Arsenal are overachieving in the Premier League, but do fans appreciate it? October 10, 2024 In a parallel universe, Arsenal have already beaten Manchester City to the title. Forget Pep and Mikel’s inflamed war of words in this season’s scrap for the Premier League trophy; the Gunners have bagged the prize for outperforming their playing budget. Football, though, must ultimately be about fans’ dreams, not investors’ and bank managers’ bottom [...]
Ed Warner: My 10 sports for a slimmed down Commonwealth Games October 3, 2024 The self-styled ‘friendly games’ are no longer quite so friendless: it appears Glasgow will indeed host a slimmed-down edition of the Commonwealth Games in 2026, although still we await official confirmation. The trouble is that 20 into 10 won’t go, and boxing’s political turmoil is holding up a decision on which sports will be left [...]
Ed Warner: A player power reckoning is coming for football and cricket September 26, 2024 Whether or not Rodri truly believes over-worked footballers are close to taking strike action, his comments have certainly had cut-through. Athlete strikes are not without precedent, in football and elsewhere. Think of the four strikes in the NFL’s history plus its owner lockouts, and Argentina’s football strike of 2017. Back in 2001, English footballers voted [...]
Ed Warner: Seb Coe, Gary Glitter and the most powerful job in sport September 19, 2024 Seb Coe, newly confirmed as one of seven candidates for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is regarded as a serial vote winner. It wasn’t always thus. Witness his single term in office as the MP for Falmouth and Camborne in Cornwall, ousted by Candy Atherton as Labour swept to power in 1997. [...]
What happens now that the Paris 2024 show is over? September 12, 2024 The Paris 2024 show’s over. What next? The small subset of Olympians in sports with lucrative circuits have already returned to action: US Open tennis, club and international football, golf’s Tour Championship, La Vuelta cycling and Diamond League athletics to the fore. The significance of the Games for these athletes will differ from sport to [...]
Ed Warner: My trip to the Paralympics taught me that sport is bad for your health September 5, 2024 Our sport business columnist on the danger of watching the Paralympics, dynamic pricing, election season in Olympic land, and Scotland’s Commonwealth Games dilemma. Watching sport is bad for your health. Or can be. I’m glad I wasn’t strapped to a heart-rate monitor during the wheelchair rugby in Paris over the past week or I would [...]
Cricket needs more like Flintoff so smaller nations must get financial support August 29, 2024 Andrew Flintoff’s Field of Dreams On Tour, the decline of Test cricket and whether a mooted hardship fund distributed by the ICC might just keep the red-ball game alive. You know when a broadcaster thinks it has a hit on its hands because it releases a series one episode at a time rather than in [...]
Ed Warner: The Paralympics is heading for a transgender row in Paris August 22, 2024 A row over the eligibility of Italian transgender athlete Valentina Petrillo looms over the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, showing why para sports must be independent from organisers the IPC. It is increasingly difficult to find footage online of Raygun at Paris 2024. For a brief moment it seemed the Aussie breakdancer who launched a thousand [...]
Dear Keir Starmer and Labour, please double down on funding Team GB athletes August 15, 2024 Sport columnist Ed Warner reflects on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Team GB medal haul and UK Sport funding. Dear Sir Keir, Ms Reeves and Ms Peacock, How do you feel about Team GB’s medal tally at the Olympics? More medals, 65, than last time out in Tokyo and equal to the London 2012 [...]
Congratulations France, but Paris 2024 legacy must now be human August 8, 2024 This is a Paris you’ve never known and never will again. Empty side streets speak of Parisians good to their threats to vacate for the Olympics. Hotel receptionists attest to sluggish bookings. Restaurants are shuttered. And yet the crowds are here, French and foreigners alike. They exude a relaxed urgency, a collegiate passion. The sport [...]
