Lionel Messi’s retirement from international football does not just leave Argentina with an enormous sporting void to be fill. At a stroke it has also removed the country’s most valuable sporting commercial asset. For more
Gianni Infantino’s increasingly bitter confrontation with European football has taken a potentially much more serious turn. UEFA are preparing a criminal complaint against the FIFA president over his aborted attempt to bring private investment into
Argentina’s staff and players have been given bans totalling a combined 21 games following the mass altercation that unfolded after their World Cup final defeat to Spain. FIFA, football’s global governing body, has now confirmed
What began with Gianni Infantino’s ill-conceived plan to sell off a share of the rights to future World Cups to a private investment group, linked to US President Donald Trump, has now escalated to the
Lionel Messi is considering bringing down the curtain on his extraordinary football career. It follows the death of his father, and long-term agent, Jorge Messi at the age of 68, and, although he is under
When Gianni Infantino floated the idea of selling a stake in the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the proposal was met with disbelief and outrage in many corners of football. Although he was
Finally, even by Gianni Infantino’s audacious standards, he went too far. Arguably, the FIFA president had crossed the Rubicon long before. The way that human rights abuses in Russia and Qatar in 2018 and 2022
There was a time when the FIFA World Cup belonged to football. It generated enormous revenues, but those revenues were a consequence of staging the world's greatest sporting event rather than the purpose of it.
Hydration breaks became one of the World Cup's most divisive innovations. Ostensibly introduced to give players respite in the hot and humid North American conditions, they also became an additional advertising opportunity for broadcasters. Many