Gianni Infantino, Jay Shah and the rise of sport’s super-execs August 5, 2025 Infantino at Fifa and Shah at the ICC are styling themselves as super-execs like Musk and Zuckerberg but it won’t end well, warns Matt Readman. In sport, the best referees go unnoticed. They quietly manage the game, letting play flow and leaving the athletes to shine. Occasionally they must enforce the law, but they are [...]
Trump, the Super Bowl, wokery and sport’s shift to the right February 2, 2025 It might be the same man sitting in The Oval Office, but a lot’s changed since Donald J Trump first presided over a Super Bowl eight years ago. In 2017 America was perilously divided, with a newly-elected Trump in the White House and protest marches taking place on the streets outside it. This tension was [...]
Dear sport leaders, drop the slogans if you’re not going to be a force for good November 16, 2024 As the world watched the final votes being counted in the US election, one person in particular should have been nervous about Donald Trump’s victory: Fifa president Gianni Infantino. Infantino had previously claimed that the upcoming 2026 World Cup was “a rallying cry […] a moment when three countries and an entire continent collectively say: [...]
Fans will grow weary if player burnout continues in sport October 21, 2024 With demands on players like nothing seen previously, is potential player burnout also going to have an impact on fans too? It’s a surprising thing that during a cost-of-living crisis, with households struggling and economies straining, I find myself sympathising with Rodrigo Hernández Cascante. The £200,000-a-week Manchester City midfielder, better known as Rodri, last month [...]
Why arguing against prize money for Olympic athletes is irrational and outdated May 13, 2024 It’s time for the rational brain to take over. These are not the beliefs of a modern, diverse and multi-ethnic society.
Football regulator is reminder of uneasy link between class, control and the game March 23, 2024 Is football the game of the people, or the game that controls the people?
Sport sceptics might scoff but Paris Olympics and Euro 2024 really can lift our gloom January 1, 2024 Brands and marketeers take note: this is how you can capitalise in 2024.
Keep sport and politics separate? Impossible – so here’s what brands need to do November 20, 2023 It's a common refrain but sport sponsors need to have their eyes open.
Think of the fans: Why stadium experience matters as much as TV production October 9, 2023 It feels like we’re at a new low point for customer experience. After Covid, the services we used to rely on seem like they’re getting worse. Of course, it’s understandable how shutting the world down for two years is going to have an impact on fragile supply systems but the pandemic has also reset our [...]
Lessons for sponsors from sport’s biggest summer of protests since the suffragettes August 29, 2023 Sport sponsors need to be clear on what they stand for – not just what they stand next to – if they are to avoid blowback from protests, says marketing expert Matt Readman. This has been the most disrupted summer of sport for over a century. The pitches, courses and tracks of the UK now [...]
