The coronavirus crisis has instilled a spirit of unity among football’s leaders – but the sport’s calendar has been shreddedAs Gareth Southgate put it so eloquently, this is hardly the moment for football to take centre stage. Yet after a week in which almost all of the sport’s global calendar was suspended amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, England’s manager can be forgiven for wondering if what Pelé described as the “beautiful game” will ever recover from this crisis.Thursday’s joint announcement by the Football Association, the Premier League and the EFL that the provisional date of the first weekend in April for the resumption of men’s and women’s professional football had been pushed back almost a month until “no earlier than...
One way for the second tier to get the global attention it deserves would be to slim down in a repackaged league systemCedars Art Production has been making well-received Middle Eastern films and television dramas since the 1950s but it was not until three years ago that the Lebanese company realised its full potential. Everything changed when Al Hayba was showcased at Cannes. The TV series, set in a fictional, smuggling-funded mountain village near ancient Baalbek, blended action, romance, feudal politicking, emotional intelligence and bewitching scenery. Netflix executives spied an international hit and acquired streaming rights.Underpinned by themes sufficiently universal to resonate with globally diverse audiences, the Arabic soundtrack was given English, French, Spanish and Chinese subtitles. Soon Al Hayba’s...
There is a hum of optimism among fans with prospective owners ESI hoping to complete a takeover before Christmas The last time Charlton Athletic played Huddersfield Town and Hull City in the same week, they ended up reimbursing supporters’ travel costs following a 5-0 shellacking only to get hit for six five days later. That 11-0 aggregate defeat almost four years ago followed a nine-match winless streak, including a meek surrender to Colchester United, then bottom of League One, in the FA Cup third round. Charlton were drowning in the Championship at a time when the arrival of new, and usually obscure, out-of-work managers marked the changing of the seasons. In the midst of the despised Roland Duchâtelet’s reign, those...
Demise is another warning that huge social value of clubs cannot beat the cold, hard edges of a free marketA good day to bury Bury. The swell of public sympathy at Bury FC’s expulsion from the English Football League was tangible on Wednesday morning. And yet, as ever with Big Football, the wheels will continue to grind on.Thursday will bring the Champions League draw, with further details of how Europe’s club elite plan to divvy up the season’s £2bn revenue. Friday promises more news on a potential mega‑move for the house of Neymar, with the proposed £135m transfer to Barcelona playing itself out up to deadline day. Beyond that, the Premier League fixture list will continue to fill the skies...
For many fans of lower league sides the best case is nothing happens in the new season, but developments at Gigg Lane show us that our clubs may not always be thereIt’s 5 August 2017. It’s hard to tell how many Cambridge United fans have made the trip to Exeter City for the opening game of the season. The records say 318. It didn’t seem that many at the time.Exeter have chucked us in the main stand in the corner – not because they thought our ultras would make it feel like a U’s home game if they put us behind the goal, but because the away end is a building site. Just some hoardings, some sand and a digger....