OTHER EVENTS

The Leader Column

Authoritative, independent and hard hitting, the weekly column on the business of football tackles some of the biggest issues of the week.

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ROGAN TAYLOR: 'CULTURE &TRADITION?' YOU'RE KIDDING, UEFA.

9:00am Friday, 3rd September 2010

As a fully paid up, eminently qualified, time-served, grumpy old football fan, I do like to have rant every now and then. I felt one coming on this week when I read about Uefa's decision to ban vuvuzelas at the Euro's and Champions' League matches....

GERRY COX: FOREIGN OWNERSHIP - GOOD FORTUNE OR FALSE DAWN?

4:22pm Thursday, 19th August 2010

Ahsan Ali Syed claims he is close to completing his proposed 300m takeover of Blackburn Rovers, and has promised manager Sam Allardyce a 100m budget for players. Which is fine and dandy for Blackburn Rovers - but what's in it for the Indian billion...

ROGAN TAYLOR: ENGLAND WIN THIS TIME BUT BECKS LOSES

10:09am Friday, 13th August 2010

When England captain, Billy Wright was lining up in the Wembley tunnel, waiting to lead England out against the 'the greatest national team of all time' - the Hungarians of 1953, the man behind him, Stan Mortensen, tapped him on the shoulder. Stan ...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE BUN FIGHT BEGINS

5:04pm Thursday, 5th August 2010

What a palaver! Suddenly, everyone seems to want to buy Liverpool FC but no one seems absolutely sure who exactly is selling the Club. Officially, it's Barclays Capital (Barcap) of course, appointed by LFC Chairman, Martin Broughton, who was himself...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE LIONS AND THE DONKEYS

9:28am Friday, 30th July 2010

It's hardly a surprise these days, even though the military story has switched to Afghanistan, to hear of problems in Iraq. But this week featured a story about trouble of a different kind. The FA of Iraq (IFA) found itself unable to elect a new bo...

GERRY COX: GLUM GLOBETROTTERS

9:29am Friday, 23rd July 2010

What is the point of pre-season tours? To get fit and build team spirit or make money? And who benefits most? Once upon a time, not so long ago, most of the leading English teams would prepare for the arduous season ahead with a glorified boot camp....

ROGAN TAYLOR: IS MONOGAMY OR POLYGAMY BEST?

5:09pm Thursday, 15th July 2010

One of the many pleasures of being involved in the world's only football MBA programme, at Liverpool University, is listening to the informal (often on-line) debates around current business issues in the game amongst the current and former students....

ROGAN TAYLOR: ONLY THE (COMPARATIVELY) RICH CAN WIN IT

4:56pm Thursday, 8th July 2010

So we're going to get a new member of the elite group of countries who have won a World Cup. The seven who have held that trophy aloft will be joined by an eighth on Sunday. Both the finalists are from Europe, despite the early promise of the South ...

OPEN LETTER TO BLATTER ON JABULANI BALL

4:37pm Thursday, 8th July 2010

Dear Mr Blatter, If a sponsor came into your office before the World Cup and said. ' We are going to give you a new, perfectly round match ball...the players wont like it at all...and there will be more mistakes made than in any other World Cup....

GERRY COX: NEW BALLS, PLEASE

3:53pm Thursday, 1st July 2010

I don't know how much adidas pay FIFA to use the Jabulani, but surely it cannot be enough to justify the damage it has caused to this World Cup. Without doubt the controversial ball is the biggest single reason for the poor quality of football seen ...

DUNCAN MACKAY: BLATTER CLEARED IN ISL CASE AS FIFA NAMES REMAIN A MYSTERY

3:48pm Thursday, 1st July 2010

FIFA President Sepp Blatter was today cleared of any wrongdoing after the release of a Swiss court finding which claimed that senior FIFA officials were involved in a major bribery scandal. Swiss Prosecution officials in Zug claimed that leadin...

GERRY COX: WHAT IS THE WORLD CUP WORTH?

9:52am Friday, 25th June 2010

Not the gold statuette, nor the ability to call yourself World Champions. What is the World Cup worth to the host country? What benefits, tangible and otherwise, will South Africa get from putting on the greatest show on Earth, and at huge expense?...

GERRY COX: TO THE WORLD CUP DOOMSAYERS

9:33am Friday, 18th June 2010

THREE YEARS ago I sat down in a Johannesburg hotel with Danny Jordaan and he told me that not only would South Africa be ready to put on the World Cup, but that it would be something special - and how right he was. The tournament is only a week ...

ROGAN TAYLOR: CHANCE ENCOUNTERS

4:42pm Thursday, 10th June 2010

Just before we all start going crazy after a 2 - 0 win over the USA on Saturday (and I've got a horrible feeling that it could easily go the other way), we should sober up right now about the hard facts that determine the probability of our boys com...

ROGAN TAYLOR: IT ISN'T THE FANS WHO NEED TO WORRY

4:12pm Thursday, 3rd June 2010

When the World Cup was awarded to South Africa (doesn't that seem a long time ago now?), one of the first - and possibly most predictable - caveats expressed in public was the fear of crime in a country bedevilled by desperately high rates of murder...

KEIR RADNEDGE: THE MEDIA SHUTOUT

3:33pm Thursday, 3rd June 2010

Foreign football reporters are growing increasingly irritated - not to say angrily frustrated - at the problems they experience trying to attend and work at Premier and Football League matches. The danger is that this will, in due course, rebound ag...

DUNCAN MACKAY: EXCLUSIVE: AMERICAN OWNERS DECEIVED LIVERPOOL FANS CLAIMS THOMPSON

3:29pm Thursday, 3rd June 2010

Former Liverpool captain Phil Thompson has claimed that Liverpool's American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett deceived former owner David Moores in order to gain control of the Premier League club. Moores, whose family created Littlewoods, sold t...

GERRY COX: SA 2010 - CHAMPAGNE OR A SHAMBLES FOR JOURNALISTS?

10:26am Friday, 28th May 2010

The World Cup is now only a fortnight away, so close you can almost smell it, and we are all waiting in anticipation - and some element of trepidation. What sort of World Cup will it be for us in the media? Brilliantly organised as it was in German...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE CASE FOR THE (LACK OF) DEFENCE

5:39pm Thursday, 27th May 2010

Watching the England v Mexico match this week, I was again struck by how poorly the English defend at football. Mexico were all over them and had chance after chance. The England back four only had two of Capello's likely first team choices, and his...

KEIR RADNEDGE: THE REAL WORLD CUP WINNERS

3:54pm Thursday, 27th May 2010

Playing in the World Cup finals has never been a more rewarding experience. It's a status point for players, its ranking points for national teams and it can be a financial windfall for any federation which plays its cards even half right. World Cu...

ROGAN TAYLOR: IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST?

4:45pm Thursday, 20th May 2010

I first heard Lord Triesman speak at the inaugural Leaders in Football conference in 2008. He was the first ever independent Chairman of the FA - and undoubtedly the first leader of the FA who'd once been a member of the Communist Party - and he ha...

GERRY COX: QATAR'S GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE

3:37pm Thursday, 20th May 2010

While the dust has yet to settle on England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup in the light of Lord Triesman's resignation, there is a lot less focus on the battle for 2022, which will also be decided in December. All bid books were delivered last we...

KEIR RADNEDGE: PLAYERS ARE THE VICTIMS

12:22pm Thursday, 20th May 2010

Avram Grant was not a happy man after Portsmouth's FA Cup Final defeat by Chelsea. He had seen his players defy the odds to reach the final in the first place and then squander the penalty-offering which would have handed them the lead. He remained...

DUNCAN MACKAY: A WORLD CUP IN RUSSIA WOULD BENEFIT FOOTBALL MORE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE

12:27pm Monday, 17th May 2010

Russia have tried to put a positive spin on their lack of modern football stadiums and facilities by claiming that awarding them the 2018 World Cup would help the development of the sport in the world's biggest country, First Deputy Prime Minister I...

GERRY COX: THE NEXT ENGLAND MANAGER?

11:26am Friday, 14th May 2010

WAYNE ROONEY collected his Footballer of the Year award last night - and chose that moment to announce that he is preparing for a career in management. Rooney was the guest of honour at the Football Writers' Association dinner in London, and collect...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE REBIRTH OF THE TANGERINES

9:29am Friday, 14th May 2010

Though I've never felt any direct allegiance towards the club, I couldn't ignore a frisson of joy when I heard that Blackpool might return to top flight football if they can beat Cardiff in the play-off final. Blackpool in the Premier League..... No...

KEIR RADNEDGE: IF IT'S NOT RIGHT, FIX IT

5:44pm Thursday, 13th May 2010

Michel Platini must have been a happy man as he watched Atletico Madrid write another chapter in not only their own but European football history by defeating Fulham in the first final of the Europa League. This competition, of course, was once kno...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE CULT OF THE MANAGER

9:45am Friday, 7th May 2010

Watching the Spurs players ecstatically group-hugging their manager after the final whistle on Wednesday night - and the bouncing joy of their fans in the Eastlands' stands emphasised how intense the relationship can become between those who watch a...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE FANS REMEMBER BEST

9:17am Friday, 30th April 2010

In a week when the PFA's membership chose Wayne Rooney as 'Player of the Year', who could deny their wisdom? The battling boy had been on a roll the whole season until untimely injury stopped the show. Without him, Man Utd would probably be fighting...

KEIR RADNEDGE: THE 'L' WORD

8:14am Friday, 30th April 2010

Modern technology is sweeping across football even if FIFA president Sepp Blatter and the International Board wish to keep it at bay as far as referee decision-making is concerned: Qatar is proposing air-cooling technology for stadia in its bid to h...

GERRY COX: A LESSON FOR LIVERPOOL

7:14am Friday, 30th April 2010

Who would have thought Fulham would be England's only representatives in a European final this season? While the might of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal were expected to make their usual to Champions League semi-finals at least, l...

ROGAN TAYLOR: IT'S ON THE CARDS

6:00pm Thursday, 22nd April 2010

So it's official: Liverpool FC is for sale. The announcement that current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have appointed BA boss, Martin Broughton, to oversee the auction opens a new chapter in a sad tale. The story of their ownership is - has ...

KEIR RADNEDGE: THE GRAND OLD MAN OF WORLD SPORT

5:30pm Thursday, 22nd April 2010

And then there was one . . . the death of Juan Antonio Samaranch means Joao Havelange remains the last survivor of the Latin triumvirate who redirected the context and commercial direction of world sport. Brazilian Havelange was president of wo...

GERRY COX: PAY UP POMPEY

4:45pm Thursday, 22nd April 2010

How much sympathy do we have for Portsmouth? The release this week of administrator Andrew Andronikou's report into the club's atrocious finances showed debts approaching 120m, including outstanding amounts to an astonishing array of organisations -...

ROGAN TAYLOR: SING WHEN YOU'RE WINNING

7:00pm Thursday, 15th April 2010

What a week on the pitch. The apparent collapse of Man Utd's season (though the PL title is by no means decided yet) seemed to come almost immediately as Rooney was withdrawn from the ranks of the fighting fit. Yet his limited presence in the game ...

KEIR RADNEDGE: SUCCESS AND CORRUPTION

5:30pm Thursday, 15th April 2010

The corruption scandal which convulsed Italian football just as the Azzurri were winning the World Cup in 2006 shows no sign of going away. Indeed, in an odd repeat of events, issues are boiling up again in a manner reminiscent of four years ago. An...

GERRY COX: ENGLISH FOOTBALL - IN RUDE HEALTH OR ON ITS DEATHBED?

6:30pm Thursday, 8th April 2010

As happened with Mark Twain, reports on the death of English football have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, there are no English representatives in the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time in seven years. And yes, it is true that the...

KEIR RADNEDGE: CODE OF PRACTICE FOR SPORTS NEWS REPORTING

5:45pm Thursday, 8th April 2010

A pact with the devil is how the relationship between the media and sports organizations, confederations, federations, associations, leagues, tournaments and events has been described. Reporters and photographers publishing via television, radio, in...

ROGAN TAYLOR: YOU CAN'T PICK YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TOES

5:00pm Thursday, 8th April 2010

There's a primary aspect of football which is a constant and almost unique feature of this weird ball game: you're not allowed to use your hands. It might sound obvious, but in just about every other popular ball game, you're allowed to do the obvio...

KEIR RADNEDGE: IT'S NOT ONLY ABOUT THE REAL MADRID'S AND BARCELONA'S

5:48pm Wednesday, 31st March 2010

Panic stations. The eagerly-awaited return clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona on Saturday April 10 is at risk because of a possible strike of Spanish league footballers. This is not the first time the Asociacin de Futbolistas Espaoles has rai...

ROGAN TAYLOR: ARE WE ON A PROMISE THEN?

4:49pm Wednesday, 31st March 2010

What's the most popular structure for businesses and companies across the world? The answer knocked me out when I came across it a few years back. Apparently, over 70% of the world's commercial outfits are co-operatives. Literally millions of compan...

ROGAN TAYLOR: THE CUCKOO IN THE NEST

6:00pm Thursday, 25th March 2010

It hasn't been a good week for the Football Association but it's been lucrative a few days for the Premier League. The impressive (and quite recently appointed) CEO of the FA, Ian Watmore, has resigned his post as a result of his frustration at the ...

KEIR RADNEDGE: IT'S AN ILL (FINANCIAL) WIND

5:45pm Thursday, 25th March 2010

Listen to the London-Manchester axis commanding the image of the FA Premier League and the message, loud and clear, is that this is the world's most exciting, most competitive and most internationally-domestic competition in the game is above all, a...

GERRY COX: THE SACK RACE

5:15pm Thursday, 25th March 2010

The two months that managers fear most are traditionally November and March. Not because the league can be lost or won in those periods, or because of fixture congestion that can make or break a season. No, the reason most managers' start getting t...

ROWAN SIMONS: CHINA CHANGES THE RULES AGAIN

5:00pm Thursday, 25th March 2010

Having watched the Chinese football industry for over 20 years, I thought I had seen it all. From the abject performances of the national team (and its fickle fans) and the endemic corruption of the professional leagues, to the grotesque absence of ...

ROGAN TAYLOR: OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

5:30pm Thursday, 18th March 2010

The news this week that a serious offer of investment into Liverpool FC had been received from a US based fund management outfit called Rhone Group was not received ecstatically by scousers of the red persuasion. You can hardly blame them. Though th...

KEIR RADNEDGE: A SALARY CAP IS JUST A RED HERRING

5:15pm Thursday, 18th March 2010

Lord Mawhinney bade farewell to the chairmanship of the Football League with a repetition of his oft-stated belief in a salary cap; simultaneously, across the Channel, a French court was reviewing the reason it can never work. Mawhinney, who has han...

GERRY COX: BECKHAM - SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO?

5:00pm Thursday, 18th March 2010

DAVID BECKHAM'S injury rules him out of playing in the World Cup - this much we know for sure. But now the question is this: what do we do with him? In the past, and I am not talking about the black and white days of Sir Stanley Matthews, if a play...

ROGAN TAYLOR: YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP

6:00pm Thursday, 11th March 2010

There have been some good novels and movies about various sports over the years (and cricket could fill a library), but there are very few works of imagination about football that come even near to cutting the mustard. Why is that? There's a mass au...

KEIR RADNEDGE: IN A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN. CAN EUROPEAN FOOTBALL SURVIVE?

4:45pm Thursday, 11th March 2010

Europe's league championships can trace their history back a long way. In England that means 1889; in various countries of Scandinavia and central Europe pre-first world war; in Germany (albeit regionalised originally) 1903; in Italy and Spain 1929;...

GERRY COX: THE PREDICTIONS GAME

4:00pm Thursday, 11th March 2010

THE LAUREUS SPORTS AWARDS were held in Abu Dhabi this week, with the usual gathering of glitterati from the worlds of sport and showbiz, and it is interesting to see the World Cup expectations from different countries. As well as the likes of Emme...

GERRY COX: FAIR PLAY - FAIR CHANCE

5:30pm Thursday, 4th March 2010

I was in Manchester this week as the European Clubs Association met and announced the result of their negotiations with UEFA over a raft of proposals aimed at introducing some overdue financial stability to European football. It was Michel Platini...

DR ROGAN TAYLOR: IT'S THE RIGHT TIME WHEN THE TIME IS RIGHT

5:00pm Thursday, 4th March 2010

This week the stories came in fast flurries, like snowfall in the Scottish Highlands. There was talk of the Premier League overseas media rights for 2010-2013 topping the billion pound mark, but suggestions that the PL may not wish to publish the tr...

KEIR RADNEDGE: AGENTS CREATING A STIR IN FOOTBALL'S ALPHABET SOUP

4:54pm Thursday, 4th March 2010

Agents are an issue. David Gill said so this week and he should know, as chief executive of Manchester United. FIFA also says so. This is why it is rolling out its web-based Transfer Matching System which will render the discredited licensing syste...

GERRY COX: THE BIDDING WAR INTENSIFIES

5:00pm Thursday, 25th February 2010

There are nine months to go until FIFA decide who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals, and as in any gestation period, things are developing rapidly. England's bid to host 2018 appears to be progressing smoothly, having got off to a controv...

KEIR RADNEDGE: FIFA STEPS UP AS VIRTUAL AGENT OF CHANGE

4:45pm Thursday, 25th February 2010

Internet technology is coming to football's rescue in the never-ending duel of wits between associations and agents. At one stage FIFA thought it had come up with the answer by introducing a licensing system. But most agents could not be bothered to...

ROGAN TAYLOR: DOING A 'GEOFFREY'

4:30pm Thursday, 25th February 2010

This week we were regaled by a chap calling for a 'boycott' of Man Utd by its growingly troubled fans. It wasn't some firebrand on a soap-box haranguing the Old Trafford faithful either; it emanated from somewhere higher up the feeding chain. No les...

ROGAN TAYLOR: IT'S ALL ABOUT WHO YOU HATE

4:30pm Thursday, 18th February 2010

It's probably an aspect of the football business that most operators inside it would like to ignore. But it's a fact. Much of the passionate frenzy and loyalty that fans show for their clubs (and countries) is rooted in intense rivalries...

KEIR RADNEDGE: WHOSE GAME IS IT?

4:15pm Thursday, 18th February 2010

Football club directors everywhere face the same challenge: how to fit a quart into a pint pot. That may be representing the issue in an old-fashioned imperial way but it's the same, for example, on both sides of the English Channel (or, if you pre...

GERRY COX: ALL IN A GOOD CAUSE

4:00pm Thursday, 18th February 2010

The World Cup finals will ensure that all eyes are on South Africa this summer, and that should be very good news for the country's - and indeed the continent of Africa's - underprivileged and poor. The official charitable campaign for the tourname...

THE LEADER: HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?

4:00pm Thursday, 11th February 2010

DR ROGAN TAYLOR: THE MADNESS IN THE ASYLUM The BBC Radio 5 interview with West Ham's new co-owner, David Gold, this week was little short of revelatory. It was like peering through the opening of a creaking door into an old madhouse...

KEIR RADNEDGE: WORLD CUP IS JUST THE TICKET FOR FANS AND CRITICS

5:30pm Thursday, 4th February 2010

Depends who you talk to... as to whether World Cup ticket sales are swinging along happily or lagging behind expectations. One fact is sure: the matches will be official sell-outs and scalpers/touts - despite all the promises of draconian action - ...

GERRY COX: PLAYER CAP THYSELF

5:15pm Thursday, 4th February 2010

I have spent a lot of time with footballers over the past 20 years or so, but I also live in the real world, so don't expect me to make a case for players as wonderful humanitarians. But it is refreshing to hear that one or two players are starting...

DR ROGAN TAYLOR: BROKEN CHINA

5:00pm Thursday, 4th February 2010

It isn't every day that you wake up to hear that someone you know may be facing the death penalty, and a few others you've met are already banged up in jail. But when I heard the news this week that Nan Yong - the top man at the Chinese FA - had be...

GERRY COX: MONEY, MONEY, MONEY - IT'S A RICH MAN'S WORLD

5:00pm Thursday, 28th January 2010

I seem to have spent more time recently talking to people in football about financial matters rather than the game itself, and that is a worrying trend. In the past week or so, I have interviewed Gianfranco Zola (manager of club in trouble) Peter S...

KEIR RADNEDGE: AUSSIE STRATEGY POINTS A WINNING FINGER IN LONDON'S DIRECTION

4:35pm Thursday, 28th January 2010

The latest personnel changes among the Australian World Cup bid team prompt the mischievous thought that perhaps Frank Lowy has missed one last trick: maybe he should propose staging the Opening Match and the Final at Wembley. This is, after al...

ROGAN TAYLOR: A FOOTBALL CLUB ISN'T SUPPOSED TO MAKE A PROFIT... OR A LOSS

4:30pm Thursday, 28th January 2010

When the Man Utd fans objected so vigorously to the removal of the words 'football club' from their logo, some might have thought it smacked of a typically conservative reaction from supporters who didn't live in the real world. But those fans were...

GERRY COX: GOING FOR A BURTON? WILL ST GEORGE'S PARK BE A WHITE ELEPHANT FOR THE FA OR THE SAVIOUR OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL?

5:15pm Thursday, 21st January 2010

I have seen the future of English football - and I hope it works. On Tuesday, I was invited by the Football Association to visit a beautiful area of countryside, over 300 acres of woodland in East Staffordshire. Known as Burton or the National ...

DR ROGAN TAYLOR: WILL ANYONE EVER JOIN THE 'FAMOUS FIVE'

5:10pm Thursday, 21st January 2010

They say eight out of every ten dollars in the football business is made in Europe and most of that is in just the five top divisions in England, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. Most of the world's best players also play there. In South Africa ne...

KEIR RADNEDGE: FOOTBALL'S LAND OF MILK AND HONEY

5:00pm Thursday, 21st January 2010

The sights and sounds generated by the vast amount of cash sloshing around the Champions League, plus the development hand-outs passed on by UEFA down through the system, suggest that Europe - never mind the global recession - remains football's la...

GERRY COX: BROKEN WINDOW - SHOULD THE JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW BE SCRAPPED?

3:15pm Thursday, 14th January 2010

The stats speak for themselves - transfer activity so far this January is well down on previous years. Barely 7m has been spent in the top three divisions in England, and every agent and manager you speak to tells you the same story - do not expec...

KEIR RADNEDGE: LEGACY FACTOR NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS

3:05pm Thursday, 14th January 2010

Naturally, the focus of concern at the African Nations Cup was the terror attack on the Togo team bus. The aftermath was predictably confused: Would the players stay or go? Did this say anything or nothing about the World Cup? Has the unofficial mo...

DR ROGAN TAYLOR: MAYBE FOOTBALL'S NOT 'BARLEY' ANYMORE

3:00pm Thursday, 14th January 2010

The attack on the bus carrying the Togo team to the Cup of Nations in Angola has sent shivers down the spine of the football world. We may be getting used to all kinds of horrors these days but most of us sub-consciously thought that football was '...

Dr Rogan Taylor: THE REAL SUGAR DADDIES

5:00pm Thursday, 7th January 2010

Last year was a tough one for many football clubs. Financial stability has been hard to find for numerous companies across the world, amidst frightening levels of debt and shrinking consumer demand, and football has had its casualties. Portsmouth a...

Keir Radnedge: Bayern and the Global Recession

4:30pm Thursday, 7th January 2010

As a player Christian Nerlinger was good but not great. He worked hard and consistently for Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, Rangers and Kaiserslautern, which was enough to earn six appearances in the German national team. He was always a suppor...

Gerry Cox: Why aren't we up for the Cup?

4:25pm Thursday, 7th January 2010

The FA Cup has lost its sheen, we are told by the pessimists, and the wide open spaces in the stands at Wigan, Bolton and Middlesbrough do not offer much evidence to the contrary. Have we simply fallen out of love with the oldest and most romantic ...

Christmas Cheers

5:00pm Thursday, 17th December 2009

Association Football was born in a Christian country. The posh, ex-public schoolboys who met in a pub in London in 1863, and wrote the Rules of the game, may not have been especially 'religious' - but they had been born and raised amongst Sunday hy...

PITY THE POOR MILLIONAIRES

4:00pm Thursday, 10th December 2009

There's an old saying in football circles that goes something like this: 'How can you make a small fortune owning a football club?' The answer is invariably along the lines of, 'Start with a large one.' Few can doubt it. News this week that the o...

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT

4:00pm Thursday, 3rd December 2009

With the release this week of Bayern Munich's accounts for 2008-9, we catch a glimpse of another world, far away from the turmoil of parts of the Premier League and the struggling giants of Serie A. It's a world where ownership is secure and certai...

THE ELEPHANT IN THE DRESSING ROOM

3:00pm Thursday, 26th November 2009

Lots of people make good money out of football. BSkyB have grown rich on their subscription based business broadcasting live Premier League games. Stadium designers - and builders - have had a very productive couple of decades; major sponsors, from...

SIZE REALLY DOES COUNT

4:35pm Thursday, 19th November 2009

It's difficult not to have some sympathy for Rangers and Celtic. They are like big fish swimming in a pond full of tiddlers, with an eternally limited food supply. The problem is if they leave the pond, most of the tiddlers will probably die. And w...

He Shoots, He Tweets!

8:00am Friday, 13th November 2009

Social networking sites have forever changed the landscapes in which individuals may interact with each other. In everyday life, people are now able to reach an ever wider group of individuals anywhere in the world without actually ever having a v...

Where are the Ethnic Leaders in Football?

8:18am Friday, 6th November 2009

It is often pointed out how few black managers there are within the top tiers of English football, as well as Europe for that matter. In comparison to the number of black players currently plying their trade in the Europe's top leagues, there does...

A BIT OF BETTER BANTER

3:08pm Thursday, 29th October 2009

It's rare to hear footballers speak plainly and honestly about their lives as players whilst they are still playing. Once retired of course, some will tell it like it was with directness and gusto (and possibly some embellishment) at after dinner s...

START WITH A BANG

3:59pm Thursday, 15th October 2009

When you attend football conferences across the globe, after a brief opening speech of welcome, the first speaker and topic is usually interesting - even challenging - but rarely explosive. Not so at the Leaders in Football gathering at Stamford Br...

THERE'S RICH.....AND THEN THERE'S RICH

5:00pm Thursday, 1st October 2009

Rich lists can be a bit confusing sometimes, and there's plenty of them about these days. In football, you get lists of the richest clubs - and lists of the richest owners - and of course the two don't necessarily tally. Anyway, what makes a footbal...

DOING THEIR BIDDING

5:00pm Thursday, 24th September 2009

Hosting a World Cup used to be a fairly straightforward business. Only football people really cared where it would be staged - the players, so they could prepare for the local conditions, and the travelling fans (back in the day, few in number), so...

BUDDY, YOU'RE SPENDING TOO MANY DIMES

4:00pm Thursday, 17th September 2009

As Europe makes its way through the worst economic recession since the 1930s, a new wind is blowing around the financial governance of football clubs. This week was marked by regulatory announcements from two of the most powerful and influential gov...

Polishing diamonds or capturing slaves?

4:30pm Thursday, 10th September 2009

Following the transfer ban handed down by Fifa on Chelsea last week, there has been voluminous discussion in the media (and no doubt down the pub) about young 'foreign' players entering the English game. The Fifa ban regarding the Gael Kakuta move ...

PUT IT ON YOUR SHIRT AND PUT YOUR SHIRT ON IT

4:00pm Thursday, 3rd September 2009

It was thirty years ago today (well almost) that a Liverpool group began to play a new commercial game. They kicked off a trend which became (well almost) as big as the Beatles. The 'group' was Liverpool FC and the new game was shirt sponsorship wh...

IT'S DEJA-VU ALL OVER AGAIN

4:00pm Thursday, 27th August 2009

For those over the age of forty who watched the Ten O'Clock News on Tuesday evening, it must have felt like they'd slipped into a time warp. The footage of West Ham and Millwall fans charging onto the pitch - while the game was still playing - and ...

IS THE TECHIE'S DREAM FOOTBALL'S NIGHTMARE?

5:00pm Thursday, 20th August 2009

We can all reel them off: those 'goals which were never given'. Roy Carroll scrambling the ball back from at least a foot behind the goal-line, after Pedro Mendes' long punt from the halfway line should have given Spurs the winner at Old Trafford b...

INTERNET PIRATES SHIVER FOOTBALL'S TIMBERS

3:00pm Thursday, 13th August 2009

What's the ultimate test of the market value for anything? 'How much someone will pay you for it', is the usual answer. But what if people find they can get it for free, regardless of who you sell it to? What's it worth then? As technology advances...

IS THE DREAM OVER?

3:00pm Thursday, 6th August 2009

As the Football League kicks off this weekend, followed a week later by the Premier League, what do fans in England dream of these days in terms of success for their clubs? It's a pertinent question right now, as the gaps between individual clubs an...

If the cap fits......

3:05pm Thursday, 30th July 2009

It can sometimes be difficult to stifle a sigh of resignation whenever the topic of 'salary caps' returns to the news. It seems like the idea has been in constant discussion for the last fifty years - at least, in the UK, ever since the 'maximum wag...

THE GRAND TOUR

4:00pm Thursday, 23rd July 2009

This is the peak time in those 'gap years' - when there is no World Cup or European Championships - for many of the bigger clubs from western Europe to 'tour the world'. During the summer of those years which end in odd numbers, we've grown used to ...

How deep are your pockets? How high is the SKY?

3:00pm Thursday, 16th July 2009

The news that ESPN has done a deal with SKY to broadcast those Premier League TV rights washed up on the shores of Setanta's shipwreck will raise few eyebrows amongst media folk. ESPN snapped up the flotsam: 46 live games next season and 23 games f...

Ron Gone

3:00pm Thursday, 9th July 2009

With a gigantic splash, and an 80 million bait on the hook, this week Real Madrid beached their fish and displayed their prize at the Bernabeu. Around 80,000 madridistas turned out to welcome Ronaldo; the most expensive football player on earth. ...

The Confounding Confederations Cup

6:00pm Thursday, 2nd July 2009

It's a strange creature, the Fifa Confederations Cup. Born in Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s, it started life as an opportunity for King Fahd to see his national team play against some of the 'continental champions' who would accept an invitation....

What's Winning the Champions' League Really Worth?

4:30pm Thursday, 25th June 2009

At a time when a plethora of statistics is emerging about the TV audience size and the economic impact of victory in the Champions' League, it's worth pondering on what we can learn. If someone had asked you whether the TV audience for the 2008, Man...

The media is the paymaster these days

8:00am Friday, 19th June 2009

For the past decade or so, there was a general rule you could apply to the income of Premier League clubs: there were three overall streams, usually about equal in weight; commercial (inc. sponsorship); matchday, and media. Only Manchester United, w...

Deja View All Over Again?

4:30pm Thursday, 11th June 2009

The news this week that, by the time you read this, Setanta may well be in administration came as no surprise to many within the industry. Like so many businesses of all kinds recently, the model included extensive borrowing to acquire right at a ti...

SEXY FOOTBALL?

4:00pm Thursday, 4th June 2009

It is often claimed, both by fans and players, that scoring in a football game can be, well, to put no finer point on it, better than 'scoring' in bed. The physical release involved for those who play and those who watch them play - and the sense of...

THE GOLDEN AGES

4:30pm Thursday, 28th May 2009

Any outsider to football might imagine that two great clubs like Man United and Barca would have met a number of times in European Finals but in fact, prior to this week, they had met only once. That occasion - when United beat Barca 2 - 1 in the Ue...

Football's NOT 'coming home'.....at last

3:00pm Thursday, 21st May 2009

The launch this week of England's bid to stage the World Cup in 2018 (or possibly 2022) struck an appropriate note. The 'football's coming home' theme which was attached to previous bids has been thoroughly rejected in recognition of the evidence th...

PL Marriage or Legia Calcio divorce. What's best for everyone?

5:00pm Thursday, 14th May 2009

The Premier League had been a commercial success long before it became the powerhouse league in Europe. This year again, the four semi-finalists for the Champions League contained only one team not from the P L (and Chelsea will long insist that it ...

Liverpool FC 20, Manchester United 10

4:45pm Thursday, 7th May 2009

Football is a very difficult thing to define. And it looks as though it should be easy. It's a game isn't it? Played, at the top of the pyramid, by professionals in clubs; paid for by those who love it (the fans); and run as a business with investor...

Spare tickets, anybody?

5:42pm Thursday, 30th April 2009

There's a famous story about the FA Cup Final that's been told year after year for over a century. It's called, 'Where have all the tickets gone?' It resurfaced again this week with some serious belly-aching in public by leading figures from both fi...

When the past met the future

6:33pm Thursday, 23rd April 2009

There can't be too many people involved with football anywhere in the world who haven't spent at least a few minutes thinking about the Hillsborough disaster this last week. The 20th anniversary of that dreadful day, 15th April, 1989, provided a sig...