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This could be a defining week for the Premier League.
By Wednesday no English club may be in the Champions League, the first time since 2003 they would have failed to go beyond the quarter finals. And what is more, the Ofcom ruling that Sky charges its rivals too much for rights could mean that in future earnings from televised rights could be affected.
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It has been a good couple of weeks for Joseph Blatter, FIFA’s veteran President.
First, FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee rejected a proposal that might have limited the presidency’s mandate to two consecutive terms of four years.
History may not always repeat itself first as tragedy then as farce, as Karl Marx said, but there are some very curious and interesting similarities in the latest attempt to get West Ham into the Olympic Stadium.
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I’ve been reading about and listening to all the “good judges’”- pundits, players and even some managers – who have recently been talking up England’s chances of leaving South Africa with the golden trophy.
In the 1930s, when the British were trying to hold on to India and defeat Gandhi’s attempt to get rid of them, the province that gave the most trouble was Bengal. The British could not understand that.
By David Owen
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
No sooner does England’s accident-prone World Cup bid appear to be getting its act together and heading for calmer seas then the water turns choppy again.
So London is to bid for the 2015 World Athletics Championships. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that this has “ramifications” for the future of the Olympic Stadium, which would be used to host the Championships.
What are the chances that the present debt crisis in football will lead to a regulator being appointed to administer the game?
A walk down memory lane is not always a game for the old. But it can be very useful for the football fan.
It is this thought that makes me ask: will the Red Knights plan to buy Manchester United go the way of Project Merlin?
By Andrew Warshaw
It will go down as the day football’s lawmakers decided they knew better than fans, players, managers and referees alike. And you had to be there to believe it.
Just hours before Sir Alex Ferguson won yet another trophy, when Manchester United lifted the Carling Cup beating Aston Villa, there was a very interesting programme on ESPN Classic.
By David Owen
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
By David Owen
Passion. Colour. Excitement. And, of course, cash.
The World Cup will bring all of these to South Africa next June, but will it change the lives of people like Cynthia in any meaningful way?
The child outstripping the father in any sphere of life is always news.
Olympic Games always bring up this comparison for, after all, it was the success of the 1924 Olympic football tournament that prompted the French to organise a football World Cup for professional players.
There is a story going round the many lawyers, accountants and other professionals who advise football clubs. The story goes as follows. Some years ago, when Leicester City were in financial trouble and being hounded by the Revenue for non payment of taxes, Keith Vaz, the local MP, rang Gordon Brown then Chancellor of the Exchequer.