Early last month, senior executives from the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), the League Managers’ Association, the Football Association (FA), the Football League and the Premier League met with Cyrus Mehri, an American lawyer who, along with the late Johnnie Cochran and a labor economist, Janice Madden, drafted and successfully petitioned the National Football League (NFL)… Read More »
The headline in El País said it all: “The strike of champions.” As of Friday, August 12, the AFE (Spanish Footballers’ Association) union resolved to strike for at least the first two matchdays of the Spanish professional football season. Their reason is a crisis in Spanish football related to the credit bust that, thus far,… Read More »
It’s one of funnest and most satisfying sports within the sport of football: complaining about the tedious, predictable, if not nauseating commentary foisted on us by the networks. With barely disguised pleasure, we chat or tweet our criticisms of the uninvited guests who join our football watching party. We wonder: Have these guys ever watched… Read More »
Recent news reports from South America indicate that the coach of Chile’s national team, Marcelo Bielsa, will be leaving his post with immediacy. To the casual observer, this comes as a shock. Bielsa has been credited with restoring discipline and professionalism to a national soccer association known more in recent years for scandal than for… Read More »
We had an interesting discussion here last Wednesday on this topic. You can link to the audio of the presentations at itunes-u here: The first two (by me and Achille Mbembe) focus on football in Europe and Africa, and I highly recommend Achille’s intervention, starting at about 15 minutes. He thinks and talks about football… Read More »
World Cup 2010: Raymond Domenech fails to take blame for France fiasco | Football | guardian.co.uk This article from the Guardian highlights the extent to which the French football crisis is becoming one of international proportions, now being taken up at the highest levels of the French government. At first glance, one might think: why… Read More »
World Cup 2010: Fans, robbers and a marketing stunt face justice, Fifa style Fascinating piece from the Guardian echoing my recent sentiments on FIFA becoming more like the WWF than a legitimate sporting regulatory body. With the organization spiraling for decades now into its demagoguery, recent World Cups have showcased farcical refereeing and an intangible… Read More »
Duke University Economics student Nikhil Taneja has just published this interesting review of Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski’s fascinating book Soccernomics, a must read in advance of the World Cup for those interested in understanding the finances behind global football.
The major Spanish Copa del Rey upset of Villarreal by Celta de Vigo carries with it some telling anecdotes about the state of the game.
Stefan Lovgren, a documentary filmmaker who has worked on a many previous films about Africa, is now making one about football in Africa. It focuses in particular on one football academy in Ghana to tell a broader story about African football, the hopes and exploitation of footballers, and the broader context surrounding the history 2010… Read More »
