Author: rob (Page 8 of 38)

Gianni Infantino clearly knows how to get some positive press.

His very first day in the Fifa top job – a job that belonged to yoda’s evil twin Sepp Blatter for the last 382 years – he somehow organises a match with a group of football legends, garnering barely a single critical word.

Evidence:
The independent: Gianni Infantino celebrates Fifa election success with legends football match
The Guardian: Fifa president Gianni Infantino wants to reignite ‘love of the game’

Ah, the love of the game. Friendly rich ex-pros laughing for the cameras. That’s what it’s all about. Putting the fun back into Fifa.

Wrong, wrong, WRONG.

When financier Guy Hands took over Odeon cinemas, he had to stop executives thinking they worked in Hollywood. He reminded everyone that they were in the popcorn business, not the movie business.

Infantino needs to realise he’s not in the football business. Not in the sense of running a club, building dreams, having them shattered and doing it all again next season. He’s in the business of organising events – World Cups, specifically. Who bids for them, how the TV money is distributed, and managing the reserve fund in the intervening years. Nothing else matters.

If he does his job well, no-one should recognise him, care about what he says, or pay him any attention. He needs to create a boring, transparent governing body that gets almost no news coverage. It is based in Switzerland, so that’s a good start. But he should forget the star-studded kickabouts, and get on with the job. (Related: read what’s wrong with sports officials by Simon Kuper)

Anyway, here are six recent stories that you should read: Continue reading

First – apologies to anyone who got last-week’s newsletter yesterday. I screwed up a Mailchimp setting. It won’t happen again (promise).

Now to the sport. Novak Djokovic’s win in Melbourne gives tennis an all-too familiar and predictable feel. Which is a shame, as he’s clearly doing everything right. The strange thing is, the storyline should get way more interesting at the French – yet it probably won’t. Were he to win, the criticism will be that he is too good, making the game boring, too dominant. Lose, and it’s 2015 all over again. Lose-lose. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will miss him. We just can’t see it yet. Continue reading

The tennis fixing debacle has turned from spreadsheet sleuthing to flawed methodologies. For those who have lost track: The BBC and BuzzFeed ran their investigation, but didn’t name names. Dry hump. So everyone worked them out anyway, and it all went sort-of-public. Except, Lleyton Hewitt was named, and let’s face it, he’s the last person on earth who would fix a match. Cue lots of yes-but analysis of strange betting patterns. The only way this is going to get resolved is when we follow the money. More evidence, please. But the right kind.

So to the must-read stories of the week. Continue reading

It’s usually money that corrupts sport. But in the case of tennis, it’s also technology. As I wrote this week in the FT, there are betting exchanges with a huge range of under-the-radar matches where you can bet on set outcomes. It makes match-fixing look incredibly easy. The hope is that the very technology that allows the match-fixing can also help catch it. Readily available data means anyone with a spreadsheet skills can track what’s going on. Surely, if BuzzFeed and the BBC can do it, tennis can monitor itself properly?

Here are the stories of the week: Continue reading

There are some phrases that, by their very nature, make it very hard for the listener to disagree. They are like putting “right?” on the end of every sentence. At some point, the response needs to be: “wrong” – but that makes you sound aggressive and antagonistic. Right? (see what I did there).

Case in point. When Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the US, he followed up with: “We have no choice. We have NO choice.” Well, yes we do have a choice, but the battlelines have been drawn in a place you don’t want them. Arguing about choice isn’t the point.

And so to Yaya Touré. Having come second as African footballer of the year, his classless reaction was to ponder: “what can we do?” The obvious response is: “there is no ‘we’. You need to grow up and stop being an arrogant git”. Yet that’s too aggressive. The polite response is to quietly ponder: “Hmm, what can we do?” But that’s giving in. He’s already won if we do that. So while Trump and Touré don’t seem too similar on the surface, they are both very good at framing the debate in their terms. Beware.

And so to this newsletter, which is back after a holiday hiatus. Not comprehensive, but hopefully thoughtful. Enjoy. Continue reading

It’s a busy time of year. Let’s crack on, shall we?

FOOTBALL
Mourinho’s gone. Here’s the inside story of how it all unfolded. It all started with Eden Hazard’s injury at Swansea. So who’s to blame? It’s not just Jose, surely. Have the club made an error by sacking him? And can Hiddink (if it is to be him) turn it around?

2015 should be Arsenal’s year to win the title. The other usual suspects won’t all be as weak in the future.  Here’s a look at how topsy-turvy the season has been so far. Much will depend on Ozil and Giroud.

This changed things forever: Bosman, 20 years on.

RIP Jimmy Hill.

Abby Wambach is one of the greatest female football players ever. She’s retiring. Have you heard of her? No, well, she wants you to forget her, anyway.

Heard of Football Leaks? Dutch side F.C. Twente certainly have.

2015 LOL.

FIFA
Blatini banned. But they aren’t sorry. No siree. Not. At. All. But Tim Roth is, at least.  Continue reading

Jose Mourinho feels betrayed by his players at Chelsea. He did all the hard work, you see, when they won the title, conveniently forgetting the running-about-and-kicking-the-ball-and-scoring-the-goals bit done by those blokes on the pitch. And now they are playing badly, it’s their fault, not his. Credit where it’s due. He can’t be blamed for the biggest reversal of fortune since Max Zuckerberg was born.

So how would you feel right now as a Chelsea player? Motivated to prove him wrong, play your best and move out of the relegation zone? Or poke him in the eye, play like it’s a testimonial, and move out of London? If Mourinho thinks that rubbishing his players will somehow work, it’s a huge gamble. That, or he’s given up too, and might as well take everyone down with him. Brilliant.

And so to the best articles of the week. Continue reading

Glory fades. Just ask Tiger Woods, who is still week after week the subject of speculative articles about his future. Just look at Tyson Fury, who wins those heavyweight titles from Wladimir Klitschko and promptly gets (rightly) pilloried for his sexist and homophobic comments.

The sports person who seems most in tune with the fleeting nature of glory at the moment is Andy Murray. After a huge effort to win the Davis Cup, he put the boot into the LTA and British tennis. That’s good. Right time, right moment to get maximum impact for an important message about your sport. Forget personal glory. It doesn’t last, anyway.

And so to the pick of the week… (in alphabetical order this week) Continue reading

Just for a change, let’s start with US sports.

BASKETBALL
Just guessing, but I assume Drew Magary isn’t on Kobe Bryant‘s Christmas card list.

What’s with the sleeves? Continue reading