In a time of economic hardship, it is right to feel appalled at the potential sums involved in Erling Haaland’s impending transferAt this time of year it was a common thing for elegant young men of the 19th century to set off on a Grand Tour of Europe. Shuttered inside his velveteen stage coach, the brave traveller would wind from royal court to ancient city, taking in the rites of passage: harpsichord studies in Bologna, a marzipan banquet in Nîmes, a wonderful six-month tuition in the fine art of Etruscan wrestling from a youth called Hercule on the Istanbul docks.It was interesting to see Erling Haaland embarking on a kind of modern-day superstar athlete equivalent this week. According to reports...
If the insatiable elite want to follow the IPL’s example, then let them if it helps counter football’s growing predictabilityConsider the start of this season. What do you see? Do the chaotic results – Manchester City letting in five, Manchester United letting in six, Liverpool letting in seven, Everton and Aston Villa top of the table, Chelsea making 3-3 their default result – engender a thrill of excitement at the unpredictability of it all? Or did you see the two Manchester clubs in the bottom half of the table after last weekend, and Tottenham and Chelsea seventh and eighth, and worry that this might damage revenue streams for teams favoured by the global audience? Related: Revealed: Greg Clarke's real role...
Liverpool and Manchester United have lagged behind other big clubs in support of their women’s teams and their interest now reeks of financial opportunismMaybe we should be grateful that those responsible for Project Big Picture have included support for the Women’s Super League within their plans for total football domination.Nestled within the proposed £100m “gift” to help the Football Association combat the £300m-plus hit it has taken because of the Covid-19 pandemic is a £10m to bail out the WSL and Women’s Championship, a commitment that “a new independent league for the women’s professional game will finally be developed and funded” and reportedly more than £50m a year for the WSL, Championship, Women’s FA Cup and grassroots. Related: 'Mo Marley?...
The leaked plans contain both good and bad ideas, but will act as a licence to print money for the so-called big sixNot many people seem to remember Benjamin Disraeli’s novels these days, partly because – by and large – they weren’t very good. Indeed, had their author not gone on to become one of the most important politicians of the 19th century, it’s likely they would have been almost entirely forgotten: a mixture of Byron-esque pastiche and half-baked political manifesto churned out largely to subsidise his extravagant London lifestyle. “When I want to read a novel, I write one,” Disraeli once claimed. Contemporary critics scoffed that it showed.And yet for their many flaws, there’s some interesting stuff in there:...
Liverpool and Manchester United have infuriated the Premier League clubs who were in the dark but the premise of their proposal is soundThere are so many extraordinary elements in the Liverpool and Manchester United proposals to reshape English football, and so much understandable scepticism, that the historic move at the heart of it is in danger of being missed.So, for clarity, it really is true that the US owners of these two fabulously rich football corporations have produced an offer that has not been forthcoming and never seemed possible from any Premier League leadership figures for 28 years. Related: Premier League's pay-per-view TV deal under fire from furious football fans Related: Arsène Wenger: ‘I try to read everything that helps...