The Athletic. The Athletic. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast. I'm Ian Irving and coming up today

we'll talk Everton following that manic win against Chelsea that's

breed new life and belief into their battle to stay in the Premier League.

Meanwhile their former boss, Kaloan Shalotti, has just become the first manager to

win the title in all of Europe's top five leagues.

We'll get the latest from Madrid ahead of their huge Champions League

semi-final against Manchester City. But to kick things off I'm joined by the

athletics football correspondent David Ornstein. Two big stories you've broken in

the last week David.

First of all, more off-field changes at Manchester United with the departure of Matt Judge

from his position as the director of football negotiations.

What's the story here? It's really significant because Matt Judge has been at the heart of what Manchester United have been doing in recent years. He was initially titled head of corporate development.

I don't really know what that meant, but in more recent times it has been director of football negotiations and that's exactly what it says on the tin.

He has been leaving the conversations talks around contracts and around transfers.

And that means that pretty much everybody you've seen either coming into United or extending their stay at United has done so with

Matt Judge.

He might not have been the only voice in the conversation because you had Ed Wood

previously as Executive Vice Chairman, more recently Richard Arnold taking on the chief executive role. Everything has to be deferred up to Joel Glazer on behalf of the ownership. You've got John Merta in there now as football director, Darren Fletcher, as technical director. But when agents sat down with somebody from United to discuss these things, it was normally

Matt Judge. And not a lot is known about him. I think Lori did a piece on the athletic

where you can find out a little bit more, is a figure of mystery by and large and we learned the news on Friday that he had tendered his resignation from Manchester United. I think that actually happened a couple of weeks ago and it had stayed quiet until the athletic were the deliverors of this development. It brings an end to his time at the club. We don't know exactly when because there will be a notice period, but it's kind of up to Manchester United and primarily John Merta as to how much he wants to lean upon Matt Judge during that period.

One of the points that I reported is that United do not expect Judge to play an active role

in their summer transfer window, which is quite extraordinary really because it's round the corner.

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