Iran At The World Cup: Haitian Players Banned By USA; Millwall Fined

0:00How are you then? Welcome to Where's the Money Gone? The podcast that takes you inside the football boardroom with me, Adrian Goldberg and Charlie Methan. This time the US president, who won a FIFA Peace Prize, is at war with a country which is due to play in the World Cup being staged in his country later this year. Can we realistically expect Iran to take part in what should be a global festival of football? Plus, Millwall? No one likes them basing. Why would that be? The Lions were recently fined 45,000 pounds by the FA for abusive chanting during their Karabau Cup game. Earlier this season, with Crystal Palace, they now face further charges relating to their game against chartless lettic in January and could face a full or partial grand closure. Millwall fans online believe there is a conspiracy against their club, pointing to abusive jans by other supporters and they reckon the Premier League is quaking at the prospect of its member clubs going to South Bermansy next season. The

1:02Wall remember, as we record this, are only two points off an automatic promotion place. Welcome Charlie, West Bromwich Albey and my team in much finer fettle and they have been a 3-0 win at the weekend against Hall City and top performance. We're now on beaten in three. If only the season were a little longer, we'd be knocking on the door of the playoffs. Ah, Adrian, I'm so happy to see you so chuffed underneath your Andy Cup cap. It's great to see funnily enough. Quite a few of the teams down the bottom have found a bit of form, down the bottom of the championship. It looks like being a very high points total to stay up this year. It looks like the mythical 50 points is probably what you're going to need. And of course, part of what I say, other clubs, my home club opposite united has won three and drawn one of its last four games to height themselves into contention for staying up. Blackburn of one a couple of games recently, as well. Of course, the one team that really hasn't won many games is Leicester City, who are now second bottom. And you know, you're getting towards that stage

2:05with all the reddit phrase running out of games starts. So sort of, you know, rear its ugly head. And I saw yesterday that having gone one-a-luck at home to QPR to then get beat 3-1, that's the kind of result in performance which has the stench of relegation about it. So there's still whatever it is, mind games to go, but it does look like being an absolute nail-biter for sure. And I'm sure that we were both wished that both West Brom and Oxford would stay up, but that might be asking for a bit too much. Yeah, well certainly, and Oxford, I mean, it bear them, no ill will whatsoever. It's a great achievement for them to be in the championship without being patronising, but generally you tend to get what you deserve in football, don't you, whoever it is. I would gently debate it being a great achievement. Oh, I think our average league position during our entire time in the football league is around about bottom end of the championship or top of league one. We've spent upwards of 25 seasons in either the first tier or the second tier, something like that. I'd have to check that, but certainly a huge chunk

3:06of the last half century has been spent by Oxford in those top two divisions. What is true is that given the state of their current stadium, it is challenging for them. Why the new stadium is so desperately needed. Yeah, certainly from where they got themselves into a month or two ago, it would be a good achievement to stay up. So fingers crossed for both clubs, as I said, it might be asking quite a bit for both of them to survive. So one of us might be crying into our pint pots come the end of the season. Let's see. Yeah, well, I'm certainly taking nothing for granted despite frankly astonishingly good performance by the baggies at the weekend. Right, it's always a difficult one, Charlie. You and I are both, I think it's fair to say, passionately interested in politics. We both understand that politics impacts upon football, but we also like to keep this podcast as far as we reasonably can, a politics free zone. But we are in a midst of a global crisis. There is a war going on and there are so many bigger issues around this, but you have this strange phenomenon that a country that is being attacked by the United

4:12States. Iran is due to play World Cup matches in the United States this summer as there ever been anything like this before. And can we realistically expect Iran to take part given what is going on? Okay, so like you, I do like to keep politics out of sport. And I think that's partially because I think from the participants point of view, it's very unfortunate that they're own sporting careers, which are brief and fleeting people are in their physical prime in their 20s and early 30s. It's not like you get loads and loads of chances to do things with your sporting talent. I think generally speaking, there are exceptions, but the vast majority of sports people are themselves pretty apolitical. Certainly when it comes to this kind of stuff, so just feels always unfair that the sports people get punished for whatever their governments are doing. That's sort of one bit. The second bit is that making judgments about what isn't acceptable is an unbelievably difficult thing to do and absolutely fraught with possibilities of hypocrisy and

5:19you know, these bodies that govern these sports FIFA, the IOC and all this other stuff really meant to represent the entire global population in sporting terms. They're not meant to be sort of well. We represent certain countries to behave in certain ways that we like or don't like and or even who are more powerful than others or whatever it might be. I will make this observation and I will preface it by saying that I'm sure in common with you, I hold no great brief for the Iranian regime that has been in place for the last, well for almost my entire life. Actually, I was born in 1976 and the the Islamist Theocratic autocracy which took over in 1979 has been in place throughout my life and during that time, it has been responsible probably for causing more trouble in the world than any other country and that's the fact. There's no way round this. I don't think anyone seriously debates that through its proxies, whether it be directly itself or through its proxies, it has been an absolute trouble maker in terms of on the world stage. However, what has the Iranian regime specifically done this time, which would change the terms

6:23of reference compared to all the numerous other times when its athletes have been allowed into competition? Well, the truth is, it's simply been attacked. Now, that attack, by the way, could have happened at any point in the last 45 years and indeed there have been times when Iran has itself directly attacked American interests or indeed imprisoned numerous American diplomats for a year at a time in absolutely appalling conditions. There are all sorts of reasons why there is point over the last 40 years the Americans might have considered an attack on Iran, but it seems slightly strange that anyone should think that Iran should be banned for having been attacked. It just seems logical to me. I've a major international sporting bodies take a view on Iran, full stop, and say, look, whether or not Iran is being attacked, it is simply an unacceptable country to be represents the world stage. It's the fact people they did with Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, they said, look, it's not on to have people representing Russia and in a way from Russia to be able to use major sporting events as a way of making themselves seem internationally respectable.

7:27But in this particular case, yeah, it's just something about it in my study over logical mind and the way it was working. So ask the question, why now, if all it needs is to be attacked without any immediate provocation to be attacked by another country, then where does that get us to? In presumably in that situation, effectively when Russia attacks Ukraine and they would say that there were numerous provocations for that. They want to get into it, but nonetheless, it is the case that Ukraine would then be banned from international sporting events because Russia had attacked it, just seems like a rabbit hole to go down that route. Now, if you just want to finish off by saying it, is it unprecedented? Well, of course, if you go back to the 1980 Olympics, which came at a time where America and Russia, the Soviet Union was, where it, you know, fairly significant loggerheads, this is around the time of the Afghan, various other proxy wars, the height of the Cold War, and America decided that its athletes would not go to Moscow, which is where that Olympic Games was happening. And indeed, some British athletes also did not go. So a voluntary withdrawal, which I

8:32think has been somewhat suggested by the Iranian sports ministry, by the way, is one thing, but banning them as some people have called for seems to me quite another. What do you think? I think it's when we look at history, I think, but there are people, and I agree with you, by the way, I would have no brief with the autocratic, theoretical regime that has held sway in Iran since 1979. It is brutally suppressed its own people without a question. In this moment, they have, it seems to me, been attacked without any immediate threat to the United States. As you say, their sports ministry has said that given the assassination of Ayatollah Khameini, it would not be appropriate in their view to take part in the United States, a country which itself, as in the eyes of many people, a problematic history in terms of its military adventures abroad.

9:32Now, Trump has said the Iran national soccer team is welcome to the World Cup, but I really don't believe it's appropriate that they be there for their own life and safety. I find that problematic. I mean, if the United States can't guarantee the safety of a competing team in the World Cup, in the words of its own president, then perhaps questions need to be asked about whether it's appropriate for the United States to be hosting the World Cup, especially given that Trump himself was given a peace prize by the FIFA president in Fontaineau. We talk about wanting to separate sport and particularly football from politics, but FIFA itself, it seems to me, by making that award, has embroiled itself in the politics of the situation. I suspect the reality is that Iran won't take part in the World Cup, but it seems to me, in example, whereby innocent people will have been punished for things not of their own making, ordinary footballers, ordinary football fans in Iran. You may argue that there are bigger issues at stake than that in the world at the

10:36moment as well. Yeah, well, I think we broadly agree on this. I think they probably won't take part, but I would like them not to be taking part for the right reason, which is their own voluntary withdrawal rather than for any pressure to be put on them. I think you raise a really interesting question there about whether America is fit to hold major international sporting events of this kind. They don't seem at least on the current regime to understand the obligations that are placed on you and that it's a privilege to hold these events. I'll give you an example, the Jamaican club, which I've been a director of Mount Pleasant, were playing in the ConquerCaf Champions Cup last 16 this week against LA Galaxy and a number of our team come from Haiti and obviously the rest have come from Jamaica and one or two of those Jamaicans in the past have had very minor brushes with the law and put it more strongly than that. I mean in prison doing that, but you know, so minor brushes here or there in the Haitians simply come from a very troubled country. Americans just refused to wish them visas. Ten of our squad were refused visas to play in the ConquerCaf Champions last 16. As far as I can say, the ConquerCaf should have

11:41given us a buy. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's totally an utterly ludicrous. Where do we get to have that? The Jamaican government suddenly decided, well actually we decided not to wish issued visas to the Americans to come. So you can play without your American players, but you've only got four of them. That's tough, hard luck. You know, that'll be an interesting game when our entire squad plays against four of your players. It just seems like the vast majority of American sport is American sports, where it's just played inside America. That seems a country to have got their head around what being part of a global sport means and football is the ultimate global sport where everyone plays. Well, I think that's a really interesting story. I know you touched on it last week and it aroused a lot of interest. And I think this is not widely known. I know you mentioned that the athletic had reported on it here in the UK, but it's not widely known. And then of course, this is an extension of what many people regard as a kind of racist immigration policy by the current from administration. It is, you would think, wouldn't you, that even if that

12:44racist immigration policy is in place generally for Haitians by which they are simply banned from entering the United States, not by virtue of any criminal background, not by virtue of any a priori threat that they are individually considered to represent, but simply by virtue of being Haitians, you would think that at least for a tournament of the status of the conquer calf, they would waive it at least for those individual footballers. The mine absolutely boggles. I mean, we think about the poor Haitians. Never have people for many countries been more deserving of refugee status than the poor Haitians because Haiti is a country that operates without a government. It's entirely war-torn. It's run by warlords, basically gangsters and extreme poverty. I mean, it's one of the poorest and most dangerous places on earth. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, that our footballers who are who live in Jamaica and earn good money in Jamaica and have been accepted

13:44as residents of Jamaica, right? I'm not suggesting that they are refugees. I'm simply saying that this has seemed utterly bizarre to refuse work travel visas to a country which, in theory at least, all of us should be trying to do our best to try to help people from Haiti that they're born into unimaginably difficult circumstances. And those who have had the talents and the wearable to get their way out of that and end up being gainfully employed in another country, which is itself basically a partner country of the U.S. Jamaica risk. So then be told you, you're not allowed to have visas to come on a two-day visit to play a football match. I mean, it's just basically it's cheating, really. And I'm not saying that this is done at the Hestervelle galaxy, but I'm suggesting that there is a tendency on behalf of American authorities to think, well, you know, what's the worst that could happen while we could end up winning? Now, as it happens, there's a very tight game that's still 1-0s when a galaxy comes into the last minutes, but unfortunately they did score two very late goals. And does that not rather highlight the

14:45problem if 10 of the 20-man squad have been taken out and replaced us with youngsters? You know, there is no doubt that that has materially influenced that type, no doubt, absolutely no doubt whatsoever. If you look at the strength of our bench, the Mount Pleasant Bench compared to what it would have been, dramatically different. That brings us full circle back to the World Cup, though, in the awarding of the Peace Prize to Trump, which you may argue was done by in Fantino to ingratiate himself. We know that Trump is prone to flattery, but by going to those lengths to appease Trump to please him, it very much feels as though, be for and by this action, then ConquerCalf has taken political side FIFA in relation to Iran and the World Cup, albeit that they didn't know the circumstances that would arise at the time. And ConquerCalf, here now, allowing this to happen in their competition and not standing up to, well, you know,

15:47a bullying precedent. Yeah, I couldn't say it more clearly. So I think as it happens, this Iranian thing probably is not going to be a big controversy because it looks like the Iranians themselves are not going to want to see their team playing in the US whilst there's a war on between Iran and the US, which is totally understandable, sensible probably. But I think there is a broader point here and I'd be, you know, don't get the heighty, have qualified the World Cup. Yeah, America has said brave things about, well, you know, we're welcoming the global football family. Well, literally, you know, it presumably means, obviously, football teams, but also fans and so on and so forth. Well, presumably, if three months before the World Cup, you're banning players in the Mount Pleasant Squad who are themselves Haitian internationals in some cases, how is this all going to get itself worked out? I think what we're all terrified by is it this blights the World Cup. This whole issue of American visa requirements blights what's meant to be a tournament that brings great joy to people from from all

16:48around the world. Yeah, then just a note really that in the AFC women's Asian Cup recently in Australia, of course, half a dozen of the Iranian players initially were granted, well, pre asylum effectively by Australia, of that half dozen three have now done a U-turn and decided that they will go back to Iran. So as I understand it, three members of the Iranian team have said that they don't want to go back to their country. You can only imagine the pressure that would have been brought to bear on those who threatened to defect. I mean, these are very murky and difficult waters for individuals to negotiate and the idea that we want to keep politics out of football, but I have to say it is the United States, it is FIFA, it is conquer calf in these instances who have dragged football into politics or politics into football, whichever way I actually want to look at it. Let's have a chat about Millwall. As a fan, somebody who's never

17:49been in the boardroom other than the occasional guest, but essentially a football fan in us as a football writer, Millwall is a club that I have mixed opinions about in this regard. I see a trip to the den as one of my season highlights. When West Brom Play, they were not a club with a renown trouble following and therefore we tend not to bring out Millwall's hooligans, for which I'm very grateful. But the game at the den is usually loud, it's intense, it's raucous and I love it. And truthfully, there was a little edge about it as well. Thankfully, which in my experience there has never tipped over into violence, but I've always lurking there under the surface, it gives it a little bit of tension, but I enjoy the atmosphere at the den. And I enjoy the pubs around Sothek and London bridge that make an away diet Millwall a real treat actually.

18:51But there is this darker side which has lurked around Millwall ever since I've watched football, and recently they were fined for abusive chants, disabled chants when Crystal Palace came to town, and they're now facing further charges after chanting, when children are left at your old club came to town, I just wanted to have a, you know, a chief executive and obviously given your experience at Charlton, they were your local rivals. How are Millwall viewed in the boardrooms of English football? Well, I view English football as being, I think probably like you do, sort of a rich tapestry, different parts of the country, different styles of club, different styles of stadium, different experiences, different pubs, all these things. And that is such an integral part of what I see as being an English football, that I would be very sad, disappointed, if we ever became a monochrome, sort of just a, every stadium looks the same,

19:54everything's pretty much exactly identical and all this other stuff, you know, I wouldn't want that at all. And like you, I've grown up with Millwall being part of my football support, putting life from a young age, fun enough, I was playing golf the other day with Mick McCarthy, and I told him that I remember him playing for Millwall at the old manor ground in the early 1990s, you know, and I remember going to the den, the old den, pre the new one being built in the late 1980s, and that certainly was a very raw experience, no doubt about it, football as a whole was rougher in those days, and Millwall and the old den was significantly rougher than the current Millwall and the new den. So I guess I am, I guess it's my conservative side, I'm always a bit wary of stamping out individual differences, etc. But at the same time, there are rules, and the FA has rules, and this particular rule, E21, is one that gets applied to clubs, I ran a quick check,

20:54and you know, in recent sort of times, hide United, I'm thought United, Norwich City, have all been charged under E21, the FA is rule E21. So it's not like this is a rule that is sort of a some Millwall fans seem to think sections entirely aimed at them, and I think where it gets to is that it's when the chanting of something which is broadly speaking not to be accepted, becomes rather widespread and becomes a sort of joint crowd activity as opposed to one or two individual offenders who can be weeded out by a steward, and that seems to be the problem Millwall is that when these things happen, it can get taken up by a larger proportion of the crowd that would be the case at other clubs, but when you think about it, it's very hard for the people running Millwall to do a lot about this. In fact, they do make strenuous efforts, and I will say that, they, the Millwall management, the Millwall board, you know, I've known people who run Millwall

21:56in the past and they couldn't try any harder, they've got this campaign they've been running for a long time called All Wall, which is about inclusiveness and about bringing in and trying to sort of stamp and down some of the sort of the worst bits of behaviour. But the bottom line is, is that this is an area which has a lot of football clubs. So, you know, you've got Millwall, you've got Charlton, you've got Palace and you've got West Ham not too far away, you've then got the big North London clubs, you've got not that far away, you've got Chelsea and there's tons of them. It does tend to be the case that, you know, with the exception of a certain number of Millwall fans who actually live in Burmese or come from Burmese, to decide to be a Millwall fan when you come from the centre of London, is a choice and is a choice which will naturally be exercised more often by people who have an inclination towards a more aggressive type of fandom and it's extremely difficult for the people who run Millwall to change that because it's just self reinforcing. It's just, you know, if you come from Southeast London and you, you know, Charlton and Millwall are only four or five miles apart, it's walking distance, you know, if you

22:57decide I'm going to be a Millwall fan, rather than be a Charlton fan, it probably may well be because you prefer that style of fandom, not that Charlton fans are particularly tame but it's just, you know, it's just Millwall is, is that brand, isn't it? So do I think that they get picked on? Not really, I think people would love the idea of not picking on Millwall and I think probably actually from my experience they get picked up on stuff a bit less than would be the case at other clubs because if they were picked up on it all the time it would be quite persistent but when I've been there, I have been there and seen things in the main stand at Millwall that you just simply would not hear or see at other grounds and that I can't say fair and that I'm affectionate towards the club that the owners and the ball become a great, they try everything, I like the edge around it anyway so I'm not even particularly that fuss by it and always type of stuff but it would be totally dishonest of me not to mention the fact that you see and hear things there that you don't see and hear at other stadiums. Yeah and I do think Charlie and I'm with you by the way, I think

24:01that the edge that you get at Millwall is something to be wary of but it's also something honestly as a fan that I enjoy it makes the experience of going to Millwall and especially coming away for Millwall when you'd land back in central London getting off the trail of London Bridge and you're suddenly in normal London life and you can breathe a sigh really there's something exhilarating about that and I'll say the atmosphere as an away fan I've found at Millwall genuinely to be great you know proper raucous they're going to be behind their team that tends to bring the best out of your supporters and vice versa and it's good crack at Millwall but there is a kind of victim mentality I think around Millwall I saw Danny Baker tweeting recently about the horrendous events when Millwall played Luton in the mid 80s this was the game which triggered Margaret Thatcher into deciding football fans would all need membership cards or as a campaign at the time

25:04I described them identity cards and Baker was trying to suggest that this was a harbinger of Hillsborough now I have no doubt based on the many accounts that I've listened to of that night at Kennelworth Road that Millwall fans were pending that they were pushed and shoved and unfairly treated by the police but the idea that this was some kind of harbinger of the tragedy of Hillsborough I think is grossly mistaken the year before Millwall had come to West Brom they were there was no overcrowding that day they were not being pushed and shoved by the police but having beaten us 3-0 in the first leg of this season the days when I think second round games were over two legs they beat us 3-0 they turned out I think about 8,000 fans and when it was clear that their team was going to suffer then a big defeat we overturned the 3-0 deficit and beat them 5-1 when it was clear they were going to lose they simply left on mass from the away section and came into the home end the away section

26:11by the way was still full of police officers guarding no one and the Millwall fans came in the home end in the Bromney Road end and brushed it and it kicked off big time that was because those supporters had nothing more or less in mind than creating havoc and creating mayhem and I think it's disingenuous of Baker to suggest that that has not been part of Millwall's identity over the years I'm not saying that's true today of course it's still true today I think disingenuous is the right word you know I just hate to see posturing around these types of things I think it's just honesty is a better way forward and I think the Millwall statement club statement was honest when it came to these things you know saying look you know we understand the charge we understand the penalty we are doing everything we possibly can and they point to all the varicings they do both as a football club and with the community trust and with all types of saying we are doing our level best that we can just from a technical perspective I just want to just quickly discuss

27:14the operational perspective of this because ultimately this is down to stewarding and policing now what you'll normally see is at the control room of a football club you'll see a mixture of the safety officer of the club itself combined together with police officers looking at crowd behavior and making decisions about when to go in and remove people right because they're looking at CCTV and they sort of they know which area is the ground there might be a problem they might have intelligence about particular types particular people in fact who are attending and where they might be what called risk spectators the challenge that you have when stewarding and policing mill is it's not 50 or 100 trouble makers there's a problem because it's much harder to remove 1,000 or 2,000 people from the football ground than 50 or 60 if you just imagine the stewarding required to go in and start removing large numbers of people it's just very very difficult I mean you know any police officer will tell you that it's you know you're not going in and saying right you you over there

28:17I we saw what you did right you come on you're coming with us waiting in where you know that there are 100 or 200 people all stood together and saying right we're going to we're going to try and take you all out and that does cause a problem so I just for me to use that ghastly modern phrase it is what it is and the authorities whether it be Millwall Football Club or the police or the safety officers at Millwall Football Club or the FA when it comes to chanting all continually are doing their best to try to keep a lid on some of the worst bits that happen there but I wouldn't want to see it go any further than that by all means you know when it happens find the club because that will keep the club incentivized to keep on trying and keep on doing more but when it comes to things like stadium fans as in forcing Millwall to play matches in empty stadiums which is what the FA is now trying to achieve they're trying to get that you know the previous charge against Palace got a fine when the FA had hoped it would be a partial stadium vacation I'm a little bit concerned

29:18about like so I think that's when you do start to go down the path of trying to make every single stadium exactly the same you know wasn't that long ago I was at Elham Road and it wasn't that different you know you can start to close quite a few stadiums for the actions of a few 100 people in each stadiums and in each stadium and I'm just I'm just not quite clear that football today is in such a bad way and that this stuff is so endemic that it requires anything more draconian than fines great stuff Charlie thank you I'm thinking back to my last spot one trip to the den where as you sit in the way enclosure in the upper tier of the away and you look down and there was a lady there how can I describe a Charlie she was a I say politely as a gentleman a larger lady dressed in full Millwall kit the top the shorts the socks who spend their entire match goading the West Bromwich helping supporters and you had a little nipper it was probably about

30:22seven or eight standing at her side popping her every action I send her my best if you do want to comment on this episode by the way if you're a Millwall fan you get anything to say about the World Cup by all means drop me an email to Goldberg Radio at gmail.com that's Goldberg Radio at gmail.com thank you very much indeed for Jed Thomas for his production assistance with this episode and thank you also to Mark Macharda at football smash for putting us on YouTube and Instagram and so on whichever outlet you listen to us on whether it's on YouTube Apple Spotify or ever don't forget to hit subscribe and share the good word with your friends thanks Charlie we'll see you again soon cheers now bye bye I see Adrian