The Athletic. Hello I'm Mark Chapman welcome to the Business of Sport

podcast on the Athletic. We're joined as usual by the Athletics Matt

Slater and our guest today is Mahetta Malango, the new chief exec of the Union that represents the professional

footballers in England, the PFA. Mahetta replaced Gordon Taylor to become the Union's first

new chief exec in 40 years.

Previously a lawyer, he was chief executive for four years at Spanish Club Real

Majorca after almost a decade with a respected legal firm based in Madrid.

He was also a professional player in England for clubs including Brighton, Oldham and Lincoln.

He's now leading an organisation that has faced a series of challenges both on and off the pitch and within

the PFA itself.

Mejetta Malango, welcome to the Business of Sport Podcast.

I was listening to you on the BBC's Today programme on Radio 4 and they began, as you know, by listing

that you're a former player, a former chief exec, a trained lawyer, speak six languages,

and other son of a diplomat, and then went, are you the right man for the job,

or as some people think think should it have gone to someone who's a more famous footballer?

Now does that say more about the media or more about football and is that what you're encountering in your first six months in the job?

Let me first correct the fact that my dad is not a diplomat, right?

My dad is a psychologist actually, which is relevant for the PFA, is specialized in handling people who have problems with addictions, so drug, alcohol, this type of stuff and he's specializing in family therapy.

So, you know, I'm glad that they gave so much credit to my dad, but no, he's a psychologist.

So my language skills don't come, you know, from the fact that he's a diplomat, but rather from the fact that I've been lucky enough to travel around and come from a multicultural family where my mom is Italian and my dad is from

Congo so that was the beauty of the thing. And coming back to your question, you know, in the end I think it is my role to explain to people that this was not a political election

People ask me what is your manifesto and what I say to people is it's not about the manifesto

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