You might not have heard of Helenio Herrera but without him, you might not have the modern football manager. Herrera was a lowdown and a dirty football manager who wasn't so much a pragmatist as an absolutist. He was full of contradictions: he hated his players having sex but he ruined many lives with his own pursuit of sex. He would do anything to win and stopped at nothing for victory. He wasn't a pragmatist, it was more pathological than that. On Free State today, Dion talks to Richard Fitzpatrick about HH and how he shaped the modern football world, for better and for worse. Although not a lot of it was for the better. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Draft Martin Sixsmith
04/07/2026 | 41 mins.
DRAFT Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
How the Gambling Industry Hijacks Young Brains
02/07/2026 | 48 mins.
The World Cup continues to captivate. France stunned the world with their performance against Sweden, with a display of pace and skill that was as good as anything witnessed in the competition. But what is the hidden World Cup? What is the secret anguish that this and all sporting events facilitate. In their final episode in this series looking at the dangers of online gambling, Joe and Dion look at how the dopamine hit is so carefully regulated and how the ebb and flow of sporting events became another hook. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Addiction by Design-How we became the gambling industry’s lab rats
30/06/2026 | 47 mins.
How many times do you look at your smartphone each day? How often do you pick it up? How aware are you of how it makes you feel? On Thursday’s Free State we looked at how gambling has got out of control. Today Dion and Joe examine how what we are dealing with is an entirely new phenomenon, a supercharged addiction of smartphone and gambling, a dopamine hit of huge power. We look at the demographic most affected and ask when will people do enough to help them? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Why the west stayed silent over genocide
27/06/2026 | 1h 8 mins.
When Fintan Drury wrote his first book on Palestine - Catastrophe, Nakba II, the manner in which it resonated with people told its own story. Now he has written Genocide - Sponsoring the destruction of Palestine, another searing and detailed account of how the Palestinian people have been failed. He talks to Dion about why now is the time to act. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Free State is a podcast for the curious that stimulates, provokes, challenges and entertains, while never taking itself too seriously. Free State covers topics from sport to politics, love to loss, the human condition and how to fix the world, with guests from across the planet including Nigerian princes, former Prime Ministers, ex convicts, footballers, boxers and extraordinary people from every walk of life. Free State is presented by Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning. Brolly is a barrister, an original thinker with a fascinating backstory, who donated a kidney to a stranger and then led a crusade to transform organ donation on the island of Ireland, and Fanning is an award-winning interviewer and author. They are not motivational gurus or life coaches. They are two people from very different worlds, with one core belief uniting them - this is not a high performance podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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