Wembley Stadium sale: Why Shahid Khan’s £600m offer for the national stadium met such resistance October 23, 2018 England’s unexpectedly successful World Cup summer created an atmosphere of togetherness that captured hearts and minds. Despite failing to deliver the trophy the nation craved, it brought a greater prize back to our shores. Amid the beer sloshing, waistcoat wearing and anthem singing, football had come home. It was soon back to business for the [...]
Six Day London: Cycling’s most exciting series embarks on biggest season yet and targets 25 events a year by 2023 October 21, 2018 When a Victorian gentleman named David Stanton proposed a £100 bet that he could cycle 1,000 miles around Islington’s Agricultural Hall over six consecutive nights, it’s fair to assume he didn’t intend to spawn a global phenomenon. That, however, is the target for the organisers of the Six Day Series, the modern incarnation of a [...]
Canelo Alvarez: Boxer’s record-breaking $365m deal with DAZN highlights rise to prominence of both October 17, 2018 Every now and then a commercial deal comes along that doesn’t just reflect the shifting sands of the sports landscape, it magnifies them, turning the protagonists into even bigger names in the process. Paris Saint-Germain’s €222m signing of Neymar last year, which didn’t so much break football’s transfer record as smash it to smithereens, was [...]
Legal Q&A: Why has Eleven Sports breached the UK Saturday afternoon live football blackout? October 8, 2018 The traditional Saturday afternoon restriction on broadcasting live football in the UK has been challenged by online-only subscription broadcaster Eleven Sports. Lawyer Satish Khandke examines the implications. What are the legal restrictions that Eleven Sports has challenged? Uefa regulations allow the member associations of football’s European governing body to designate a blackout period of two and a [...]
Chelsea named bottom of the league for prompt payments as big clubs let the side down September 27, 2018 Elite Premier League clubs are less likely to pay their suppliers promptly than smaller teams, according to industry data provided to City A.M. Chelsea are the slowest team to settle invoices, says business information company Dun & Bradstreet, while Tottenham and Manchester City are also in the bottom four. Brighton and Bournemouth are the [...]
Why Fifa and the Premier League are at odds over an imminent overhaul of the transfer market September 6, 2018 The great and the good of football head to London later this month to settle a contentious matter: the recipients of the 2018 instalment of Fifa’s The Best awards. But an even thornier topic is also set to be debated in the capital, with many of the game’s most influential stakeholders in town. The issue [...]
Q&A: What will Brexit’s impact be on the Premier League? September 5, 2018 Leading immigration lawyer Owen Jones assesses the possible consequences of Brexit on the Premier League. What's the issue? A key uncertainty around Brexit is to what extent, if any, EU nationals should be given immigration advantages. Read more: New poll says UK would vote against Brexit today It has been rumoured that the government favours [...]
KSI v Logan Paul: What traditional sport can learn from the online influencers’ boxing match September 5, 2018 Just over a week ago, 20,000 fans packed into Manchester Arena to watch one of the most talked about UK boxing events in recent history. Several million more watched online. This wasn’t a professional fight, however; rather a white-collar event involving two of the world’s biggest YouTubers and online influencers, KSI – real name Olajide [...]
Why UK Sport’s funding review should mean less money for athletics, cycling, swimming, rowing, sailing and equestrian August 27, 2018 Katherine Grainger is a poster girl for Britain’s funding of elite sport, winning medals at each of the five Olympics since John Major ushered in the current highly successful support system. Now she is chair of UK Sport, although but a boardroom novice, and must make a pair of connected decisions that will define the [...]
La Liga to play matches in the US: Why the Premier League will be watching Spanish football’s stateside experiment closely August 22, 2018 The hackneyed joke about Spanish football’s top flight used to be that there was only one fixture worth watching: the bi-annual collision of domestic superpowers Real Madrid and Barcelona. La Liga’s announcement today that it is to stage matches in the United States has rubbished that notion further still – there will be no shortage of [...]