BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - BudPod Classic #4 - Football Oracle

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Every Monday we will be releasing a hilarious snippet of a 'Classic' episode of BudPod for you to enjoy and reminisce in.This week’s BudPod Classic takes us back to Episode 111- 'Caveman's Wages'. Phil and Pierre discuss the ill-fated 'European Super League' and their solution to the unpopular 'VAR' (Video Assistant Referee). Release date: 21st April, 2021Link to the full episode below -Apple PodcastsSpotifyEnjoy and KOJI ! X Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. If the New Year's resolution you made to read more books is not quite panning out, don't sweat it. I've got you covered. I'm Mattea Roach, and my new podcast Bookends is all about discovering great books and getting to know the writers behind them. Like Brian Leo Malley, whose personal connection to Toronto helped him create the icon Scott Pilgrim. Bookends with Matea Roach is available now wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

acast.com. Whatever has happened, it's been condemned by like football hooligans, the prime minister, Prince William, the Guardian, the Times, the Sun, like everyone on earth. Like Macron has said something about it. I was like, what the fuck has happened? It was like football had made the decision to align with ISIS. At the end of Watchmen, nuclear war is avoided because a giant alien destroys Manhattan and the entire world gets behind fighting this one common enemy. And the Super League has done the same thing.

I think in a few years time the Super League is going to get the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing everyone together under the banner of the Super League is a horrible idea. Do you understand what the Super League is a horrible idea. Do you understand what the Super League is? I just have the working knowledge. Well, I've asked a few people to explain it to me and from what I can tell... I'm hurt. I wasn't asked, Pierre.

I'm hurt. Well, you know, you're like the Oracle. I can only ask you so many football questions per year. Before I get too tired. Yeah, before you stop swirling and all that smoke nude and fall down. That's the Oracle in 300. And after I saw that, ever since I saw that, I'm like, were Oracles really naked or was that just because that was Zack Snyder? Yeah, that's it's hard to say, isn't it? I mean, I would like I would like a sort of nude oracle in a cave who's like blind, swirling around to be what VAR is.

Right. Okay. When they just go, well, was it a goal or not? And then they just cut to this like, Yeah, they're like, we can't tell if it's a goal or not. And the referee just pulls out a torch and lights it. And he says, I may be a while. And he walks off the page. And everyone just has to wait. Yeah. He pulls a hood over his head and walks through the tunnels. Yeah, the referee's cloak is like still a referee's uniform. The stripes, it's still stripes. Yeah.

And he does that same sort of run, that same sort of, I'm a referee run. Yeah, with his shoulders back and up. And the ass stuck out the back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jogging up the hill with the torch. Yeah, exactly. All the players standing around, kind of spitting and kicking their boots around.

And all these people in pubs. In my opinion, the Oracle's fucking ruined the game. It's either a fucking goal or it's not. I don't want some fucking swirly mystic slag in a cave to fucking disallow. Why does the oracle, in all her infinite wisdom, always favour United? And of course that article for the New Statesman about how criticism of the oracle can sometimes veer into misogyny. And you have to be careful.

One has to ask oneself, would I be saying this if the oracle was a man? Yes, if it was a bald fat guy in his 50s swirling around in a cave. Which he would be. The one logical inconsistency of Zack Snyder's otherwise watertight depiction of ancient Greece is that the oracle who is chained to the ground and can't exercise is physically fit. Yeah, great shape. She's a hottie.

And you're like, doesn't this all she does? She should be, yeah, the oracle should be a fat middle-aged man just like, I really need to do more cardio. Yeah, unless she's chained to the ground near a Pilates class. And also the sacrifices are always like roast lamb. That's very fattening. You know what I'm sick of, Phil? I'm sick of these beautiful in-shape oracles pretending that they're just like regular people like us and they eat roast lamb sacrifices.

They clearly don't. It's just a PR stunt. Yeah, they're thin washing oracles. And it has to stop. We need more fat oracles. We need to talk about oracles, Pierre. We need to. I mean, the oracles already knew that we need, they knew before we needed to talk about them, that we would eventually need to talk about them.

So you know, actually, there's poor form from them not to tell us that we would eventually need to talk about oracles. If someone was really an oracle, they should come across as the most bored and frustrated person you've ever met. Yeah, well, it'd be like, I guess this is a Watchmen heavy episode, but it'd be like Dr. Manhattan saying, I tire of these people. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know so much, you know everything that's going to happen. You just be bored. Well, that's easy. Yeah, you'd be hard pressed not to end every sentence by going, DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU of the Battle of Thermopylae. But it's basically... Just a couple of lads! The Super League is basically all the... It's all the older boys have gotten together and said the younger boys aren't allowed in their special club unless they fight each other for it. So it's like six English clubs and three other clubs yet to be confirmed.

Oh no, wait, and three European clubs and, well, I think 15 like total, 15 in total super clubs, including like Barcelona, Real Madrid and stuff. The biggest boys. They make up this league and they can never... They can never be kicked out. They can never be relegated from it. Yeah. And then the final five are people who will have to qualify

to be in it every season, and they can be relegated. And they just have to fight for a guest star role. But then what happens if one of the top clubs comes last one season, and then they stay in the second-last club, who are not of the special 15, has to go? That must now be embarrassing for the super club at the bottom. I mean, you'd think so, but the thing that confused me about how upset everyone was,

the only way it's made sense to me is it was explained to me that this removed a lot of money from the other things featuring the less powerful clubs. Like it does take away a lot of their money, and potentially a lot of their TV money, advertising money. So obviously, if one of the mega clubs plays one of the smaller clubs at the smaller club stadium, they sell lots of tickets and they get some TV money.

I see. I see. So I was like, oh, OK. But then that's the only thing that made sense to me, because up to that point, all I saw was people going like, I can't believe that football is being a kind of corrupt, unfair money fight. It's like, what? Yeah. What? this being a kind of corrupt, unfair money fight. It's like, what? Yeah, what? Well, yeah, I guess this is the epitome of that quibble. This is just most blatant exercise in the money grab.

I guess that's what people are annoyed about. And also it's literally sportsmanship, it's just very bad sportsmanship. It's just kind of embarrassing and naff. Yeah, that's true, actually. I hadn't thought of that. But yeah, I just thought these. You hadn't thought of the sportsmanship?

No, genuinely. I literally see them as like hedge funds. I mean, they are. Yeah, they are at this point. But then I guess the main argument is something like from time to time, you get a Leicester City come up and suddenly, like this Ma and Pa football team becomes Coca-Cola. And that's exciting, I guess.

But then it's just Coca-Cola for a while. But even then, like, Leicester City had to get bought by a Thai billionaire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like a young, up-and-coming, old billionaire. Who'd have thought, you know, it just all took like this enormous injection of money. Sort of unparalleled injection of money and then, you know, skill and a bit of chance. And that's like the fun narrative.

But beyond that, like, I definitely support a local team if it was actually a local team, but it's always just like, this American hedge fund and its team of Brazilian recruits are going to fight that Saudi prince and his team of pretending to be Geordie Spanish people. And we'll see who wins. It just seems so mercenary and strange. It's globalization the game. Yeah, exactly.

Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. So you enjoy a good podcast and you also like comedy? Look no further than the Pantelis podcast. I'm Pantelis and this is my podcast. Every week I'm coming at you with a different reason to be angry, whether it's current events or arguing with my comedian friends that also pop into the show. The Pantelis Podcast drops new episodes weekly powered by Acast. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere.

Acast.com