Football

Long ago football was the sport of the common people and the working class.  It was common people and the working class that would fill the terraces to watch games on a Saturday afternoon and long ago even the players were just normal people playing the game they loved at a high level. Today, Sky and BT secured the rights to screen Barclays Premier League matches here in the UK between the 2016/17 and 2018/19 seasons.  The incredible news, though, is that the total cost — Read more →

Cristiano Ronaldo was crowned the best footballer in the world for the last year in a glittering awards gala last night, celebrating the best individual achievements in the game.  While the pundits and plaudits came out in force to hype and fawn over the players and managers on show, I can’t help but feel that the Ballon D’Or and the accompanying pomp and ceremony is doing the game an injustice. The main prize on offer was of course the Ballon D’Or, an award originally given — Read more →

It’s Punch and Judy season across the country, and sadly for what was one of Scotland’s most important footballing institutions once upon a day the festive spirit of playing out a farcical story has gripped Ibrox this month. The only difference is that there doesn’t appear to be any real heroes on show. Ally McCoist has now effectively left the club after three years in charge of Rangers, a time where the side have gone from perennial title challengers alongside bitter rivals Celtic to being — Read more →

The FIFA circus continued last week as the much-awaited internal report into strongly alleged corruption within the organisation, specifically relating to the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, was published.  FIFA was found innocent of any corruption and the only party admonished in the investigation was England, for their “disruption” of the bidding process by alleging that there was impropriety afoot on behalf of some of the bidders. The thing is though that the actual report wasn’t published, just a summary of it — Read more →