Football

England, Belgium, Tunisia, Panama: it doesn’t make an acronym as alluring as the ‘England Algeria Slovenia Yanks’ headline The Sun ran at this stage in 2009, but English football fans will have breathed a sigh of relief after being placed in a group we might call BTEC – Belgium Tunisia England Canal folk (Panama) – because it certainly wasn’t the hardest option out there. A cautious optimism must now seep into the England set-up. Encouraging draws against Germany and Brazil proved that this generation are more dour and pragmatic than the extravagant ensemble that preceded them. Even at managerial level, the contrast between unfashionable Gareth Southgate and his predecessors is stark:

What a privilege it is to watch Manchester City in the age of Pep Guardiola. I can’t recall a club side so lauded so early in the season, but the lavish praise seems justified. Could his Midas touch be young England’s best hope in Russia? Noel Gallagher, yes him, has been speaking about the ‘cosmic’ football City are playing under Pep, and who are we to argue? Guardiola seems to be getting the best out of Stones, Walker and Sterling. These three plus the Tottenham backbone of Kane, Dele Alli and Dier bringing their club form to the national team, along with the young England talent that did so well

In my Daily Telegraph column today, I write about the incredible story of Östersund football club. It hasn’t quite been picked up in Britain yet, but I suspect it will one day be made into a Moneyball-style film: about how a small-time English coach was hired to move to a small subarctic town in Sweden with a small budget, and assembled a team of misfits on £600-a-week. But his tactics, and his faith in his ability to get the best out of people, saw them not only win the Swedish Cup but they are now taking on the biggest clubs in Europe. So this town, the size of Inverness, a

A few years ago, I was sitting at my desk late at night, frustrated by the latest sports financing project which I was working on at a large investment bank. Despite the iconic brand, large international fanbase and its many trophies, it was extremely difficult to find investors for this top-20 global football club. Time and again, potential investors struggled with the club’s volatile cashflow profile and uncertainty about its future revenues and performance. I asked myself: ‘If it’s this hard for this glamorous club to raise money, how are less fortunate teams coping?’ However, contrary to normal businesses, sports clubs have one major intangible asset which the institutional market

On this week’s Spectator Podcast, we discuss Britain’s obesity crisis, the upcoming German election and the England team’s footballing woes. First up, Britain’s obesity problem is worsening, says Prue Leith in her Spectator cover piece. The UK is the sixth fattest nation on earth and more than a quarter of the population is obese. Yet despite this worrying epidemic, precious little is being done. So how can we fix this crisis? Spectator Health’s Christopher Snowdon, Professor Graham MacGregor, Chairman of Action on Sugar, and Professor Francesco Rubino, from Kings College London, have some answers. In her cover piece, Prue Leith writes: Part of the UK’s problem is that we see

Football is theatre, that much has always been obvious; but it’s also business. And though the rules of the game haven’t changed much on-field since 16th century Etonians codified the random kicking of an inflated pigskin, off the field the game has been in constant evolution. This summer has demonstrated, once again, that football is as much about ritual performances of capitalist peacocking as it is about twenty-two men going head to head. As the transfer window creaks closed today, it is worth reflecting on an historic summer. Neymar’s £200m transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain more than doubled the world transfer record and created a domino of wildly inflated transfers – including

Football’s back, I’m afraid, and, in the imperishable words of David Mitchell, every kick in every game matters to someone, somewhere. Still, it’s the Premier League’s 25th anniversary, so a good time to take stock. There’s no doubt that with Sky’s help the PL has sexed up the English game and moved it once and for all from being the preserve of the working man. When I started going to matches half a century or so ago, the stadiums were awful, the food terrible, and the football not that great. A game could be intimidating; not for the fainthearted, or women, or people who weren’t white. Now that has changed

In a quiet season for business news, the giant cesspit that is the world of elite football can be relied upon to provide a money story with a pungent whiff to it. I refer to the transfer of the 25-year-old Brazilian known only as Neymar from Barcelona to Paris St Germain for a world-record fee close to £200 million. When Neymar was bought by Barcelona from Santos of Brazil in 2013, a £200 million break clause was inserted in his contract in the belief that no club in the world could possibly afford to buy him out. But PSG has done so even though Spanish football authorities refused to facilitate

Some years ago, when Millwall played West Ham United, the Millwall fans sang the following song (to the tune of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, if you want to hum along): ‘Oh east London, is like Bengal. Oh east London is like Bengal. It’s like the back streets of Delhi. Oh east -London is like Bengal.’ They haven’t sung it for two or three years, but only because Millwall haven’t played West Ham. I mean, I don’t think that Millwall’s supporters have gradually thought better of it and decided that the ditty was perhaps racist and demeaning, or are worried about the relative geography of Delhi and Bengal. If