May issue available now online and in store
The new WSC is out now available from all good newsagents or to order now from the WSC shop with free UK delivery.
Inside
Champions League: Power grab by the big clubs | A view from Germany
Gambling & the game: Football Index collapses | Call for ban on betting advertising
Plus
Sutton United – League bound? | World’s oldest club return home | Racism in Czech Republic | Bumper WSL TV deal | Tributes to Peter Lorimer & Frank Worthington | Cambridge Rules go global | Child sexual abuse report | A Clyde portrait | Qatar protests | FA’s data trends | Fan friendships | Denmark’s youth club | China think long-term | Focus on Howard Kendall | Goal shy in Serie A
Super spreader Champions League reform
Despite a year of upheaval, the reorientation of European competition to better suit the interests of superclubs never misses a beat. In mid March Andrea Agnelli, chairman of Juventus and the European Club Association (ECA), announced that wrangling over changes to the Champions League is close to a conclusion with the introduction of a “beautiful” Swiss model from 2024.
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Sutton United 1-1 Stockport County U’s pushing for a League debut
Sutton’s most recent claim to cultural fame is as the setting for the Channel 4 sitcom PhoneShop, set in a mobile phone shop in its main precinct. It features a cast of characters including best friends Jerwayne and Ashley, one black, one white, both unselfconsciously fluent in patois; the eerily eccentric Janine; graduate Christopher, who finds himself mistaken for a lesbian; and manager Lance, whose guilty shame is that he attends a secret reggae nightclub for white men over 40 only. The walk from the station to Sutton United’s ground takes you through that precinct and is today a scene of Covid desolation, barely subsisting on a drip-feed of takeaway coffee outlets, Morrisons and Poundland.
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Stock shock Football Index collapses
Pitched as a stock market where people could trade in footballers, the simple premise of Football Index intrigued many supporters who have fallen prey to a far riskier and more complex proposition than they realised. The company, which was established in 2015, now looks set to collapse after a sudden change in dividend payouts led to users losing huge sums of money overnight.
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Global positioning Cambridge Rules art project
It makes the constant arguments about VAR seem trifling. In the mid-19th century, a group of students from Cambridge University were so sick of every game of football turning into an anarchic muddle of different interpretations, they sat down and drew up a set of 11 rules themselves. Nailed to the trees surrounding Parker’s Piece in 1848, this was the first time that football had any formalised laws. It was a seismic event; from this very specific patch of English landscape in the heart of Cambridge, the game spread to encompass every corner of the world.
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Champions League photo via Colorsport, Sutton United photo by Paul Loughlin, Football Index photo via Colorsport, Cambridge Rules photo via the artists
Availability
WSC is the only nationally available independent football magazine in the UK, and you can get it monthly for a very reasonable £3.95. You should be able to find a copy in your local newsagent, otherwise outlets that stock WSC include WH Smith, mainline train stations plus selected Tescos. If you’re having trouble finding the magazine, you could do one of the following:
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