What makes an impact is basic footballing competence and the cautious progress made under Erik ten Hag would be destroyed in an instantAnd here’s one we made earlier. Please ignore the noises from the basement. We, the sovereign state of Qatar, are here to restore the lost soul of your prized social-sporting institutions. And it’s all going to be fine. There was an unavoidable significance this week in the coincidence of two apparently unrelated events. First the suggestion that Qatar really may have a serious interest in buying Manchester United, or at least enough interest to add its name to the list before Friday’s “soft” deadline. And second the deliciously more-ish scenes of chaos at Paris Saint-Germain as the current...
It is time for Fifa and the IOC to threaten serious sporting sanctions if the Bahraini footballer detained in Thailand and facing extradition is not set freeThere is a striking story in The Club, Jonathan Clegg and Joshua Robinson’s new book on how the Premier League went global, that illustrates football’s inimitable ability to tickle the erogenous zones of the powerful. It turns out that when British prime ministers want to make deals, their secret weapon is the Premier League trophy. As the league’s former CEO Richard Scudamore explains: “Everyone who sees it will say, ‘Wow’. Heads of state, prime ministers – they all want a photo with the trophy. It’s what we like to call soft power.” Related: 'Please...
Tribal loyalty has been taken too far when supporters pontificate on an area that has nothing to do with football as if they are debating an offside decisionIt seems an odd detail now but the first person to find oil in Abu Dhabi was the deep sea explorer Jacques Cousteau, who was employed by a British-run expedition to look for telltale signs in the ocean floor. Modern-day oil prospecting involves satellite imaging and infrared. Back in the 1950s the state of the art was a broodingly handsome celebrity diver in a pair of Speedos.It worked, though. In those days the Persian gulf was a coral paradise, home to a booming pearl diving trade. You wonder if, down in the glitter...