FOOTBALL continues to be divided over the timing of fans’ return to the stadiums. From a business perspective, no paying spectators is a disaster for most clubs, but the game still suffers from the ingrained perception that it is not a very important segment of society. Equally, there is a lack of widespread acknowledgement that […]
BARCELONA fans may be in denial and hoping Lionel Messi stays with the club, but the wheels are already in motion and there will be a host of Messi discussions going on in the boardrooms of the world’s biggest – and not so biggest – clubs. It looks like the end of an era. It […]
WE LIVE in interesting times. This is often a phrase used to disguise crisis, restrain panic and, invariably, to paint a picture that, despite the rising tide of discontent, “everything’s ok”. Translated, “interesting” means “we are in the deep do-do”. It’s a sentence we’ve heard many times since 2008 and is frequently used in the […]
LEICESTER CITY’s 2015-16 Premier League victory was remarkable in many ways, it was a rare moment in time when the status quo in English football was challenged and the most surprising title win since Nottingham Forest won the old first division in 1978. It also reminded football fans there is still some romance left in […]
WHEN Russia and Saudi Arabia kicked-off the World Cup, the game was not just between the two lowest ranked countries in FIFA’s rankings, it was also a meeting of the two nations with the worst rating for political freedom among the 32 participants. According to the Freedom House annual survey (Worldaudit.org), Russia and Saudi Arabia […]
THE RELATIONSHIP between the sports and investment worlds has often been uneasy. In the mid-1980s, Tottenham Hotspur became the first English football club to be listed on the stock market, but by 1991, following worsening economic conditions, Tottenham’s shares were suspended. Manchester United, at the start of the 1990s, floated on the London Stock […]
POLITICS AND FOOTBALL are no strangers. Organising bodies such as FIFA, UEFA and the Olympic committees marinate themselves in political intrigue. There has often been a whiff of corruption about FIFA, dating back decades. The most recent debates about Russia, Qatar and the World Cup have only served to rekindle some deep-rooted concerns about the […]
Politics and football are no strangers. Organising bodies such as FIFA, UEFA and the Olympic committees marinate themselves in political intrigue. There has often been a whiff of corruption about FIFA, dating back decades. The most recent debates about Russia and Qatar and the World Cup have only served to rekindle some deep-rooted concerns about […]
