Part Two: The Worst Team Owner in FIFA History: Uday Hussein

Summary

Behind the Bastards – Part Two: The Worst Team Owner in FIFA History: Uday Hussein

Podcast: Behind the Bastards (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Date: July 9, 2026
Hosts: Brett Goldstein & Molly Conger
Summary by [Your Name]

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the life and crimes of Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, focusing on his infamous tenure as Iraq’s football czar (team owner, head of the Olympic Committee, and effectively, football dictator). The hosts explore Uday’s indifference to the sport, the brutal torture of athletes under his regime, the bizarre myth of his body doubles, and his ultimate irrelevance and demise. The episode is both darkly humorous (in typical "Behind the Bastards" fashion) and disturbing, exposing the intersection of despotism, nepotism, and international sport.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Uday Hussein’s Rise to Football Power (04:43–06:19)

• Nepotism at the Core: Uday is made head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and Football Association at age 20 by his father, despite having no real interest in football.
  • "Saddam made his son the football czar. His son, who, again, does not particularly care for football. This would be a dream job for someone who liked the club or was an aspiring player." – Brett (05:23)
• Harm Reduction via Nepotism: Saddam may have chosen football for Uday because he was less likely to damage the country there than in more essential roles.
  • "You could argue that putting Uday in charge of the football team was, like, the least damage he could do." – Brett (06:09)

Torture & Abuse of Players (06:20–18:22)

• Red Rooms and Torture Chambers: Uday establishes "red rooms" in sporting facilities to punish players who displeased him, with torture ranging from threats to flogging with electric cables and even more sadistic methods.
  • "He began torturing his players...constructing a series of red rooms...places where players...could be sent and punished." – Brett (06:20)
• Performance-Linked Punishment: Failure on the field—especially missed penalty shots—meant personal risk to players. Many refused to take penalty shots out of fear.
  • "Most members of Al Rashid started refusing to take penalty shots because...nobody's willing to do it." – Brett (10:03)
  • "If no one accepted, we would all be punished." – Abbas Rahim Zaire to The Guardian (11:00)
• Notable Incident: Team captain Yasser Abdul Latif describes brutal, days-long floggings and solitary confinement after minor infractions.
  • "The torture continued in two hour sets with an hour's break in between..." – Brett quoting The Guardian (13:00)
  • "They threatened me if I didn't participate...they would beat me again and...consider me an enemy of the regime, and that would mean death." – Latif (14:25)

The “Manager” and the Coach: Ammo Baba (15:53–18:30)

• Ammo Baba – The Beloved Coach: Despite Uday’s tyranny, legendary coach Ammo Baba earns enough love from Iraqis to largely shield himself from Uday’s worst abuse—though not completely.
  • "His lofty status could not always protect him, as Uday once personally beat him in front of 50,000 spectators..." – Brett quoting Justin Sherman (17:14)
  • "'He talked nonsense, Baba recalled about Uday. I told him to go to hell. I said, he knew nothing about football. How did I survive? Because the people loved me.'" – Ammo Baba (17:32)
• Host Reactions: Awe at Baba’s courage and composure.
  • "This guy is so cool. I cannot exaggerate how chill Ammo Baba seems." – Brett (18:24)

Uday’s Personal Downfall: Murder, Exile, and a Swiss Adventure (20:16–24:12)

• Patricide of Sorts: Uday murders his father's close confidante Kamal Hana Jajo in a fit of jealousy, leading to a brief jail stint and forced exile in Switzerland, where he brawls with cops.
  • "Saddam clearly likes Joshua a lot more than Uday, which may have been why Uday hated him." – Brett (20:52)
• Swiss Sojourn: His brashness and violence do not disappear in exile.
  • "Not long after he moves to Geneva, he gets into a fist fight with a cop at a bar and his dad makes him come home..." – Brett (24:12)

The Body Double Myth (32:57–35:53)

• The “Fidei” Legend: Stories of Uday’s schoolmate Latif Yahya serving as his coerced lookalike emerge, largely unsupported by outside evidence; however, these tales circulated widely, including in films and Western media.
  • "He was eventually portrayed in a film adaptation of his book, also called the Devil's Double." – Brett (35:22)
• Western Gullibility: The hosts point out that such unchallenged, colorful stories about Saddam’s Iraq were devoured by a credulous media eager for anti-Hussein narratives.
  • "The network news loves to have a guy on that will always say yes and will always say something crazy." – Molly (35:53)

The Reality of Torture: Testimonies from Players (39:28–48:30)

• Graphic Testimonies: Multiple athletes, often named and corroborated, describe systematic torture: electric cables, gravel dragging, sewage, sleep deprivation.
  • "He says he was hit repeatedly on the soles of his feet, dragged on his bare back through a gravel pit, and then made to jump into a tank of sewage..." – Sharar Haidar Mohammed al Hadithi (40:35)
  • "Their captain would mock them, saying, but that's a male mosquito, you fools. I want a female one. Start looking again." – As described by Sharar (41:54)
  • "Every morning, his personal executioners beat me 50 to 70 times with an electric cable." – Abbas Talawi, opposing team captain (46:45)
• Ineffectiveness & Sadism: Players speculate that Uday’s punishments were more about personal sadism than improving team performance.
  • "I think he just likes doing the torture, to be honest." – Molly (42:08)
  • "I think this has just become an outlet for his anger...he gets to go punch the team when he's pissed." – Brett (42:28)

FIFA’s Failure & International Complicity (56:18–58:34)

• FIFA’s Inaction: Despite repeated reports and visible injuries, FIFA declines to act meaningfully, accepting denials from the Iraqi football organization and refusing to bar Iraq from competition.
  • "They carried out an investigation, but Iraq denied anything had happened...there was no evidence." – Brett (56:57)
  • "What’s undeniable is they did nothing...they just continue acting like everything is fine." – Brett (58:10)

Uday’s Criminal Empire & Later Years (59:59–64:44)

• Expanding Criminal Enterprises: Uday profits off sanctions, runs myriad grifts, including seizing players’ salaries when they sign overseas, and expands into bizarre ventures (Super Chicken fast food, The Wave ice cream).
  • "Uday's criminal empire was involved in smuggling...alongside running a fast food restaurant chain called Super Chicken and an ice cream company called the Wave." – BBC (60:56)
• “Father of Wolves”: Uday cultivates a fearsome image, running a “fedayeen” militia—allegedly with Star Wars-like helmets—who quickly surrender or flee in actual combat.
• Violent Decline & Attempted Assassination: Uday survives an assassination attempt in 1996, is left disabled, but becomes even more violent and unpredictable.
  • "Uday survives, but permanently injured. He would spend the rest of his life in wheelchairs or using a cane. This contributed to further slight." – Brett (55:29)
• Doctoral “Thesis” & Literary Pretensions: In a desperate bid for legitimacy, Uday has someone ghostwrite a massive “thesis” about geopolitics, predicting American decline by 2015 and rise of Japan, China, and the EU.

The End: U.S. Invasion and Legacy (65:08–69:32)

• Fall of Baghdad: Upon the U.S. invasion, Uday’s torture chambers, personal zoo, and porn collection are discovered. Uday and his brother are ultimately killed by U.S. forces.
  • "They found he only one bear. Drug collections. He had a lot of drugs, he had a lot of liquor...He has a massive like porn printed out porn collection." – Brett (65:36)
  • "Uday and his brother are killed by US forces at a compound they were inhabiting...he's killed and obviously his days as a...force of power within the world of professional soccer come to an end." – Brett (67:17)
• Iraq Returns to World Cup: The hosts note that the national team qualified for the World Cup in 2026—a positive sign after decades of abuse.
  • "Their team is now without Uday, made it back to the World cup and is there again. That's great. That's hopeful for the future." – Brett (69:15)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Saddam made his son the football czar. His son, who, again, does not particularly care for football." – Brett (05:23)
• "He began torturing his players...constructing a series of red rooms..." – Brett (06:20)
• "If no one accepted, we would all be punished." – Abbas Rahim Zaire (11:00)
• "I never had any choice. They threatened me if I didn't participate in the team. They said they would beat me again and again and consider me an enemy of the regime, and that would mean death." – Yasser Abdul Latif (14:25)
• "This guy is so cool. I cannot exaggerate how chill Ammo Baba seems." – Brett (18:24)
• "We know he's torturing. We know he's raping. You don't need to spice it up." – Brett (35:01)
• "He just likes doing the torture, to be honest." – Molly (42:08)
• "What’s undeniable is they did nothing." – Brett on FIFA's response (58:10)
• "He was a Renaissance man. You know, he runs a football team. He tortures a football team. He runs an ice cream company. He tortures ice cream and gets sales." – Brett (61:01)
• "That's their best guy. That's like their fucking Messi. That's their legend. That's crazy." – Brett (48:32)
• "He would have loved Grok. The interview with that, that Captain Blanco about like what they found in Uday's house is endlessly entertaining." – Brett (67:29)

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Additional Host Insights & Humor

• Dark Humor on Soccer Torture: The hosts occasionally riff darkly on the cruelty while noting its absurdity and ineffectiveness ("Sewage in open wounds rarely makes football...Tom Brady thinks drinking water prevents sunburns...").
• Musings on FIFA, Football Culture, & Torture Myths: Molly and Brett lampoon both Western readiness to believe wild stories and the ongoing problems of international sports governance.
• “Super Chicken” and Welfare of Fast Food: The existence of Uday's fast-food empire is mocked as the final absurdity in his CV of horrors.

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Timestamps for Major Sections

• Uday’s Football Takeover: 04:43–06:19
• Origins and Rituals of Abuse: 06:20–18:22
• Coach Ammo Baba & His Resistance: 15:53–18:30
• Uday’s Personal Crimes, Exile & Return: 20:16–24:12
• Body Double Myths: 32:57–35:53
• Player Testimonies of Torture: 39:28–48:30
• Systemic FIFA Failure: 56:18–58:34
• Criminal Empire & Grifting: 59:59–64:44
• Final Years & U.S. Invasion: 65:08–69:32
• Hope for Iraqi Football: 68:40–69:32

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Takeaway

This episode illustrates not only the personal cruelty and dysfunction of Uday Hussein but also the enabling environment of international sports organizations and dictatorships. The harrowing stories of Iraqi footballers, their bizarre and tragic experiences under Uday, and the host’s sharp commentary both inform and indict systems far beyond one “bastard.”

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“Not the torture parts. Not the sewage in the wounds parts…but overall, in terms of what you could present to me today, I’m very pleased.”
– Molly Conger (69:32)

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For more, listen to “Behind the Bastards,” and subscribe to Molly Conger’s podcast, “Weird Little Guys.”

Transcript

[Brett Goldstein]

Call Zone Media. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast where the President has just found out about that Republican member of Congress or the member of his administration, not Congress, who's been talking about teleporting places. What's that guy's name? I spaced on him. I just read Trump's reaction where he was like, I don't know. He's talking about teleporting. What? I gotta get to the bottom of that. I haven't heard it. I haven't heard about that. That sounds kind of crazy. It was a very, like, normal. It was one of those. Every now and then you get those moments where Trump has the same reaction to something as, like, a normal person, and it's just, like, unaccountably funny because he's clearly just hearing about it. He's like. He's saying, what? Teleporting?

[Molly Conger]

That guy's job. He works at, like, DHS now or something?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, something important.

[Molly Conger]

Some kind of important job. But he'll teleport to a Waffle House if he needs to.

[Brett Goldstein]

It's really funny. Just seeing him react to it is just clear, like, he's.

[Tony Ayo]

Who?

[Just Food for Dogs Ad Voice]

What?

[Molly Conger]

Does he know what teleporting even is? No, especially because that news was from, like, a month ago.

[Brett Goldstein]

I feel like I would know if one of my subordinates was claiming to have teleported to a Waffle House.

[Molly Conger]

You don't know what I get up to in my spare time.

[Brett Goldstein]

I don't. I don't. But I do know what things you claim to do. I at least pay that much attention. That's a big thing to miss, like. But, hey, he's got a lot of work to do. He's gonna get to the bottom Reflecting pond and the war and such, you know? Molly, are you ready to talk about Uday Hussein some more? Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys.

[Podcast Announcer]

Weird Little Guys. Weird Little Guys.

[Molly Conger]

Weird Little Guys. I'm excited.

[Brett Goldstein]

Excellent. All right. Drink more of my horrible health drink.

[Podcast Announcer]

Drinking strange colored beverage.

[Molly Conger]

Robert's Drinking pond water.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, it's from the reflecting pool.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Mmm.

[Brett Goldstein]

Orange. Wait, your drink is also funny colored Molly.

[Molly Conger]

No, this is plain water in my favorite cup, which is a blue jar.

[Brett Goldstein]

Oh, that is weird. That's upsetting. I don't believe jars should be blue.

[Podcast Announcer]

It's beautiful. Yeah, I don't like that.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, if God wanted jars to be blue, that color would occur in nature.

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[Brett Goldstein]

At the time of Iraq's first World cup appearance, Uday Hussein was president of the Iraqi Olympic Committee, a job he had received at age 20, and head of the Iraqi Football Association. He was also the owner of Al Rashid, Iraq's premier football club. Their team gets to play in the Iraqi Stars League, which is the highest division in the country. And since Al Rashid was the most Prominent club. And Uday also ran the Olympic team. This meant that from age 20 on, Uday is basically dictator of football in Iraq. Right. Like, he's an. Even if you're not on his team, if he's not your direct boss, he basically runs how football works in the whole country. Right.

[Molly Conger]

He's the football czar.

[Brett Goldstein]

He's the football czar, yes. Saddam made his son the football czar. His son, who, again, does not particularly care for football. This would be a dream job for

[Molly Conger]

someone who liked the club or, like, was an aspiring player.

[Brett Goldstein]

He does not appear to have any interest.

[Molly Conger]

Is this sort of parked him here?

[Brett Goldstein]

It's just kind of the job he wound up with. Like, it's different from all of the other nepotism cases like this in that Uday does not really seem to want to run a football team. Right.

[Molly Conger]

Like, he could have made him a general or put him in charge of, like, help him. Yeah.

[Brett Goldstein]

There's so many other things he'd rather be doing, but he sucks at all of them.

[Molly Conger]

Infrastructure project. Because didn't he get a degree in engineering? He could have made a. Yeah, but

[Brett Goldstein]

I don't think that was a real degree, Molly. He didn't go to real school. He has other people doing his classwork for him.

[Molly Conger]

But he could have, at least. If you're Saddam infrastructure, you can't.

[Brett Goldstein]

I'm not going to, like, Saddam was not overall a responsible man, but you could argue that putting Uday in charge of the football team was, like, the least damage he could do.

[Molly Conger]

It was harm reduction.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Right?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. Like, if this guy gets. Is involved anywhere in, like, the power grid, we're going to have problems. So we don't know precisely what Uday did to the national team after what he considered to be their failure at the World cup, but there are suggestions that he began torturing his players around this time. Ro Moody, one of his best players, retired the next year, which is kind of, like, sometimes seen as a sign that that's probably why that, like, Rod retires early, which is really weird. And maybe it's because after this defeat, Uday fucked him up. Right.

[Pharmaceutical Ad Voice]

It wasn't.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, I don't want to be in. This is the. This is football. I don't want to be in this kind of football. Uday had his people construct a series of red rooms, what they called red rooms in Iraqi state sporting facilities. These were places where players who failed during important points in games or training or otherwise irritated Uday could be sent and punished, depending on the trespass in question. This could vary from mere threats. Uday was particularly known to threaten to chop people's legs off. That was like, one of his.

[Molly Conger]

Well, you're not gonna get any better at soccer after that.

[Brett Goldstein]

No. That's not gonna improve their ability.

[Molly Conger]

He never.

[Brett Goldstein]

I don't think he ever did this. This appeared. That was just something he would repeatedly threaten. He may have had some legs broken, though. He would also.

[Molly Conger]

That would also not improve your soccer playing.

[Brett Goldstein]

Not going to help. He would also threaten to, like, feed pieces of players to dogs, you know, and he would also use dogs or threaten to use dogs to abuse them. Don't bring dogs. The beatings that players.

[Podcast Announcer]

Yeah.

[Brett Goldstein]

I don't know how often he actually had the dogs maim them because he usually didn't hurt them all that badly because, again, they are still playing. But when he would beat them, like,

[Molly Conger]

there are ways you can punish people that won't make them less able to play soccer.

[Just Food for Dogs Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Brett Goldstein]

And I do think most of these are, like, threats of the crazier stuff, because when it talks about the actual beatings that. I mean, it's usually most of the claims that Uday ordered people to do these beatings. Some accounts will say that Uday participated in torture. Some accounts will say he never did. I don't actually know which is. Is true, but I think he generally, at least. Generally these are people who are working for him doing the torture, and they're administering. They're usually. The way they're physically punishing these guys is whipping them with electric cables. Right. Like, that's kind of the go to physical punishment, at least.

[Molly Conger]

Why not make them run labs?

[Brett Goldstein]

They do that, too. But that's not really torture. That's just like normal workout stuff. I mean, you can do it in a way that's abusive, certainly, but that's not. That's not going to satisfy a guy like Uday. He is alleged. And there's. I mean, they did find, you know, the. Like the Iron Maiden, that thing where it's like this big metal coffin you put someone in that's got spikes on the inside that you can screw into them. Put him in the poke and find one of those at a facility that was supposed to have been Udes. Like, there are accusations that he was really into that, specifically into old timey torture techniques. Again, it's kind of hard to tell how much of this is literally true because I've never run any accounts of him, actually, that are of any detail of him iron maidening somebody to death. Maybe he just had one because it looked Scary, right?

[Molly Conger]

He was just a hobbies.

[Brett Goldstein]

He may have Iron Maiden people to death who weren't on the team. I just haven't heard of him doing that to team members, you know, or maybe, yeah, maybe he never got around to it yet. You know, it's like his unpainted models. It was for show or whatever in the corner, right? Because creativity is kind of what gives life its zest. Uday took to experimenting, or at least having his torturers experiment over time, as the early methods of violence did not improve the team's functioning. He found that in time, whipping people bloody with an electric cable was fun. But what really took things up a notch was afterwards, if you would throw them into, like, a pit filled with sewage, you know, then you could really mess people up. They get these horrific infections and stuff. And that makes sense that a lot. Yeah, that definitely helps. That helps their game is giving them fucking staff infections. The red rooms, I think, as far as I can tell, probably got their name both for, like, the obvious reason and also as a reference to the red cards that are thrown out in football games when a player makes, like, a penalty. And if you. If you're not aware of sports, right, A penalty shot is one of those moments in competitive sports where everything comes down to the actions, like a single player, right? If you get to take a penalty shot, no one else is kind of. It's just, can you make this shot right? As an individual player? This means that one person is to blame if a penalty shot is missed. And because people who fail on the Iraqi football team get beaten and tortured, most members of Al Rashid started refusing to take penalty shots because you can't be like, oh, but that wasn't my fault. It was this guy. Or it was. I didn't get the ball entirely right. Like, everyone watched you fail to make that shot, and so nobody's willing to do it. Eventually, they only have, like, three guys on the team who are willing to actually take penalty shots. And these are brave men. One of them was Abbas Rahim Zaire. He told the Guardian, many of the footballers refused to even touch the ball. But then we realized that if no one accepted, we would all be punished. So Zaire basically agrees to be one of the guys who will make penalty shots so that they don't all get tortured. It's the only way to deal with that. In one game, Zaire attempts a penalty shot and misses. Two days later, when the team returned home to Baghdad, he was ordered to show up at the Olympic Committee headquarters, which had become UDAY'S lair, complete with a basement torture chamber. Per the Guardian, he was blindfolded and taken away to a prison camp for three weeks. He shrugged. End of story. That's him, like talking to the reporter there that he doesn't want to talk about having to the prison camp. I do have some details from other people what happens at the prison camps. So getting a penalty was just as bad, if not worse than failing at a penalty shot. Right? If you fail at a shot, you're going to get tortured because you didn't make a point when you could have. If you make. If you, if you do a penalty and the other team gets to make a penalty shot, you're going to be punished for giving them, you know, that point, basically, right?

[Molly Conger]

Being the goalie has got to be a. It's the worst position on the team.

[Brett Goldstein]

No position on the team under Uday,

[Molly Conger]

but goalie, goalie is one of the only positions on the team where, again, like, it's like the penalty shot where it's on you, you all want you. You let the ball.

[Brett Goldstein]

There's a lot of opportunities for you to be the guy who gets the blame. That's obviously not fair, but, like, that's how it's got to be looked at, by fucking.

[Molly Conger]

I wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want to be. I wouldn't want to be Uday's goalie.

[Brett Goldstein]

I would not want to be the goalie under Uday Hussein. So that piece in the Guardian describes what happened to Yasser Abdul Latif, former team captain, in 2000, after he was accused of hitting the referee during a club match in Baghdad. He was taken to the Radwanya prison camp on the edges of the Capitol and confined to a cell 2 meters square with a tiny window high in the wall. His head and eyebrows were shaved and he was stripped to the waist. He was then ordered to perform press ups for two hours. Three guards flogged him with links of electric cables, spelling off when their arms grew tired. The torture continued in two hour sets with an hour's break in between. And the beatings grew more savage as Lateef tired. The only relief, if it could be called that, came when he was let outdoors into the winter cold and doused in freezing water.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know that that's. I mean, you shouldn't put your hands on the ref.

[Brett Goldstein]

Does that help with their footage? You shouldn't put your hands on the

[Molly Conger]

ref, but I don't think that's a fair punishment.

[Brett Goldstein]

I think obviously it's bad to put your hands on the ref that seems

[Molly Conger]

it wants a red card for sure.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a red card. Maybe.

[Molly Conger]

Perhaps, you know, maybe. Maybe a five match ban, depending on what you did to the ref for

[Brett Goldstein]

days in a cell. Yeah, maybe.

[Tony Ayo]

Extreme.

[Molly Conger]

I think it's. Did he rejoin the team after this, or was that kind of it for him?

[Brett Goldstein]

No, no, he stays back on the team. It takes more. He noted in his interview, first off, he's in that prison camp for two weeks. He goes through this for two straight weeks, and it's more than it takes. Well, first it takes a month before he can even sleep on his back again. But, yes, after he recovers, he goes back to play for the team. And this is what he said, because the guardian asks him, basically what you did. They're like, and you went back? And he says, I mean, I guess

[Molly Conger]

he didn't have a choice.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, that's what he says. I never had any choice. They threatened me if I didn't participate in the team. They said they would beat me again and again and consider me an enemy of the regime, and that would mean death. So, again, he doesn't have.

[Molly Conger]

I guess he was really good at soccer. Unfortunately for him.

[Brett Goldstein]

I mean, it's also probably hard to find. Like, after a while, you would stop wanting other people to know you were good at soccer in Iraq.

[Molly Conger]

You would not put your kids in youth soccer for sure.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, I might avoid that for my kids.

[Molly Conger]

You're not playing pickup games.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. So the power and money Uday got from his position and from being able to torture people were far more of his passion than, you know, football. Most people who knew him will note that he wasn't a big sports guy and hadn't cared about the national team until Saddam told him, hey, you can win my approval if you avoid fucking that up. The Guardian's reporting notes that in order to burnish his team's performance, he, quote, kept a private torture scorecard with written instructions on how many times each player should be beaten on the soles of his feet after a particularly poor showing. And you'll find allegations like that repeated by numerous sources. Where some differ is in whether or not Uday participated in the torture himself or was just a fastidious manager. Now, the team coach for most of this time was Emmanuel Baba Dawoud, better known as Ammo Baba. He's fucking cool guy. Ammo Baba, like Ammo, like bullets Baba. Cool nickname. Yeah, very cool nickname. Ammo was a former footballer himself. He'd been a star in the 1950s during the Iraqi team's early days of glory. And he became the team coach in 1978. Again, when I said, probably the reason why the team performed so well today's first couple of years in charge is because a better, a really good coach had started a couple of years earlier, right, Baba Ammo starts working there in 1978. By the time Uday comes in, like four to five years later or whatever, he's gotten the team, like, into a really good position, right? So because Ammo is so clearly good at his job, he is beloved by Iraqis, and that means he's one of the few people with some clout he's able to resist Uday on occasion and without getting murdered. Right, because Uday can't quite murder him in public.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Right?

[Molly Conger]

You can't mess with a good thing.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. And they do argue a lot. Uday doesn't know shit about football. So the two have, like, screaming fights with some regularity. Sophie's going to show you a picture of Ammo Baba, by the way. This guy looks fucking awesome. Yeah, look at him in his fucking. He's so cool.

[Podcast Announcer]

He's wearing his fucking puma tracksuit.

[Brett Goldstein]

He's clearly a puma tracksuit. Fucking like black, dark, Einstein almost styled hair. Like, he's so cool looking. I can't believe he's not smoking. He looks like he should be smoking.

[Podcast Announcer]

What a friend.

[Molly Conger]

No, that's Grandpa. That's Grandpa Munster.

[Podcast Announcer]

What a fantastic nose this man has.

[Brett Goldstein]

He's got an amazing nose. He's so cool looking. I love him.

[Podcast Announcer]

I love him so much. I'm so sad that he had to deal with voodoo.

[Brett Goldstein]

You're gonna love Ammo more because Ammo Baba's fucking cool. Here's how Justin Sherman describes Ammo for these football times. Baba's outspoken nature against Uday would garner admiration and cult like devotion from many Iraqis, effectively shielding him from being killed because of the unrest it would unleash through the streets. Still, his lofty status could not always protect him, as Uday once personally beat him in front of 50,000 spectators at the Al Shab International Stadium. He talked nonsense, Baba recalled about Uday. I told him to go to hell. I said, he knew nothing about football. How did I survive? Because the people loved me. So cool.

[Molly Conger]

So, you know, I've been watching the World cup and I keep telling my husband, you know, like, because one of the first matches we watched there were like an insane number of red cards, like a record number of red cards. And I was saying, like, yeah, it's Kind of. It's kind of more fun. It's a little bit more fun. When it gets a little. When it gets a little testy, you know, people are pushing the shovel a little bit. I take it back. I take it back. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see the manager of the team flog the coach on

[Brett Goldstein]

the field, flog the coach in front of 50,000 people. And Elmo basically just stands there and is like, all right, if you're going to beat me, just beat me. You know, like, he's so cool, but

[Molly Conger]

you're the one who looks stupid.

[Brett Goldstein]

This guy is so cool. I cannot exaggerate how chill Ammo Baba seems.

[Molly Conger]

At least how chill he comes across the beating. That's the right attitude to bring to the beating. Like, you're the one who looks foolish here, bud.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. You're the one who's losing control and being an asshole in public, you know, so. By the way, I also figure since we just saw Amo Baba, I should show you a picture at this point of the big guy, Saddam Hussein, and his oldest son Uday, together. This is from around the time we're talking about. This would be 80s, somewhere around then. Yeah. They're handsome guys. Look at them. Look at them.

[Molly Conger]

Look, they got matching. Matching mustaches.

[Podcast Announcer]

Mustaches are good.

[Brett Goldstein]

Honestly, Uday's is a little whiter than his dad's.

[Molly Conger]

You know, it's a little exaggerated. It's kind of like out. It's a little much. I think he's trying to make his dad proud.

[Brett Goldstein]

You know, you can definitely tell Saddam's the novelist of the two. You know, he has that novelist.

[Molly Conger]

I like that shirt, though.

[Brett Goldstein]

Oh, yeah, Saddam's. It looks great. He always looked good. God, he's handsome.

[Molly Conger]

I just want to go on record that I do not think Saddam Hussein is handsome.

[Brett Goldstein]

It's just a joke. So there's this. Yeah, no, I won't tell that Saddam Hussein sane story yet. One day. One day. So that same year, Uday made what many regime watchers would argue was his biggest mistake. This is 1988. So Kamal Hana Jajo was Saddam Hussein's official food taster and valet. This is basically his body man. You know, Zsaja is the guy Saddam always wants in the room with him. Right. And if. When you're Saddam, that means something, Right? This guy's in a dude who has, like, a high official rank, but he gets a lot of time with the boss, and the boss genuinely cares about him. So Zsazhao is About as close to Saddam as anyone can be and arguably closer to him than his fuck up, fail son Uday. Because Saddam doesn't want Uday around him all day. Right. He wants Joshua in the room.

[Molly Conger]

This is the Iraqi equivalent of that young woman who prints off articles from the Internet for Trump.

[Brett Goldstein]

That's exactly right. And just as Trump clearly likes her more than all both of his sons put together, both of his older sons put together, Saddam clearly likes Joshua a lot more than Uday, which may have been why Uday hated him. So the following story that I'm about to relate took place during a party at an island resort after a dinner to honor the wife of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president at the time. So there's this big diplomatic event between Iraq and Egypt, and they're having a party at this island resort, and that's when this all happens. And I'm going to quote now, nothing

[Molly Conger]

good happens on an island.

[Brett Goldstein]

Nothing good happens on an island. Party, Resort, party. No. With the President of Egypt in Iraq. No, it's not going to be.

[Molly Conger]

Something weird's going on already.

[Brett Goldstein]

Something bad's going to happen. So this is from a 2003 LA Times article. According to the most widely accepted account, a large group of Hussein's bodyguards had gathered for their own party on the island while the state dinner was taking place. They were firing weapons in the air in celebration. And Zsaja reportedly refused Uday's order to stop. So Uday killed him. Furious, Hussein jailed his eldest son and vowed to prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. It was only after a letter, purportedly written by Zsajo's father and published in the state media, asked that Uday be forgiven, that Hussein freed him and sent him to Switzerland less than 60 days after his imprisonment. So this is when a lot of people will say Uday stops being the

[Molly Conger]

heir, apparently, because he killed his. His dad's favorite friend.

[Brett Goldstein]

He killed his dad's best buddy. Yeah, yeah. Kind of his dad's surrogate son.

[Podcast Announcer]

That'll do it.

[Molly Conger]

That will. That will mess it up for you. I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot of psychology there, right. Like he just wants his dad to love him and he can't.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Molly Conger]

I do love that. Like this sort of this equivalent of the Secret Service. Right. Like they're getting drunk and using their weapons improperly.

[Brett Goldstein]

It's just shooting off guns. Absolutely.

[Molly Conger]

You know, we're all the same all the world over. So just like the American Secret Service

[Brett Goldstein]

if I was the Elite guard, or hell, if I was like the President at a fucking big political event like this, I would want to shoot off guns afterwards just to blow off some steam, you know, they can't stop.

[Molly Conger]

It's just nice to know that people are the same everywhere.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, that is something we haven't had happen yet as a country is like at a diplomatic event, the President just going to a Secret Service guy being like, give a me, give me the machine gun. I just want to fire off a few rounds into the dirt.

[Molly Conger]

We don't know that doesn't happen at Camp David.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, I'd love to see it. Why not? America's not doing so. So hot. We could use something lighter, something fun. The President firing a machine gun blindly at a diplomatic dinner in Switzerland. You know, why not? I guess the Swiss probably don't want that to happen. Speaking of the Swiss, as punishments go, being forced to live in Switzerland with millions of dollars isn't that bad, right? I would love to be punished. I'd be a terrible situation. I would love that punishment. Yes. I think we'll all take exile in Switzerland with millions of dollars as a punishment if it's on the table.

[Molly Conger]

Take me.

[Brett Goldstein]

One of the downsides is Swiss law doesn't really care if you're some two bit dictator's son, right? Maybe if you're like a high grade dictator's son, you can get away with a lot in Switzerland.

[Molly Conger]

But I mean, how many million?

[Brett Goldstein]

You gotta have a lot more than a few million, right? If you want to get that kind of preferential treatment, you know, you're not as ude. You're not going to walk around breaking Swiss laws without consequences unless you pay some pretty hefty bribes at a high level. And surely you can't be serial raping. No, and in Uday's case, it's even. It's. I mean, thankfully it's not that bad. Although, who knows? But like, not long after he moves to Geneva, he gets into a fist fight with a cop at a bar and his dad makes him come home and marry the daughter of one of his friends.

[Molly Conger]

Fist fight with a cop in a bar? I mean, you're just making him sound relatable.

[Brett Goldstein]

This does sound cool. And you know who else got into a fistfight with a cop at a bar recently?

[Molly Conger]

Certainly not me.

[Brett Goldstein]

Nope, the sponsors of our podcast did. Oh yeah, Each and every one of them. Whoever comes up to advertise next on this show just staggered out of a bar with the blood of a police lieutenant on their hands and it might be the next ad. The Portland Police Bureau or the Washington State Highway Patrol. We don't know. Whoever it is, they just assaulted an officer.

[Molly Conger]

It's true.

[Brett Goldstein]

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[Brett Goldstein]

And we're back. So Uday's forced home. His dad makes him marry the daughter of one of his buddies. And this is not a love match, to say the least. Uday's wife leaves him after just a few months, complaining that he'd started beating her. So when Saddam invaded Kuwait in yeah, yeah. Oh, shocking. Yeah, I don't have any trouble believing that. When Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. Uday was not in a great position within the regime. He's not super high up. And some sources I've read will say that Uday's body double at the time was made to, like, at the front, in and around combat positions to make it look like Uday was participating in stuff. But that said, most of those accounts come from the body double that we heard from earlier. Latif Yaya, the guy making things up. The guy making things up a lot right now, I don't. Uday doesn't. I don't have any evidence that he did anything meaningful during the invasion, either. I'm not saying that. Just like Lateef exaggerates and lies constantly. Now, if you, as I mentioned earlier, grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, you know that Saddam Hussein was infamous for his use of body doubles. This was a cause of much hilarity in popular media at the time and contributed somewhat, I think, to the sheer glee with which Hollywood movies post Desert Storm love to feature characters dressed like Saddam Hussein. You know, think of fucking the Big Lebowski, right? Fucking. A Saddam impersonator shows up in that. There's, like, a weird number of, like, Saddam that you run into in, like, 90s movies and some early 2000s movies.

[Molly Conger]

Very much a part of our consciousness.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. And some of it's just, you know, Saddam Hussein, Desert Storm had happened. He was like a major bad guy in the American public consciousness. But some of it, I think, is all these gleeful stories of Saddam look alikes definitely, I think, fueled some of that. Now I want to do something, a dedicated thing on Saddam and his body doubles, because there's shockingly little real evidence behind a lot of the claims about his body doubles. Again, I don't doubt that he had people impersonate him for security purposes, but. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Is this what really sort of seeded into our consciousness this idea that all. All of these world leaders have all these. It's like. It's like a big QAnon psychosis, right, that all these people have body doubles?

[Brett Goldstein]

Is that what the. Those. That those body doubles are people living, like, whole lives as this person, and, like, they. They have all these restrictions in place, and they're constantly watched as opposed to, like. Well, whenever we're traveling with the President, we make sure there's a couple of guys who kind of look from behind. If you, like, drape a coat over him. So if we think there might be a shooter, we can run this guy out who looks like the President and maybe they take a shot at him. But it's just guards, and then we can deal. I think that happens a lot, stuff like that, probably. But the crazy stories you hear about these harems of body doubles of Saddam, these gangs of them, I think are mostly fantasies.

[Molly Conger]

Just like a Love island mansion full of Saddams, right?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, too many Saddams. Now, Uday is also famously alleged to have had a body double. And by that I mean he is alleged to have had several. But the guy everybody knows is Lateef Yahya. And Lateef's claim is that he knew Uday in grade school as we talked about, and people had commented how much they looked alike. And then, you know, years go by, and in 1987, Yahya has been drafted, and he's fighting in the Iran Iraq War. And he's somewhere near the front in 1987 when he gets recalled to Baghdad and he finds himself sitting in a palace. In Yahya's book, the Devil's Double, here's how he described a meeting with Uday Hussein that, again, probably didn't happen. He tells his old school buddy that he wants to take him away from the front and make him his fidei, which is a word that means double. Although, per Yahya's book, a fidei is more than a mere double. A fidei is everything in Arab culture. Fidei means disciple, a fighter, and a partisan, a serf who must always be prepared to give his life up for his master. I have seen so many different news articles quote him saying this. I don't think that I haven't found any other writing about a fidei, at least not under the way it's spelled in this. I've never heard of this concept. I think he's kind of making it up that this is like, a prominent concept in Arabic culture. I haven't found that. If he knows he's speaking to an

[Molly Conger]

audience somewhere, doesn't speak any Arabic language. And this is before it was easy to Google things. He could just be making it up and assuming you'll never know.

[Brett Goldstein]

I'm not gonna say I've, like, asked anybody who would be a comprehensive, but no one I've talked to was familiar with this concept. And I couldn't just Google around, find Googling or looking, searching around, find anyone but Yaya talking about this apparently universal Arabic social role of the fidei, which he's like, every. All of our great kingdoms had this. And it's, like, deeply ingrained on our cult, really, Because I. You're the only one talking about it that I'm finding. Maybe I'm Missing a bunch of shit because it's just not written in English. But, like, I did try to account for that, and I didn't run into fucking anything. So whatever. When he was released, Yaya says he was given a choice. Serve Uday as doppelganger or have his family murdered and his sisters raped, per an article the Independent. And, yeah, to give you an idea on how this, this, this story that's fanciful is reported on by credible seeming papers, here's how the Independent, in an article by Jerome Taylor, reported on all this. After rounds of plastic surgery, the transformation was complete. Mr. Yahya said that between 1987 and 1991, he was witness to some of Uday's worst excesses. His prowls through Baghdad at night looking for women to rape, his drug abuse, violent outbursts and penchant for torture. He also claims to have survived 12 attempted assassinations. Mr. Yaya thought of escaping only after Uday, angry that a girlfriend had started to openly flirt with the doppelganger, tried to shoot him.

[Molly Conger]

Him.

[Brett Goldstein]

Mr. Yahya claims he fled to Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and later to Austria with the help of the CIA. And again, I don't have any, like, outside evidence other than this guy's claims of any of that. Any of that shit.

[Molly Conger]

I would need a second source on some of that.

[Brett Goldstein]

I would need a second source, and there just isn't. And there are a couple of journalists who, like, looked into this and tried to. And like, everyone who's investigated is. Has been like, I have found no evidence to corroborate any aspect of his story.

[Molly Conger]

That said, his story was eventually, we know he's torturing. We know he's raping.

[Brett Goldstein]

Right? You don't need to spice it up. You don't need to spice it up. But this guy, I mean, there was money in it for Yahya, I think, but I don't know fully why he did what he did, although that's my guess, because he was eventually portrayed in a film adaptation of his book, also called the Devil's Double. Dominique Cooper played Uday Hussain and Latif Yaya.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, wow. We only need one actor, of course.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, right, of course. That makes it efficient. Foreign press loved talking to Lateef in the years between the Gulf war and the 2003 invasion. And he always wove a good yarn, but he was also obviously lying about a ton of it. And again, I will say, for his part, he always says, I was actually against the Iraq war. He would say, I never wanted the US to invade because I knew that would make things worse. He just, I think, was trying to monetize off the fact that Saddam Hussein was like, the famous bad guy in Western society for a while. Right.

[Molly Conger]

And the network news loves to have a guy on that will always say yes and will always say something crazy.

[Brett Goldstein]

Exactly. Exactly. So British journalist Ed Caesar finally actually interrogated Yahya in the early 2000s, after years of him making these claims with minimal pushback. And he found no evidence to support Yaya's claims to have worked as a body double for Uday. Again, there. Yeah, there is some evidence that he was tied to some regime attempts to maybe, like, there's some sketchy stuff people have alleged he may have been involved in. We'll talk about that all at a later day. What I want to talk about next is everyone's favorite U.S. military adventure, the Gulf War. Right. So 1990, Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. And the subsequent international response led to the United States is a disaster for Saddam's military and regime. Uday had to endure the years of sanctions that followed, although he would ultimately profit mightily as a result of some of the different, like, programs that were put in place. I think Oil for Food is one of them. Like, he's like, like everyone who's tight and high up in the regime going to take advantage of all of this to make money for himself. But this isn't like, a great time for him or his dad or his brother. Right. The immediate years after the Gulf War, things are very messy for the Hussein. It's not as bad. They're gon right now. Uday's personal situation within the regime is worsened by the fact that as the 90s went on, it's become increasingly clear to everyone that Qusay is going to be the heir apparent. Right. That Saddam's now Saddam's. He's younger enough that Saddam learned from his mistakes. He raised a somewhat gentler son. Guze still does some violent stuff, but not as, like, uncontrollably and not in a way that's, like, bad and dangerous for the regime. You know, he's learning that he's been

[Molly Conger]

passed over is definitely going to improve his beh.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, he's going to start behaving a lot nicer guy now.

[Molly Conger]

He's going to be normal now.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. Kuse is just kind of like a much steadier guy. And he's also like a planner. Right. While. While Uday is torturing soccer players, Koussay is taking control of Iraq's intelligence apparatus and the Republican Guard. It's elite Internal paramilitary force. And the fact that seems like more productive. It gives you an idea of like, how Saddam views his sons, that he's like, yeah, you can keep running the football team. That sucks now since she took over. But Koussay gets like the CIA basically. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Oh, man. So he still got soccer, though, like

[Brett Goldstein]

through the 90s, he still got football, soccer.

[Molly Conger]

So he's maybe he's getting better at it. Right? I mean, he didn't start out knowing anything about soccer, but he's been in charge of soccer 20 years. Did he ever learn?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Is he getting better?

[Brett Goldstein]

There's not much evidence of that. There's not much evidence of that right now because I am not a rube. I'm always careful when trying to validate stories of horrors in Saddam's Iraq, not because it wasn't replete with them, but again, because of all the disinformation that's out there in part by like angry dissidents who wanted to encourage US intervention against Saddam. One reason that I feel comfortable saying all of the specific stuff with the football team actually happened is that the sources on this are a ton of Iraqi pro soccer players. Like a bunch of their best former football players have all talked about being tortured by Uday Hu. So I assume this is all true, right? In this case, yeah. And there's some physic. People had injuries and stuff like, and. And torture equipment was found in a lot of the. Like, we, we found like physical evidence.

[Molly Conger]

Teacher who allegedly died in an unnamed way at an unnamed time. This is somebody saying, this happened to me and here is my scar.

[Brett Goldstein]

Exactly, exactly. We're going to hear from them now. So one of these players was Sharar Haidar Mohammed Al Hadithi. He was a top level player in Iraq who did well enough that he got to represent the country international on several special teams, including during the 1988 Olympics, per an article I found in an archive from the September 11, 1999 edition of the Mirror. Quote, he says he was hit, repeat, interesting date. The 911 here is incidental. But this is also 1999. So this is really before. This is before the post 911 kind of like drive up to the war in Iraq too, which is why one of the reasons I'm interested in this source. So, quote, he says he was hit repeatedly on the soles of his feet, dragged on his bare back through a gravel pit, and then made to jump into a tank of sewage so that the wounds would become infected. He was deprived of sleep and fed bread and water. So, yeah, that's fucking. Again, that's a claim by a specific guy of a specific torture that was done to him. Yeah, and that's fucking nightmarish. Right, because of the team not doing well in that year's Olympics.

[Molly Conger]

And again, that's not going to make you any better at soccer.

[Brett Goldstein]

Not going to help. Not going to help. Sewage in open wounds rarely makes football. I know that there are some. I mean, the Patriots famously get a lot of sewage in their open wounds, but that's just because they're the Patriots. You know, that's not best practices for anyone else.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, Tom Brady thinks drinking water prevents sunburns. He might think that sewage in an open wound makes you run faster.

[Brett Goldstein]

You might be able to get Brady doing that. So, in 1993, Iraq's premier team lost a friendly match against Jordan. If you know Uday at this point, you know the man absolutely did not believe in friendly matches. He had four players, including Sharrar, who we've just heard from, forced into a van and driven to a prison camp. Here's how Sherrar describes his time in soccer. Prison. Quote. Schirrar says a favorite trick of one sadistic prison guard was to tell them to catch a mosquito in their cells. When half anesthetized, with fatigue from lack of sleep, they held the insect out for inspection. Their captain would mock them, saying, but that's a male mosquito, you fools. I want a female one. Start looking again. It went on day after day, night after night. One player had a nervous breakdown, others were injured, and others, like Shirar, quit football and fled abroad. So, yeah, that's pretty bad. That's. That's bad. Creative. I'll give that specific prison guard that. I haven't heard of that one yet.

[Podcast Announcer]

Yet.

[Brett Goldstein]

You know, we have to respect ingenuity here, don't we? But, you know, probably not. When it's.

[Molly Conger]

Over the course of managing his team all these years, he's not actually interested in getting better, is he? He just likes doing. Because at this point, he knows he's

[Brett Goldstein]

interested in torturing more.

[Molly Conger]

This is not improving, you would think, right? He just likes. I think he just likes doing the torture, to be honest.

[Brett Goldstein]

I think he's just. I think he thinks, yeah, that may be it. Or maybe I think he knows this

[Molly Conger]

isn't improving the team because he's got

[Brett Goldstein]

to at this point.

[Molly Conger]

Nobody else is doing it this way. You know, the top. They're not putting Ronaldo in a cell.

[Brett Goldstein]

No. And at this point, he's kind of crashing out as a person. He Knows he's not the heir apparent anymore. He's doing a lot of drugs. He's, you know, having mood swings in part probably as a result of that. He's being violent and he's murdered. Committed several times. There are several murders he's accused of throughout this period, too, just at, like, parties. So this is a guy who's. Who's kind of regularly spinning out of control. And I think, to your point, Molly, I don't think he's focusing much on whether or not this is making the team better. I think this has just become an outlet for his anger. Like, he gets to go punch the team when he's pissed. Yeah, yeah. He just likes it now.

[Molly Conger]

These are just his toys.

[Brett Goldstein]

It feels weird to say my favorite, but my favorite soccer themed account of nightmarish crimes against humanity comes from an account given by Uday's former press secretary, Abbas Janabi. After Janabi fled Iraq, he told reporters about what had happened after the team failed to qualify for the 1990 World Cup. Uday presented them with a concrete ball and made them kick it for hours upon hours at a time. Just awful guy. Again, he does not care about the team at this point. This is just about lashing out, right?

[Podcast Announcer]

Jesus Christ, man.

[Brett Goldstein]

In 1995, Uday had another. We'll call it, incident. He was at yet another party. He was drunk and probably on molly or coked up. He was on molly a lot in the 90s or, you know, so. Yeah, not me. So. No, no, no, no mdma, you know. Yeah, yeah. So when one of his kin folks gave a toast and mocked Uday's speech impediment. Uday, as the story goes. Oh, he started blasting. Yeah, he just starts shooting, right? This guy, like, makes fun of him, and Uday just pulls a gun and opens fire with an automatic weapon.

[Molly Conger]

What the hell kind of drugs was the other guy on that you would make fun of Uday? Speech impediment.

[Brett Goldstein]

I know, right?

[Molly Conger]

Because, you know, you used to think you'd stop at a certain point.

[Brett Goldstein]

He just shoots people periodically. Maybe you're just so fed up with the fucker, right, that you just can't hold it in anymore. He must have been pretty annoying.

[Molly Conger]

The vibe with the party had to have been awful.

[Brett Goldstein]

Awful. I don't think it was a good party. Even though Uday's on fucking ecstasy. So as the story goes, he just. He just starts firing and he. Six people. He kills six people. All of the dead are supposed to have been bodyguards, but his Russians relative who had made fun of him was badly injured. So, yeah, that's the kind of guy he is. Uday was also brutal, in a bad mood. Other Iraqi team. Yeah, in a bad mood while rolling. Now, Uday was also brutal to any other Iraqi team that had the misfortune to play Al Rashid. And I'm going to quote again from George Woodward's article in Tribuna. Special punishments were reserved for those who committed offenses against Al Rashid, for example, injuring one of their players. For such an offense, Al Zawra defender Abir Jamal was arrested. He was taken to the stadium where the match had been played and in front of the Al Rashid players, sentenced to 65 lashes. Such is the fate of anyone who defies football and does not respect the rules of fair play, said the local police chief.

[Molly Conger]

Wait, so his team would have to always win because you're gonna let him win?

[Brett Goldstein]

Well, that doesn't happen a lot, which probably doesn't help the team.

[Molly Conger]

Like, they would win all their domestic matches, but then when they play somebody outside of Iraq back, they're not gonna let him.

[Brett Goldstein]

I don't think they did win. They didn't win all their domestic matches. But I do think there was a lot of. A lot of people would get. Especially if you ever foul his team, you're going to get up. But if they get. He's gonna. Them up his team, you know? Yeah. So. Abbas Talawi, the captain of the. Of an opposing Iraqi team, once annoyed Uday by complaining that the referee had been ruling unfairly in against his team. Quote, the referee, it seemed to me, was. Was against us. He ignored fouls by the opposition and gave a penalty against us. As captain, I protested and got a red card. That made me furious, and I spat at the referee. After the game, I was told I was banned from football for a year. And to make me understand my offense better, I was sent for 33 days to Uday's private prison in Al Radwania. There, every morning, his personal executioners beat me 50 to 70 times with an electric cable. So we're seeing again, when it comes to, like, truth and stuff, these are all very consistent stories from a lot of different guys under their own names, you know, and it's all very similar kinds of torture.

[Molly Conger]

And this, to me is. Is more believable than some of those stories about sort of specific personal. Like, very detailed accounts of him, his own personal actions. Whereas this is delegating this violence to a state apparatus that we do know did exist. We know the prison exist.

[Brett Goldstein]

We're doing that a lot we know the prisons existed. And like, you know, periodically he probably did lash out personally with violence, like against that coach and just start beating people. But generally he's delegating that. Cause he's got goons. That's the benefit of being the dictator's.

[Molly Conger]

But you could just point to a guy and say, put him in the pit.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. God, if I had goons, I would have fun. I would have fun with my goons. Don't you worry. That's where the. Nope, not gonna make that joke. Anyway. It will not surprise you that many other players and officials claim that while O. Uday Hussein ran Iraqi football, it was basically a crime to beat Rasheed sometimes. Sports journalist Saleh Hassan explained a red card for an Al Rashid player was forbidden. Many of their goals were scored from official. From obvious offsides. Leaders of opposition teams would be suspended before facing Al Rashid. And when the team was on a winning streak, life could occasionally be good. Players who performed well were lavished with Rolex watches and supercars no normal Iraqi could ever afford. Not worth it, but not worth it. No. When top players failed, they were punished like anyone else. Ahmed Radi was one of Iraq's greatest stars of all time. He's the guy who scores their only goal in the 1986 World Cup. Here's an account he gave reporters later. Once I was unable to attend a team meeting with Uday, Uday sent a car for me in the middle of the night. I was taken somewhere outside the city, beaten, and told I would no longer play football. I was punished five or six times. Had my head shaved three times times. Was held in custody twice, including exile to a military camp where I was made to do hard labor.

[Molly Conger]

And that's their best guy.

[Brett Goldstein]

That's their best guy. That's like their fucking Messi. That's their legend. That's crazy.

[Podcast Announcer]

Also, I'm very proud of you for knowing who Messi is. Good job.

[Brett Goldstein]

Of course, I spent time in Iraq. I have to know who Messi is fucking. A quarter of the people I met had a messy jersey. It's interesting, I came across in one of the articles I was reading about that there was this, like, paragraph, because one of the things Uday would do was, like, when he was pissed, he would have everyone's head shaved. He would have people's like. Like, his players shaved.

[Molly Conger]

Is that like a hygien thing?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one article felt the need to go into, like, in Muslim culture, you know, you're not supposed to shave your head. And so this was like, directly demeaning. That's not at all what's going on. I'm sorry, you don't need to do this. Like, here we have to explain why these. Why these Muslims would be by having their head shaved.

[Molly Conger]

No, it's humiliation in any culture.

[Brett Goldstein]

No, no, no, no. You take. Here's an experiment. Get some goons, go up to any random person, restrain them violently, and forcibly shave their head and see if they're traumatized.

[Molly Conger]

Yeah, people don't like that.

[Brett Goldstein]

You know, it doesn't matter that they're Muslim.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, it's what they do with French collaborators, too. Like, it's culturally legible.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It would be like, if you were like. And in French culture, being beaten while having your head shaved in the street is bad. It's like, it's bad everywhere, man.

[Molly Conger]

In the French culture, this is seen as particularly negative.

[Matt Altmix]

Yeah.

[Brett Goldstein]

Nobody likes having that happen to them. And it's also this misunderstanding of Iraqi because, like, the picture it was painting is that, like, as Muslims, they never shave their. And that's just not at all. Iraq has a massive thing of, like, barbers are a huge deal in Iraq. One of the coolest things, when I was in, like, Iraqi Kurdistan in the north, during Ramadan one year, because, like, it's Ramadan, shit gets started in the middle of the night because it's too fucking hot during the day and you can't eat or drink anyway. So, like, everyone becomes nocturnal for a lot of things. And, like, I remember going out with a buddy because he wanted to get a haircut. It's like, fucking midnight, and the barber's, like, using fire and stuff to, like, cut his hair in parts. It was really cool. It was a really elaborate, really good hair, like. And my buddy, who's an Iraqi, was like, no, Iraqis have the best barbers in the world. He was very proud about this article where they were like, here's how this strange foreign culture feels about having their head shaved. Like, that's just racism, guys.

[Molly Conger]

Like, if they were 6, you would have to explain that this is particularly uniquely bad.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, it's not. Nobody likes it when you forcibly shave their heads while beating them. It's generally unpleasant for people. You know who else will forcibly shave you and beat you?

[Molly Conger]

No, hopefully not the sponsors of this show.

[Brett Goldstein]

I would hope not. Good God. I just. Let's just go on for a second here. This ad is brought to you by Vive Healthcare, the makers of Dovato Dolutegravir Lamivudine. If you're living with hiv do learn about Dovato. Dovato is a complete HIV treatment by prescription only for some people 12 and older. Your doctor will determine if Dovato is right for you. Most HIV pills contain three or four medicines. Dovato is as effective with just two. No other complete HIV pill contains fewer medicines than Dovato.

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Do ask your doctor about fewer medicines. Visit Dovato.com or call 1-877-844-8872. Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of and it turns out it's more common than you'd think. Peyronie's disease, or PD for short. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis. This can cause a curve with a bump during an erection and for some men lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health. It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lowered self esteem and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy. Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about pd. The actual cause of PD isn't always known. In some cases it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity. The good news is PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options including non surgical treatment. To learn more about Peyroides disease, visit talkaboutpd.com Most dog food brands don't really

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[Brett Goldstein]

And we're back. I've made my apologies to the sponsors. Let's talk about uday Hussein. In 1996, Uday was the target that year of an assassination attempt on the streets of Baghdad. A team of heavily armed men's. Yeah, fucking. Finally, a team of heavily armed men spotted him driving his red Porsche and opened fire. He was hit and wounded eight times and barely survived. Saddam pulled out all of the stops, though, flying in a French surgeon to fix his oldest boy. So you could tell Saddam didn't care about him, you know? Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

He didn't want him to die. That's beautiful. He loved his son. That's beautiful.

[Brett Goldstein]

Stalin wouldn't have done that for his boy, I'll say that much.

[Podcast Announcer]

Wow.

[Brett Goldstein]

So Uday survives, but permanently injured. He would spend the rest of his life in wheelchairs or using a cane. This contributed to further slight. Yeah. And this does not make him better or, like, calmer. The fact that he's now grievously injured, in pain all the time.

[Molly Conger]

He does not have a change of heart. He's not normal now.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. The assassination attempt doesn't make him kinder. Not a turning point to his kind of derangement. And it also, he gets, you know, starts taking this out on his players. By 1997, Uday Hussein had been the head of Iraqi football for more than a decade, which meant he was a fairly well known figure within FIFA. Right. This is a guy who is not at all a fringe figure in the world of professional football. He can't be. These are not crimes that are completely

[Molly Conger]

not saying, like, you can't sit with us.

[Brett Goldstein]

No, no, they're not. Even though he's basically like a team owner and manager rolled into one a lot of the time. So. In 1997, Uday's team failed to win a qualifying match with K Kazakhstan and lost their chance to attend the 1998 World Cup. Uday lost his shit and once again ordered players whipped and beaten, this time to such an extreme that he was reported repeatedly to FIFA. They carried out an investigation, but Iraq denied anything had happened. And after FIFA's experts examined 12 players, they found there was no evidence to support any of the allegations against Uday. And the team management, famously honest, ethical.

[Molly Conger]

FIFA concerned with human rights. Yeah, so I. Yeah, absolutely. I think FIFA definitely investigates human rights.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, for sure. So earlier I told you about Sharar Al Hadithi, the famous player who was beaten on the soles of his feet, dragged across concrete, and then made to jump into sewage. He was one of the players swept up in this, and he claims the team wasn't inspected by FIFA until weeks after they'd been beaten. He also claimed, per the mirror, team captain Radishal had been thrashed with an electric flex, but had refused to tell FIFA what happened happened. Right. That another guy had been very. And they saw injury, but he wouldn't say how he'd been injured. Now, it should be clear to. But that does show that the FIFA inspector saw injuries on at least one player, according to his account. Right. That is important to note. It should be clear to everyone that these athletes were loath to tell FIFA what was really happening because their families were essentially hostages of the regime. That sucks. But FIFA definitely had evidence and should have known something was going on, on with the Iraqis.

[Molly Conger]

I'm not saying FIFA should have saved the. Like, FIFA's not an international humanitarian organization. They're not gonna help them. But they should have said, you guys can't play in FIFA games anymore. Like, you're out of FIFA.

[Brett Goldstein]

I'll even go so far as to say I'll hear a number of arguments about what they should have done, but what's undeniable is they did nothing. Right, right, right. And I think that's the. I'm not gonna say I don't know what would have worked best, but they don't do fuck all right. They just continue acting like everything is fine. And Uday is a normal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uday is a normal team. You know, owner or whatever.

[Molly Conger]

It's just a coincidence that every guy on the team has these weird scars on his back.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah. Just a weird little goinky dick.

[Molly Conger]

It's cultural.

[Brett Goldstein]

All these stories from former players who keep escaping the country. Yeah. In 1999, after Sherar escaped Iraq, he brought claims of abuse against Iraq's team back into the mainstream. FIFA was forced to address the situation again. And per the Mirror, quote, FIFA said last week had considered the matter as still closed unless Schirrar was prepared to talk directly to. Well, if he wants to report directly to us again, you know, maybe we'll reopen it. But he didn't come to us. You know, there's just a bunch of articles about him saying this stuff. So. Because playing for Iraq in Iraq was so darn miserable, many of the best players in the country tried to get hired for teams overseas. Anyone who managed this found themselves in the unhappy position of having to convince Uday Hussein that they should be allowed to leave the country rather than stay. He was often willing to agree for 60% or so of a new player's salary. That's what he would take from these guys who, like, went to play for European teams. Per an article in the Mirror, Janabi confirms this. Once I collected for Uday a total sum of $350,000 from players for just six months, he says. So Uday is doing pretty good grift here, you know, I mean, that's good

[Molly Conger]

money if you can get also.

[Brett Goldstein]

And I kind of. I wonder if. Well, maybe was part of his grift. If I just make it being a nightmare to play football in Iraq, the best players will get hired overseas, and then I can take money from them. Like, I wonder how conscious a part of the grift that became for him.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, it probably wasn't intentional the first time, but once it started happening, once the first guy signed, once the first guy signed in Italy, he was like, you know what?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, this could be Luke. He could be found money. Yeah. So Uday's grifts in the latter years of Saddam's regime were legendary. As the BBC reported, quote, Uday's criminal empire was involved in smuggling sanctioned goods such as oil and cigarettes and cocain, alongside running a fast food restaurant chain called Super Chicken and an ice cream company called the Wave. He also headed television and radio stations, was chairman of the board of seven newspapers, and was at the helm of Iraq's most successful sports club. Uday took particular pride in the fearsome image he cultivated and referred to himself as Abu Sarhan, the father of wolves. Because he's like. He's got his Fedayeen, too. He's got, like, his little militia at this point who wear, like, Darth Vader helmets. Literally. They have, like, fake Darth Vader helmets that they wear. They never fight. They, like, they get there. They last, like, three seconds in combat. These guys immediately run.

[Molly Conger]

And he ran a chain of ice cream stores. That, for me, is the line.

[Brett Goldstein]

He was a Renaissance man. You know, he runs a football team. He tortures a football team. He runs an ice cream company. He tortures ice cream and gets sales.

[Molly Conger]

How many locations were there of Super Chicken, and was it good?

[Podcast Announcer]

I saw Hidden.

[Brett Goldstein]

I do want to eat at Uday Hussein Super Chicken. I want to eat Uday's forbidden chicken recipe.

[Molly Conger]

I need to track down a review of Super Chicken because was he as good at running a restaurant as he was at running a soccer team?

[Brett Goldstein]

I'll guess he was as good. I'll guess he was as good, Molly.

[Molly Conger]

You know what I mean? Was he really involved in the chicken?

[Brett Goldstein]

From a food safety standpoint, I would hope he was delegating quite a lot. I hope there was less, like, be good at that. Yeah, he has. There's a lot of sewage in the Uday Hussein story, so I don't feel great about that chicken. Uday also extended his control in Iraqi sports to the national volleyball team, which he had imprisoned in the basement of the Olympic National Committee building, where he kept his torture dungeon in what he described as a motivational exercise. I'm make sure the team really knows I mean business, so I'm going to imprison them in the basement for a while.

[Molly Conger]

I mean, they would be really motivated to get out of there.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, I bet that would motivate your volleyball team. Maybe more volleyball teams should try this. Look, for too long, Uday Hussein's been ignored for his coaching wisdom, but maybe it's time we revisit him. You know, maybe this is what could make your own personal pee wee volleyball team. Really, really cross the limits, create a torture dungeon and lock them.

[Molly Conger]

Depending on the dimensions of the pit, it could really motivate them to get better at jumping and leaping.

[Brett Goldstein]

Sure. Exactly. Exactly. This could create a whole new generation of Olympic whatever that sport is, where you jump and there's a stick the pole ball. We can make kids better at that. You know, maybe torture's not so bad an idea. Maybe we have like, they just had the enhanced games where all of the athletes were on steroids and actually they weren't particularly impressive. It kind of was socks.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

Well, what if.

[Brett Goldstein]

What about the torture games where every. All the teams work the way Udes did?

[Molly Conger]

Everybody has sepsis.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, everybody has sepsis. It's just a hospital ward. That's the whole competition. So Uday continued trying to impress his father, leaning towards by this point, but kind of the later period of Saddam's regime. Saddam doesn't really want to be dictator as much as he wants to be a novelist, an artist, and that's how he's really wants to spend time. During kind of the. The latter years of his reign, Uday knew that he'd failed to earn his father's respect as a future dictator candidate. But he could still do it as a writer. And so in the last years of the regime, uday got his PhD publishing a 400 page thesis titled the World after the Cold War, which was written by a guy Uday paid and printed en masse, to be distributed around the country. Country, per the BBC quote. In it, Uday argues that American domination of the world stage will fade by the year 2015, and new superpowers such as Japan, China and the European Union will challenge the United States moral and economic position. Couple interesting things. 2015, not bad. Honestly, on guessing the year, Uday, you could have done worse. Like, could have done worse.

[Molly Conger]

Close.

[Brett Goldstein]

But in terms of the new superpowers being Japan, China and the European Union, I don't know, man.

[Bethenny Frankel]

That.

[Brett Goldstein]

That might not be the specific list I'd have gone with. Like, Japan especially is kind of a weird one. No shade to Japan. I just wouldn't really call it the new superpower in the wake of the us, you know, fading, nor the eu, really. Again, nothing against them. That's just a weird way to. Anyway, it's not quite what happened.

[Molly Conger]

Well, I mean, it's not Uday's fault. It's the guy who paid.

[Brett Goldstein]

It's the guy he pays fault. I do want a copy of Udaid's thesis because the COVID apparently has. Has like a picture of Saddam Hussein as St. George slaying the dragon. Oh, I bet we get a copy. Really suck it up to your kid, Uday. Yeah, hopefully somebody out there has found one. Yeah. So in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq in April of 2003.

[Molly Conger]

How'd that go?

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, I Mean, initially, pretty good. The Saddam's regime did not last long. Right. It was after the stuff afterwards that didn't go so well. Well, in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, like April of 2003, US army soldiers found at the Olympic headquarters in East Baghdad, Uday's old stomping grounds. A medieval torture chamber that was linked back to Uday.

[Molly Conger]

Was that the one? Yeah, the pokey in it.

[Brett Goldstein]

The iron maiden. The Iron maiden, yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Yeah, it's very fun. They also found, you know, his personal zoo which had lions, cheetahs and a bear. They found he only one bear. Drug collections? Yeah, I think he had one bear. He had a lot of drugs, he had a lot of liquor. He was noted by the US soldiers who like found his home as having, quote, the biggest collection of naked women I'd ever seen. He has a massive like porn printed out porn collection.

[Molly Conger]

Well, to be fair, have those guys been to Clarence Thomas's house?

[Brett Goldstein]

No. No. Although Army Captain Ed Belanco of Montville, New Jersey said it looked like something out of the Playboy Mansion, which is very funny. That's from a Washington Post article by Nico Price. To quote from that article, among the photos were those of Jenna and Barbara bush. President Bush's 21 year old daughters dressed up very nice in evening clothes, Polanco said, adding that the soldiers took them to protect the President. You know what funniest Iraq war.

[Molly Conger]

Good for Uday. That's actually funny.

[Brett Goldstein]

So funny and just the. It is very America in 2003 that like these America, we're gonna protect the President by getting the pictures of his daughters out of here. You know, the fact that that would wind up in a Washington Post article is extremely funny to me. Obviously, Uday and his brother are killed by US forces at a compound that they were inhabiting. I'm not going to go through like, it's not worth really going into a ton of detail about that he's killed and obviously his days as a soccer, as a force of power within the world of professional soccer come to an end. Tragically. Not really.

[Pharmaceutical Ad Voice]

Uday.

[Podcast Announcer]

Uday would have loved AI.

[Molly Conger]

He would.

[Brett Goldstein]

Uday would've loved AI.

[Molly Conger]

He could have made those pictures of George Bush's daughters naked.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yep. I gotta say, the interview, he would

[Molly Conger]

have used Grok dance.

[Brett Goldstein]

He would have been grokkin hard. He would have loved Grok. The, the interview with that, that Captain Blanco about like what they found in Uday's house is endlessly entertaining. This is the captain. There were Dom Perignon French wines, some 30 or 40 years old. A lot of very good brandy, a lot of good whiskey. Polanco said there were boxes of Cuban cigars that said Uday Saddam Hussein on them. Hundreds of them. My guys smoked them. He said there were also. This is the Washington Post. He said there were also six bags of heroin, but he didn't know how much they had. I'm gonna guess not. All that heroin made its way back to their bosses, if I know.

[Molly Conger]

Soldiers don't know how much heroin some

[Brett Goldstein]

of that heroin got done.

[Molly Conger]

I don't know. Not very much, actually. It was a lot of bags, but they were empty.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna. Yeah, it's one of those, like. Yep. They found eight bags of heroin, and three bags were returned to custody at the base. And an entire bag of heroin was returned to the. You know, I'm imagining there being shrinkage at several points here. Anyway, that's the Uday Hussein story. Well, that's the story. That's not his. This is not the whole Uday Hussein story. This is Uday Hussein as a soccer arc team owner. Yeah.

[Molly Conger]

And it looks like. It looks like the Iraqi team. So they are in the World cup again this year for their. Their second turn. Yep. I think they got crushed earlier today.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. But they made it back. That's. That's what matters. Right. Let's all be happy getting to the

[Molly Conger]

World cup at all.

[Brett Goldstein]

Big deal.

[Molly Conger]

Is a big deal.

[Brett Goldstein]

Huge deal.

[Molly Conger]

Even if you get absolutely sp. Tanked by Senegal at the group stage

[Brett Goldstein]

and it, you know, it says a lot, I think you can. Obviously, Uday Hussein isn't the only setback that Iraq has in terms of its football team. There's other things that go on in that country that they've had some other struggles. They've had other struggles.

[Molly Conger]

Non football related struggles.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah. But that said, you know, it's really good. I'm really happy for the country that their team is now without. Uday made it back to the World cup and is there again. That's great. That's. That's hopeful for the future, you know, I want good things for Iraq. How you feeling, Molly?

[Molly Conger]

You know, that was fun. Not the torture parts. Not the sewage in the. In the wounds parts that. That sucked for everybody. But I mean, overall, in terms of what you could present to me today,

[Brett Goldstein]

one of my friends least likely to want sewage in an open wound, you know.

[Molly Conger]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Brett Goldstein]

I really opposed to it.

[Molly Conger]

I love a clean wound.

[Brett Goldstein]

I can tell we all do. That's why lightsabers are great in terms

[Molly Conger]

of things you could have presented to me today. I'm very pleased.

[Brett Goldstein]

Yeah, good, good. Yeah, I thought you'd enjoy. Uday Hussein, soccer team owner. Good stuff. Anyway, Molly, your podcast. Weird little guys. People can and should and also legally must listen to it. You are committing a felony if you don't right after this podcast, listen to my Molly's. You know, you could be shot. You probably can't.

[Molly Conger]

I'll put you in the secret room I keep under my podcast.

[Brett Goldstein]

You're right. You're right. Molly's got a red room for people who don't listen to her podcast. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Anyway, well, goodbye.

[Molly Conger]

Bye.

[Podcast Announcer]

Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes of behind the Basterds are now streaming on Netflix, dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Hit remind me on Netflix so you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards. We love about 40% of you, statistically speaking.

[Brett Goldstein]

Let's talk about Peyronie's disease, or pd. It's not widely talked about and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve with a bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through urology options, including non surgical treatment. Visit talkaboutpd.com this is Bethenny Frankel from

[Bethenny Frankel]

Just Be with Bethenny Frankel. Let me be blunt. Most dog food is junk. It just is. And I'm not feeding junk to Biggie and Smalls. That is why they eat just food for dogs. It's real, 100% human grade food with ingredients I actually recognize. Not mystery pellets pretending to be healthy. And once I switched, the difference was obvious. Better digestion, better skin, more energy. Dogs who actually feel good instead of just surviving dinner. Here's the thing. You care about quality. You make an intentional choice to be healthy. So why are you gambling with your dog's health? So let's think about our furry babies. Go to justfoodfordogs.com right now and get 50% off your first box. No code, just try it, because once you see the difference, you're not going back.

[Tony Ayo]

This is Tony Ayo from the Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent, streaming, even extra Sosa at your favorite burrito spot? But with Boost Mobile, you don't have to play the Willis Go up soon game. Boost Mobile offers an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for life. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up. Only at boost mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.

[Matt Altmix]

This is Matt Altmix from How to Money, and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next ride share? Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride. And I did this last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. And guess who came out on top? Lyft. So don't just price check with flights and phone plans and your groceries. Comparing rideshare prices will help you to save money every time you ride. Save money Check Lyft this is an iHeart podcast.

[Just Food for Dogs Ad Voice]

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