacked it
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01:11:47.600
stopped me stepping out of line again now i i don't bring my kids up in in that world you know because
01:11:53.360
i've learned a different strategy and you know spoke to great mentors and read lots of books and
01:11:58.400
i'm trying a different way with it and i want to have a different relationship with my kids but then
01:12:02.480
when i see the world that we're in i'm like this is probably a this is probably a factor that kids
01:12:08.320
now are just going unchecked you know university just running over the professors and it is this
01:12:14.320
your impression of besmanov yeah of of this um when i look at it and i don't know loads about it
01:12:20.320
i've just heard a few guys talking about it i'm like i don't know it's what peterson's been saying
01:12:24.960
the universities have been hijacked and these mega young really really want to take the world on and
01:12:32.560
make their stamp and change the world people are just so confused and they're just running rough
01:12:37.840
shot against everything and they're actually pulling the very institutions and the fabric of
01:12:44.240
society that we need to function healthfully down and it's causing irreparable damage i think to some
01:12:52.880
institutions and and if we're not careful you know i didn't think east germany the star i'm always like
01:13:01.040
how the stars he made the how did they did one third of the population you know opt into spying on
01:13:08.720
and working for the for the state against the people and covert made me realize actually really
01:13:14.960
really quickly really really quickly a minority can take over a majority it was the stuff you guys
01:13:22.240
were speaking about i only heard it on the little clip before yeah i didn't know i'm like oh yeah
01:13:27.600
actually if we don't if we don't stand up and say our truth and even if you get excommunicated i'm
01:13:34.240
i've been the black sheep so i'm cool i'm like listen i'm just on the naughty step again i've been
01:13:37.520
here loads of times and what i learned out on that step when when you're ostracized and you
01:13:42.880
get out there because you're a bad person all you want to do is fit in because we're quite tribal you
01:13:48.320
know we're prime primates i believe hierarchical chimpanzees you know um darwin's fear of evolution
01:13:55.360
had a huge effect on me you know i'm still as i say it made me an atheist dawkins etc uh christopher
01:14:02.400
hitchens is a huge uh influence on me but a few things have happened and i've met people and it's
01:14:08.320
just kept me agnostic like it's just a few weird things where i'm like hopefully and it gives me
01:14:14.080
great salvation and at this moment because i'm like hopefully there is something um out there that is
01:14:20.160
has got a good you know if there is a heaven or whatever it is and there is a god and he's got this
01:14:25.440
ultimately he'll allow good to prevail and when i look back across humanity and you see you know
01:14:31.280
the nazis get seen off you think what god what it must have been touch and go for large periods of
01:14:35.760
that early part of the 1939 to you know my nan was born 42 it doesn't look until like 42 43 and and
01:14:44.560
you know when the russians and get involved that it kind of goes away from uh hitler but when you look at
01:14:51.920
kind of history and you look at um good prevailing you know i know there's been mass murder and
01:14:59.920
genocide in cambodia or the native americans and but i do believe good gets through and you know it's
01:15:07.760
the peterson stuff of it only works if you can speak truth to power you know putin for instance thought
01:15:15.680
he was going to take ukraine in what two three days because he's in a vacuum where nobody will tell
01:15:20.000
him the truth for fear of the consequence you're not allowed to tell the truth to power because if
01:15:24.240
the if the power doesn't like the truth that's the end there you know style and you know all these
01:15:28.400
dictators or whatever you know we actually have an episode with a historian about talking about
01:15:32.960
that very i'll have to get into it yeah it'll come out after yours but we'll send it to you well
01:15:37.520
and i've seen use it into world history i didn't want to take down this rabbit hole guys sorry
01:15:40.800
yeah so so so for me you know if you cannot if you can't speak the truth to power if eventually
01:15:49.600
it's going to disintegrate which is what i think putin's two and a bit years in now to a three-day
01:15:55.440
war you know he thought the ukrainians were going to roll over almost like the the french and wave them
01:15:59.840
into to paris you know and obviously the the the adverse uh scenario he's in now is that that that
01:16:07.680
that hasn't happened and that has hasn't happened because of the way he's constructed the world that
01:16:14.080
he's in you know no one's telling him the truth and and again you know for me we have to i agreed
01:16:22.560
with what you said i don't think it's perfect our country by the way but when i've traveled around
01:16:27.040
the world and i've seen lots of places and look we've got loads of work to do but but i think it's a
01:16:31.840
a fantastic country for for many many reasons pothole and as soon as i replied to your thing
01:16:38.000
people come back at me all the all the things we're not doing so well training times pothole
01:16:41.920
but see people get confused about this and you were talking about this from the personal level as well
01:16:46.400
just because something isn't perfect or a person isn't perfect doesn't mean they're a bad person
01:16:51.360
it means they've got things they can work on yeah yeah but the the way i feel about the way people
01:16:55.600
talk about this country and they talk about america and the west more broadly it's like if you talked
01:17:00.240
about your partner your wife your girlfriend in the way that people talk about their country
01:17:06.560
people would say you're an abuser yeah if you talk that way about your wife right yeah but but we for
01:17:12.000
some reason we're allowed i mean of course we're allowed to we all have free speech i just mean
01:17:16.160
we are allowing people to get deluded about the reality of the place in which they live and then they
01:17:22.000
go out and they say all these things that's not to say we haven't got problems see i have to
01:17:25.920
disagree with it i don't think we've got free speech i don't know honestly i i i i would like
01:17:30.160
to think we have but then you know i've found out recently we don't you know people want to sue you
01:17:35.200
and i'm i'm you know i kind of get it but i've spoken to people when people have written pieces
01:17:41.440
about me in the past and i'm like what is this libel and they're like hmm well this is how much it's
01:17:46.560
going to cost and in the end you're like um what's it's just wasted resource and you know the only
01:17:52.560
people are winning it is lawyers and then when you get these lawyers of no win no fee kind of
01:17:56.880
buzzing around you know looking for outrage and looking to you know give themselves work i find
01:18:02.000
it peculiar um you know let's say i i do believe as uncomfortable as it is you have to be able to
01:18:11.040
speak the truth to power and the problem we've got at this moment in time is you know power is just not
01:18:17.360
listening is it's just it's you know just you know it's not listening to people and i i've never
01:18:23.440
ever thought we'd be in a position where you know the government are stealing from the people like
01:18:31.120
the ppe stuff is just probably the tip of the iceberg if they get into it you know track and trace what
0.61
01:18:36.960
was that three billion what the fuck was that all about like you know another two and a half billions
0.62
01:18:40.960
of ukraine this keep going in until you i'm like what what are we doing like the russians i don't
0.98
01:18:47.760
agree with putin i do think he's a bad man but to control a country like that the same way with sad
01:18:53.920
mussein you need bad people you can't i'm russian and i really don't like putin but it's not untrue
01:19:00.320
well again but you need bad people to control big
01:19:03.520
massive um what would i call it like ethno diverse groups religiously diverse groups across so
01:19:14.240
you can't expect a nice guy to to hold that together you know now i'm
01:19:18.800
you know putin's the extreme example of that you know don't disagree with him you have his enemies
01:19:23.600
have a funny um habit of falling out windows all blowing up in planes you know but i was watching the
01:19:30.320
whole pregosian i'm like speaking to a couple of my pals who weren't with me were one's an ex
01:19:36.960
sas sas and one's ex doctor in the sbs and i'm like i'm back and forth with them on the wall like
01:19:42.640
i've never seen anything like this also when the you know the the gas pipes getting blown up i'm like
01:19:47.280
who's this who's who's done this is this a good thing is this a bad thing and then
01:19:53.440
you know you i think society has to it's the peterson one again of it's it's when really dangerous men
01:19:59.840
or are capable of it but don't use it yeah there has to be a deterrent like you know you have to
01:20:05.360
think if i do this there's going to be a consequence now if there's no deterrent as californian
01:20:10.880
retail industries finding out you know there has to be a deterrence you just say well we're not going
01:20:15.920
to prosecute anyone who steals less than nine hundred and fifty dollars well great my dad worked as a
01:20:21.440
a security guard we needed to go off on a tangent in in a big supermarket chain uh just before he
01:20:26.480
retired and he said none of the security guards would stop people who were shoplifting because
01:20:32.880
they'd say put can you put that down because if they touch them there's a completely different um
01:20:38.960
case opening up where they could be sued so your your security guard in in a in a supermarket chain
01:20:44.320
stopping people shoplifting but you can't go anywhere near them now my dad's different he would
01:20:47.680
stop them and then in the end he's like i'm getting i got in trouble so he said you're asking me to stop
01:20:53.840
people stealing from in the shop and i'm trying to stop them and if i put my hands on them to take the
01:20:59.520
stuff off them i get sued so what's that and the job doesn't pay enough for yeah and it's this this is
01:21:06.320
just this strange strange uh world of consequences for some things and no consequences for other
01:21:14.560
things and it's like okay like so it's you know the policing being one you know seeing you know the
01:21:20.800
kind of two-tier policing somebody is able to shout obscenities and then i've seen i don't know if
01:21:25.120
you've seen this clip of the looks like a volunteer police officer telling someone to not to sing a
01:21:29.920
church or a gospel song yesterday no miss you're not allowed to sing church songs outside of church
01:21:36.720
grounds by the way you're not allowed to sing church songs outside that's fine you're not allowed she
0.99
01:21:44.160
just said you know allowed to sing church songs outside of church our churches outside the church
01:21:48.480
grounds unless you have uh unless you've been authorized by the churches to do this kind of song
01:21:54.240
so you know it's okay for certain religions to pray outside and take over spaces and
01:21:59.520
and and but it's not for other religions and and the police are policing one and arresting
01:22:05.920
people and rounding them up and allowing you know it's it's the demonstrations we've seen
01:22:10.640
that as with as well you know a blm demonstrations prime example yeah yeah i mean there was a woman
01:22:15.920
who was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic just like sat in her head
01:22:20.960
can i please ask you to step away from here and step outside the exclusion zone
01:22:27.760
but you've said you're engaging in prayer which is the offense
01:22:31.600
no but you are still engaging in prayer it is an offense
01:22:36.640
you're totally right joey we're running out of time it's been in the thaw police then if she's
01:22:40.800
playing slightly and ed you are now in all that's right that's what i'm saying um and it's really
01:22:45.760
interesting talking to you this we could talk for another hour i actually was going to ask you about
01:22:50.560
you know you've talked a lot about violence in your childhood and dealing with all of that and
01:22:54.720
obviously i'm sure it plays into the young man that you then were and stuff like that i would
01:22:58.560
have loved to talk to you about that maybe we'll we'll come back come on mine and we can yeah we'd
01:23:02.240
love to that but anyway we're going to go to locals with questions from our audience in a second
01:23:08.400
but before we do we always wrap up with the same question which is uh according to you what's the one
01:23:12.480
thing we're not talking about that we really should be oh um the one thing i haven't so i've spoken
01:23:19.360
about a lot recently on certainly on twitter because i'm opening up a few uh uh fronts in
01:23:23.840
terms of uh the discussions for the podcast later uh for me one massive one would be the kind of tax
01:23:31.280
situation and how many of the you know big taxpayers or people who should be paying a lot of tax in this
01:23:36.880
country are just avoiding just loopholes for the rich to get out of it and yet you know i'm someone
01:23:42.480
who's paid an enormous amount of tax you know that that's where i think you know the premier league
01:23:46.960
salaries going north is a great thing because 45 to 50 of them will go in tax and national insurance
01:23:52.160
you know harland's on 900 grand a week well that's great for the tax because you get half of that um
01:23:58.160
and it's you know your starbucks your amazons you you know your big corporations as well as these big
01:24:04.080
wealthy guys whether that's you know the sunach dynasty or the reese mogg dynasty who just blatantly
01:24:12.880
are refusing to pay tax and because they've got the big chartered accountants that they pay
01:24:17.440
financially a lot of money to it's kind of seen as okay it's it's almost white collar crime
01:24:24.640
but you know because it's via all these legal loopholes it's great and i and i think if we
01:24:32.720
actually got into the nitty-gritty of that and people paid the right amount i'm not saying they
01:24:36.880
should get taxed i don't like you know i don't think any population should be taxed more than 25
0.98
01:24:43.040
i just don't i don't think you know to tax high earners more than for doing well i'm not necessarily
01:24:51.520
down with that but i think if if we were to go and look at um our tax structure i think a lot of the
01:24:59.520
uh money we could get back from that could be utilized well probably not with this
01:25:03.920
government they'd only probably siphon it off into the offshore accounts um or to the cronies
01:25:09.120
to buy yachts um but but i think you know the people who are profiteering from from the people
01:25:16.320
of this country who were giving us mcdonald's and starbucks and fatty foods and all the problems that
01:25:23.600
arise from from their profiteering i'm not saying they're wrong to do it because in a capitalist
01:25:29.520
structure it's up to people whatever they want to do you want to eat fast food or whatever
01:25:33.680
but all the benefits that their money is making them offshore is not going into the nhs who are
01:25:39.840
dealing with the problems that they're causing with you know the products they're making a huge
01:25:46.000
profit from so for me i think we need to get up get hold of our tax you know tax you tax the poor
01:25:54.080
all the time you know you less driving in here like you're taxing the poor and they're working all
01:25:58.000
the time what about these you know the rich are still getting richer like that yeah we've got to
01:26:02.800
gear our country towards if you do really well out the country and you earn a few quid you should look
01:26:08.160
at it and be say look i'm i'm delighted to pay me tax i've always seen as a badge of honor
01:26:13.520
you know i'm a working class kid who's paying me tax now there's been times where i've been offered
01:26:18.960
you know and there was there's one of them that you should get into that's wiped out all the
01:26:22.320
footballers that's why you're seeing a lot of footballers going bankrupt of the generation before
01:26:26.160
mine because the government's actually had a scheme where you could invest in the british film
01:26:31.840
industry and it would obviously offset some of your tax yeah and and someone offered that to us well
01:26:36.560
well again there's lots of them out there and the banks and all that were all in cahoots with it so
01:26:40.480
they all they were all in cahoots the government it was hmrc regulated or backed and then five years
01:26:46.400
later they they went back and said no no that was illegal clawed the money back lots of players went
01:26:51.600
bankrupt because they couldn't pay it because they'd offset it on off the tax and then they wanted the
01:26:57.360
interest back so i've had i've had to pay it was only 450 grand i shouldn't say only but it was only because
01:27:03.440
i wasn't earning the money at the time because these were financial advisors you know look i'm a working
01:27:08.240
class kid i'm not a banker or a financial you know wizard we were giving financial advice from
01:27:14.080
people who were regulated to do a trust at my bank is the queen was the queen's bank before she passed
0.75
01:27:19.040
away and hmrc so they were telling us this is what you should do with your money this the advice and then
01:27:24.800
afterwards they changed they changed the law and then went back when it was legal and said no no we're
01:27:31.040
gonna so it's almost like you can smoke it's legal to smoke so for five years you're smoking and then they
01:27:36.160
and then they say right smoking's illegal and now we're gonna if you've smoked you need to and we're
01:27:41.280
actually going to charge your interest for those uh ciggies you had which is just bizarre so lots of
0.95
01:27:45.840
ex-players so there was a if you've seen there's been a tsunami of players who i grew up idolized and
01:27:50.480
who were you know household names all bankrupt one of the guys phoned me and there was a short list i
01:27:56.880
think of 315 of them that it all banded together because they were like this is outrageous we've been told
01:28:02.560
this was legal anyway sorry to digress but one of the things i would change was would be
01:28:08.000
we need to sort out that the people who profiteer and make a lot of money in this country play pay the
01:28:13.440
proportionate amount of tax not because they've got the best accountants and they can forward billions
01:28:17.600
to get away with it um i think if we do that i think that would be a step in in the right direction
01:28:24.880
amongst other things perfect well head on over to locals where we ask joey your questions and a few more of our
01:28:30.240
run i told gary ten years ago when he was giving it to me tight on match of day and i said to him
01:28:36.080
look if you want all my all my skeletons are out all mine were on cctv and i've been to jail for them
01:28:41.920
they're out you know they've been on the back of the pages all yours are still hidden i know stuff