. At the end of the 2010-11 Turkish football season, Fenerbahçe were crowned champions after finishing with the same number of points (82) as title rivals Trabzonspor, but with a better head-to-head record. But Turkish football was soon rocked as it emerged Fenerbahçe’s success was a result of one of the most devastating match-fixing scandals the game […]
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NUMBER-CRUNCHED: the best and worst of English league football in 2013
By Brian Sears 30 December 2013 Of all the teams playing in the four main divisions of English football in 2013, Arsenal performed the best in the calendar year in terms of points per game. Arsene Wenger’s side played 38 league games, winning 25 and drawing seven for 82 points in total or 2.16 points […]
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‘The problem for football is that it is up to its neck in gambling’
By Ian Herbert 12 December 2013 There won’t be any great sentiment for footballers who are banned for illegal betting but the small details of the case of what we might call the “Accrington Five” does reveal why one of the root causes of match fixing – the players need for some ready cash – […]
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Nationality maps for football leagues 2013-14
By Sportingintelligence 12 August 2013 Following Sportingintelligence’s ‘mapping’ of the nationalities of the players in the squads in the Premier League on Saturday (see related article here), the idea has quickly spread and there are maps popping up all over the internet for different leagues, quite a few of them on Reddit. As we spot […]
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EXCLUSIVE: The 37 English professional football clubs offering zero pay for real jobs
By Steve Menary 24 May 2013 More than a third of the football clubs across the Premier and Football League have used the taxpayer-funded website at UK Sport to advertise jobs offering no pay. That shocking statistic was unearthed for Sportingintelligence via a Freedom of Information (FoI) enquiry that shows in the past six months 15 per cent of […]
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New Nike deal makes England No2 in world football (but not on the pitch)
By Alex Miller 20 May 2013 As England’s new football strip – made by Nike – is revealed today, new research shows the English FA are now second in the world in terms of income from their kit manufacturer. England’s deal with Nike is worth €30m (£25m) per year, and this is beaten only by […]
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Tell me why … the English football authorities keep buck-passing the Blackburn farce
* English football has been a soap opera for years, an unending pantomime of drama, chaos, money, more money, haves and never-will-haves, millionaires, billionaires, plutocrats and conmen. The demise of Leeds was shocking, the demise of Portsmouth shameful. But one story now well into its third year that continues to be simply extraordinary is that […]
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125 years ago this Saturday, a Scottish draper from Aston Villa wrote a letter that made history (and football as we know it)
By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 26 February 2013 It was 125 years ago on Saturday, or 2 March 1888, that William McGregor, then the president of Aston Villa, wrote a letter to a small group of other football clubs, floating the idea that they should organise a league. In doing […]
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Tell me why … Rogers’ coming out has convinced so many football is enlightened
* Robbie Rogers, now a former footballer, played more than 100 games in MLS for Columbus Crew before moving to England, with Leeds. The 25-year-old Californian, who also played 18 times for the USA, came out last week in a blog in which he also announced his retirement. Ian Herbert says Rogers’ declaration that he […]
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Tell me why … football cuts ‘superfluous’ kids adrift with such ruthless abandon
* Jamie Carragher and Phil Brown have taken up arms for those countless young hopefuls who are told they will be football stars, promised the earth, encouraged to dream – and then cut adrift. Ian Herbert asks why no-one is likely to listen to them. . By Ian Herbert 11 February 2013 Tell me why […]
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