Ed Warner: British amateur sport must take a match to bonfire of bureaucracy April 13, 2023 Different patterns of belonging in this social media age are a stiff challenge to those of us attempting to build membership rosters for sporting bodies. What can we offer to persuade amateur athletes and casual fans to give a chunk of their identities – and a few quid from their virtual wallets – to organisations [...]
Ed Warner: Fear of losing to the Poms may get Australian sport its extra A$2bn April 6, 2023 As an English sports fan it’s always fun when others cite your nation as their greatest rivals when they wouldn’t make your own top three. Cricket aside, such is the case with Australia. Last week a cry from Australia’s sporting hierarchy for more financial backing from politicians caught my eye. The need to beat the [...]
Ed Warner: Is China about to bring Russia and its athletes in from the sporting cold? March 30, 2023 The war in Ukraine doesn’t look like ending any time soon. Just as Russia is recalibrating its geopolitical and industrial relations, so the prospect of a conflict stretching years into the future will necessitate a realignment of its place in the sporting world. Asia’s warmth towards the Kremlin points a way back into the international [...]
I’ve seen 34 managers leave Crystal Palace and Patrick Vieira made me saddest – Ed Warner March 23, 2023 In my five decades supporting Crystal Palace I’ve seen 34 managers come and go (not including caretakers). Some resigned, others were sacked or left by the euphemistic “mutual consent”. One appeared to retire only to be reappointed this week – welcome back Roy! They ranged from the ‘aargh!’ (Alan Mullery and Steve Bruce) to God [...]
Lineker row offers the BBC a chance to reflect on how it does sport March 16, 2023 National treasuredom isn’t codified. It is a status that creeps up on individuals, usually as they enter their twilight years. It does not reflect universal approbation, but certainly requires dissenters to be in a dwindling minority. Gary Lineker is clearly too divisive a figure to be considered a national treasure just yet, but the past [...]
I’m glad sport has moved on from distasteful ‘Plastic Brit’ debate – Ed Warner March 9, 2023 Dazzled by Great Britain’s three golden moments at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul last weekend, you’ll likely have missed the home nation’s unexpected victory in the women’s triple jump. Reeling from last month’s earthquake devastation, Turkey will have drawn some comfort from Tugba Danismaz’s winning leap. And she was only ranked ninth in [...]
Politicians must step in to protect sport in legal minefield of trans policy – Ed Warner March 2, 2023 The ruck over transgender women participating in female sport is fiercely contested. Opinions are polarised, each side shouting in its own echo chamber. Into my inbox and into the debate drops an email from a PR agent containing a legal opinion that is a reminder that this issue is nuanced. It reinforces my own view [...]
The gap between the football brand behemoths and the rest is likely to grow February 23, 2023 The bidders for football club Manchester United are now in a virtual data room, filling their spreadsheets and compiling their questions. The job of the Glazer family’s investment banking advisors, Raine Group, is now to find ways to squeeze every possible dollar out of this football asset. One trick of the bankers’ trade is to [...]
Ed Warner: The European Super League isn’t dead yet – and it’s because of the Premier League February 16, 2023 “Laughable”, “all hot air”, “flimsy”, a “walking corpse”. So has English football, on a mostly unattributable basis, dismissed the attempt to breathe new life into the European Super League concept which unraveled so swiftly and spectacularly two years ago. But sat on this side of the English Channel, we would say that, wouldn’t we? Is [...]
Ed Warner: Rugby union could learn from the NFL model on Super Bowl LVII weekend February 9, 2023 For all the relentless commercial growth of the Premier League, IPL and F1, the NFL remains the sporting brand to beat. Super Bowl LVII will be watched by more than 200m people worldwide on Sunday. The matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles has its stories, but in truth the identity of [...]
