The idea that participation in Europe’s top club competition is less important to England’s top flight because of TV money dissolves on analysisThere is an emerging school of thought that qualification for the European Champions League is no longer quite the financial and commercial boost that it used to be, given the galactic increase in Premier League TV money showering fortunes on all 20 clubs from 2016-19.It is true the increase in the English top flight’s broadcasting deals, from £5.1bn in 2013-16 to £8.4bn in the present three-year cycle, is a dramatic windfall – inflated at home by BT’s serious designs on BSkyB’s 25-year subscriber stranglehold and internationally by increased coverage of the Premier League on channels all over the...
The Football Association has passed modest reform, which will see more women on its governing council and board and bring it in line with Sport England requirements, but the game has a long way to goThe Football Association has ratified the modest reforms proposed to its governing council and board, so mercifully drawing to a finish a torturous and long‑winded saga of internal reordering. The immediate consequence is that the FA’s structure and makeup of its board, which will have three women and seven men by next year, complies with the – also modest – requirements of the new official code for sports governance.This means that several unlikely threats made to the FA – and by the chairman, Greg Clarke,...
RB Leipzig will join Red Bull Salzburg in next season’s Champions League, leaving the drinks company’s CEO Dietrich Mateschitz with a big problemIn any professional sport, what could be more necessary than a rule preventing one person or organisation from owning two teams? The potential conflicts of interest are obvious. One team could be used to help the other by, for instance, rolling over when they met at a crucial point in the battle for a championship, or by obstructing a third party in order to favour a stablemate.Formula One used to have a rule like that, but it was a distant memory by the time Dietrich Mateschitz came along. The man who bought the recipe for a caffeine-based drink...
As world football’s governing body prepares for its congress in Bahrain, it is timely to ask whether there has ever been a new broom quite as useless as the old one or less equal to the task of clean-upCan it really be only 14 months since Fifa’s new broom, Gianni Infantino, took office at world football’s governing body – and a mere 11 since he told the world “I can officially inform you the crisis is over”? Next week’s Fifa congress is in Bahrain (but of course), and Infantino approaches it reportedly on the brink of his second personal ethics investigation since ascending to the presidency. His second! One has to admire his ethics ethic.Then again, there are strong rumours...
If David Moyes makes a habit of such joke-threats, can the men on the receiving end of them please step forward and speak out. Don’t all rush at once …Couldn’t this whole silly misunderstanding with David Moyes be cleared up if all the male reporters he’d threatened joshingly to slap came forward to contextualise the experience? I mean, honestly. HONESTLY. How are we possibly to make a judgment about the incident’s acceptability or otherwise with a sample size of one? To be more specific: one woman. Related: Sunderland ‘fully support’ Moyes after he told reporter she ‘might get a slap’ Related: David Squires on … Mourinho, Moyes and post-match interviews Related: Behaviour of David Moyes shows old-fashioned sexism is still...