By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 16 January 2012 SEAN Long, the former Wigan, St Helens, England and Great Britain international rugby league star, has spoken for the first time – exclusively to Sportingintelligence – about his role in the rugby drugs scandal at Hull FC that led to Martin Gleeson […]

. Matthew Barrett studied history at Oxford University, concentrating on the relationship between sport, politics and war in the twentieth century. He currently works in sports sponsorship and you can follow him on Twitter here. In his first piece for Sportingintelligence, he examines the impact of the Arab Spring on the performance of the Libyan national football […]

By Steve Menary 16 January 2012 FIFA’s former director of international relations Jérôme Champagne has entered the debate over the future governance of the world body by sending a detailed assessment of the problems facing the game and potential remedies to all 208 members. A former French diplomat, member of the 1998 World Cup organising […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year. 15 January 2012 The former Great Britain rugby league international Martin Gleeson has spoken today for the first time about the circumstances in which he came to fail a drugs test, and how more widespread use of a stimulant was covered up. His story, and a […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 15 January 2012 AN extraordinary letter written by senior figures at Blackburn Rovers to the club’s co-owner, Anuradha Desai, proves they felt helpless at the direction the club was taking as early as January last year, just a few months after the takeover by Venky’s. […]

* By Sportingintelligence 15 January 2012 . The full story explaining the context in which the letter below was sent in January 2011 is elsewhere on this website today. This letter was sent by senior figures at Blackburn Rovers to the club’s co-owner and main decision maker, Anuradha Desai. Read the full story. .     […]

* Never mind Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey and Justin Bieber. The Queen of England, the Pope and Barack Obama also trail ROGER FEDERER in a list of the world’s most respected figures (only Nelson Mandela is higher). The Swiss is also earning more money than ever before, with an estimated annual income of £30m. Mark Hodgkinson, editor-in-chief […]

** JOHN ROBERTS wrote for the Daily Express, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Independent, where he was the tennis correspondent for 20 years. He collaborated with Bill Shankly on the Liverpool manager’s autobiography, ghosted Kevin Keegan’s first book, and has written books on George Best, Manchester United’s Busby Babes (The Team That Wouldn’t Die) and Everton (The Official […]

Brian Sears 13 January 2012 Aston Villa are having a mediocre season when it comes to gaining points; just 23 from 20 games. Villa have only known four previous seasons when they have gained fewer points at the same stage. In 1994-95 they had only 17 points and ended 18th just escaping relegation in a league then […]

By Brian Sears 13 January 2012 In 20 years of Premier League football and having played 754 games in the revamped division, Manchester United have only faced their present indignity of consecutive defeats on 13 previous occasions. By comparison, their strongest long-term rivals in the PL era, Arsenal, have had back-to-back defeats 32 times. Two league […]