Search: 'media'

Cameron Carter raises the question of quality versus quantity in football punditry

A common and unnerving feeling experienced by the middle-aged person is the suspicion that they are being hurried along. Time appears to pass more quickly – calendar events flash by, children age and learn to look at us sarcastically, Rory McGrath makes another series out of wandering around Britain drinking real ale. This creeping sense of urgency has long since intruded into the world of television, to the extent that it is now almost unbearable to watch an interviewee pause, introduce a subordinate clause or stumble over their words, so brief is the space given to them to make their point before their chance is gone and the programme must move on.

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The British press reflect on the controversy surrounding England’s 2018 World Cup bid

Reacting to October’s Sunday Times investigation into the World Cup bidding process several in the press wistfully described a seductive setting: a Switzerland of suave gentlemen, crisp navy suits, lavish hotels, steak suppers and, according to the Telegraph, a lake “so clear that you can see the moorhens diving for fish ten feet under”. The twist, when it came, was the “stench of corruption” – the politics of this world “could not be murkier”.

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Analysis of John W Henry’s controversial ownership takeover at Liverpool

As the Guardian headline Enter Americans Exit Americans suggests, it is difficult to tell what has changed at Liverpool and what remains the same. After a long and complex legal battle, John W Henry finally took ownership of the club from the outgoing Tom Hicks and George Gillett this month. The takeover seemed to dominate the news for days on end. 

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Dear WSC
Congratulations on the article about match-fixing (Crimes and misdemeanours, WSC 283). Paul Joyce did a superb job reviewing the many different cases of corruption in European football. As the German police investigation began, partly because of the controversy around my book, The Fix, I did want to take him up on one issue. He mentioned that “Germany lies second in the match-fixing table” – this is true but it is not because corruption is more prevalent in German football. Rather it is because the German authorities are now, after years of denial, actually taking the issue seriously and are vigorously investigating match-fixing – and the more they investigate, the more they find. This proactive attitude is in stark contrast with British football authorities who seem to have adopted the attitude of “don’t know, don’t want to find out”. The circumstances in British football are similar to other European countries: thousands of relatively badly paid players; lots of poor clubs and lots of interest in the gambling markets. However, the British authorities have not yet fully woken to the dangers. I can only hope that they do before they discover a similar problem to the one in Europe.
Declan Hill, Oxford

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Bratislavia’s oldest club don’t seem to be missing their brief period of domestic success and European glory. James Baxter explains

Anyone who has registered MSK Žilina‘s progress to the group stages of this season’s Champions League may also recall that the last team from Slovakia to get this far was Artmedia Bratislava, in 2005-06. But, while Žilina fans have been in bitter dispute with their club over ticket prices for home games in the competition, FC Petržalka 1898, as Artmedia are now known, are experiencing life outside Slovakia’s top division and, so far, seem to be enjoying it.

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