Hello, I'm Mark Chapman, welcome to a new podcast on the Athletic Network, the business of sport.

Now, hopefully the title is pretty self-explanatory, but in a nutshell, every Thursday, we'll be joined by a panel of the athletics,

brilliant football journalist.

We'll have the occasional special guest as well,

and we'll go deep into the stories that affect all of us,

clubs, players, the game we love.

We'll discuss owners, agents, key decision-makers. We'll take you behind the curtain into the world of football business. And we will talk about other sports as well. Alongside me, each week will be the Athletics Football News reporter Matt Slate. Be fair to say you are a sports news, business, media.

I was going to say fanatic, but I wonder whether to say geek.

I don't know.

Which would you prefer?

I don't want to be a geek, but if I could at all avoid it.

Expert.

Expert.

Yeah, I'll take experts. Do we trust experts now? Do we trust experts now? I don't know avoid it. Expert. Yeah, that'll do. Yeah, I'll take experts.

Do we trust experts now?

I don't know.

But yeah, no, guilty as charged.

Well, I like all those things anyway.

Yeah, but they're increasingly, increasingly important, obviously.

And they increasingly interlock as well.

They've always been an important, Mark.

It's just that, you know, football writers, we've, you know, we've sort of kind of shied away from that sort of stuff. We sort of thought, well, that's not for us. But look, the bottom line is, you know, it's a professional sport. These are competitions between companies, you know, the idea that kind of sport and politics don't mix. Well, that's one of the most ludicrous cliches in sports.

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