By Roger Pielke Jr 26 May 2015 Another Premier League season is in the history books, and with it another campaign where we can now assess the accuracy of forecasts made about the season. Once again, we learn that skillful prediction is really, really hard. Here I evaluate 60 predictions by fans, journalists, analytics experts and […]
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‘Secret tantrums, spin and silence: the inside story of the Glazers at Man Utd’
By Ian Herbert 15 May 2015 We now know that there are beating hearts inside the silent, implacable Glazers and that there have been ways of winding them up during their 10 years of ownership at Manchester United, a milestone reached this week. Two ways, to be precise. Joel Glazer was infuriated by the national newspaper claim as the family […]
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Resurgent United hope Manchester derby shows rivals City have passed peak oil
By Brian Sears 10 April 2015 Manchester City have been brilliant at times in recent seasons, thrilling to watch as they’ve scored at will and won two of the past three Premier League titles. But lately they’ve looked old, inconsistent and brittle, as well as costly in more senses than one. The defeat at Crystal […]
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‘FIFA paid $88.6m in salaries in 2014. We can guesstimate Blatter’s take at $6m+’
By Roger Pielke Jr 20 March 2015 The salary that FIFA pays Sepp Blatter, its long-serving president, has never been disclosed. We know how much US president Barack Obama makes, $400,000, and the head of the United Nations (about $240,000) and even the CEO of the biggest company in Switzerland (Nestle, $10.6 million). But Blatter’s […]
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‘The top 20 teams in England pay $2.9BN in wages a year. All of MLS pays $129.5m’
By Roger Pielke Jr 30 October 2014 As the MLS’s 2014 season moves towards a conclusion with the play-offs underway, it is notable there is no place in the post-season for the biggest-spending team, Toronto FC. Despite having a salary bill of almost $17m (£10.6m), which is the highest in MLS, the Canada-based franchise is […]
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‘Dutee Chand, science and the spirit of sport: why IAAF policy is deeply flawed’
By Roger Pielke Jr 20 October 2014 Since 1928 international athletics has included separate categories for men and women. This separation makes sense to most people on a lot of levels. In terms of social equity, it is appropriate that women have the same chance as men to compete at the highest levels of athletic […]
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‘The president couldn’t say who owned his players. Maybe criminals. Astonishing’
By Ian Herbert 12 September 2014 One of the main panel events at the Soccerex global convention in Manchester this week was headlined: ‘How to run a club successfully.’ We heard all of the usual stuff about what the game has become: Liverpool selling £50,000 of Mario Balotelli shirts in a day, reaching 10 million […]
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‘Could England play “the German way”? Of course not … It is never going to be’
* By Tim Rich 21 July 2014 Before I was married, I used to go to weddings and sit at the back as the bride and groom danced to the first song – usually something utterly inappropriate like Careless Whisper or the Police’s creepy Every Breath you Take. I would wonder why it wasn’t me […]
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Picking World Cup winners? After 12 games, FIFA rankings beating eminent thinkers
* The final whistle in the Germany-Portugal match in Group G in Salvador marked the end of the 12th game of the 2014 World Cup, and thus a quarter of the group stage is complete. There have been expected victories for some, big upsets for others and more goals per game at this stage than […]
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‘Believe nothing in Turkish football – it is rotten to the core and nobody will act’
. 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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