Conversations with the people building soccer’s next chapter.

Former Manchester United, Chelsea and Spain midfielder Juan Mata and his business partner Jürgen Griesbeck join Simon Evans to launch Unleash Football, a new project that aims to give players, fans and the wider football community a bigger say in how the game is run. Unleash Football is part of the C Lab framework. It lets anyone take part by answering questions on an anonymous survey platform. Mata and Griesbeck say the results will be a "mandate" from the game: a first wave of data that can be built on in later waves and shared with governing bodies, candidates in the FIFA presidential election, and the media. The project was unveiled at the World Football Summit.

Sam Mewis signed her first pro contract for $15,000. Ten years later, the league she came up in has free agency, purpose-built stadiums and a wave of brands that had never touched sport before. In this episode, I spoke to two USWNT world champions, Emily Sonnett and Sam Mewis. We discussed how they turned a sport that barely had a league into a career, what it takes to build a team around you as a pro, and how they're planning for life after the final whistle.

Como's rise from Serie D to Serie A is one of the most unlikely stories in modern football — but what's happening off the pitch might be even more interesting than what's happening on it. In this episode, I travelled to Lake Como to sit down with President Mirwan Suwarso to break down how the club engineered its climb through Italian football, and the innovative commercial strategy powering its next chapter — one that leans into tourism, fashion, and food as much as it does results on the pitch. We talk about:The blueprint behind Como's rapid rise from Serie D to Serie A. Why Como is positioning itself as a lifestyle brand, not just a football club. How tourism, fashion, and food fit into the club's revenue strategy What other clubs can learn from Como's approach to commercial growth. The vision for Como's future in Serie A and beyond

Kay Cossington spent 20 years building women's football from the inside at England's FA — then walked straight into private equity. Now she's CEO of Bay Collective and Head of Global Women's Football at Sixth Street, running a multi-club ownership platform with no ceiling on ambition. She talks through the FA's "What It Takes to Win" model that led to hiring Sarina Wiegman, why England never tried to copy the US college pipeline, and what she really thinks happens when private equity money meets a sport still building its infrastructure. Plus: the uncomfortable question nobody's asking about patient capital versus the five-year-flip playbook already familiar from the men's game.

Robert Faulkner, Chief Business & Communications Officer of Wrexham joined Simon Evans at the World Football Summit in Madrid to break down the club's growth and the latest challenges.

Women’s soccer is no longer just a game on the field - it’s an emerging asset class, and Chelsee Washington knows exactly why that matters. From becoming the first player drafted from her college into the NWSL to working in sports finance and investment today, she breaks down the business side of the women’s game.

Zavier Gozo from Salt Lake to Premier League Crystal Palace, Sebastian Berhalter and Max Arfsten to Middlesbrough, even two USL strikers moving to Scotland. Why are British and European clubs suddenly buying players from MLS and USL? And can MLS and USL grow by being 'selling leagues'? Tom Bogert of The Athletic, America's number one journalist on soccer's transfer market, joins The Soccer Business to take a look at what is going on?

Jennifer Levine, Vice President of Communications and Public Relations with the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) joins the pod to talk about the growth of the league, their core and target audiences, how the league is story telling and whether there is competition with other women's sports league such as the WNBA. This is the first of our new series 'The Women's Soccer Business Podcast.

Clubs are paying for mountains of player data — and using as little as 15% of it. Dean Bracha, founder of Marquee, joins the launch episode of The Stack to explain how his Tel Aviv-based platform is using AI to close that gap, and why he thinks most recruitment departments are still making multi-million-pound decisions on a fraction of the information available to them.