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Tag: Premier League

  • Premier League salary cap mailbag: Why? Who wins and loses? How would it work?

    Premier League salary cap mailbag: Why? Who wins and loses? How would it work?

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    Premier League clubs this week opted to push on with plans for a hard spending limit — a de facto salary cap tied to the income of the lowest earning side in the top flight.

    OK, we hear you say, but what on earth does it all really mean?

    Who better to answer your questions than Matt Slater, who broke the original story? If you prefer, you can listen to Matt for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the usual listening places on The Athletic FC Podcast.

    Let’s dive in…

    What are the real motivations for such a rule? — Adam M 

    Do I detect a note of suspicion, Adam?

    For some, such as Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, who has been talking about this idea longer than most, there are sincere concerns about the competitive balance of the league.

    They worry that the revenues of the ‘Big Six’ — which already feels like a ‘Big Seven’ and might be a ‘Big Eight’ before long — are growing faster than the revenues of the Premier League’s middle and lower classes, and that is before you factor in the increased sums they will receive from playing more Champions League games and occasional appearances in the FIFA’s revamped Club World Cup. Financial fair play regimes that tie your ability to spend to your own revenues play into the big clubs’ advantage, which compounds with each passing year.

    So, “anchoring” is an attempt to slow the big clubs down. It’s a backstop to the squad cost rule that UEFA has already introduced and the Premier League is moving towards. The two are meant to be complementary, with anchoring being the backstop — a hard cap that even the richest/most successful/most ambitious club cannot go beyond.

    Follow the Champions League on The Athletic…

    What is the role of the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA)?  — Peyton B 

    Is there any chance the PFA will agree to a hard spending limit of 5x? And, if yes, what concessions would they require from the owners? — Dave D

    The PFA calls itself the players’ trade union and it is, officially, the world’s oldest players’ union. But it has spent most of its history acting more like a lobby group, with a large charitable arm and growing education and healthcare sections. Unlike the North American players’ unions, it has not engaged in big disputes about profit-sharing with the clubs, the players’ employers, and it has not signed formal collective bargaining agreements with them.

    Instead, there is almost a gentleman’s agreement between the leagues, on behalf of the clubs, and the PFA that the former will fund the union’s work in looking after former professionals who need new hips, providing counselling for those who need it, funding grants for second careers and backing research into conditions such as dementia.

    The PFA, unsurprisingly, hates the idea of salary caps. Would you like it if a third party said your employer was not allowed to pay you over a certain level, even if that employer wanted to and could afford it?


    Erling Haaland with the 2022-23 PFA Player of the Year award (PFA)

    This is why European football’s governing body UEFA and everyone else have always had to step carefully when introducing cost controls. To avoid breaking European Union and national laws on restraint of trade, governing bodies have neeed to prove that what they are doing is justified by a legitimate aim — the sustainability of a culturally significant industry — and the proposed measure is fair, proportionate and transparent. In other words, they cannot push it too far.

    So, rules that tie a club’s ability to spend to its ability to earn have, until now, been OK with lawmakers, as there is a clear link to sustainability. But linking a club’s ability to spend to someone else’s earnings? Hmmm. Debatable.

    And it is almost certainly a debate the PFA will enter. As things stand, it is aware of the Premier League’s anchoring proposal and some preliminary conversations have taken place, but it is adamant that a proper consultation on the matter, at the relevant body, has not started.

    The body in question is the ‘Professional Football Negotiating and Consultative Committee’, which is comprised of members from the PFA, the English Football League, the English Football Association and the Premier League. It is where all matters relating to employment in the game are discussed. If its members cannot agree, the dispute goes to independent arbitration. And there has been a lot of that in football of late.

    Which clubs will benefit the most and the least from this? The clubs that objected to this seem very different, so it’s hard to tell — Andrew R

    Good question!

    Crystal Palace chairman Parish clearly believes it will help his team continue to compete in the Premier League. Anything, even something as loose as the proposed 5x anchoring cap, will help Palace put out a competitive team every week in the Premier League.

    And every other team in Palace’s tax bracket seems to agree. For them, letting Manchester City and the rest spend 70 per cent of their ever-growing total revenues on their squads will destroy what is left of the jeopardy when City meets a team from the league’s lower half.

    But the other big potential beneficiaries of anchoring are those clubs directly competing with Manchester City right now, and worried about the rising threat of Newcastle United. They want to tie their rivals to a more transparent cost-control mechanism. So, this would explain the support from Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur.

    Manchester United would ordinarily be in that gang but their new increasingly de-facto owner INEOS is concerned about anchoring slowing down its ability to perform the radical surgery United’s squad requires. So, their opposition is more tactical than strategic.

    Manchester United


    Sir Jim Ratcliffe, part-owner of Manchester United (right), with Sir Dave Brailsford (Robin Jones/Getty Images)

    Aston Villa’s opposition to the idea is interesting as it reveals just how ambitious their billionaire owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris are for the club. In the past, Villa would have been in favour of something that constrains the league’s elite. Now, they see themselves as potential aristocrats.

    And Chelsea, well, they abstained probably because they realised a vote against the idea was not going to stop it from proceeding to the next stage in the consultation and legal process, so there was no point voting against it. But, equally, they could hardly back a rule that they are probably the only club to be in immediate danger of breaching. So, they did neither and abstained.

    Will the players not just go to a league without a cap? — Darragh N

    All of them, Darragh? And where? Which league pays average salaries anywhere near as high as the Premier League?

    I understand the concern, and it will be voiced as a reason not to do this by those who hate the idea. I just do not think it is very likely.

    According to the most recent data from UEFA, 10 of the top 20 wage bills in European football are in the Premier League. No other league has more than three representatives.

    The two biggest wage bills in Europe, and therefore global football, are at Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, but they can only field 11 players at a time, and both are trying to trim their wage bills, with Barca badly needing to stop their slide towards bankruptcy and PSG moving towards a more sustainable model.

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    GO DEEPER

    Who is the best-paid player at every Premier League club?

    Nothing lasts forever, of course, but there is no evidence of any short- or medium-term threat to the Premier League’s status as the richest domestic league in global football.

    Could the Saudi Pro League be the threat? It might, one day, but I would argue there is just as much chance of the SPL going the same way as the Chinese Super League in a decade as there is of it becoming a genuine challenger to the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and other major leagues.

    If I were in charge of the Premier League, I would be more worried about Major League Soccer but, as we know, North American sports owners love cost controls, so I cannot imagine them getting into an arms race for players with the Premier League, particularly as half of those owners are likely to own Premier League teams, too.

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    GO DEEPER

    It’s a controversial topic, but does taking a Premier League game to the U.S. make sense?

    How punitive are these rules on the richer clubs? A circa £500m limit on spending is hardly forcing teams to scratch around the bargain bin — Tom N

    I think you have answered your own question, Tom. And the answer is… not very! Not yet, anyway.

    We have estimated each club’s squad cost calculation for the 2022-23 season. The numbers that go into that calculation are the wages for your first-team squad players and coaching staff, your annual amortisation bill (the cost of your transfers spread across the length of their contracts) and any agents’ payments you make.

    Premier League

    Now, some of those numbers are publicly available but we have had to make educated guesses on the biggest one, the wage bill, as clubs only publish their total wage bills — for all their staff — and not what they pay their players. However, most clubs spend about 70 per cent of their total wage bill on their players, so that is the amount that we have used.

    The result is that only Chelsea spent more than five times what the Premier League’s bottom club, Southampton, received from the league in central payments. The Saints’ share of the league’s broadcast and sponsorship cash was £103.6million, which would have set a 5x cap at £518million. Chelsea’s estimated squad cost that season was £539million.

    So, no, you’re right, if the only club to possibly breach the proposed anchor was Chelsea, after their wild shopping spree, this would not appear to be particularly restrictive.

    Curious how it will work, timing-wise. Will they confirm the amounts available to spend the next season, once the season is over? — Courtney A

    You are not the only one to be curious about the details of this, Courtney, and you ask a good question.

    Whether the Premier League bases the cap on the multiple of the previous season’s bottom club’s central income or an estimate of the new season’s bottom club’s number is not clear yet. But I do not see how they can set the cap retrospectively. Clubs must know where they stand, so the cap will have to be set in advance.

    I wonder if the cap should be linked to rolling three-year domestic TV rights deals.

    The actual calculation is not that difficult, as most of the numbers are easy to predict. Every club receives a basic award of about £90million, with each place in the table worth a £3.1million merit payment, so the bottom club gets 1 x £3.1million and the top club 20 x £3.1m.

    The only real variable is the facility fee, as that is the payment clubs receive each time they appear on live television in the UK, and it is not often the case that the team that finishes 20th is the least-picked team.

    The facility fee is just over £1million a game and every team is guaranteed a minimum number of televised games. The range for facility fees in 2022-23 was £25.3million (Manchester City) to Bournemouth (£10.2m).

    So, there is some variability in the exact amount your bottom club will earn but not much. The facility fees make up 25 per cent of amount clubs make from the domestic deal, which is about half of the total income. As previously mentioned, Southampton received £103.6million last season and that seems like a good benchmark for a bottom-placed team in the current broadcast rights cycle.

    How will this new rule tie in with UEFA’s rules? Could you have a situation where a team spends more than £500million and wins the Premier League fairly but is not allowed to play in Europe? — Ben H

    This proposal will work in tandem with UEFA’s squad cost rules and the Premier League’s version of the same concept. Think of anchoring as a backstop or a relatively distant line in the sand that nobody can cross.

    Your second question is an intriguing hypothetical but does not seem very likely to me.

    Even if we ignore the numbers and just pretend that there is a way for a club to emerge from the pack and win the league, while breaching UEFA’s 70 per cent threshold, do not forget that winning the league will bring a big TV merit payment, increased commercial income and the promise of at least £45million of Champions League prize money.

    So, they might bust the 70 per cent limit in the year they win the Premier League, but they are unlikely to do so the following season. We have a very recent example of such a club: Leicester City. They made a record profit the year after they won the Premier League.

    Finally, even if your champion still, somehow, manages to breach UEFA’s threshold, the European governing body does not like banning champions from its competitions. It has a long track record of dishing out fines, which they collect by withholding some of the prize money, and squad restrictions.

    This approach is actually baked into the new squad cost rules, as UEFA has published a penalty schedule that links the size of the fine to the scale of the breach.

     (Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)

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    The New York Times

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  • ‘It was 10 seconds of stupidity’: Inside the education course for football’s banned fans

    ‘It was 10 seconds of stupidity’: Inside the education course for football’s banned fans

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    His team were drawing 1-1 at the time. It was late in the game, under the floodlights, when they missed a chance to take the lead.

    And that was the moment, Tony, a Sheffield United fan, lost his temper and shouted something at Matt Turner, the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper, that he would never be able to take back.

    “We’d just had a shot that had gone wide. The goalkeeper went to pick up the ball from behind the goal and he made a little gesture to the away fans. Nothing bad, nothing that should have upset me, but I lost my cool for 10 seconds. I started shouting, ‘Get on with it, you f—–.’

    “It was 10 seconds of stupidity. There were two people in front of me who turned round straight away and said, ‘You shouldn’t be shouting that, you shouldn’t be saying that.’ I knew they were right. ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ I knew it was wrong and that I could end up in trouble for it.”

    The next day, Tony, who is in his 50s, was reported by his fellow Sheffield United fans. They had the number of his seat at Forest’s City Ground that day and a description of what he looked like. The club got in touch and he accepted straight away that he was guilty of homophobic abuse.

    A letter arrived to inform him he was banned from Bramall Lane, pending an investigation, and he was summoned to a police station to determine whether he should face a criminal charge — or if there was another way to deal with it.

    All of this brought Tony to the attention of Kick It Out, English football’s largest anti-discrimination organisation, and led to him being referred to a fan education workshop as a form of out-of-court restorative justice.


    Matt Turner was the target of ‘Tony’s’ homophobic insult. (Michael Regan / Getty Images)

    Tony is not the fan’s real name. He does not want to be identified because of the impact the publicity would have on his family but he has agreed to become the first perpetrator from Kick it Out’s anti-discrimination programme to speak about how it works, what he learnt and the importance of educating offenders that their actions have consequences.

    “I didn’t realise Kick It Out had been running since the 1990s,” he says. “I thought it was a new thing and dealt only with racism. Until now, I’d never really thought about other kinds of discrimination. I was never wise to it. But I realise now that I needed to be educated. I’ve learnt my lesson, but I’ve also learnt a lot more.”

    We are meeting in Sheffield and, early on, Tony bends down to show something to Alan Bush, Kick It Out’s fan education and engagement manager.

    “Have a look at this,” he says, in a broad Sheffield accent.

    He pulls up his trouser leg and reveals he is wearing a pair of rainbow socks.

    “They were a present. That is one of the daftest things about what I did. My daughter is gay. My stepdaughter, too. They got me the socks for Christmas.”

    He met Bush for the first time last September, four weeks after the game at Forest that led to the police becoming involved.

    It was a two-hour workshop at the City Ground, Forest’s stadium, and Tony made it clear from the start that he was there to listen and learn.

    Bush took him through the various forms of discrimination that pollute the game and talked, in detail, about the impact a hate crime can have on victims.

    Bush explained the story about a Tottenham Hotspur supporter who was predominantly involved with the Proud Lilywhites LGBTQ fan group and stopped going to matches because of the homophobic chants.

    Using a slide show, he and Tony talked about the racist abuse suffered by England internationals Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka and Marcus Rashford, as well as the experiences of Blackpool’s Jake Daniels and the late Justin Fashanu as gay footballers. They talked about the Rainbow Blades (Sheffield United’s LGBTQ group), why it needed to exist and how its members would feel if they heard one of the club’s supporters shouting homophobic abuse.


    Sheffield United captain Oliver Norwood wearing a rainbow armband against Burnley this season. (Matt McNulty / Getty Images)

    Then Bush explained the consequences for offenders, with the threat of court cases, prison sentences and travel bans.

    “Throughout the session, (Tony) became more and more aware of his wrongdoing,” says Bush. “When we arrived at the hate crime legislation and consequences, he looked shocked at what could have been a different outcome for him, and how it could have changed his life.”

    This is Bush’s specialist subject. Kick It Out’s referrals come from either the police or the football clubs and it is Bush’s job to meet offenders, one-on-one, and pass on his recommendations to the relevant clubs. In the last three years, he has delivered more than 200 sessions.

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    “The important thing to remember,” he tells Tony, “is that even though you’re calling it a moment of madness, it’s still a hate crime. It caused harassment, alarm or distress. As a result, you could end up in court and be banned from football. You could lose your job and all sorts of other consequences.”

    It helps, undoubtedly, that Bush is deeply ingrained in football culture. He dresses like a fan, because that is exactly what he is. He has been going to Newcastle United, home and away, since the days of open terraces at St James’ Park. He is a big guy — cropped hair, Fred Perry shirt, old-school Adidas trainers — and it is easy to understand why your average man on the street would identify with him more easily than, say, a suited Premier League executive.

    Nor does it require a long stay in Bush’s company to realise he cares deeply about his work. He has been trained in hate crime procedures and worked as an anti-social behaviour officer in London.


    Alan Bush, who runs Kick It Out’s education course for banned fans. (Kick It Out)

    “At the end of the session, he asked me what I was going to do when I was allowed to go to matches again,” says Tony. “I told him, ‘I will just sit there quietly and jump up when we score, which isn’t very often as a Sheffield United fan’.

    “But Alan said, ‘I don’t want you to be like that, it’s OK to jump up and shout as much as you like, as long as it’s not racism, it’s not against disabled people, gender reassignment or religion and belief’. You realise that football isn’t just for white, straight men. It’s for everyone.”

    Of all the people to go on Kick It Out’s rehabilitation workshop, Bush can recall only one occasion when he has found it difficult to get the message through to somebody — a man who had shouted an anti-Muslim term at an opposing player.

    Only one person, a member of the England Supporters Travel Club, has reoffended. That person was banned from football for three years and, when that expires, Bush is likely to see him again. The vast majority of people, however, react more positively. Many offenders cannot explain why they have done what they have done.

    In Tony’s case, it did not seem to matter on the night that the player he was abusing was straight. The slur was just an unthinking insult that he could have applied to any opponent at that moment. He had not been drinking and did not consider himself to be homophobic.

    “He couldn’t give a specific answer for his actions,” says Bush. “He kept stating that it was stupidity, that he didn’t think and that maybe it was ‘banter.’ But he couldn’t settle on any real reason that sat comfortably with him. His main response was that his behaviour was wrong and he wished he could turn the clock back.”

    He also got lucky, in one respect. The people who reported Tony did not want to go to court. “I had all that worry hanging over me,” he says. “Your name’s in the newspaper, your address is in the newspaper, you are banned from football (by the court) … you’re publicly humiliated.”

    Instead, it is possible to find a shred of positivity from Tony’s story. If Kick It Out’s intention is to educate people and make football a better place, Tony shows it can be done.

    Tony talks about passing on what he has learnt to the friends who sit beside him on Sheffield United’s Kop. He admitted what he had done and told them to make sure they never repeated his mistakes. This goes beyond football, too. “I work with gay people,” he says. “Before I went on this course, I would probably have said something to them as a bit of banter, but now I don’t. Because it’s not banter, is it? So I’ve taken it into my workplace, too.”

    Bush’s conclusion was that the person sitting in front of him “didn’t need any prompting to show what appeared to be genuine remorse, understanding and empathy while undergoing his learning journey.”

    “I sensed that (Tony) was honest with us when he spoke about how ashamed he was of his behaviour,” Bush says. “My gut feeling, from having looked into his eyes for just over two hours, was that he was really sorry for the hurt his words may have caused. On this occasion, the community resolution and out-of-court restorative approach was the right solution.”


    Sheffield United fans fill out Bramall Lane. (Darren Staples / AFP via Getty Images)

    The sport, as a whole, could probably do with more specially trained experts who, like Bush, can pass on their knowledge in this area. This is, after all, a time when more and more people are heeding Kick It Out’s message to report discriminatory acts. Last season, there was a record number of 1,007 reports. The figures are still going up, which makes the role even more vital.

    Tragedy chanting has also started to come under Bush’s remit and, though he is acutely aware of the need for punishment, his firmly held belief for all the different types of offending is that clubs should not issue lifetime bans. “I hate that term,” he says, “because there is no coming back from it.”

    For the relevant people at Kick It Out, it is much better to educate offenders and make sure that, when those people are allowed back into stadiums, they have changed their mindset and have a much better understanding of what is acceptable and what is not.

    Tony is the perfect example: a man who describes himself as “old-school” but also now says he is “appreciative of the underrepresented groups in today’s society and why it is important to be respectful”.

    He has been allowed back into Bramall Lane after signing an ‘ABC’ — an Acceptable Behaviour Contract — and says he would like to meet the fans who reported him. He wants to apologise properly.

    He also did something that nobody on the relevant Kick It Out course had done before: he emailed Bush the following day to ask if he could go back to see him again. And that, for Bush, has to be the sign of a job well done.

    “Thank you for inviting me to the Kick It Out session,” it read. “I was keen to learn as much as possible from subject-matter experts such as yourself. I found the course very informative and a real eye-opener.

    “I learnt a whole range of things, from the differences between misogyny and sexism to what is and what is not socially acceptable to say, shout or chant.

    “I have taken away vast amounts of information and I am significantly more aware of the impact that comments can have on other people. I am, again, deeply apologetic for my ignorant words.”

    (Top photo: Catherine Ivill / Getty Images)

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    The New York Times

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  • Fear and gloating on the Premier League title trail: watching three contenders in three nights

    Fear and gloating on the Premier League title trail: watching three contenders in three nights

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    One of the closest, most enthralling Premier League title races in many years is careering towards a climax.

    Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City played out crucial games on consecutive nights this week — and The Athletic went to all three to survey and convey the emotions of three very different clubs and fanbases.

    An Arsenal fan briefly comes up for air between substantial munches of a doner kebab: “The internet is gonna be a f****** joke tonight.”

    Welcome to The Emirates. They are a different breed here; still rabid football fans all the way to their inner core, but perhaps with slightly different priorities on a matchday.

    The number of selfies being taken in front of the giant Arsenal lettering opposite the Hornsey Road roundabout, for example, is well above average for your typical football ground.

    One man films a staged video of his friend slowly walking towards the camera outside the ground, club-shop bag in hand, shades on. They both watch the video back to make sure it looks good, then they wrap their freshly purchased red and white scarves around their necks. Job done.

    There are still all the normal football pre-match sights and sounds. Alcohol, meat, cigarette smoke, anticipation.

    “We’ve still got an hour to drink,” one fan informs his mate. “An hour?” he replies. “You’ll be wearing one of them mate,” he cackles as he points to a passerby wearing a protective cast boot.

    It does, though, feel pretty normal around the ground. Should it? Arsenal are top of the Premier League with five games left. They haven’t won a title for 20 years.

    This place should be brimming with feverish expectation. And yet, the dead-behind-the-eyes robotic football machine that is Manchester City dictates that whatever Arsenal do tonight is irrelevant, in Premier League parlance.

    At least, that’s how some Gunners fans see it.


    Arsenal fans prepare for their team’s match with Chelsea as best they can (Zac Goodwin/PA Images via Getty Images)

    “The Villa defeat was obviously gutting but otherwise we’ve been basically perfect since the turn of the year,” season ticket holder Jamie says, referring to Arsenal’s otherwise outstanding record of 12 wins and one draw (0-0 at the Etihad) in 2024.

    “We’ve only been behind in one game since last year and that was the Villa game. It’s ridiculous, really, how perfect you have to be to beat City. I know we had that run around Christmas (four points from their last five matches of 2023) but yeah, I’m proud of us, we’re pushing them closer than last year.

    “I just feel the pressure is off now. If City win every game from now on, they deserve it and we’ll be back next year, we’re growing, on an upward curve. I’m not sure you can say the same for City, (Kevin) De Bruyne is probably less influential and (Erling) Haaland isn’t scoring as many. And Liverpool will obviously change a lot this summer. We’re all good.”

    It’s a philosophical attitude, one that seems to reflect a club comfortable in its own skin.

    There isn’t much skin on show as 60,000 people amble into the stadium. People wear hats, scarves and parka jackets. It’s 6°C on April 23.

    The cranky sound of AC/DC song Hells Bells fills the enormous red bowl inside. With its talk of high temperatures, it feels like a piss-take.

    After a plod-along run of two defeats, one draw and a laboured win over Wolves in their previous four, the question in the air is if Arsenal still have the minerals for this title fight.

    The answer comes within 30 seconds. Red swarm over blue like it’s the 1997 General Election all over again, Kai Havertz is sent through on goal (although is marginally offside) and the next few minutes are a blur of aggressive tackles, jinky movement and nimble passes.

    The crowd is immediately fully engaged and Arsenal are immediately in front.


    Leoandro Trossard celebrates scoring Arsenal’s first of the evening (Charlotte Wilson/Offside via Getty Images)

    By way of retort, Chelsea, with their 58 per cent possession and higher xG in the first half, play with a freedom that spells danger — Nicolas Jackson and Conor Gallagher flashing balls across goal that elicit nervous, leaning-back, pursed-lipped oooohs in the home stands, then spontaneous applause en masse by way of encouragement. Arsenal are a more united bunch these days.

    Greater teams — with the emphasis on team — would prey on Arsenal’s fragility, but not Chelsea.

    The freedom they are playing with also extends to their defenders, who run in odd directions and blame team-mates for their own mistakes.

    Mauricio Pochettino, for the time being, is a picture of calm amid the storm of an unceasing first half. Mikel Arteta buzzes around his technical area like a wasp who has accidentally sniffed some chilli powder.

    At half-time, Rollin’ by Limp Bizkit is inexplicably played in full. It feels like the early 2000s again, a sentiment Arsenal take literally as they regale their glory days by demolishing Chelsea over the next 25 minutes.

    The loudest cheer is for the third goal, orgasmic groans at Martin Odegaard’s wand-ish through ball, then euphoria as Havertz finishes it off.

    As the goals fly in, the giddiness elevates. All four sides of the ground are on their feet and the noise is overpowering at times. As a stadium, an entity, a feeling, this place is unrecognisable from three years ago. There is a tangible feeling of unity and delirium.

    “Who put the ball in the Chelsea net? Half the fucking team did,” they sing. Technically only three of them have scored, which is 27 per cent of the team, but you get the sentiment.

    The ultimate indignity arrives in the final minutes as they shout ‘ole’ at a rare sequence of Chelsea passes.

    “You have to react and face the moment,” Arteta says of Arsenal’s return to form. “And the moment is beautiful. We’ve been working for it for nine months.”


    Arsenal’s players are restrained, but the fans are not (David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

    On the pitch at full time, the celebrations are fairly restrained. Outside the ground, this is not the case.

    People aren’t just walking away chatting about the match; they’re singing, hugging and dancing. There is an incessant buzz of unfiltered, intoxicating joy.

    The scenes are so rhapsodic they bring to mind the end of the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, set amid Arsenal’s 1989 last-minute league title win at Anfield, when fans poured onto the streets back home.

    “I feel like I’m walking out of a festival and we’ve just watched the headliner,” one fan says to his friends. Everyone is high on Arsenal.

    A group of three lads are dropping the c-word (champions), while another is shouting about goal difference.

    At the Tollington pub, the chant on repeat is not about the title, it’s about Chelsea getting battered. Whatever happens in the next three and a half weeks, this night will not be forgotten anytime soon.

    With Liverpool stumbling through Jurgen Klopp’s Last Dance, they shouldn’t mind that Everton are their next opponents.

    It might be a local derby, where form is supposed to ‘go out the window’, but this fixture has been massively skewed towards the Reds since the turn of the century.

    They have beaten Everton 28 times since 2000; the Toffees have won just five.

    “You wouldn’t get chips like that at Anfield,” a father tells his lad as he passes him one outside the Blue Dragon just a few feet from Goodison Park, with the chips in question being proper chips, and the insinuation being Everton are the proper club. Or the people’s club, as they say in this part of Liverpool.

    If Everton are a proper club, then lord knows what a disjointed one looks like in 2023-24. It has been a season of upheaval and strife and the visit of their neighbours is not necessarily being relished.

    Klopp stands impassively as he surveys the opening minutes of his final Merseyside derby, his feet encased by fluorescent orange trainers.


    Jurgen Klopp assesses the scene ahead of his last Merseyside derby (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)

    Perhaps he’s just taking it all in, his last visit to the grand/creaking/traditional/outdated (delete as applicable) old stadium, arguably unique in English football (there are other ancient grounds, but not of this size). Or perhaps he just knows what’s coming.

    Liverpool are submissive and compliant to the point of BDSM as they fail to cope with an Everton side who look like they’ve been locked up in darkness for the last week, caged and made to listen to the Z-Cars theme tune on repeat.

    As with Arsenal, the tone is set within the opening minutes, but on Liverpool’s part this means meek surrender. The wobbly wheels are in motion. They win 25 per cent of all duels in the opening half an hour, a ridiculous statistic.

    If The Emirates is an arena, a colosseum, Goodison is 38,000 people shouting into an empty tin can. It’s being sat in a wheelie bin while burly blokes beat the outside of it with baseball bats.

    There is an unceasing air of frantic desperation in their pleading yells for their team to tackle, to pass, to shoot, to block. No Premier League fanbase gets off on an agricultural sliding tackle more than at Goodison. Nowhere else is more spittle rasped for the tenacious blocking of a powerfully struck opposition shot.

    When the merited opener arrives via Jarrad Branthwaite’s left foot, Liverpool’s fans begin to fear the worst.

    Everton are willing to hoof the the ball out of play to clear a corner when they have all 11 players behind the ball… in the first half. Liverpool are not.

    The rabid home team are seemingly prepared to do and sacrifice anything to win this football match. Liverpool are not.

    “Games likes these, the bare minimum is fight,” Virgil van Dijk says later. “We were lacking that at so many moments.”

    Liverpool are creating chances, but they are losing all the key moments; missing chances (or shooting straight at Jordan Pickford), conceding chances and losing tackles and loose balls.


    Jarrad Branthwaite’s shot squirms under Alisson (Daniel Chesterton/Offside via Getty Images)

    The game is being played almost exclusively in Everton’s half. “We’re going to see record possession statistics for Liverpool in this half,” one home fan says.

    But his fears are not realised. Dominic Calvert-Lewin heads home a second, the roof comes off. One man sat in the home seats does not move, remaining seated and wearing a wry smile, if not a red shirt.

    Hope is lost in the away end. Defiance is not in their repertoire tonight, they are too despondent for that.

    They are told their “support is f***ing s***” and can only retort with muted sarcastic applause from a few hundred of them.

    Nerdy statistical models would have Liverpool winning this 19 times out of 20. But the Opta supercomputer does not allow for Sean Dyche wearing a tracksuit.

    “F**k off to Norway, the city is ours,” rings around Goodison (a dig at what they see as Liverpool’s tourist-heavy fanbase). As the whistle blows on an iconic Everton performance, the line “and if you know your history” from It’s a Grand Old Team must be one of the most thunderous noises heard in English football this season.

    Fourteen years of no home victories over Liverpool, the fact that survival is all but secured, that Liverpool’s title bid has been seriously dented, and Klopp’s farewell party severely sullied, plus the points deductions, the fury, the injustice, it all pours into that noise.

    “You lost the league, at Goodison Park,” is the refrain being sung over and over, more so outside the ground as people literally jump into each other’s arms outside the Winslow.

    Liverpool’s fans have long since scarpered, the away end emptying within a couple of minutes at full-time.

    The post-match quotes are telling. Calvert-Lewin says Everton were happy to let Liverpool have the ball because “we never feared they were gonna really hurt us”.

    Van Dijk criticises his team mates. Klopp apologies to his supporters and says that historically City and Arsenal don’t drop the number of points they’ll need to for Liverpool to stand a chance now. His words don’t say the title dream is over, but his face does.


    Klopp and Van Dijk after Liverpool’s potentially costly defeat at Everton (Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

    “We were rubbish,” Neil Atkinson of The Anfield Wrap sums up succinctly.

    “I’d rather have lost 4-2, but we didn’t have that card to play, there wasn’t a point where we thought they could make it a mad game. They didn’t have that gear. All I saw coming was the fact we had to score first.”

    The Athletic’s naivety around whether this was still a “friendly derby” for Liverpool, at least in comparison to the rivalry with Manchester United, is very quickly dismissed.

    “It’s absolutely horrendous losing to Everton,” Neil clarifies. “I’m always hugely perturbed when we lose to them. It doesn’t happen very often.

    “Klopp looks tired. You wonder now if he felt (when announcing he was leaving) his race was run… maybe we can see this manifesting itself more now than we could at the time he announced it.

    “If he’d looked this way in November, people would have understood it more. He now looks really rather grey.”

    And all the while they sing in the pubs around Goodison: “You lost the league, at Goodison Park, you lost the league, at Goodison Park.”

    Yep, they probably did.

    There are two football teams playing at the Amex but the focus is directed at just one. Manchester City are in town.

    “Fancy bus, innit?” a Brighton fan says to her friend as they walk past City’s coach which has five 10ft-high trophies emblazoned across its side. They both have their picture taken by it.

    “I like (Jack) Grealish for England but not City,” another Brighton fan says.

    Brighton are concentrating on City… and so are City. For them, Arsenal and Liverpool’s results are irrelevant if, as everyone expects, they enter ‘closer’ mode and win all their remaining fixtures.


    Guardiola stepped off the Man City team bus knowing a win at Brighton was essential (Clive Rose/Getty Images)

    “I didn’t watch either game this week,” City season ticket holder of 30 years, Mike Hammond, says, but not from a position of irrelevance. “It’s just no good for your mental health, I can’t be doing with it,” he adds.

    Mike is, as he puts it, a legacy fan. From Maine Road, to League One, to the Etihad and the Champions League trophy. Hell of a journey.

    But while Arsenal have a party and Liverpool stretch their emotions thin like butter scraped over too much toast, how are City’s fans feeling about the possibility of another Premier League title?

    “You get a mix,” Mike says. “Some are presumptuous, they’ll say; ‘Yep, been here before, we’re at our best now and it should be straightforward’. Most are pretty realistic and, yeah, to be honest, most think we’ll do it.

    “I thought Arsenal might not drop any points but that Villa result has made a big difference. We’ll have to win every game to win the title, but we’ve done that before.

    “I’m not massively confident, tonight won’t be easy. We’ve struggled a bit with Brighton, they’ve got a good system that we struggle with sometimes.”

    Brighton’s fans don’t share Mike’s lack of confidence in a City win.

    “What are you doing missing this? We could have been 3-0 down by now,” a woman jokes as someone walks in late to sit next to her with two minutes on the clock. No, that comes in the 34th minute.

    City had been well below their best when edging past Chelsea in their FA Cup semi-final last weekend, days after being knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid.

    Like Arsenal, they had appeared to look tired and lethargic. Like Arsenal (and unlike Liverpool) they come correct at the Amex from the opening whistle.

    Their passing is sharp, their pressing is on point and full of energy, their movement is balletic.


    De Bruyne and Foden celebrate as City demolish Brighton (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)

    They are fortunate when Phil Foden falls over and is awarded a free kick by Jarred Gillett — and luckier still when said free kick deflects into the net — but otherwise this is an utterly dominant victory against meek opponents.

    In their previous 44 matches this season in all competitions, the lowest amount of possession Brighton had kept in a game was 45 per cent. Tonight they have 35 per cent of the ball.

    “That’s so easy, they’re taking the piss,” a Seagulls fan screams as Julian Alvarez scores City’s fourth in the second half. They are.

    The celebrations at full time are fairly restrained. This kind of victory is bread and butter for City, especially in April. It’s job done. Five to go.

    As a fan who regularly attends away games as well as home, Mike is one of a select few thousand who are in the inner sanctum of watching this title race unfold in the flesh.

    “It is a privilege,” he says. “And the away games are great, always a good atmosphere, most people really look forward to the away days.

    “It’s not ‘pinch yourself’ like it was in the first few years of Pep, the manner in which he did it, the football he’s introduced, he’s something else that guy. The best you’ve ever seen.

    “Obviously we’re going for the fourth in a row. We’ve done three, it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t happen this year, but the team know how to do it and this is kind of where we come good.”

    Just like at The Emirates and Goodison Park, there is a song on repeat at the Amex as the evening draws to a close.

    “Champions again, ole ole, champions again, ole ole.”

    In some ways it has been an extraordinary week, what with Liverpool’s first defeat at Everton for 14 years probably ending their title hopes and Arsenal’s biggest victory over Chelsea for, well, ever.

    In some ways it has also played out to type – Arsenal loving life, Liverpool on the emotional rollercoaster and City utterly serene.

    (Top photo: Zac Goodwin/PA Images via Getty Images)

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  • David Beckham Fast Facts | CNN

    David Beckham Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of retired professional soccer player David Beckham.

    Birth date: May 2, 1975

    Birth place: London, England

    Birth name: David Robert Joseph Beckham

    Father: David Edward “Ted” Beckham, an appliance repairman

    Mother: Sandra (West) Beckham, a hairdresser

    Marriage: Victoria (Adams) Beckham (July 4, 1999-present)

    Children: Harper, Cruz, Romeo and Brooklyn

    Retired professional soccer (European football) player.

    Married to Spice Girl Victoria (Adams) Beckham, nicknamed “Posh Spice.”

    Midfielder known for his ability to “bend” his free kicks, curving the ball around or over defenders to score. The movie title “Bend it like Beckham” is a tribute to his kicking style.

    Won league titles in four different countries while playing for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Los Angeles Galaxy and Paris Saint-Germain.

    Played 115 times for England between 1996 and 2009.

    Leadership Council Member of Malaria No More UK.

    1991 – At age 16, leaves home to play in Manchester United’s training league.

    April 2, 1995 – Premier League debut with Manchester United.

    1996 – Gains recognition when he scores a goal from the halfway line, a kick of almost 60 yards.

    September 1996 – Makes his international debut in the World Cup qualifier against Moldova. England wins 3-0.

    1998 – Is named to the English national team for 1998 World Cup.

    1998 – Beckham is given a red card and ejected from a second round World Cup match for kicking out at Argentina’s Diego Simeone, which contributed to England’s elimination.

    1999 – Leads Manchester United to a treble, winning the English Premier League, FA Cup and European Champions League trophies.

    November 15, 2000 – Is named captain of England’s national team.

    April 2002 – Breaks a bone in his foot but later competes in the World Cup finals in June. England ultimately loses to Brazil in the quarterfinals.

    May 2003 – Breaks his hand during a 2-1 win over South Africa in Durban.

    June-July 2003 – Traded by Manchester United to Real Madrid. He signs a four-year contract with Real Madrid for $40 million.

    November 27, 2003 – Receives an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from Queen Elizabeth II.

    January 10, 2005 – Appointed UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, with a focus on the program Sport for Development.

    August 3, 2005 – Is awarded libel damages from the tabloid, the People, that accused him of making hate calls to a former nanny.

    March 9, 2006 – Settles a libel case against the British tabloid, News of the World, over a 2004 headline that read, “Posh and Becks on the Rocks.”

    January 2007 – Signs on with the Los Angeles Galaxy, an American Major League Soccer team.

    July 21, 2007 – Plays his first game with the LA Galaxy. It is initially reported he will receive an estimated $250 million over the life of his five-year contract, but later revealed that the Galaxy will pay him $32.5 million over five years.

    March 26, 2008 – Appears for the 100th time in an England uniform. During the England/France game Beckham receives a standing ovation from both sides as he leaves the field during a substitution.

    January 2009 – Loaned by the LA Galaxy team to the AC Milan club. He initially agrees to a three-month stint with the Milan team but the loan is extended to six months.

    December 2009 – Is loaned to AC Milan a second time until the end of the Italian season in May.

    March 14, 2010 – Tears an Achilles tendon during an AC Milan match and is unable to play in the World Cup.

    December 1, 2012 – Plays his final game with the LA Galaxy.

    January 31, 2013 – Announces that he has signed with Paris Saint-Germain for five months and will donate the pay to a children’s charity in Paris.

    May 16, 2013 – Announces that he will retire from professional soccer at the end of his season.

    February 5, 2014 – Announces he will establish a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami.

    February 9, 2015 – Launches 7: The David Beckham UNICEF Fund, a collaboration with UNICEF to help kids in danger zones around the world.

    January 29, 2018 – MLS announces that Miami has been awarded the league’s 25th franchise, about four years after Beckham first announced his intention to exercise his right to buy an MLS franchise in February 2014. The Beckham franchise will be backed by Cuban-American businessmen Jorge and Jose Mas, CEO of Sprint Corporation Marcelo Claure, entertainment producer Simon Fuller and the founder of Japanese telecommunications firm SoftBank, Masayoshi Son.

    September 5, 2018 – Beckham’s Miami expansion team announces it name, Club Internacional de Futbol Miami, Inter Miami for short.

    March 1, 2020 – Inter Miami plays its debut MLS game.

    October 2, 2020 – A company co-founded by Beckham, Guild Esports, lists on the London Stock Exchange, becoming the first esports franchise to go public on the LSE.

    March 20, 2022 – Beckham hands over control of his Instagram account to a doctor in Ukraine, in a bid to highlight the work of medical professionals caring for patients amid the Russian invasion of the country.

    October 4, 2023 – Netflix’s four-part documentary series titled “Beckham” is released.

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  • World Snooker Championship: Mark Williams knocked out by Si Jiahui in last-frame thriller as seeds keep tumbling

    World Snooker Championship: Mark Williams knocked out by Si Jiahui in last-frame thriller as seeds keep tumbling

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    Three-time world champion Mark Williams beaten 10-9 by 2023 semi-finalist Si Jiahui at the Crucible; Welshman’s exit means six seeds have now fallen in the first round so far; Ronnie O’Sullivan begins bid for eighth title against Jackson Page on Wednesday afternoon

    Last Updated: 23/04/24 6:23pm

    Mark Williams lost 10-9 to Si Jiahui in the first round of the World Snooker Championship

    Mark Williams’ quest for a fourth World Snooker Championship title ended in the first round as he lost a last-frame thriller to 2023 semi-finalist Si Jiahui.

    Sixth seed Williams – world champion in 2000, 2003 and 2018 – led 5-4 after Monday’s opening session but then found himself 8-5 down as Si reeled off four frames in a row on Tuesday afternoon.

    The 49-year-old then recovered from 9-7 down to force a decider but his Chinese opponent, 21, knocked in a nerveless break of 77 in the 19th frame to secure a second-round meeting with fellow qualifier Jak Jones.

    Si lost to Luca Brecel in the 2023 semi-finals in Sheffield

    Si lost to Luca Brecel in the 2023 semi-finals in Sheffield

    Williams’ exit takes the number of seeds eliminated in the first round to six, with defending champion Luca Brecel, four-time winner Mark Selby, Ali Carter, Gary Wilson and Zhang Anda also dispatched.

    O’Sullivan plays first match on Wednesday afternoon

    Williams was hoping to become the oldest champion in the tournament’s history, a record held by Ronnie O’Sullivan, who was 46 years and 148 days when he won the most recent of his seven Crucible trophies in 2022.

    O’Sullivan begins his bid for an outright record eighth world title against Jackson Page at 2.30pm on Wednesday, with that match then concluding from 1pm the following day.

    Jak Jones is Si's second-round opponent this year after he beat 11th seed Zhang Anda at the weekend

    Jak Jones is Si’s second-round opponent this year after he beat 11th seed Zhang Anda at the weekend

    Si led Luca Brecel 14-5 in last year’s semi-final, only to lose the match 17-15 as Brecel won 12 of the next 13 frames in a Crucible-record comeback.

    Si’s clash with Williams was viewed as one of the ties of the first round, with Williams winning the previous tournament on the calendar, the Tour Championship in Manchester.

    Williams, 49, defeated Judd Trump, Mark Allen and O’Sullivan – the top three players in the world rankings – in successive matches to claim his second ranking title of the season, after the British Open in Cheltenham in October.

    Dominic Dale is playing at The Crucible for the first time in 10 years

    Dominic Dale is playing at The Crucible for the first time in 10 years

    What else happened on Tuesday?

    Elsewhere, 2020 finalist Kyren Wilson surged into an 8-1 lead over Dominic Dale.

    Dale, who is the oldest player at this year’s competition at the age of 52 and playing at the Crucible for the first time in 10 years, had one moment to cheer against Wilson – a sublime 120 clearance.

    World No 17 Jack Liswoski leads seventh seed and 2016 finalist Ding Junhui 5-4, while Mark Allen romped into a 7-2 advantage over Robbie Williams.

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  • Mark Clattenburg: The celebrity referee turned PGMOL agitator… via Gladiators

    Mark Clattenburg: The celebrity referee turned PGMOL agitator… via Gladiators

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    This is an updated version of an article first published on March 8.

    It is two and a half years since Mark Clattenburg had his autobiography, Whistle Blower, to plug. No prisoners were taken in the book’s content or the promotional work ahead of its release.

    Graham Poll, Martin Atkinson and David Elleray were all among the former colleagues Clattenburg swung for in caustic appraisals designed to settle old scores. And as for Mike Riley, his old boss at Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body responsible for overseeing referees? “A boring f**ker,” was the succinct description.

    Less spiteful were the words chosen for Howard Webb, a man he had known for over two decades, but Clattenburg still made it clear this was a fractured relationship he had little wish to mend.

    “When Howard doesn’t need you, he doesn’t speak,” Clattenburg told The Athletic in 2021, raking up a night at Euro 2012 when Webb attended a post-match party without telling his fellow Englishman. “He’s very unique in this. Everyone sees Howard as a nice guy and he is. I would never really criticise him as a person, he’s just someone I won’t engage with in the future because I don’t need Howard Webb, the same as he doesn’t need me.”

    It is a quote that has not aged well.

    A return to the Premier League as Nottingham Forest’s refereeing analyst meant Clattenburg needed the ear of Webb, who replaced Riley as the head of PGMOL in December 2022. It is among Clattenburg’s duties to liaise with Webb, to be the conduit for a club who have felt aggrieved at decisions all season.

    Ever since Clattenburg’s appointment two months ago, he and Webb have been in regular contact: the pair sat together at Forest’s FA Cup fifth-round defeat to Manchester United on February 28 in seats allocated by the home club.


    Howard Webb and Mark Clattenburg watch Nottingham Forest against Manchester United (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

    But the relationship is already being severely tested.

    On Sunday, after a controversial 2-0 defeat at Everton in which they were denied three possible penalties, Forest took their refereeing complaints to a new level when they alleged, in a post on X, that they had warned PGMOL not to appoint Stuart Attwell to VAR duties because he was a Luton fan.

     

    The Athletic reported that Clattenburg did have a conversation with Webb on Friday, 48 hours before the game, but had not asked for him to be removed from VAR duties at Goodison Park.

    In his column for MailOnline published on Sunday evening, however, Clattenburg did savage his former employers, saying they should have made “smarter appointments” and decrying Attwell and on-field referee Anthony Taylor for making a “hat-trick of howlers”.

    That, however, was not the first time that Clattenburg has turned attack dog since his return to English football.

    A controversial ending to Liverpool’s 1-0 win at the City Ground on March 2, where referee Paul Tierney incorrectly awarded the visiting side an uncontested drop ball, saw Clattenburg put up for media duties by Nottingham Forest.

    “I haven’t spoken to the referee, I’ll leave that to the club,” he said. Yet it had not been for the want of trying. “I went to go into the referee’s dressing room (after the game) but he wouldn’t allow it.”

    PGMOL did not dispute that. Rules are in place that stipulate only managers and select coaching staff, listed on the official team sheets, can approach officials after a game and, even then, it is up to the referee who enters their dressing room.

    Clattenburg was denied an audience with Tierney and had been expecting events to play out differently. Webb had raised no objection to Clattenburg seeing referees post-match in a meeting the men held shortly after his arrival at Forest. It is not unusual for an analyst to accompany a manager into such a meeting and present video evidence but, importantly, as long as he is an accredited figure listed on the team sheet.

    It became the sideshow that made more headlines than Darwin Nunez’s 99th-minute winner. Forest had been on the end of another refereeing mistake, one that gave Liverpool the chance to attack at the other end (albeit almost two minutes later), and it was Clattenburg’s job to tell the world about it.

    Forest say they appointed Clattenburg to try and create a positive relationship with PGMOL, the body they have addressed three letters of complaint to already this season. Clattenburg is there to create direct links of discourse, they claim.

    Yet PGMOL maintain that all clubs already have that option open to them. Webb has made a point of being accessible to all Premier League managers and captains since taking control of the organisation 15 months ago, fielding calls and explaining the good and bad decisions his referees have reached. They might not like what he has to say, but accountability is the broad aim.

    “Clubs are aware that Howard Webb and his colleagues are open to calls at any point,” said Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, in February.

    The question now is whether Clattenburg is the right man to try and facilitate better relations.

    Clattenburg, in his own words, started his working life as a “daft electrician from Newcastle”.

    Long before he was made the Premier League’s youngest referee aged 29, he had run the lines as an assistant in the Northern League before the same grassroots level presented a platform for him to take centre stage. Clattenburg, with a name not easy to forget, earned a reputation as one of the brightest young officials climbing the ladder. At 25, he had reached the EFL, four years before he was plucked out by Keith Hackett to reach the highest level.

    Clattenburg’s ability as an elite referee was rarely in question. Along with Webb, who beat him to the Premier League by 12 months, Clattenburg was as good as it got in English football.

    “He was an outstanding referee,” former Premier League official Mark Halsey tells The Athletic. “He was a natural, not manufactured. His communication skills were second to none.

    “Mark was exceptional, like Howard was. And he was a perfectionist. We worked together and roomed together many times. He’d analyse every game and look at what he could and should’ve done differently. He’d beat himself up if he got a decision wrong.”

    But a divisive figure? “He didn’t suffer fools,” adds Halsey. “Mark was Mark. I wouldn’t question his character. He was as honest as the day is long. He would tell you as it was and some people didn’t like that. It’s how I would want people to be. He would never go behind someone’s back like some did when we were refereeing.”

    UEFA recognition followed Clattenburg’s impressive rise up the Premier League ranks, culminating at his high-water mark as an official in 2016 when he oversaw both the Champions League final and the final of Euro 2016.


    Mark Clattenburg in the 2016 Champions League final – a career highlight (Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images)

    That Clattenburg has tattoos to mark both showpiece occasions, though, helps paint a picture of the image-conscious figure that became so divisive during his time in the Premier League.

    Clattenburg was more like a footballer than a referee. He made headlines for owning a Porsche Boxster that was vandalised outside his home in Newcastle and a black BMW X5 that carried the personalised number plate C19TTS (Clatts).

    Poll would report Clattenburg to PGMOL bosses after turning up for one game carrying a man bag. A separate incident in 2014, when Clattenburg used his own transport to go straight from West Bromwich Albion’s home game against Crystal Palace to an Ed Sheeran concert in Newcastle, brought a reprimand as all Premier League officials are made to travel to and from games together.

    Then there were the hair-loss adverts that Clattenburg continues to promote. One video, posted on his Instagram account before Christmas, concluded with him spraying a product from a range positioned in front of the camera. “Hair loss is a worry and make no excuses, I do what I can to keep it,” he says.

    It has grown hard to know how seriously to take Clattenburg since his exit from the Premier League in 2017. In the hours that followed Forest’s galling loss to Liverpool, where he was explaining the club’s grievances to media outlets in the mixed zone, he could also be found reprimanding Viper for pinning down a contestant on the BBC show Gladiators.

    “This is a formal warning,” said Clattenburg, who serves as the referee on the programme, which was revived earlier this year. “I told you in the locker room, no holding.” The pivot between family entertainment and the Premier League is an awkward one.


    Mark Clattenburg in his new role on BBC’s Gladiators (BBC)

    As is the relationship between Clattenburg and Webb. It began in the late 1990s when they met during fitness testing at Lilleshall before, according to Webb, becoming “quite friendly” as they climbed the refereeing ladder.

    Webb was there to toast his colleague’s success, too. Clattenburg’s first Premier League game, a 3-1 win for Everton away to Crystal Palace in 2004, was followed by a flight back to Newcastle, where he was joined for “a night on the lash” with Webb. In his own autobiography, The Man in the Middle, Webb says Clattenburg thanked his colleague for “getting him through (that first game) unscathed”.

    The falling out at Euro 2012, where Clattenburg was part of Webb’s support team in Poland and Ukraine, has clearly rankled, but a call from one to the other in 2017 was hugely significant. Webb’s exit from the head of refereeing in Saudi Arabia had created a vacancy and Clattenburg, increasingly disillusioned with PGMOL, was encouraged by his former colleague to take up the opportunity. Clattenburg’s salary would be £525,000 a year tax-free, a huge climb on his basic annual Premier League wage of £100,000.

    It marked the start of a well-paid tour of the world. Eighteen months in Saudi Arabia were followed by spells overseeing refereeing in China, Egypt and Greece, where he became personally known to Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis in an unforgiving and hostile environment for referees. Marinakis has previously accused Greek referees of being “rigged”, while Olympiacos vice-president, Kostas Karapapas, threw a black mini-skirt at Takis Baltakos, president of the Greek football federation, last season.

    Clattenburg’s return to England with Forest — the first appointment of its kind in English football — raised eyebrows throughout English football.

    Many Premier League clubs were sceptical of the value he would bring, instead echoing the feelings expressed by Gary O’Neil, whose Wolverhampton Wanderers side have suffered from a number of high-profile errors this season.

    “I’m fine with our relationship with the PGMOL,” he said. “They’re always very clear and honest with me. They are always open to communicating after games. So no, I don’t feel the need for it (a Clattenburg equivalent) here.”

    The referees themselves are said to be nonplussed yet relaxed by Clattenburg’s appointment. They know they will be subject to one of Clattenburg’s pre-match reports before they take charge of a Forest match.

    Webb has yet to publicly comment on Clattenburg’s return, but plenty of others have.

    “I’m disappointed with Nottingham Forest,” said Gary Neville. “It’s as if, ‘Look at all of this, woe is me’. I get it, some teams feel as though they’ve been hard done to, some teams feel they’ve had bad decisions against them, but to employ an ex-referee to tell you why you’re having decisions against you. For me, I think it’s a step too far.”

    Neville went further himself on Sunday, saying that Clattenburg should quit his role at Forest in the wake of their allegations on X.

    “Mark Clattenberg must resign,” said Neville. “If he saw those words go out (questioning) the integrity of a referee and claims someone is a cheat for supporting another club, then he’s supporting what is being said. He would lose all credibility with referees in the game. He should stand down and distance himself from that statement.”


    Evangelos Marinakis shows his anger at the end of Forest’s defeat to Liverpool (Jon Hobley | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    But while Clattenburg’s work with Forest is considered unusual, or even ill-advised, in England, in Europe such an arrangement is deemed far more commonplace.

    Former Serie A referee Gianpaolo Calvarese was hired by Jose Mourinho, not someone traditionally sympathetic to officialdom, when in charge of Roma, while Carlos Megia Davila has been on Real Madrid’s payroll since 2009.

    It is also a common practice in rugby union, where head coaches recruit former officials to backroom teams. Steve Lander, formerly an international referee, was an advisor to England when they won the World Cup in 2003.

    “Why can’t Mark have a role at Nottingham Forest?,” asks Halsey, an ally of Clattenburg’s. “He’s been out of the Premier League for a number of years. Why can’t he be that liaison between a club and PGMOL, stopping the managers and owners from getting into trouble?

    “It can only help relationships. Forest have taken the initiative and employed a former referee as a consultant. Mark is ideal to do that.”

    Either way, just as when he was refereeing himself, Clattenburg has found himself in the eye of a storm in the Premier League. With Forest’s relegation battle only likely to become more fraught in the weeks ahead, things are unlikely to settle down.

    (Top photo: Kieran Galvin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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  • The story of one of football’s most horrific injuries – as told by those involved

    The story of one of football’s most horrific injuries – as told by those involved

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    “It sounds stupid, but it was as if the stadium went quiet at that exact moment,” recalls former Manchester United defender David May.

    “All you could hear was the snap of his leg — as if two shin pads had collided — then the scream.”

    He is thinking back to April 8, 1996, the day Coventry City defender David Busst suffered a horrific leg-break at Old Trafford. For many, it remains the worst football injury captured on film.

    With four games to go in the Premier League season, Manchester United were six points clear of Newcastle United having played a game more.

    Coventry were a point adrift of safety, but they made a start which roused the few thousand away fans, winning a corner after just 86 seconds.

    Ally Pickering’s delivery was met by Noel Whelan at the front post, but his header was palmed into the air by the diving Peter Schmeichel.

    Busst raced “full blast” towards a rebound which was, at best, 40-60 against him to win.

    He was 10 yards outside the back post but accelerated so powerfully that he got to the ball ahead of the two United players, Denis Irwin and Brian McClair, who had thrown their legs at the bouncing ball.

    The collision meant the ball only trickled towards goal.

    “Instinctively, I thought, ‘He should have scored there’,” says May.

    “But then I saw his leg and, oh my God, it was horrible. You could see the pain David was in. I turned away. Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine.”

    Schmeichel was on the ground with the ball safely in his hands but, as he had been making the save, he seemed to witness Busst “sit on his own leg”.

    When the Danish goalkeeper looked up, he was met with a sight that would ingrain itself into his brain forever.

    Busst had suffered compound fractures to both his tibia and fibula, leaving his right leg hinged at a sickening angle.

    “We had five set-piece drills with Ron Atkinson and Gordon Strachan back then and the number they called up was the one that we flick on at the near post and I come in at the back post. It went perfectly until I got challenged,” Busst, who now works for Coventry’s Sky Blues In The Community charity, tells The Athletic.

    “I just froze. I had the feeling of knowing something wasn’t in the right place. I thought, ‘Don’t move and the pain will go away, but the pain didn’t go away’. I was scared to move as Dion Dublin had a sheer look of horror on his face.

    “Irwin had been coming off the post towards me and caught me above the ankle, but McClair was coming from behind and his foot caught me higher up the shin bone. All three of us were going to win or block the ball, so I don’t blame anyone.

    “If you’ve got two opposing forces hitting at that exact same split second, there is only one thing that can happen. It will probably never happen again.”

    Manchester United and Coventry face each other in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final in a fixture that has not been seen in the Premier League since 2001, but it will always be synonymous with the nine-minute stoppage that brought an end to Busst’s career.

    “I knew something was really bad with the noise he made, but when I saw Bussty’s hand in the air that was it for me,” says Paul Williams, a Coventry team-mate who had travelled with close friend Busst to meet the team bus that morning.

    “Everyone was in their own world when he was down. I don’t think two people spoke to each other on our team.

    “I can’t remember one pass I made that day. I wouldn’t even be able to confirm the score to you.”

    It ended 1-0 to United, with Eric Cantona scoring the only goal of the game two minutes after half-time.

    The details remain a blur for those who shared the pitch that day, including Manchester United midfielder Lee Sharpe, who heard the “crack” from just outside the box.

    “It was horrible playing on,” says Sharpe. “No one wanted to go near anybody. It was a weird atmosphere as I think everyone was in shock.

    “I remember Pete (Schmeichel) throwing a bucket of water at the blood on the pitch and seeing it splash up red.”

    In 1996, the rudimentary setup at football grounds meant both club doctors had to sit in the directors’ box and the paramedics had to stay in the tunnel at the Stretford End so were not allowed on the pitch to give treatment.

    It was such an unprecedented incident that United’s players called for their physio, David Fevre, to help.

    “Our lads called us on and said, ‘Dave, you need to sort this out’,” says Fevre.

    “When I got there David was screaming in pain, so my first thought was, ‘I need two sensible players who can help me out here’. Dion Dublin and ‘Choccy’ (McClair) were talking to him to take the stress out of it for me and create a physical screen so he couldn’t see down.”

    Busst’s bone had penetrated through the skin and created a pool of blood in the six-yard box by the time Fevre arrived.

    His priority was to stop the bleeding and prevent Busst losing consciousness or any further complications arising. He tried to ensure any grass and dirt was washed away by squirting saline over the open wounds and then dressing them to absorb the blood.

    Only then could he deal with the fracture itself.

    “His leg was virtually at 90 degrees,” says Fevre.

    “Because of the angle, I checked the distal pulses in the foot. If you lose that, you lose the blood supply to the leg and then I would have had an even bigger problem to deal with.

    “I made the decision to keep the limb in that position as I didn’t want to lose those pulses. I held the top and bottom end of the fracture as we got him on the stretcher and I maintained that stability while we took him around the pitch into the tunnel where the paramedics could give him oxygen.”


    In this image, cropped because of the horrific nature of the leg fracture, David May, left, and other players react to David Busst’s injury (PA Images via Getty Images)

    Only the St John’s Ambulance service were allowed on in those days, meaning Fevre had to lead a complex response without much support.

    He is one of the faculty tutors at the Football Association and Busst’s injury is one that comes up often.

    “I don’t want to sound blase, but having worked in rugby league for 10 years, I got used to injuries like that,” says Fevre. “It hardens you up to deal with it.

    “I just went back to my seat and got my mind switched on to covering the rest of the game as something else could happen in the next minute.”

    There was such a mess left that referee Dermot Gallagher had to allow the groundsman to come on with a bucket of water and sand.

    Gallagher still cannot allow his mind to linger on it 27 years later.

    “It took me nigh on two years to go back to Old Trafford again,” he tells The Athletic.

    “It was the worst day of my football life and haunts me to this day. I avoid talking about it like the plague.”

    Busst was put to sleep as the doctors reset his leg and put it into a back slab, but that was only the beginning of his recovery during an initial six-week stay in hospital.

    “I can remember the journey because the speed bumps outside Old Trafford were so massive it felt like I was breaking it over and over again,” Busst says.

    “Most people thought it was a road traffic accident until they saw the football kit.

    “When Big Ron came to see me, the first thing he said was, ‘Bussty, you should have scored!’. You don’t want someone being morbid as you want people to take the pressure off. No one was better at that.”

    Busst needed light relief as he underwent 10 operations in the first 12 days in an attempt to clean out and sterilise areas where he had picked up tissue infections, including MRSA.

    He also had a hematoma on the outside of his leg, which had caused so much inflammation that they had to cut it down to release the pressure that felt like one huge dead leg.

    Infection then got to his tendons, which also had to be cut away, leaving only the one that connected his big toe.

    Busst had a six-inch pin inserted in his leg to help connect the bones and wore an external fixator bolted onto either end of his shin in the hope the bones would calcify and connect in the middle.

    He encountered more problems as the infection was trailing down the outside of the pin. That had to be removed via another operation three months later. Busst even required surgery to repair a hole on his left Achilles that had been created by overcompensating when limping.

    “One of the big problems I had was there was no blood supply to where the break was. There was a real danger that it would have to be amputated from the knee down,” Busst says.

    “They moved the skin off the calf muscle to cover the hole where the bone had come out. They then took a skin graft off my backside to go on the back of my calf, which is why it looks like it does now.

    “One of the best operations I had two years later was repairing that so I could pull up my toe. That’s what stopped me playing, I was left with a drop foot. You can’t chip the ball. It took me three years to kick the ball again.”

    Busst used to cut out the ends of his shoes so he could have a bit of normality, but he knew after three months he would never play again due to the variety of significant injuries.

    “All he wanted to know that first night was if he would play again, but they couldn’t give him an answer. It was horrible,” says Williams, who now plays alongside Busst in an over-35s league.

    “On my days off I’d take him up to Manchester for his treatment. I’d put the front seat of my car down and he’d sit in the back with his leg up and all the metal sticking out of it.

    “He had come to professional football late and that’s all he wanted to be. To have that taken away from him was devastating, but he’s more resilient than I’d ever be.

    “He was quick, honest and committed. That’s what he brought to the game that day and it’s what ultimately ended his career.”

    Old Trafford was already significant to Busst in how he had come into professional football. He was a latecomer, having been with non-League club Moor Green in Birmingham until he was 24.

    One of his trial games at Coventry had been at Old Trafford in 1991, but five years later, aged 28, he had 50 Premier League games under his belt.

    Williams reckons he would have had years more to come, which begs the question: does he ever regret flying into the challenge as committed as he did that day in 1996?

    “It’s just something I didn’t even think about,” says Busst. “I was an honest player, I wasn’t the most talented but I stuck my head and foot in where it hurt.

    “You’re not looking around thinking who is potentially going to hurt me, you’re just going full-blast to the ball. I was always brought up to attack the ball. If I had thought about those things, I’d have been injured years ago.

    “I can’t change anything, but I can see what good I can take from it. Opportunities opened up for me after that. You’re better being famous for something than not.”


    David Busst never played professionally again but does play veterans’ football (Getty Images)

    Busst has had calls with players and families who have suffered traumatic injuries and, now 57, also plays for Leamington Seniors.

    “He still steals into tackles now on a Sunday,” says Williams.

    “I remember playing a couple of games where I was fuming that people were tackling him as I didn’t want him to go through it again, but he’s the opposite of paranoid.

    He just wants to win. He still gets mad when decisions don’t go his way!”

    In Schmeichel’s autobiography, One, he recalls showing Scandinavian visitors around Old Trafford, years after the incident, when out stepped Busst from the tunnel.

    He was now a youth coach and had taken a group of kids to Old Trafford.

    “It was a small moment of closure. What happened to him has never left me,” Schmeichel writes.

    “It was the worst thing I ever witnessed on a football pitch and so close up that it almost felt part of me, if that makes sense.

    “It may seem odd to say, but it sort of bonded me with David Busst.”

    (Top photo: Laurence Griffiths/EMPICS via Getty Images)

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  • Usain Bolt, Burnley and the story behind one of the season’s strangest photos

    Usain Bolt, Burnley and the story behind one of the season’s strangest photos

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    It was one of the more unexpected social media posts of the Premier League season.

    It came from Burnley and showed a visitor to the club’s training ground smiling in front of a slogan reading: “It’s a way of life.”

    This, however, was no ordinary guest: this was Usain Bolt, the eight-time Olympic gold medal winner, the holder of world records in the men’s 100m and 200m, and one of the most famous sportsmen on the planet.

    The Jamaican has dabbled in the footballing world since retiring from athletics in 2017, but his visit to the struggling Premier League side was not to discuss becoming their new No 9.

    Instead, Bolt was attending Burnley under-21s’ 4-3 victory over Stockport County, who were fielding Che Gardner, the son of the sprinter’s close friend Ricardo, a former footballer who made over 400 appearances for Bolton and spent 11 years in the Premier League.

    Bolt and Gardner met while the latter was on international duty with Jamaica — he made 111 appearances for the country in total and is widely regarded as one of the greatest players in their history. After leaving Bolton in 2012, he did not play another senior game until announcing his retirement in May 2014.


    Ricardo Gardner was a Jamaican international (Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

    Gardner and Bolt’s friendship has grown over the years, including a shared love of music, which has seen them work together on various projects.

    “We met ages ago just from being two sportsmen from Jamaica. We both represented our country so got to know each other and we’ve remained good friends,” Gardner tells The Athletic. “He’s become closer to the family as time has gone on. In Jamaica, the way we operate, Che would consider him his uncle. He’s not his actual uncle, but it is just out of respect.”

    Gardner’s son Che is a first-team scholar for Stockport County and made a brief late cameo in the game on Wednesday.

    Whenever Bolt has commitments in Europe, he will try to visit the Gardner family and if possible see Che in action. In March 2023, Bolt attended an under-15 game between Blackburn Rovers — where Che was on trial — and Burnley.

    He posed for a picture with Rovers’ players after the game, which was posted on the club’s official social media channels, and stayed in The Avenue Hotel in the Ribble Valley, which includes former Blackburn midfielder David Dunn as one of its owners.

    “He has been a massive influence and inspiration for Che,” Gardner added. “He’s always been supportive of him. He will give him advice as much as possible, being a mentor whenever needed. Che follows many things he has told him and looks up to him. It’s great when you have people around you who have done it at the elite level.”

    Bolt is a huge Manchester United supporter, but after calling time on his athletics career at the age of 30, he turned his attention to playing professional football.

    There were trials at German side Borussia Dortmund and Australian A-League side Central Coast Mariners in 2018. He scored twice in a friendly for the Mariners, but despite reports of a contract being offered, he did not sign. A two-year deal with then Maltese champions Valletta was also turned down.

    After admitting in early 2019 that he had given up any hope of a professional career, Bolt has become one of the headline stars of the annual Soccer Aid charity match.


    Usain Bolt is a regular in football charity matches (Chris Arjoon/AFP via Getty Images)

    Stockport celebrated promotion to League One after being crowned League Two champions earlier this month. The club is on an upwards trajectory and Gardner praised the work that is going on at all levels of the club having seen it first-hand through his son.

    “Che’s enjoying his football, he’s growing and developing into a good human being,” says Gardner. “He’s on the right path, Stockport are doing a great job in terms of player development and you see where Che was to where he is now.

    “They’re working hard to try to get the best out of all parties and he’s enjoying learning and the results are being seen as time has gone on.”

    Keen to not miss out on the opportunity of recruiting Bolt, Burnley minority owner and NFL legend JJ Watt shared Burnley’s image of Bolt with his own message.

    “Pleasure having you brother,” he wrote. “I guess I can settle for second fastest man to ever step foot on Burnley’s training ground. Still time to rearrange that schedule for TST. Just sayin’…”

    Watt was referencing Burnley’s participation in The Soccer Tournament (TST) held in America this summer. Watt is captaining Burnley’s men’s team, while his wife, former USWNT forward and fellow minority owner Kealia, is captaining the women’s team.

    Whether Bolt takes up that invitation is yet to be seen. In the meantime, Burnley are simply happy for his star power.

    (Top photo: Burnley FC)

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  • Wrexham are a good story, yes, but they are no footballing fairytale

    Wrexham are a good story, yes, but they are no footballing fairytale

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    Accrington Stanley owner Andy Holt’s tweet was dripping with Lancastrian sarcasm.

    “Congratulations Ryan, I honestly don’t know how you do it! Fabulous achievement. Best of luck with the treble,” it read.

    He was replying to Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds’ celebratory post following his side’s second successive promotion.

    Holt is one of English football’s most intriguing characters and is about as divisive as the team on the receiving end of his post. Wrexham are the British game’s Marmite club — other teams’ fans love or hate them — and following their promotion to League One along with Stockport County last weekend, the debate is back with fresh fervour.

    You can forgive Holt, a local businessman who made his fortune in the plastics industry and has invested heavily in his hometown club since assuming control in 2015, for his tongue-in-cheek reply to Reynolds. It was congratulatory while pulling off an exquisite ironic dig at Wrexham’s achievements given their sizeable budget for a fourth-tier club.

    There is also the fact Holt has history with Reynolds and Wrexham’s other Hollywood star co-owner Rob McElhenney. They have not always seen eye to eye on matters such as streaming income and ticket prices. Maybe there is something to be said for staking out the moral high ground, for taking a deep breath in times like these and rising above. But this is football — an industry that thrives on petty grudges.


    Reynolds and McElhenney celebrating promotion to the National League a year ago (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

    Most neutrals are self-aware enough to acknowledge a degree of jealousy when looking at what Wrexham have achieved since Reynolds and McElhenney took over in 2021.

    Aside from the investment, the international exposure and the obvious respect both have for the north Wales club and the town they represent, the actors are annoyingly difficult to dislike. Their self-aware japes, like when they tried to learn Welsh in the Welcome To Wrexham documentary series, and their witty social media posts make it far more difficult to be cynical about their intentions.

    They are public-facing in a way that allows accountability, going against the tide of too many absent or elusive owners in the EFL. They have shown touches of class around memorials to the Gresford Colliery mining disaster, surprise charity donations and fan engagement. New big-name international sponsors including Expedia, TikTok and United Airlines have arrived, along with grand plans for new stands at the Racecourse ground. And on-pitch, they have had clear success. Manager Phil Parkinson oversaw a record-breaking points tally on the way to winning the National League title last season to pull Wrexham out of the fifth tier of the English football pyramid after 15 years.

    Fan culture in Europe and the U.S. on The Athletic

    And they have now done it again, achieving back-to-back promotions for the first time in the club’s 160-year history, once again with the Welcome To Wrexham cameras in tow. The series has brought new fans and attention to the EFL, particularly from the U.S. And this has, in part, led to record domestic and international TV deals — worth £935million ($1.2bn) over five years and £148m over four respectively to the EFL.

    So what is not to like? What harm is the Wrexham story doing to football?

    If you ask most other fans in England and Wales, quite a lot. Here is where the bubble bursts if you believe Wrexham to be an against-all-odds tale.

    Wrexham are not underdogs, at least not in the league. There is a case to be made for underdog status in their FA Cup runs which saw them play Blackburn Rovers, Sheffield United and Coventry City, three sides much higher up the domestic football pyramid in the last two seasons. But when a team have the most money in the division, they have an advantage over the rest. Wrexham are not the first club to use their financial muscle to progress up the leagues. They will not be the last.

    Stockport have been on a similar journey up from the National League and carry one of the highest wage bills in League Two this season. Fleetwood Town, now an established league club, did the same in 2012 and 2014. This season’s National League champions, Chesterfield, have spent plenty to get back into the EFL.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Chesterfield are heading back to the EFL and have no intention of standing still

    The latest set of Wrexham accounts, covering the 2022-23 season, show their wage bill was £6.9million, with losses of £5.1m. Both figures were 1) records for the National League, and 2) higher than all League Two teams that season and most of League One, too. It is an unprecedented amount of money to spend in the lower leagues and as a point of comparison, Accrington lost £785,000 in the same period, when they were a third-tier side.


    Stockport also celebrated promotion this weekend (Jess Hornby/Getty Images)

    There is no shame in spending big, especially when it works and when your revenue is as big as Wrexham’s was last year (£10.5million — again, more than any other side in the fifth-tier National League or League Two). More money helps attract better players and so the league table often reflects each team’s spending. Only when a club endure a bad season or feel the constraints of the EFL’s financial fair play rules (usually once they reach the second-tier Championship) is there reason to worry.

    Where Wrexham have done lots of good for football, the gradual hiking-up of salaries in the lower divisions has been a serious concern to clubs constrained by much smaller margins but trying to compete.

    Wrexham’s financial clout and subsequent easy progress straight through League Two was to be expected and it probably will not be until they reach the Championship — or their owners run out of cash or enthusiasm for the project — that we will see what this sort of growth really means. The accounts are hard proof: Wrexham are a good story, yes, but they are no fairytale. This clip on CBS, and the replies, sums it all up perfectly of just how divisive they have become.

    What rankles so many League One and Two and National League fans is that while the story of a post-industrial town that has fallen on hard times with an underperforming/downtrodden football club has captured global attention, it is a story that applies to swathes of the EFL. You could swap out Wrexham for Grimsby Town, Wigan Athletic, Hartlepool United, Newport County or Accrington. None of those clubs means any less to their community just because there are no TV cameras to show it.

    Maybe all this says more about fan culture in the UK than we care to admit.

    The healthy position in all this is to sit somewhere in the middle. For every moment of admiration for what Wrexham are doing, a sprinkling of awareness of their wage bill or a dash of cynicism around the narrative that they are ‘the only club like it in the world’ should provide a perfectly seasoned outlook.

    But balance? A healthy attitude to what other teams in your division are doing? Anything other than disdain for new ideas, new fans and a barrage of media attention for a club other than your own? You will not find that in the EFL. You’re better off trying Disney+ for it instead.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Welcome to Wrexham… in League One: What happens next?

    (Top photo: Charlotte Tattersall/Getty Images)

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  • This is still a three-horse title race – the 10 reasons why Man City might drop points

    This is still a three-horse title race – the 10 reasons why Man City might drop points

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    It seems unlikely that north London denizen TS Eliot was an Arsenal fan, but his poetry suggests otherwise.

    “April is the cruellest month,” begins The Waste Land. “I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,” laments The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. “This is the way the challenge ends; not with a bang but a whimper,” was probably the first draft of The Hollow Men.

    Sunday was a disappointing day not just for Arsenal and Liverpool fans, but neutrals who wanted to see the three-way title battle continue. Liverpool’s 1-0 loss against Crystal Palace and Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat to Villa leaves Manchester City two points clear at the top of the league and, as frontrunners, Pep Guardiola’s side are near infallible.

    “I have known it all already, known it all,” moans Eliot. But cheer up, Tommy. There is hope yet.

    Here are 10 entirely realistic reasons why City could still drop points.

    This is a serious article, so let’s start seriously. Can a team do the treble twice in a row? With injuries mounting, games tripling, emotions deepening — can City rouse themselves once more?

    There is a reason why a treble — or a double, for that matter — is so rare. Playing in multiple competitions does have an impact. When the margins are so tight, fatigue levels, tactical planning and mental freshness are even more crucial.

    When cup competitions are straight knockout, league matches against lower-ranked opponents are naturally the games which can slip out of focus. City host Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals on Wednesday, play Chelsea in the FA Cup three days later, before travelling to Brighton five days on.

    Guardiola has already said City are in “big, big trouble” with fatigue and injuries. So that is surely cause for hope for Liverpool and Arsenal?


    Manchester City might need a bigger trophy room (Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

    The Spurs

    Won two, lost five. Has Guardiola ever had a record that bad? Taking on Lionel Messi in the crossbar challenge? Credit card roulette at Manchester’s finest restaurants? Family games of Uno?

    City have always struggled at Spurs. Their Premier League record in north London is poorer than any other fixture. Yes, they may have beaten them in the FA Cup this January — but that record does not include their Champions League quarter-final defeat in 2019.

    Every manager’s mind has a dark room where they store their worst defeats. Guardiola’s contains a Beavertown brewery and a retractable NFL field.

    Tottenham may have been overwhelmed by Newcastle, but both their meetings with City this season have been close. They still have the Champions League to chase, and they will not back down.


    Guardiola tends to be dumbfounded by league trips to the Tottenham Hotspur stadium (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

    Is 30 goals in 37 matches really a down season? Since when did that make you, as Roy Keane suggested, a League Two player? Anyway.

    If Haaland fails to score for the rest of the season, perhaps then there is a conversation to be had. For now, City’s rivals simply have to hope the wheels come off.

    Pep overcomplicates it

    “I always overthink,” said Guardiola in 2022. “I always create new tactics and ideas, and tomorrow you will see a new one. I overthink a lot, that’s why I have very good results. I love it.”

    “If it works I am brave, if it doesn’t work then I’m overthinking,” he added one year later. So go on — be brave.

    When you already play four centre-backs, why stop there?

    Play a back four of Nathan Ake, Manuel Akanji, Ruben Dias, and Josko Gvardiol. John Stones is virtually a central midfielder already. Plonk Kyle Walker (yes, he can count as a centre-back) on the right wing.

    The rest of them? Recall Taylor Harwood-Bellis from Southampton and put him up front in the Andy Carroll role. At 6ft 5in (196cm), Finley Burns must be decent in nets. Luke Mbete can return from Den Bosch and use his left foot from the left wing. Max Alleyne, at 18, has been on the bench this season. Fancy joining Stones in the double pivot? There is already chatter about 16-year-old Stephen Mfuni’s technical quality. Stick him in at No 10.

    Guardiola believes in total football. They’ll be fine. When you’ve won it all, the only way left to win is to… win better.

    Forest’s newest investment finally comes good

    Imagine the scenario: Nottingham Forest are battling for Premier League survival and keeping City at bay. In the 71st minute, Phil Foden finally puts them ahead. With 88 minutes gone, Chris Wood bundles Forest back into it. Bedlam.

    But before the cheers die away, the whistle blows. VAR review. Suspected foul in the box. The referee walks to the monitor. The City Ground has seen this story before. But then he spots something in the crowd — and walks away.

    Amid the depths of celebration, supporters stop for one moment. What made the referee change his mind? They search for an answer — and find it.

    Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Mark Clattenburg.

    This superhero has no cape, but Forest’s referee consultant has the regulations to his front and justice at his back. Gotham City is safe from PGMOL. The Premier League table is level once more.


    This is Clattenburg’s time (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

    Rodri’s break turns into a gap year

    Rodri has said he needs a break, but remember this is a player who lives the lifestyle of a university student. He lived in student accommodation. He has a degree in business administration. He drove a second-hand Opel Corsa. He is one step away from selling you £2 entry to Tuesday club nights at Pryzm.

    “Spending time with young people the same as you,” he told Manchester City’s website when asked why he considered university the best time of his life. “Studying and going out sometimes. It was good… a great time.”

    But in recent months, with the intensity of the campaign — he has played 3,498 minutes for City across all competitions this season — some of this purity must have fallen away.

    “I do need a rest,” he told reporters after City’s 3-3 draw with Real Madrid, with the dazed air of anyone who has attended a 9am lecture on a hangover.

    One week is a brief break, sure. But why not take three months? Why not find yourself? You’re only in your twenties once. British Airways offers student discounts on flights. There’s a world out there to discover.


    Rodri is knackered and needs a gap year (Oscar J. Barroso/Europa Press via Getty Images)

    “Jarrod, maaaaate, how’s it going cuz?”

    “Gaffer? Gaffer? Gaffer? Moyesy?”

    “Kalvin… how’s the new digs? Passport renewed?”

    Declan Rice’s phone bill has never been higher.

    City host West Ham on the final day. By the time it kicks off, there is little more Rice can do, except take care of his own business. The real work, therefore, starts before. West Ham have nothing to play for — it is time for that to change. Every negotiating card is on the table.

    He’s sold his car to Lucas Paqueta. He is willing to withdraw from the England squad in favour of Phillips. David Sullivan has been promised his first-born son. West Ham win.

    Roberto De Zerbi’s job interview to remember

    This season has slightly fizzled out for Brighton & Hove Albion, who are 10th in the league and winless in four. Roberto De Zerbi, still, has been one of the most impressive managers of the past 18 months. Arguably, only Guardiola exceeds De Zerbi in pure madcap, tactical improvisation.

    In the summer, the big jobs are open. Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Barcelona.

    The Athletic might have reported on Saturday that Brighton are increasingly confident of De Zerbi staying, but that comes amid a backdrop of talks over a new contract being put on the back burner and the coach has been publicly non-committal about his future.

    Showing rather than telling is the first rule of job interviews — and De Zerbi has the opportunity to show his tactical acumen by outwitting Guardiola.

    City initially deal with Brighton’s pioneering use of an overlapping sweeper and a pressing pattern based on the Fibonacci sequence, but are flummoxed by the inspired introduction of Jason Steele as an inverted trequartista.


    There is no outwitting De Zerbi (Mike Morese/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    Gary O’Neil’s luck turns

    Gary O’Neil seems an unlikely contender to be on MTV’s Welcome To My Crib, but let’s imagine for a moment that he opens up the doors to his Wolverhampton mansion.

    The doormat is a four-leaf clover. As you enter, seven lucky cats wave their hellos. Rabbits’ feet hang from the kitchen beams. Mirrors are banned, O’Neil tells you, demonstrating how he brushes his teeth in the reflection from the bathroom window.

    There is an almost overwhelming smell of incense.

    No team has been unluckier than Wolves this season. O’Neil has tried reason, he has tried rationalisation. He’s tried avoiding ladders. All that’s left is faith… and Nathan Fraser.

    Foden hits the bar. Jeremy Doku trips over his laces. A wild swipe from Max Kilman deflects in off Hwang Hee-chan’s bum. Molineux erupts.

    City’s 115 charges reach a sudden conclusion

    The metaphorical gavel falls. White smoke emanates from the ceiling of Premier League HQ. This day was thought to be months down the line — but a decision has been made.

    City face 115 charges of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules across nine different seasons. If they are found guilty of at least some of them, points deductions are a realistic outcome.

    Of course, City will say this is impossible, the most ridiculous suggestion on this list. After all, they vehemently deny the charges and are working hard to prove their innocence.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    The Briefing: Arsenal and Liverpool must show title race isn’t over, it’s only two points

    (Top photos: Getty Images)

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  • Ryan Giggs and football: A very complicated relationship

    Ryan Giggs and football: A very complicated relationship

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    The celebration was almost as glorious as the goal itself. The fuzz of chest hair, the twirling shirt, the body swerve to evade the Manchester United fans who had run on the pitch in their euphoria.

    On Sunday, it is 25 years since Patrick Vieira, a genuine great of Arsenal’s midfield, played a wayward pass amid the high drama of an FA Cup semi-final between the leading two English sides of the time.

    Ryan Giggs took the ball and then he was off and running, picking up speed from inside his own half, slaloming past opponents, one by one.

    Vieira tried to get back but Giggs, crossing the halfway line, dipped his shoulder to get away. Lee Dixon was next to come across. He, too, could not get near him.

    Arsenal had the most famously parsimonious defence in English football — yet Giggs had magic in his feet. He was on his own, with everyone to beat, under the floodlights of Villa Park. Martin Keown went to block him. Dixon was still in the chase. Giggs shimmied between them both and suddenly, with a sway of his hips, he was in the penalty area, sizing up David Seaman, the Arsenal and England goalkeeper.

    His shot was still rising as it flew into the roof of the net. It was pandemonium in the stands and Martin Tyler’s voice, commentating for Sky Sports, seemed to have gone up a few octaves.

    “He’s cut Arsenal to ribbons,” summed it up rather beautifully.

    It’s a Thursday night in Radlett, a well-to-do village in London’s commuter belt, and a beery, boisterous crowd has broken into song.

    Ryan Giggs, now 50, has wandered onto the stage of the 300-capacity Radlett Centre. The venue is not full, but there is a racket anyway. He is greeted with a standing ovation and a song that will be familiar to United fans of a certain generation. It is an adaptation of the old Robin Hood classic.

    Ryan Giggs, Ryan Giggs, running down the wing
    Ryan Giggs, Ryan Giggs, running down the wing
    Feared by the Blues, loved by the Reds
    Ryan Giggs, Ryan Giggs, Ryan Giggs!

    It doesn’t take long, therefore, to realise that whatever else has happened in Giggs’ life in the last few years — most notably, the criminal trial that led to him relinquishing his position as Wales national manager — there is no shortage of people who regard him as football royalty.

    He has already done Cleethorpes, Hull and Lincoln since being acquitted last year of being a violent and abusive boyfriend. There was a night in Belfast and an event in Chester. Another “Evening with Ryan Giggs” is scheduled in Northampton, plus two in Manchester alongside Paul Scholes, his former United team-mate. It is not quite Giggs on tour, but it does feel like a man putting himself back out there.

    Is it what he imagined for himself at this stage of his life? Perhaps not, and the most decorated player in English football history will touch upon that when he is asked whether he is seeking a way back into management.

    “There’s a bit of unfinished business,” Giggs tells the audience. “I was obviously enjoying coaching Wales. We had a pretty successful time. And yeah, I loved it. So I don’t see why not.”

    GO DEEPER

    Who is the real Ryan Giggs?

    It is complicated, though, bearing in mind all the unpleasantness and excruciating detail that came out during the 2022 trial in which he denied subjecting his former girlfriend, Kate Greville, to three years of psychological and, at times, physical abuse.

    It also seems to be understood why there are no follow-up questions. To go any further might involve having to explain why he had to stand down from the Wales job, why we rarely see him on television these days, why he does not tend to do interviews and why, it seems, potential employers might have reservations about taking him on.

    To go further might involve having to ask why Giggs, a history-maker with an Order of the British Empire for his services to football and 13 Premier League titles, keeps being left off the competition’s Hall of Fame.

    Giggs had been charged with controlling and coercive behaviour, headbutting Greville, 10 years his junior, and assaulting her younger sister, Emma. The jury at Manchester Crown Court could not reach a verdict. Then, shortly before the retrial was due to begin last year, Greville wrote to the court to say she no longer wanted to give evidence because she felt “worn down” and “violated” by the judicial process.


    Ryan Giggs leaves Manchester Crown Court in August 2023 after the jury in his trial failed to reach a verdict (Cameron Smith/Getty Images)

    The judge issued not-guilty verdicts on all the alleged offences. “The position is, he has always been innocent of these charges,” Chris Daw KC, representing Giggs, told the court. “Going forward, he now looks to rebuild his life and career as an innocent man.”

    And so, there are around 240 people in Radlett — just a few miles from Arsenal’s training ground — paying between £90 and £250 ($113 and $314) to see him, with the more expensive packages involving a meet-and-greet and a professionally taken photograph. 

    Giggs looks tanned, relaxed, trim — a regular, apparently, at Barry’s Bootcamp gym in Manchester — and his Salfordian accent seems more pronounced in a room mostly filled by southerners.

    It is a friendly audience and, right from the start, Giggs reminds everyone that he has always been a crowd-pleaser. “The bar’s been open, has it?” is his opening line, as the most boisterous members of the audience have to be shushed down.

    He talks about watching United’s FA Cup defeat of Liverpool at his mother’s house (“she hates Scousers more than anyone”) and why he believes Erik ten Hag should keep his job as manager. United, he says, have suffered from “crap” recruitment in the post-Ferguson years and he hopes INEOS will put that right.

    The compere asks him to wish happy birthday to a United fan called Nina, who is in the audience with a group of friends. It is her 61st birthday and Giggs turns the charm on full beam. “I met her earlier,” he says. “She doesn’t look it.”

    But he is here to talk about his own United career, for the most part, and the evening opens with a video montage reminding the audience why they cherished him so much as a player.

    The footage shows Giggs, at 17, making his United debut in a shirt that seems a size or two too big for him. In between the mazy runs and spontaneous skills, there is a clip of Best himself, analysing the teenager. “One day,” he says, “they might say I was another Ryan Giggs.”

    The video moves on to the goal at Villa Park — April 14, 1999 — that would be voted in 2004 as the greatest FA Cup moment of all time. Vieira gives the ball away and the audience start cheering. They know what is coming. So does the compere, Alan Keegan, usually United’s matchday announcer.

    “Oh, this is the one,” says Keegan. “Keep going, keep going, keep going Ryan… wow! That is extraordinary.”


    Ryan Giggs fires in his famous goal against Arsenal in 1999 (Shaun Botterill /Allsport

    It would end up being voted the greatest goal in 50 years of the BBC’s Match of the Day. Giggs was 25 at the time and, incredibly, still had another 16 years ahead of him in United’s team.

    “I left the ground on crutches,” says Giggs, whose Achilles had been damaged after a tackle by Dixon. “I thought my season was over. As I was getting on the bus, a reporter asked me: ‘Was that the greatest goal you ever scored?’.”

    His answer, he explains, was that, no, he didn’t think it was. But he hadn’t seen it back at that point. “In my head, I was 30 yards out and I had beaten only a couple of players. It wasn’t until I got home, watching it on the news, that I realised I was that far out and that I’d beaten that many players.”

    go-deeper

    He leaves Radlett around 11pm and, by the following afternoon, he has made his way 190 miles north to watch Salford City take on Sutton United in League Two.

    Giggs is the co-owner of Salford alongside Scholes, Gary and Phil Neville, Nicky Butt and David Beckham. It is the fourth tier of English football and, at times, there have been some unexpected challenges for the group of ex-United players known as the Class of ’92. 

    “It’s different, especially when you have been in football at the top level,” says Giggs. “When we first took over, the manager had booked a two-week holiday in pre-season. ‘I book my family holiday at the same time every year’. But it’s your job, isn’t it? ‘I’m not changing it’. So yeah, we had a few things we had to get our heads around.”

    Sutton begin the day in the relegation zone, dangerously close to falling out of the EFL. It is 87th versus 91st at the start of play, in a ladder of 92 clubs. And it is a bad day for Salford, in a game of blood and thunder, a fair bit of thud and blunder, and not a great amount of skill. Salford lose 2-1 and the home fans in a crowd of 2,983 go home disappointed. 

    Overall, though, it has been a story of near-unremitting success, involving four promotions, since the Class of ’92 took control of Salford 10 years ago, backed by the wealth of Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim.

    “We love it,” Giggs tells the audience in Radlett. “Myself, Gary, Nicky, Scholesy. Phil and Becks are in America so don’t get to a lot of games. But the rest of the lads do. Roy Keane loves coming to home games. Steve Bruce comes because his son, Alex, is now assistant manager. So there’s a real United connection.”


    Ryan Giggs takes his seat at Salford City, where he is director of football (Ben Roberts Photo/Getty Images)

    The Athletic is there, too, though it is difficult not to get the feeling our presence is less welcome. Salford get in touch two days before the game to ask what we want to write about, which doesn’t usually happen. Giggs, we are told, is not expected to be there.

    In the end, they approve our accreditation request. The only logical explanation, however, is that there are people at the club who are not keen on Giggs being the subject of interest.

    A few weeks back, it was revealed that Giggs had been working for Salford all season as director of football. As well as going to all the home games, it means he is there for the majority of their away fixtures, too. So he has plenty to keep him busy, even if it is noticeable that his appointment was not announced at the time.

    Nor is he afraid to make the hard calls, judging by the story Robbie Savage, director of football at non-League Macclesfield Town, told recently about Giggs ringing him in February “to warn me that Salford City were poaching my manager”.

    Savage, who was once in United’s youth system with Giggs, recalled the conversation in his column for the Daily Mirror newspaper. “I thought Giggsy was calling to arrange a game of padel tennis, which we play occasionally, but this time he opened the conversation with, ‘You’re not going to like this’.

    “He said Salford wanted to speak to Alex Bruce, who had guided Macclesfield into the Northern Premier League play-off places and quarter-finals of the FA Trophy, two steps from Wembley. Laughing, but disappointed, I replied, ‘First you take my place in the 1992 FA Youth Cup final team and now you’re taking my manager?’.”

    Is Giggs actively applying for managerial jobs of his own? His brief spell as United’s caretaker manager in 2014 was, he says, the proudest he has ever felt. It also left him convinced he could do the job full-time. But it is far from straightforward when, unfortunately for Giggs, it is also clear that prospective employers would have to consider the damage to his reputation.


    Ryan Giggs called his spell in caretaker charge of United his proudest moment (Andrew Yates/AFP via Getty Images)

    “George Best has a statue outside Old Trafford and his charge sheet off the pitch is much worse than Ryan’s,” says the writer and author Frank Worrall. “So if that’s the yardstick, Giggs should have one, too. Not that he ever will. Times and attitudes have changed. Best wouldn’t get one now, either — protest groups wouldn’t stand for it.”

    In 2010, Worrall brought out a biography, Giggsy, that eulogised in the main about a player he regarded as “a personable guy away from the pitch and a genius on it”.

    Worrall can vividly remember that epic semi-final against Arsenal when Keane was sent off, Peter Schmeichel saved Dennis Bergkamp’s 90th-minute penalty and Giggs’ wonder goal pushed United closer towards what was, back then, an unprecedented treble.

    “The utter audacity of it,” says Worrall. “The interception, the dazzling dribble past bemused defenders, the hammer shot beyond David Seaman. The shirt off, twirling it in the air. The chest hair, the congratulatory hugs. The whole bloody miracle of a snatched glory in the face of 10-men adversity.”

    Giggs, he adds, “is, and always will be, a Manchester United legend… a footballing legend”.

    go-deeper

    Over the years, however, Worrall has had to get used to the idea that “the Bobby Charlton-style, clean-as-a-whistle family man” was not the person he thought him to be. And that can be conflicting — “Sir Bobby he certainly ain’t” — when Worrall counts Giggs in his top five United players from the 1970s onwards.

    “Ryan contributed as much to United as anyone ever,” he says. “Thirty-four trophies from 1991 to 2013, the most appearances (963), the first and last of the Class of ’92 to play for the club and United’s most decorated player… a winger-turned-midfielder genius who tore the opposition apart, again and again.” 

    Against that kind of backdrop, there are many people in football who think it is wrong, and certainly inconsistent, that the Premier League has excluded Giggs from the latest shortlist of possible Hall of Famers.

    Yes, there are other stories about Giggs’ private life that will be held against him. And, yes, it only needs a cursory look through the internet to understand, for example, why his relationship with his younger brother, Rhodri, has suffered badly.

    Yet the Premier League inducted Tony Adams into its Hall of Fame last year, even though the former Arsenal captain had previously served a prison sentence for drink-driving.

    John Terry, the former Chelsea captain, is one of the 15 players on this year’s shortlist, despite being banned for four matches and fined £220,000 by a Football Association commission that decided he had racially abused Anton Ferdinand, then of Queens Park Rangers.

    Perhaps the best way of summing it up is that Giggs may just have to accept that he is always going to polarise opinion but that, in football terms alone, his achievements are as solid as the foundations of Old Trafford itself.

    “You cannot separate genius from Ryan Giggs,” Ferguson said after the 1999 semi-final against Arsenal that, 20 years later, was ranked No 38 in The Times’ 50 Greatest Football Matches.

    That genius has been tarnished over recent years. In football, however, where there is genius, there will also be adoration. And, however complicated it can be in the rest of his life, Giggs will always be guaranteed that in a room filled with United fans.

    (Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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  • The Premier League title race: Every fixture analysed

    The Premier League title race: Every fixture analysed

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    The Premier League remains a European outlier this season.

    Everywhere you look around the continent, title races have become virtual processions. Paris Saint-Germain are 10 points clear in France’s Ligue 1, Bayer Leverkusen are 16 ahead and one win away from winning the German Bundesliga title, while PSV Eindhoven have a nine-point cushion at the top of the Dutch Eredivisie.

    Elsewhere, Real Madrid lead by eight points in Spain’s La Liga and Inter Milan are 11 ahead of city rivals AC Milan with a game in hand in Italy’s Serie A.

    In England’s top division, however, things are a whole lot tighter. With seven games remaining, just a point separates table-topping Arsenal from third-placed Manchester City, with Liverpool sandwiched between on goal difference. Since the Premier League was launched in 1992, there has not been a season like it.

    So, after Liverpool dropped points at Manchester United on Sunday, who looks most likely to get their hands on the Premier League trophy on May 19 as things stand?

    According to data provider Opta, City have regained the edge as the most likely champions, a triumph that would represent an unprecedented fourth straight Premier League title for Pep Guardiola’s men. Arsenal’s chances were boosted the most by the weekend’s results, rising by nearly eight per cent. Despite Mikel Arteta’s side being in first place, they are currently third-favourites — although the differences between the three teams are paper thin.

    Using Opta’s own Power Rankings, we can also assess how difficult each team’s remaining fixtures are.

    According to that calculator, City have the ‘easiest’ run-in of the three would-be champions, with their only remaining ‘difficult’ game coming away against Tottenham Hotspur, who are currently fourth — with that fixture still yet to be rescheduled as City continue to fight on three fronts domestically and in Europe.

    But how do these run-ins break down, game by game? We asked three of The Athletic’s club experts to assess their side’s remaining matches for potential pitfalls.

    Arsenal

    Sunday, April 14: Aston Villa (H)

    Opponents’ league position: Fifth
    Last five results vs opponents (oldest first): WWWWL
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Three

    With Arsenal hosting Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals tomorrow (Tuesday), this is when their squad could be tested. Arteta has trusted his squad in recent games, rotating his starting line-up notably against Luton in midweek before travelling to Brighton on Saturday. With Villa in European action themselves on Thursday, the strength-in-depth of the sides could be vital. Arteta has faced Unai Emery’s Villa twice, winning once and losing once. Both were fairly tight affairs, so ensuring as many factors are in his favour this time is key.

    Saturday, April 20: Wolves (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 11th
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Arsenal tend to fare well against Wolves, having beaten them in five successive meetings — but it is worth noting that this game comes on a Saturday night after Arsenal have travelled to Munich on the Wednesday for a second leg against Bayern that may require extra time and perhaps penalties. Gary O’Neil has overseen a real improvement in his debut season as Wolves coach, so this may be a match where Arsenal’s mental approach is as important as ever. They have shown intent against sides they ‘should’ be beating lately and have been rewarded. Staying in the moment and executing should be the name of the game.

    Tuesday, April 23: Chelsea (H)

    Opponents’ league position: Ninth
    Last five results vs opponents: LWWWD
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Postponed because of Chelsea’s progress to the FA Cup semi-finals, this match falling days before the north London derby could be crucial. Chelsea are inconsistent and should not pose Arsenal a real threat, but tend to play to the level of their opposition, which could be dangerous. This game feels like a major one for Arsenal’s momentum with it coming in midweek. It could give them a confidence boost at just the right time, or prove to be an unwanted pit-stop. As above, Chelsea may be coming off extra time at Wembley in their semi against Manchester City three days earlier.

    Sunday, April 28: Tottenham Hotspur (A)

    Opponents’ league position: Fourth
    Last five results vs opponents: WLWWD
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Four

    Second-half-of-the-season trips to neighbours and arch-rivals Spurs used to have a foreboding feeling for Arsenal, but last season’s 2-0 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium should reassure the players before this meeting. Spurs will come into the game not just wanting to dash Arsenal’s title hopes, but to boost their own Champions League qualification chances, too. How Arsenal deal with the intensity of this latest north London derby will be vital, but they have shown they can ‘live’ within these types of games well.


    Arteta celebrates Arsenal’s win at Spurs last season with Bukayo Saka (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

    Saturday, May 4: Bournemouth (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 12th
    Last five results vs opponents: DWWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if Arsenal are in the Champions League semi-finals)

    Similar to Wolves, this could be a game where Arsenal’s mental state dictates what happens. Last year’s dramatic 3-2 win over Bournemouth created special memories, but gifting goals to teams cannot be a returning trend this year. David Raya becoming more confident in goal should help in that regard, but the outfield players need to be fully focused on the task at hand, too.

    Saturday, May 11: Manchester United (A)

    Opponents’ league position: Sixth
    Last five results vs opponents: LWLWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if Arsenal are in the Champions League semi-finals)

    Arsenal have not played at Old Trafford since early last season, when they played well but lost 3-1. It is too early to say whether an element of wanting to make amends will play a part there next month. Without an away win against United since November 2020, however, this could be a match where their pressing intensity makes the difference. Despite an entertaining draw with Liverpool, Manchester United struggled to show any real control in the game. They could not pass through midfield and struggled to track runners. If these themes remain against Arsenal, Arteta’s side should punish them more. The threat that individuals like Bruno Fernandes, Kobbie Mainoo and Marcus Rashford have will always need to be kept in mind, however. This game may be moved to another day on the May 11-12 weekend for live TV broadcast.

    Sunday, May 19: Everton (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 15th
    Last five results vs opponents: LWLWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Seven

    Arsenal will hope Everton’s fate is already sealed when they travel to the Emirates on this the final day of the Premier League season, whether it be safety secured or relegation confirmed. Their last two home results against them are 5-1, on the last day of the 2021-22 campaign, and 4-0, as they often make use of the extra space of the Emirates Stadium pitch compared to the tightness Everton are used to at Goodison Park. Arsenal have also won on the final day of the league season for the past 11 years, with a 2-2 draw against Fulham in 2011 the last time they dropped points.

    Art de Roche

    Liverpool

    Sunday, April 14: Crystal Palace (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 14th
    Last five results vs opponents (oldest first): WWDDW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Palace are rarely the easiest opposition for Liverpool at Anfield, given their quality on the counter-attack. They have lost some of that prowess, particularly Wilfried Zaha, who scored their goal in the 1-1 draw there at the start of last season. A first leg against Atalanta in the Europa League quarter-finals on the previous Thursday might see Jurgen Klopp rotate, but crucially there will be no further travel involved with the two games at home as players hope to stay as fresh as possible.

    Sunday, April 21: Fulham (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 13th
    Last five results vs opponents: DWWWD
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Marco Silva’s side have fared well against Liverpool this season with last-ditch heroics needed in the 4-3 victory for the home side at Anfield alongside a tightly fought two-leg Carabao Cup semi-final. Liverpool have not won in their last three visits to Craven Cottage (three draws) and there is no indication this will be any easier, with the possibility of extra time against Atalanta in Italy three days before. Liverpool’s last victory there came on the 2018-19 run-in, with a late James Milner penalty saving the blushes of Alisson and Virgil van Dijk over Fulham’s equaliser.

    Wednesday, April 24: Everton (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 15th
    Last five results vs opponents: WWDWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Rearranged to this midweek date after being postponed because of Liverpool’s involvement in the FA Cup quarter-finals, a meeting with your city rivals under the lights is as big as it gets. Sean Dyche’s side will be determined to dent the neighbours’ title hopes and are also likely to still need points in their latest fight against relegation. Five of the past six league derbies at Goodison Park have been draws — and those may be two points Liverpool cannot afford to drop if the theme continues.

    Saturday, April 27: West Ham (A)

    Opponents’ league position: Seventh
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    Liverpool’s record against West Ham should give them confidence. They have won five in a row, although their most recent defeat was 3-2 away in November 2021. It is tricky to know what to make of David Moyes’ side — they can look good one week and terrible the next – but the Scot’s record against Liverpool throughout his career should give Klopp reasons to be cheerful.

    Saturday, May 4: Tottenham (H)

    Opponents’ league position: Fourth
    Last five results vs opponents: DDWWL
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if Liverpool are in the Europa League semi-finals)

    This fixture has served up some classics at Anfield in recent seasons and we should be in for another one here. In 2021-22, a 1-1 draw in their fourth-last league match represented the last points Liverpool dropped that season as they ultimately fell one point short of Manchester City’s total in the title race. Tottenham’s counter-attacking style has caused problems in the past, especially through Son Heung-min. Under Ange Postecoglou this season, their system has changed, but their threat in transitional moments will remain dangerous. Tottenham will also have the motivation of trying to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

    Saturday, May 11: Aston Villa (A)

    Opponents’ league position: Fifth
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWDW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if Liverpool are in the Europa League semi-finals)

    Had this fixture come earlier in the season, such as when Arsenal and Manchester City both visited Villa Park in December, it may have felt even more daunting. Villa’s impressive home record from back then has been dented in recent months, but this will not be a straightforward game. Liverpool exploited Villa’s risky offside line to win 3-0 at Anfield in September and if Darwin Nunez can continue his recent scintillating form, they will hope he causes havoc again. This match may be moved to another date on the May 11-12 weekend for live TV coverage.

    Sunday, May 19: Wolverhampton Wanderers (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 11th
    Last five results vs opponents: DWLWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Seven

    It always seems to be Wolves on the final day, doesn’t it? Backed by the Anfield crowd against a side who will likely have nothing to play for looks to be the ideal match if the title is on the line. Gary O’Neil’s side are not to be overlooked, though, as they have produced a handful of shock results this season and caused Liverpool plenty of problems in September’s reverse fixture before two late goals saw them lose 3-1. They opened the scoring at Anfield on the final day of the 2021-22 Premier League and were not behind in the match until Mohamed Salah’s 84th-minute goal, also suffering a 3-1 defeat.

    Andy Jones


    Mohamed Salah scores against Wolves in 2022 (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

    Manchester City

    Saturday, April 13: Luton (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 18th
    Last five results vs opponents (oldest first): WDWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Three

    This game is the filling of a Champions League quarter-final versus Real Madrid sandwich, so Pep Guardiola is most likely going to rotate his team for this one, adding more jeopardy than initially meets the eye for a title-chasing side’s home match against one of the bottom three. City will be massive favourites and Luton will not be holding out much hope, but the rotated team we’re anticipating will have to do the business as Guardiola tries to juggle the demands of the three competitions, with an FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea coming up a week later, too.


    Could Erling Haaland be rested against Luton? (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

    Thursday, April 25: Brighton (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 10th
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWDW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Four

    After commitments in the Champions League followed by their FA Cup semi-final, this fixture — postponed from FA Cup quarter-finals weekend — is rearranged to one of the few available days in City’s crammed calendar. Given Brighton’s recent struggles, this might not be quite as difficult as it once looked, although there is always a clash of styles in terms of Roberto De Zerbi’s man-to-man press, which makes things complicated.

    Sunday, April 28: Nottingham Forest (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 17th
    Last five results vs opponents: WLWDW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two

    With the Brighton trip just three days earlier and a possible Champions League semi-final first leg three days later (this will be moved to the Saturday if City reach the Champions League semi-finals and play on the Tuesday), this adds a lot of extra spice. A trip to the City Ground is always going to be tough, with Forest in the relegation argument, and it will be a match that Liverpool and Arsenal fans, whose teams will already have played their games this weekend, watch with some degree of hope — especially given that this fixture last season ended in a 1-1 draw. City should have been 5-0 up by the time Forest equalised with their first shot on target in the 84th minute, though.

    Saturday, May 4: Wolves (H)

    Opponents’ league position: 11th
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWWL
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if City are in the Champions League semi-finals)

    There are potential Champions League semi-final ties on either side of this one. There is also less margin for error against Wolves, who beat City in September, compared to Luton, so Guardiola will have to be especially careful with any rotation. It is normally something City manage well, but they have had some hairy games at this time of year before when they try to spin plates.

    Saturday, May 11: Fulham (A)

    Opponents’ league position: 13th
    Last five results vs opponents: WWWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if City reach the Champions League semi-finals)

    After a potential Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal or Bayern in the midweek, this match could be especially tricky, although City do have a great record against Fulham. They dug in for an important 2-1 victory at Craven Cottage late last season, and that kind of performance might be required again given the demands of everything else up until that point. This match may be played on another date on the May 11-12 weekend for live TV coverage.

    Sunday, May 19: West Ham (H)

    Opponents’ league position: Seventh
    Last five results vs opponents: WDWWW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: Two (if outstanding games, see below, are rearranged for the previous midweek)

    What we can say almost for sure in all of this is that if City need to get over the line in this final fixture against West Ham, they will do it. They made hard work of it at home against Villa in the corresponding fixture two years ago but if City battle through all of the above — and probably a rearranged game against Spurs in the midweek — and need three points (or, somehow, a draw) to settle things, you would imagine they will be up to it.

    Date to be confirmed: Tottenham (A)

    Opponents’ league position: Fourth
    Last five results vs opponents: LWLDW
    Minimum possible days rest pre-match: TBC

    It is a good job City beat Tottenham in the FA Cup in January — the first time they had not lost and so much as scored a goal at the Londoners’ new ground in six attempts since it opened in April 2019 — as it gives them some confidence that weird hoodoo is over. City played very well on the night too, completely shutting Spurs down.

    This game is yet to be rescheduled given City’s continued fight in two cup competitions, keeping them on for an unprecedented “double treble”. Whenever the authorities manage to fit this fixture in, you would have to say it is the most difficult one City will face in their remaining Premier League games. Even a draw at Tottenham could be enough to derail the title challenge, depending on how things pan out for their two title rivals.

    Sam Lee

    Players nearing 10 yellow cards

    The three clubs will need to be wary of the second deadline for yellow-card accumulation: any player who earns 10 bookings before the completion of their club’s 32nd league match of the season must serve a two-game suspension. The players in danger of a ban are Kai Havertz of Arsenal, Liverpool duo Darwin Nunez and Wataru Endo and Rodri of City, although all are on eight cautions so would need to be sent off for a second yellow in next weekend’s matches to be banned.

    Additional reporting: Thom Harris and Mark Carey

    (Top photos: Getty Images)

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  • How do you know if a football manager is actually good at their job?

    How do you know if a football manager is actually good at their job?

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    An important thing to remember about Andre Villas-Boas is that he had ridiculously good hair.

    You don’t spend a record-shattering €15 million (£12.9; $16.3m) fee to sign a rookie manager away from Porto unless you’re pretty sure you know what you’re getting, and one thing Chelsea knew for certain, back in the heady days of 2011, was that the man with a swirling, fox-red side-parting looked impossibly cool getting tossed in the air during trophy celebrations.


    Villas-Boas at Porto in 2010 (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

    Hair like that had sexy new ideas — a philosophy, perhaps. It had the sort of rakish sweep that could command a press conference, smouldering volcanically above the jagged peaks of an unbuttoned collar. But when the 33-year-old prodigy conducted his first interview as the world’s most expensive manager, all of the glamour quickly drained away.

    “Don’t expect something,” Villas-Boas warned gently, “from one man.”

    True to his word, he was sacked by March.

    Villas-Boas to Chelsea might have gone down as a historic blunder if not for all the other managers teams have squandered transfer fees on in the last few years alone: Marco Rose to Borussia Dortmund (€5 million up front for one lacklustre season); Adi Hutter to Borussia Monchengladbach (€7.5 million, ditto); Julian Nagelsmann to Bayern Munich (€25 million for 19 months); Graham Potter to Chelsea (let’s not talk about it). These were the cream of the crop, the head coaches clubs couldn’t afford to wait around for, yet in their new jobs they had the shelf life of a bunch of bruised bananas.

    How do we know if a manager is good? The question sounds almost too obvious to ask — anyone down the pub will be happy to explain it to you loudly over a pint — but professional organisations with millions at stake whiff on it every year. Apparently the answer isn’t great hair. It can’t be trophies, either, since those are pretty much only available to managers already at top clubs. If the study of up-and-coming coaches can be called a science, it remains a largely theoretical one.

    “We’ve done work with football clubs and leagues, actually, around what predicts head coach success and it’s very, very hard,” says Omar Chaudhuri of the sports consultancy 21st Group. “There are very few strong predictors.”

    Everyone loves a winner, so it makes sense that employers would start by looking for coaching talent toward the top of the table. But we also know that in the grossly unequal world of European football, wage bills are destiny for most teams, no matter who’s in the technical area. The managers we admire most are the ones who find a way to punch above their weight.

    To pick out those overachievers, we can start by modelling the relationship between squad strength and success using crowdsourced “market values” from Transfermarkt, which are a decent proxy for player quality when you don’t have wages handy. We’ll average this season’s values with last season’s, where available, to give coaches some credit for player development, then weight the values by minutes played to account for absences.

    For the performance side, we’ll use a 70/30 blend of non-penalty expected goal difference and actual goal difference, which captures team strength pretty well and puts more emphasis on the parts of the game coaches are likely to have some influence over (creating and denying chances) than the parts they probably don’t (finishing, saving shots, successfully lobbying for penalties by doing the VAR rectangle thing with their fingers).

    The results are striking. Over the last seven seasons across Europe’s top leagues, our simple player quality model can explain around 80 per cent of teams’ success.

    But what about the remaining 20 per cent — who should get credit for that?

    When we look at the outliers on the chart above, it seems fair to say that Gian Piero Gasperini’s freewheeling style helped elevate Atalanta’s mid-budget squad into a Champions League contender a few years back, and the whole platoon of head coaches and interim guys who oversaw Schalke’s disastrous 2020-21 campaign probably weren’t so hot at their job. Maybe performance over squad value is a fair measure of what a manager brings to the table.

    Reassuringly, this season’s list of top teams for adjusted goal difference over expected is a veritable who’s who of coaching legends and the game’s hottest up-and-coming managers.

    Xabi Alonso has turned down overtures from Bayern Munich and Liverpool to stay at German champs-in-waiting Bayer Leverkusen, while Brighton’s Roberto De Zerbi, whom no less an authority than Pep Guardiola called “one of the most influential managers of the last 20 years,” remains a strong contender for both jobs.

    In Catalonia, Barcelona have been making eyes at Girona’s Michel. Sebastian Hoeness, Paulo Fonseca, Thiago Motta and Will Still have flocks of admirers, and maybe we should all be paying more attention to whatever Eric Roy’s got cooking at Brest.

    So is that it — have we cracked the not-so-secret formula to finding Europe’s next top manager?

    Well, hang on a second.

    One important trait for a good sports stat is stability, or how much it varies from season to season. If last year’s performance can’t predict next year’s because the number is too sensitive to context, you probably don’t want to make it the sole basis for any expensive hiring decisions.

    By that standard, our manager metric is a bust. For head coaches who change jobs, there’s no correlation whatsoever between the previous year’s performance above or below expectations at their old club and their first season at their new club. Even though goal difference added seemed pretty good at identifying this season’s hottest managers, it has zero predictive value for new hires.

    When Chelsea spent £21.5 million to sign Graham Potter, he was coming off one of the best runs by any head coach in the last seven years: in 2020-21 and 2021-22, Brighton finished 22 and 13 adjusted goals better than expected. His seven months in London went, er, not quite as well.

    Brighton, meanwhile, signed Roberto De Zerbi even though his final season at Sassuolo had been about average compared to their squad value. He’d had a pretty good season the year before that, and a respectable stint outside the top five leagues at Shakhtar Donetsk in between, but nothing that might have hinted that his first season at Brighton would be the fourth-best out of hundreds in our dataset.

    What can explain the difference between these two very different hiring stories? Maybe there’s a clue in how Brighton’s famously analytical owner Tony Bloom explained his process. “I am confident,” he said of the De Zerbi hire, “his style and tactical approach will suit our existing squad superbly.”


    De Zerbi (facing camera) and Potter in 2022 (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

    Smart clubs don’t just hire successful managers in hopes that they possess some innate knowledge of how to win. They’re careful to match a coach’s tactics to the players they already have, knowing that changing styles will cost them money and time.

    “I don’t want to have to replace 15 players or something like that over two years,” says one veteran analytics consultant, who requested anonymity to protect client relationships. “Because then it becomes a project of just kind of cycling through players and hoping things work out.”

    Not every club is as careful about this step as Brighton. Chaudhuri explains that searches often start with a “performance piece” to determine whether managers are making the most of their current squad, but “then you have a playing style piece, which clubs generally tend to be quite vague on how they want to play. They say, ‘We want games to be attractive and exciting,’ whatever that means. And then you go, ‘Okay, tell us what you think that looks like.’”

    The other consultant agrees. “I had this meeting yesterday, I gave five candidates, like, ‘What do you think of these five?’” he says. “And he was like, ‘Well, I like these four.’ But I said, ‘One of these four is actually not the style you said you want.’”

    Figuring out which managers have exceeded expectations is the easy part. You can watch their players flinging them into the air at a trophy celebration and envision your club doing the same next season. But success, on its own, is fickle. It also tends to be expensive. The right question isn’t “How do we know if a manager is good?” but “How do we know if a manager will be good for this group of players?”

    The secret ingredient in hiring the right coach is style — and not just the kind that comes with really good hair.

    (Header photo: Lars Baron/Getty Images)

    The Athletic recently profiled six of European football’s most innovative up-and-coming managers.

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  • Do big sporting wins cause an increase in birth rates among fans?

    Do big sporting wins cause an increase in birth rates among fans?

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    Football arguably doesn’t need anything extra to feed its collective sense of self-importance, but the idea that it can cause new life to be created will certainly do it.

    You might remember a rather dramatic game in the National League towards the end of last season when Wrexham and Notts County faced each other in what was effectively a ‘winner takes promotion’ clash. In the 97th minute, Wrexham goalkeeper Ben Foster saved a penalty to seal a 3-2 win, putting them three points clear with a game in hand on their rivals.

    According to Foster, the result of the collective ecstasy of that moment was made clear nine months later: he recently recorded a video in which he claimed the birth rate in the Wrexham Maelor Hospital went up by 24 per cent in January 2024 when compared to a year earlier.

    That clip was tweeted by Wrexham co-owner Ryan Reynolds, father of four, adding the comment: “Normally this happens when you pull the goalie, not the other way around. Trust me.”

    This is a titillating theory that crops up now and then, the idea that there is a definitive correlation between a team’s moments of success and a mini baby boom. Probably most famous in football is the ‘Iniesta generation’: the story was that the Barcelona midfielder’s last-minute winning goal against Chelsea in the 2009 Champions League semi-final inspired so many moments of intimacy that, nine months later, the maternity wards of Catalonia were swamped.

    “There will be a lot of love made tonight,” said Gerard Pique after that goal, and initial reports suggested the birth rate went up by 45 per cent the following January. In 2020, Iniesta made surprise video calls to a couple of the kids who supposedly resulted from the celebrations, asking one if his mother had shown him the video of the goal. Which is a bit weird: would you like to be saddled with the knowledge of what got your parents in the mood for your conception?

    There are plenty of other similar reports. The Boston Red Sox’s 2004 World Series win, their first in 86 years, apparently resulted in a mini baby boom. There were similar stories in New Zealand after the 2011 Rugby World Cup. There has also been a long-running theory that birth rates would go up in the cities of teams that won the Super Bowl, encouraged by a commercial produced by the NFL in 2016 that cited no less a source than “data” to prove the theory.

    But is any of this true? Do sporting successes double as aphrodisiacs, and subsequently result in many additions to the population?

    The short answer to the question is… no. Or at least… probably not.

    Let’s start with the Foster-Wrexham example: to begin with, it is slightly difficult to establish the accuracy of the figure that Foster cites. It is credited to the Maelor Hospital, but The Athletic contacted the NHS health board that manages that hospital, which reported nothing out of the ordinary about the birth rates in January, compared to recent months or indeed the same point of the previous year. That health board (which encompasses other hospitals, in addition to Maelor) said its birth rates across the region in January 2024 had gone up in comparison to a year earlier, but only by 1.5 per cent.

    Foster’s representatives couldn’t help, neither could Wrexham. Further rats are potentially smelled by the origin of Foster’s video: it was part of a Valentine’s Day promotion with one of his sponsors, pushing a line of baby announcement-related products. That company couldn’t clarify where the statistic came from either.

    But hey, one exaggerated commercial stunt doesn’t necessarily disprove the theory. What about the Iniesta generation?

    For starters, that figure of 45 per cent is nonsense, the result of a statement from the spokesperson from one hospital, the Quiron in Barcelona, which said births were up from nine or 10 a day to 14 or 15. It’s the sort of sample size that will bring most statisticians out in a rash.

    Still, a broader and more scientific study from 2013, published in the British Medical Journal, did suggest there was an increase. The study looked at birth rates in two central Catalan counties — Solsones and Bages — over 60 months from 2007 to 2011.

    The study read: “Our results show a transitory and significant 16 per cent increase in births in February 2010, nine months after FC Barcelona’s exciting victories in May 2009 — far short of the 45 per cent increase reported by the media. We may infer that — at least among the target population — the heightened euphoria following a victory can cultivate hedonic sensations that result in intimate celebrations, of which unplanned births may be a consequence.”


    Foster makes the crucial save last year (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

    If, at this stage, you need to take a moment to fan yourself down having been overcome with amour at this saucy language, then please do.

    The trouble is that, short of tracking down everyone who gave birth in those regions in February 2010 and asking if it was Iniesta’s goal that got them so excited, there’s no real way of proving a definitive link. Even the authors of the report were divided on that point, and they admitted their allegiances may have influenced their conclusions.

    The reports stated that “some of the authors (who happen to be Barca supporters) believe that an intense and brief stimulus (the Barca triumphs in May 2009) was the cause of the increase in births. The remaining authors (who, incidentally, are not Barca supporters) interpret that the term ‘Iniesta generation’ is a misnomer”. Big club bias… it even gets academic researchers.

    What about World Cup victories? If this theory were true, should they not inspire nationwide copulation and subsequent logjams in maternity wards everywhere? Well, maybe. A look at the birth rates in Spain after they won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa does suggest something might be afoot. According to statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, March 2011 (ie, nine months after Iniesta’s extra-time winner for Spain) saw 40,036 births, as opposed to 38,621 in January, 36,694 in February, 37,528 in April and 39,462 in May.

    Aha! A definite increase, then. But a look at figures from previous years shows there were 41,830 births in March 2009 and 40,462 in March 2010. Ah. Not so much, then.

    Furthermore, researchers from the Institute of Labor Economics in Germany produced a study in 2021 that looked at monthly birth rates in 50 countries going back to 1965, and correlated them with World Cups and European Championships, and actually found birth rates went down nine months after those tournaments, not up.

    “According to the authors,” the report said, “a possible explanation might be that a massive increase in the consumption of media and entertainment, followed by extensive celebrations with friends and compatriots, comes at the expense of ‘intimacy time’.”

    There has seemingly been quite a large amount of academic research into this phenomenon. One, by Fabrizio Bernardi and Marco Cozzani for the European Journal of Population, really went deep into the weeds, plotting birth data from Spain between 2001 and 2015 against betting odds, to look at “mood shocks arising” from results. They found very little correlation, but the study was worth reading if only for the subheading of “Celebratory intercourse versus sorrowful abstention”.

    The Super Bowl theory was mentioned earlier but, as it turns out, that’s probably nonsense too. Another study, conducted by academics from the University of North Carolina, found that there were basically no changes in the birth rates in Super Bowl-winning cities nine months after the big game.

    In the few instances that there were any changes, the report found that, like with the study related to World Cups and European Championships, they decreased, rather than increased.

    All of which isn’t a particular surprise to Josh Wilde, a fertility researcher for the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at Oxford University.

    “There are never really things you can point to, huge euphoric effects,” he says when asked what sort of thing tends to cause spikes in birth rates, pointing out that single identifiable events (like Covid-19 or financial problems in a country) are more likely to be behind decreases than increases. “The greatest predictor in short-term changes in birth rates is the unemployment rate — by far.”

    Wilde explains that you can always find examples of increases in birth rates, which it is then possible to trace back to a sporting victory of some description. But first, these tend to be cherry-picked and highlighted by people using it to perhaps promote a product or create an eye-catching headline, and second, it’s basically impossible to prove whether they are linked to that sporting victory.

    “Can they?” he says when asked if sporting events can cause a birth rate spike. “Well, anything is possible. But do they? No.

    “The other thing you have to consider is that accidental births happen, but they’re becoming more and more rare. If you have a couple that has sex once a week, and then they decide to have sex twice a week, they’re not going to double the number of kids they have, because they’re on contraception or organise their lives in some way to prevent those births.

    “If you’re one of those couples and you suddenly get happy because your team won, that might cause a few accidental births, but not enough to be detectable at the population level.”

    go-deeper

    Wilde also points out that this isn’t generally how people express their delight about their team winning a big game. As a rule, people might celebrate by going out drinking, or by driving through the streets beeping the horns of their cars and twirling a scarf around their heads, but probably not by heading to the bedroom.

    Feel free to contradict this in the comments, but you would imagine that very few fans return home with a bottle of champagne in their hand and a rose between their teeth, declaring to their beloved: “Darling: victory! Follow me upstairs!” It’s a relatively offensive notion, if nothing else: you probably wouldn’t feel great if the reason that your partner wishes to get intimate is because their passions have been stirred not by you, but by a sporting event.

    Wilde says: “Think about people who aren’t on contraception and would be prone to these accidental births: what fraction of them are going to be so happy about a World Cup win, that they are even in that situation? It’s a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people who are even in the situation where this could happen, and so if you get some claim that says birth rates increase by 40 per cent, it’s laughably implausible.

    “Will you find online some cherry-picked examples of birth rates that go up nine months after sporting events? You will. Is that a systematic thing that happens in the real world? No.”

    So there we have it. It is our solemn duty to report to Ben Foster that, alas, he almost certainly was not responsible for a large number of new babies in the Wrexham area. And it would appear that football — or any sport, really — can’t take the credit for an upsurge in new life.

    Ultimately, it’s probably for the best.

    (Lead graphic: Getty Images, design by Dan Goldfarb)

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  • The Briefing: Will Haaland’s form cost Man City? Cole Palmer: MVP? Xabi Alonso’s power move

    The Briefing: Will Haaland’s form cost Man City? Cole Palmer: MVP? Xabi Alonso’s power move

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    Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.

    This was the round when Newcastle snatched victory from the clamped-shut jaws of defeat against West Ham, Liverpool went top of the league after an early scare against Brighton, Manchester United went 1-0 up in the 96th minute and still didn’t win and Sheffield United threw away another two-goal lead.

    Off the back of all that and more, we will ask if Erling Haaland is playing poorly at the worst moment for him and his club, if Cole Palmer is the Premier League’s most valuable player and whether Xabi Alonso turning down Liverpool and Bayern Munich to stay at Bayer Leverkusen is the real power move…

    Is Haaland’s bad form at the worst possible time for City?

    There were 84 minutes on the clock of Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal when the ball fell to Erling Haaland at the far post. For a split second, the hopes of the neutral were raised: we’d sat through an hour and a half of turgid rot by then, but at least we might be rewarded with a goal — any goal — for our heroism.

    But Haaland scuffed it. Actually, he barely even scuffed it: he just about missed the thing completely. And the really weird bit, if you watch it closely: it looked like he was trying to square the ball to Ruben Dias, a centre-half, rather than attempting to ram the thing home himself.

    This merciless goalscoring machine, presented with a chance four yards out, tried to pass it to a defender…

    In some respects, it summed up the game neatly. Not just an all-timer of a snoozefest made all the more acute by Liverpool’s more entertaining 2-1 win over Brighton earlier in the day and the 29 goals scored across the eight fixtures on Saturday, but a match devoid of anything approaching quality finishing, just three shots on target combined from the two attacks.

    You could also say Haaland’s blank was a triumph for Arsenal’s central defenders William Saliba and (especially) Gabriel Magalhaes, who kept the big Norwegian quiet for the second time this season; across those two Premier League games, Haaland didn’t manage a single shot on target.

    But perhaps there’s something broader at play. Haaland hasn’t seemed quite right since returning at the end of January from two months out with a foot injury.

    In that time, he’s scored four goals in eight Premier League games — for a normal striker, a healthy return, but for Haaland, it’s well off the pace. He has six goals in other competitions, but they were the five he got in that freak FA Cup win over Luton Town and one in the closing stages of a Champions League stroll against FC Copenhagen. Again, writing off any goal at this level is harsh at best, but it’s also valid and speaks to a concern about his form at a crucial part of the season.

    The deflating thing for the rest of the Premier League about City having Haaland is that, on the occasions when they’re not quite on their game, he can be there to stick a chance away and hoover up those points they might have otherwise missed. Last season, he scored home and away against Arsenal, bursting the balloon of their nascent title challenge ruthlessly. Not this season, though.


    (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

    Haaland was similarly ineffective against Liverpool just before the March international break. He scored against Manchester United a week earlier but only after missing a clutch of chances and his celebration was more informed by relief than joy.

    To clarify, this is not to say Haaland is bad now. Nothing like it. Clearly, he’s still if not the best centre-forward in the world, then one of them. There’s every chance he could go on a tear for the rest of the season, score twice a game and lead City to a fourth straight title and successive trebles.

    But at the moment, he doesn’t look himself — and it’s happening at the worst possible time for City.

    Is Palmer the Premier League’s MVP?

    Now is around the time when people start to seriously think about which individual player has been the best in the Premier League this season.

    There are plenty of candidates. Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard at Arsenal. Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk for Liverpool. Rodri and Phil Foden for Manchester City. Ollie Watkins, James Maddison, Lucas Paqueta, Ross Barkley, Bruno Guimaraes… it’s all subjective, everyone will have their choices, none less valid than the rest.

    Who’s the most valuable player in the division, though? That’s a slightly different thing: “best” is self-explanatory, but “most valuable” is more about a player’s importance to their team. Which player would leave the biggest hole if they were removed from their side?

    The answer to that has to be Cole Palmer.

    There are a few ways to measure his importance to Chelsea. Goals and assists are the most basic: he has 13 of the former and eight of the latter, which you don’t need us to tell you are the highest numbers at the club.

    The caveat is that six of his 13 goals have been penalties, but they still need to be scored, and Palmer has been flawless from the spot so far.


    (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)

    Another very crude way of looking at it is if you removed his goals from Chelsea’s results. This is flawed, because it assumes that whoever replaced him in this thought experiment contributed absolutely nothing, but take his goals away and they would have 10 fewer points. That would have them on 30 from 30 games: near to relegation form in any other season.

    But beyond these simple statistics, Palmer’s value is that he has given Chelsea something to get excited about in an otherwise chronically bleak season. Even with the penalty against Burnley on Saturday: an audacious, floating Panenka when a more standard penalty would have been fine. It might look like needless showboating, but when there’s been nothing else to stir the passions, that sort of thing becomes important.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Panenkas, shootouts and action bias: the best place to aim a penalty

    “We got too comfortable,” Palmer said after the 2-2 home draw with second-bottom Burnley, who had 10 men for 50 of the 90 minutes. “Same story, we kill ourselves every week. It’s got to improve from us as players. We need consistency.”

    Palmer used “we” and “us” there, but he would have been within his rights to separate himself from the rest of the Chelsea team.

    He’s doing his job, and then some. How many other Chelsea players can say anything like that?

    Is staying at Leverkusen the real power move for Alonso?

    We already know what an extraordinary achievement winning the Bundesliga this season will be for Bayer Leverkusen, but here’s another thing to emphasise it: even after their 2-0 home defeat against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, champions Bayern can reach 81 points, 10 more than they achieved last season in taking their 11th straight title, yet are still likely to finish second by a double-digit margin.

    After the announcement that Xabi Alonso would be staying at Leverkusen beyond this season, his putative suitors have tried as best they can to style it out — he was only ever an option, they are conducting a thorough process, no approaches have been made et cetera — but even if they knew what was coming, the news will have caused consternation at Liverpool, Bayern and whoever else fancied a change this summer.


    (Hesham Elsherif/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    Alonso’s decision has been mocked by some as ‘wimping out’; taking the easy option of sticking where he is rather than showing ambition. Does effectively turning down Liverpool and Bayern show he doesn’t have the ‘cojones’, that he isn’t confident in his abilities, as has been suggested?

    Well, in short: no. Quite the opposite, in fact.

    Alonso’s stock will, in all likelihood, never be higher than now, amid the afterglow of this minor miracle Leverkusen are performing. He will probably never again have the choice between two giants, both of whom he has an emotional history with.

    But what he’s doing is the true power move: a coach with the self-awareness to say that he needs at least another season of experience after less than two of them in the senior game but with the confidence to think that his reputation will stay high enough in the future to attract a big job the next time one comes up.

    Alonso is doing things on his terms, in his own time. He hasn’t ignored the attention of Liverpool and Bayern because he’s scared of a top job. He’s done so because he isn’t scared that this will be his only chance at one.

    Coming up…

    • Easter. A time when English football has for years come together and absolutely rinsed its players for our viewing pleasure as if they had limitless energy: to whit, today (Monday), there is a full round of EFL fixtures in all three divisions (apart from one game each in Leagues One and Two tomorrow), just like there was on Friday. Things to keep an eye on: the Championship’s extraordinary automatic promotion tussle, with three clubs separated by two points, but we’re also getting to the point where things can be decided. Rotherham United could be relegated from the second tier, likewise Carlisle United from the third.
    • Then there’s a complete round of midweek Premier League games. The Tuesday slate of five isn’t mega-interesting: although it will be interesting to see how West Ham United bounce back from the weekend collapse at St James’ Park when they welcome Tottenham Hotspur, while Nottingham Forest need a win at home against Fulham, Newcastle United host Everton, it’s Bournemouth vs Crystal Palace and Wolves go to Burnley.
    • Wednesday’s group of three has a tiny bit more pep to in its step: the standout is City vs Aston Villa, but there’s also Arsenal against Luton and Brentford vs Brighton & Hove Albion.
    • Then on Thursday, the round is completed by leaders Liverpool hosting last-placed Sheffield United and a theoretical big one, but not really because they’re both a bit rubbish this season: Chelsea vs Manchester United.
    • Finally, in off-pitch fun, Everton should find out the verdict for their second PSR breach of the season, which we can all agree is exactly the sort of thing we got into football for.

    (Top photos: Getty Images)

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  • Ukraine qualify for Euro 2024: ‘The world is going to watch and see we never give up’

    Ukraine qualify for Euro 2024: ‘The world is going to watch and see we never give up’

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    More than 40 members of Ukraine’s national-team party were spread around the centre circle of Wroclaw’s Tarczynski Arena.

    Players, coaches and backroom staff locked their gaze on the 30,000 spectators sporting blue and yellow as they revved up their version of the Viking thunderclap. Iceland, the architects of that celebration during the 2016 European Championship, could only listen in despair having lost this Euro 2024 play-off final to a late strike from Chelsea forward Mykhailo Mudryk.

    Strangers embraced. Families posed for photographs draped in Ukraine flags. Others video-called, possibly home to war-torn Ukraine, sharing the moment with others unable to experience first-hand this release of emotion around 600 miles (1,000km) away in south-west Poland.

    Ukraine had done it.


    Ukraine’s players address the crowd (Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images)

    Despite enduring over two years of Russian invasion and indiscriminate bombing with millions of its citizens displaced, a weakened domestic league and home advantage for matches long since diluted, Serhiy Rebrov’s side had come through two tense play-off matches to qualify for this summer’s Euros — a mountain they had failed to climb two years ago when pursuing a World Cup spot, losing to Wales at this final stage.

    As Oleksandr Zinchenko, the captain, led his team around the pitch to celebrate a second comeback victory in five days, the 2-1 win over Iceland following a similar late success by the same scoreline away against Bosnia & Herzegovina, a guttural chant reverberated around the arena.

    “Z-S-U! Z-S-U! Z-S-U!”

    The acronym stands for ‘Zbronyi Syly Ukrainy’ — the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These Ukrainian supporters — almost all draped in the nation’s blue and yellow flag — were reminding the world of why this victory was not just a footballing triumph.

    This was not so much a lap of honour as a vignette of how conflicting it is to be Ukrainian today; jubilant at a second major finals qualification via play-offs from seven attempts, yet acutely aware of how small sport seems in the shadow of war. United in a foreign city, but separated from loved ones across the border; grateful for international support, yet fearing that their struggle is fading from the public consciousness.

    “I’m all emotioned out — it’s one of the most important, if not the most important, win for Ukraine in its history,” says British-Ukrainian journalist Andrew Todos, founder of Ukrainian football website Zorya Londonsk.

    “It is the context of having to make the tournament to give the country a massive important platform. People are going to see the country and hear about the war carrying on during the build-up and the weeks that they are in the tournament.”


    English-born drummer Andriy Buniak (bottom) of Ukrainian folk band Cov Kozaks with Andrew Todos (third right) and Myron Huzan (right) (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    The Ukraine FA, drawn as the hosts, chose Wroclaw for this play-off final because they knew it would be their best chance of approximating a home advantage. The 1-1 group-phase draw with England here in September attracted a crowd of 39,000 and Wroclaw has been one of the main cities to which Ukrainians have fled over the past two years.

    Since the invasion, more than 17.2million Ukrainians have been recorded crossing their country’s border with Poland, which stretches for more than 530 kilometres.

    In 2018, there were already suggestions that one in every 10 Wroclaw residents was Ukrainian. The city’s university status means family reunions have driven that number up to around a third of the population. It would have been slightly higher again on Tuesday, with the city transformed into a ‘Little Kyiv’.

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    Drummers dressed in traditional attire beat a rhythm for jolly sing-alongs and heartfelt rallies in the market square. Every act of joy from the Ukrainian contingent quickly felt like an expression of defiance.

    The constant was a sense of unity, captured by the charity match played earlier in the day between a team of former players and the ‘potato soldiers’, a nickname coined by organiser Mykola Vasylkov for the amount of food his team have delivered to the front line thanks to fundraising assistance from national-team players.

    “‘No Football Euro without Ukraine’ has been our message — now we’ve done it, ” says Vasylkov, who was part of Andriy Shevchenko’s setup during his five years as Ukraine manager.


    Vasylkov helped then manager Shevchenko in the Ukraine setup (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    The majority of the Ukrainians in attendance at last night’s play-off had lived elsewhere in Europe for some years before the conflict. Unless they receive special dispensation, males between the ages of 18 and 60 are banned from leaving the country.

    Unable to fight for the cause in the conventional sense, this was the day when the diaspora played their part. Goalscorers Viktor Tsygankov and Mudryk, who play for clubs in Spain and England, and an eclectic fanbase combined to put their country on the map at this summer’s tournament in Germany.

    “There were amazing emotions and atmosphere in the dressing room — these days wearing the Ukrainian badge on our chest is something special,” says Zinchenko. “The feelings inside are so hard to describe as, today, every Ukrainian was watching our game.

    “All the video messages we received before the game from Ukrainians, in the country and abroad, from the military who are staying on the front line fighting for our independence and freedom… they were all supporting us. It was extra motivation for us.”


    Zinchenko applauds the fans after Ukraine’s win (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    It was only last summer that Zinchenko used Arsenal’s pre-season tour in the United States to call for American F-15 fighter jets to be given to Ukrainian forces. He did not want the world to become fatigued and forget his compatriots’ suffering.

    “It (Euro 2024) will be so important,” he says. “We all understand that. All the world is going to watch this competition as it’s one of the biggest in the sport. It’s an unreal opportunity to show how good we are as a team and how good it is to be Ukrainian.

    “Our people are about never giving up and fighting until the end.”

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    Iceland’s population of 375,000 is dwarfed by Ukraine’s estimated 34million and their FIFA ranking of 73rd is well below their opponents’ 24th, so Zinchenko and his team-mates were hardly underdogs last night — but Ukraine’s players still have to cope with the mental toil of having family members enduring life in a war zone.

    When Ukraine missed out on a place at the most recent World Cup in its June 2022 play-offs, winning 3-1 away to Scotland in their semi-final but then being beaten 1-0 in Cardiff by a Gareth Bale shot that took a big deflection, their domestic-based players had only been able to feature in friendlies against club sides for the previous seven months. That was not the case this time, but four of the starting XI and 11 of the 23-man squad are based in Ukraine.

    The domestic league resumed in that summer of 2022 but it has dropped in quality as most of its top foreign players have left, and only in the last month have small crowds been allowed into top-flight games again. They are only able to do so with the provision of air-raid sirens, and with bunkers to shelter in readily available.


    Ukrainian fans celebrate qualification (Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    During that play-off final, footage appeared of Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches watching the match on their phones. That connection to home was strong in Wrocław on Tuesday.

    “I work in the army and brought a flag that Ukrainian soldiers signed,” says Artem Genne, a London-based fan, holding up the message “Keep up the good work for peace and prosperity in Ukraine”, sporting the signatures of different regiments. “We went to visit the team the day before the game and we got a picture of them with the flag to send back to the troops and boost morale.

    “Some family members live near some military facilities and they have been witnessing lots of attacks. Many of my friends live in Kyiv (the capital) and they were sending me footage from their balconies of windows being smashed. It goes on every day and, even though we are not there, it still affects you knowing your friends are in underground shelters.”


    Artem Genne and a friend hold up their flag signed by Ukrainian soldiers (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    Roman Labunski travelled from Berlin in West Germany, over 200 miles, with his wife and two sons to be at the game.

    His eldest son Nathan, 13, has only ever been to Ukraine twice, but was on his father’s shoulders during the 2014 Maidan revolution. He witnessed something en route to the stadium that served as a wake-up call.

    “We saw lorries carrying tanks to the border,” Roman says. “It reminded us that we’re still able to do something safe and fun. I sometimes feel guilty that I am not living it, as my cousins came to stay with us after the invasion but went back after they thought it was safe. Now they are facing rockets again.

    “It is not just football that we wanted to win for, and the team know that. It is no longer that they are up here and the fans are down there. We feel together with them now. The Euros will bring everyone back home some hope and happiness.”


    Aron, Natan and Roman Lanunski travelled to Wroclaw from Berlin (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    Although most at the game had moved away from Ukraine years earlier, there are those who only narrowly avoided life on the front line.

    Serhii was a 16-year-old living in a village 5km from Kyiv when a column of Russian tanks started moving towards the capital.

    “It was the last town not to be occupied. If that had happened, it would have been a big problem for Kyiv,” he says. “Once the war started, I moved west; then to Germany for seven months before going home.

    “Now I have been living in Chelm (just over the border from Ukraine in eastern Poland).”


    Fedir (centre) and Serhii (right) in Wroclaw’s market square (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    His friend Fedir is from Vinnytsia, a city south-west of Kyiv.

    “The Polish people have been very kind and welcoming to us,” Fedir says. “We appreciate this support from them, but it is lower than it was two years ago. This war is making everyone tired. Ukrainians, Polish. People are starting to forget about it. We are not.”

    Vitaliy is part of the select group of fighting age who has permission to cross the border, due to his work in Denmark dating back to 2010.

    “I grew up with the stories of my grandparents not being able to read Ukrainian books, so it was not a surprise to me when war came,” he says.


    Vitaliy (left) with his family outside the stadium (Jordan Campbell/The Athletic)

    “They try to tell us that western Ukraine is not the same as the east — whether it’s language, culture, history.

    “That is why football is so important. Since we got independence, we are more able, as a people, to resist and see things for ourselves. We have our own identity and this summer is our chance to show that to the world.”

    (Top photo: Sergei Gapon/AFP)

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  • The men who want to buy football clubs: Chris Kirchner, the $25m fraudster

    The men who want to buy football clubs: Chris Kirchner, the $25m fraudster

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    In the first of our series about the men who want to buy English football clubs, this is the remarkable story of Chris Kirchner, who came close to taking over Derby County and was then found guilty of fraud and money laundering.

    This week, we will examine five prospective investors and what their interest in English football says about their ambitions and the game itself.

    Valentine’s Day 2023 and, just after dawn, Chris Kirchner’s world begins to crumble.

    A group of FBI agents have arrived at the gates of his family home in Westlake, Texas, less than a mile from the exclusive Vaquero Country Club, and begin seizing the trappings of his wealth.

    A Rolls-Royce Cullinan and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class are among the items confiscated, along with five luxury watches and a Cartier necklace. Close to $600,000 (£475,000 at today’s rates) is taken from personal accounts in Kirchner’s name, as well as artwork and 57 bottles of wine.

    The FBI arrested Kirchner too, issuing charges of wire fraud after alleging he had sent millions of dollars from the accounts of Slync, a software start-up he founded in 2017, to his personal account. A $16million Gulfstream jet was among the many things bought with the money of others.

    Derby County, the English Football League (EFL) club crowned champions of England in 1972 under Brian Clough, had almost become another of his assets.

    Nine months before his arrest in the United States, Kirchner still believed he could close out a takeover to rescue the club from administration. He had been named the preferred bidder, considered by administrator Quantuma as the man most likely to prevent Derby from going under. He had been depicted as the club’s saviour, drawing the acclaim of fans.

    Like so much of Kirchner’s life, however, it was destined to collapse.

    A “life of luxury” had been built by misappropriating his company’s funds. At Kirchner’s four-day trial, held in January this year, evidence showed he had converted at least $25million in investor money to his personal use.

    A jury found Kirchner guilty of four counts of wire fraud and a further seven counts of money laundering. Sentencing will take place on July 11 and, already denied bail, he is facing a maximum prison term of 150 years.

    The fall of Kirchner has been sudden and spectacular. That he came so close to buying Derby, just a few months after walking away from a similar deal to purchase Preston North End, another Championship club, already seems fanciful.

    Kirchner, though, forms part of a broader problem. English football, flush with money, continues to attract the wrong kind of would-be investors. Fraudsters, fantasists and charlatans are queuing up.

    “Years ago, it was what sort of car or house do you have?” as one person working at an EFL club put it. “Today, it’s about more. Football clubs are attractive. It’s the one thing that gives you real credibility. The worldwide success of English football makes owning a club a trophy to have.”

    Kirchner will not be the first or the last. Many others attempt to squeeze through the vetting process to become football club owners, pushing for control of teams that are better off without the interest.

    “He went down this Walter Mitty path and never really had any touch with reality,” says one well-placed source in the deal to buy Derby who, like others in this piece, remain anonymous to protect relationships.

    In a Fort Worth courthouse, Kirchner’s reality came crashing down.

    Until the gilded walls fell in around him, it could never be said that Kirchner lacked credibility.

    He was a young (still only 36), ambitious American, the bold chief executive of Slync, a tech start-up company backed by Goldman Sachs. Within four years of launching in San Francisco’s Silicon Valley, thanks to growth propelled by the Covid-19 pandemic, Slync had been valued at $240million by investors and employed more than 100 staff members.

    Kirchner purposely positioned himself as the company’s figurehead and took Slync to places he, as a golf obsessive, wished to go. Justin Rose, the former world No 1 golfer, was among the company’s first commercial sponsorships and was paid $2million annually. That path led Slync towards becoming a lead sponsor of the Dubai Desert Classic in 2021 in a multi-million dollar agreement.

    The aim was to grow Slync’s brand but Kirchner enjoyed the perks that came with it. He was pictured playing golf with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and would turn out in tournaments, including the illustrious JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Ireland.

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    Kirchner with Rory McIlroy in Dubai in January 2022 (David Cannon/Getty Images)

    Kirchner was there in 2022 leading Team Slync three weeks before he was fired from his position as chief executive and removed from the company’s board of directors.

    Plenty appeared to be taken in by Kirchner’s front, including Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), chairman of Newcastle United and another golf enthusiast.

    Kirchner visited the Centurion Golf Club in St Albans, on the outskirts of London, in June 2022, where he had a place in the LIV Golf pro-am tournament, a curtain raiser to the Saudi-backed tour’s inaugural event. Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter, the high-profile European pair, were among Kirchner’s playing partners over 18 holes.

    “I saw with my own eyes the rapport he had with Yasir Al-Rumayyan that day at LIV,” said Nigel Owen, formerly the spokesperson of the Black and White Together Derby fans group, who was invited by Kirchner to the Centurion GC.

    “We came off the fifth or sixth green and, between there and the next tee, there were two huge blokes stood there, bouncers almost. They part and there’s this little guy behind them and then it twigged with me who it was.

    “Chris and Al-Rumayyan greeted one another like long-lost friends. It was a bear hug. If you’re in my shoes, as someone who wanted someone to come and buy Derby County, I’m watching him with people like that and I’m thinking, ‘This guy must be legit’.”

    A large media presence was on site to cover the start of golf’s disruptive new era and Kirchner was caught off guard when walking to the clubhouse. Updates on Derby’s takeover were sought amid reports of its collapse. “No comment on that,” he said.

    Owen, though, was given a different reading on the state of play.

    “It was within an hour of that moment he told me that it was done,” he remembers. “The transfer had been made and it was done. I spent the next hour with him in the clubhouse with Phil Mickelson at the next table. He (Kirchner) was ringing people saying it was done. I went away from there believing the money had been transferred. It was all going through.”

    Derby, by then, were desperate. Close to nine months had been spent in administration after long-standing owner Mel Morris had pulled the plug on his financial support, triggering points deductions and an inevitable relegation from the Championship.

    The future of the club hung in the balance and Kirchner, named as the preferred bidder by administrators in April 2022, offered the only visible promise of salvation. Yet Kirchner always seemed more interested in publicity and acclaim than getting on with the business of making it happen.

    While it might have been anticipated that Kirchner would initiate talks with Morris, the American showed little interest in getting around a table with the owner. Morris had become a hate figure for many Derby fans and Kirchner used that to strengthen his position, repeatedly criticising and questioning the man who held the keys to the club.

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    Morris had suspicions about Kirchner and did not appreciate the American’s hostile and standoffish approach. Nor did it escape his attention that few prospective football club owners gave a running commentary on social media.

    Kirchner was certainly fond of the spotlight. Over several weeks and months, he interacted with supporters on digital platforms, pledging to fix their stricken club. There was even an interview with Derby’s in-house media. “It kinda feels like home to me,” he said, likening Derby’s vista to “the rolling hills” of his hometown Lexington, Kentucky.

    Kirchner attended several home matches across the 2021-22 season and waved to supporters from his padded seat. He would visit pubs on a matchday, accompanied by his wife Ali, and pose for pictures.

    Kirchner also met players and staff at the club’s Moor Farm training complex, wearing Derby-branded clothing. Forward Tom Lawrence was pictured visiting Kirchner at his home in Dallas during the summer break.

    “Derby were looking for a man of the people and he gave that impression,” says Chris Poulter, former leader of Derby City Council, who was pictured with Kirchner at the Peacock pub before a home game late in the 2021-22 season.

    Kirchner had made it his business to ingratiate himself with the council. “He’d completely got them wrapped around his little finger,” says one of the key players in the proposed takeover. “He had charmed them into thinking he was the guy to take Derby forward.”

    “It wasn’t for me or any supporter to do due diligence on whether he actually had the money or where it had come from,” says Poulter. “That was down to the administrators and the league. He was being put forward as the preferred bidder and we had no option but to support him in finishing the job.”

    What followed bordered on the tragicomic. At 8.45am one Sunday, Morris took a call from an intermediary, a banker, to suggest that it might be worthwhile for the two parties to start communicating.

    Kirchner followed that up with a letter to introduce himself and explain that he wanted to buy the club. Morris wrote back to say he found it surprising that it was their first contact but made it clear he was willing to get down to the nitty-gritty of making it happen.

    Morris and Kirchner, it transpired, used the same bank. But when the transfer from Kirchner’s account didn’t arrive, there was a stream of excuses.

    In a remarkable exchange, an exasperated Morris ended up instructing Kirchner’s camp that, if necessary, he could pass on instructions about how to log on, which page to find, which buttons to press, and how to send evidence of attempted transfers.

    But the money was never sent and Morris was left with the overwhelming feeling that the whole operation had been a waste of time. He and Kirchner had not spoken once during the whole process.

    Quantuma, the club’s administrator, was not the only party misled. Kirchner worked with Garry Cook, formerly Manchester City’s chief executive and now of Birmingham City, during the negotiations, as well as Paul Stretford, the agent of Derby’s then-manager Wayne Rooney, who called Kirchner “a very good businessman” in October 2021.

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    (Left to right) Stretford, Kirchner and Cook at Pride Park in November 2021 (Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    There was an undoubted veneer of believability about Kirchner. He had hired the respected legal firm Squire Patton Boggs and senior partner David Hull to act on his behalf during negotiations, and background checks undertaken by the EFL indicated there was no reason to doubt Kirchner had the finances to proceed. The backing of Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs also helped entrench the American’s plausibility.

    Rooney offered his public endorsement, too. The manager was popular with the fans and that immediately gave Kirchner an extra layer of respectability.

    So convinced of Kirchner’s credentials was Stretford that Triple S, a company where he is listed as a director, stepped in to cover a monthly wage bill of £1.6million in May 2022. That move was investigated by the English Football Association but it says no further action was deemed appropriate.

    Stretford would later begin legal proceedings against Kirchner in an attempt to claw back that £1.6million. A winding-up petition against 9CK Sports Holdings, a now-dormant company of which Kirchner is the sole director, was lodged two days after the American’s arrest in February 2023. Triple S was listed as the claimant but that pursuit has been unsuccessful so far.

    Triple S said in a statement: “In May 2022, the Triple S Group provided a short-term bridging loan to Chris Kirchner and 9CK. At no point did the Triple S Group provide funding directly to Derby. Recovery of this loan is subject to an ongoing legal process in the UK and U.S. — as such, no further comment can be made.

    “The Triple S Group voluntarily disclosed all information to the FA and cooperated with them fully throughout the entire process. The Triple S Group has been open and transparent about this matter from the start.”

    Stretford and Cook had also been present for Kirchner’s very public pursuit of Preston at the start of 2022. Cook initiated the contact between the two parties once an initial interest in Derby had subsided in the final weeks of 2021 and, by mid-February, Kirchner attended a home game against Huddersfield Town at Deepdale.

    Then came a bid that proposed Kirchner take control of Preston from the club’s long-standing local owners, the Hemmings family. There was a deal to be done at the right price and a willing seller.

    There was even broad agreement but Kirchner chose to walk away and back towards Derby. “Ever buy a car?” he would later ask in a social media Q&A. “If someone raises the price halfway through the deal by 10 per cent over what you agreed then wants to force you to buy options and packages you don’t want/need with the car, would you buy it?”

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    (Cameron Smith/Getty Images)

    Preston were not amused and, privately, considered Kirchner to be a tyre kicker. The club issued a pointed statement, purposely making no reference to the American.

    “The most important point to make absolutely clear is that contrary to suggestions in the public domain, we never increased the asking price from the price and terms included in the originally agreed offer,” it said.

    Kirchner was considered a “chancer” by some of those who worked on the deal at Preston. An offer had been made but no proof of funds was ever shown.

    “Then he goes back to Derby and says he knew all along it was a bigger club than Preston,” said one figure at the club. “Cheeky.”

    Kirchner never hid his ambitions to find a route to professional sport. Golf topped his interests but he followed English football intently. Kirchner claimed it was part of his family upbringing

    “When I joined the company, his story was that he was a lifelong fan of Chelsea, that he was open to sponsoring a hospitality suite at Chelsea’s stadium,” Matt Gunn, formerly chief marketing officer at Slync, tells The Athletic.

    Kirchner had his eyes on a much bigger outlay by the spring of 2022. “When he went to purchase Derby County, he told his executive leaders, myself included, that it was a personal pursuit he was doing outside of the business and it wasn’t business money,” adds Gunn.

    “He said it was a lifelong dream of his to own a football club. To avoid the perception it was a distraction, he even told staff on an all-hands call to the company.”

    There were already misgivings within Slync that Kirchner’s apparent commitment to growing the company’s brand was causing a financial strain. Sponsorship of Dubai Desert Classic, a flagship event for golf’s European Tour, had been announced in September 2021 on a multi-year arrangement that would eventually be scrapped 12 months later. There was also a commercial deal with NHL’s Dallas Stars, with Slync unable to maintain payments by June 2022. It is estimated that project commitments for sports marketing ran to almost $60million.

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    Kirchner with McIlroy during the pro-am in the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic 2022 (David Cannon/Getty Images)

    “We all knew there was a lot of expense involved,” says Gunn. “He was the sole decision maker for the sports sponsorships — the hockey, the golf, the trips to the Masters — and ran those almost as though they were a separate division of the company.

    “It was his way of making a bet. Software wasn’t sold by software alone. He thought it was about making big relationships with people.

    “Come and play a round of golf with Justin Rose or take them to watch a big tournament like the Dubai Desert Classic. I don’t believe any of his sports interactions led to a single dollar of revenue.”

    Kirchner came to be seen as a contradiction by employees; the man who helped build up Slync and the man whose actions threatened to bring it down. There was no questioning his short-term successes as the company’s chief executive, bringing in $57.2m in two funding rounds. Kirchner presented himself as a personable leader on the good days but those who spent time in his company could not miss the little shows of wealth.

    “The first time I met him in person was when I flew to Dallas for some meetings with executives and Chris decided to pick us up for lunch in a bright red Ferrari,” says Gunn. “That was pretty unusual for me. He showed me his Richard Mille watch, which he told me he had to speak to a financial advisor before purchasing because it was so expensive.”

    Plenty who crossed paths with Kirchner considered him ostentatious.

    “One time after a round, there were 10 or so of us in the locker room,” says one close associate from the Vaquero Club, “and he said, ‘OK I need to go pick up my friend in Kentucky on my jet, then we’re flying back here. Does anyone want to come with me, drink bourbon and play cards?’.

    “He always loved to talk about his money, where he was on his jet, what elite private course he was playing, name dropping celebrities and athletes left and right like they were his best friends.”

    Yet, tellingly, there was also an enigmatic streak to Kirchner. He would claim his source of wealth was cryptocurrency investments, depicting himself as the boy from a blue-collar family who had struck lucky. Kirchner had attended the University of Kentucky but left without graduating, initially working at Best Buy, the American electronics retailer.

    Slync, launched in 2017, became his path towards bigger things. The company’s growth, with DHL and Kuehne + Nagel among its early customers, convinced others to buy in and saw millions raised. Kirchner, for a spell, had legitimacy.

    Golf


    Viktor Hovland tees off at Emirates Golf Club in January 2022 (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

    The indictment for his arrest, filed on February 5, 2023, claimed he had restricted other Slync employees’ access to financial information, with the chief executive considered the “sole decision maker”.

    All investor funds raised during the A and B rounds for “product development and other general corporate purposes” were wired to a Slync Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) account and before the first of those, made in March 2020, that account was overdrawn by $693.21.

    Between April and November 2020, the indictment alleged that Kirchner initiated 27 wire transfers from Slync’s SVB account to Slync’s Chase account, of which Kirchner was the sole signatory. Those totalled $2.174million and much of it was moved to Kirchner’s private accounts.

    But the money kept coming for Slync. In December 2020, just under $37million was sent to Slync’s SVB account by investors and Kirchner soon moved $20million to his personal account without permission from Slync’s board of directors. He used $16million of that for the deposit and purchase of a Gulfstream G550 private jet.

    The indictment papers also outline how Kirchner initiated another 70 wire transfers between January 2021 and March 2022 totalling $6.8million. The last of those came a fortnight before Quantuma named Kirchner as the preferred bidder for Derby County.

    Cracks, though, were starting to show in an empire built on sand. Staff at Slync were paid late in April, May and June 2022 and Kirchner set about attempting to claw back money. He convinced four groups to inject $850,000 during a round C fundraiser. Kirchner would later sell his private jet to repay the round C investors.

    The end was nigh. Kirchner fired one Slync employee after they had reported to the company’s board that financial performances had been falsely exaggerated and by late July 2022, Kirchner was suspended from his role as chief executive. He then “attempted to delete approximately 18 gigabytes of Slync data, including emails”, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

    “All the warning signs were there and I saw it — directly and indirectly — the person that he was,” says Gunn. “I was glad when he was no longer in a position of power with that company but sad in the knowledge that so many people were impacted because of what he’d done.

    “Chris stayed in character to the end. The company folded when he counter-sued them to get legal fees paid for. That tells you a lot about who he was. He couldn’t move the money he did and not have a dozen red flags pop up. I can’t believe he could not show remorse for that but then it’s not entirely out of character.”

    Slync was wound down at the end of last year.

    Derby County were eventually able to see the collapsed negotiations with Kirchner as a blessing. His formal withdrawal came on June 14, clearing the way for local businessman David Clowes to rescue his boyhood club from the threat of liquidation.

    “You can look back now and it’s almost laughable in a dark way,” says one member of staff. “Did that really happen? But it almost makes you realise how fortunate we are now with the owner. If the Chris Kirchner deal had gone through, what might have happened?”

    A spokeswoman for Quantuma, which selected Kirchner as the preferred bidder to take over Derby, said: “The joint administrators can confirm that the obligations upon them relating to anti-money laundering tests were complied with. The joint administrators are unable to comment on what due diligence processes were undertaken by third parties. There are legal obligations placed upon the joint administrators and other authorities that mean that no further comment can be made.”

    go-deeper

    Derby, almost certainly, would have been plunged into enormous trouble. Everything Kirchner owned was seized within a year and now he waits on a sentencing that could see him imprisoned for decades.

    “I don’t know what his intentions were,” says one senior figure involved in the takeover process. “It was going to go bang at some point. He was introduced by some people inside the club and I suppose that gave him a certain level of credibility that was beyond what he should have been afforded.”

    Kirchner had the charm and confidence but none of the money to maintain his life of fantasy.

    Additional contributors: Melanie Anzidei, Elias Burke

    (Design: Eamonn Dalton; photos: Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images, Robbie Stephenson/PA Images via Getty Images, Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)

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  • Football’s best up-and-coming managers: Thiago Motta, a fascinating tactician

    Football’s best up-and-coming managers: Thiago Motta, a fascinating tactician

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    This is the first article in a six-part series looking at some of European football’s most innovative up-and-coming managers.

    Thiago Motta knows a thing or two about success.

    When your CV includes two La Liga titles, one Serie A title, five Ligue 1 titles and two Champions League winners medals, you tend to command instant respect within a dressing room.

    That said, few people need reminding that a successful playing career does not directly translate to a successful coaching career — so, what of Thiago Motta, the manager?

    The 41-year-old has transformed Bologna from Serie A strugglers to one of the most aesthetically pleasing sides in Italy. With just nine games remaining this season, the Rossoblu sit in fourth place and are within touching distance of a Champions League spot for the first time in 60 years.

    Motta’s stock has never been higher, but persistence and endeavour during difficult periods have already shaped his early managerial career.

    Life as a top-flight coach got off to something of a false start after Motta was sacked after just nine games at Genoa in December 2019. It was not until the summer of 2021 that he had a full season to fully display his coaching credentials by keeping relegation-favourites Spezia in Serie A in an against-all-odds campaign.

    A move to Bologna followed in September 2022, where things did not start according to the script after taking over from much-loved Sinisa Mihajlovic in controversial circumstances. Winless in his first four games, Motta had to gradually earn the trust of the Bologna fans, repaying their faith by leading the club to a ninth-placed finish in 2022-23 — the club’s best for over 10 years.

    With the support of Giovanni Sartori (technical director) and Joey Saputo (Bologna’s owner), Motta has been entrusted to put his tactical ideals into place — but what exactly are those tactical ideals?

    GO DEEPER

    Is Thiago Motta the next great coach? From mocked ideas to transforming Bologna

    Motta was not shy in sharing his philosophy during his first coaching role with PSG’s under-19s squad in 2018. It was here that he garnered unnecessary derision for discussing a 2-7-2 formation — which was erroneously interpreted as a structure spanning from back-to-front, rather than his intended left-to-right.

    “I count the goalkeeper as one of the seven players in the middle of the pitch,” Motta said. “For me, the striker is the first defender and the goalkeeper the first attacker. The goalkeeper starts the play with his feet and the attackers are the first to put pressure to recover the ball.”

    It is fair to say that Motta has since successfully moulded Bologna in his image.

    This can be seen in the data below when looking at the Rossoblu’s playstyle evolution, which breaks down a team’s metrics compared with the top seven European leagues.

    In specific reference to Motta’s philosophy, you can see a notable uptick in Bologna’s defensive work rate from the front since 2022-23, rarely allowing the opposition to build a sequence of passes before making a tackle (Intensity, 80 out of 99).

    As a consequence, Bologna’s defensive foundation is one of the strongest in Europe this season (Chance prevention, 92 out of 99), with just 0.8 non-penalty expected goals conceded — a rate bettered only by Torino, Juventus and Inter Milan in Serie A.

    The manner in which Bologna like to build out from the back (Deep build-up) is particularly interesting.

    Most commonly setting up in a fluid 4-2-3-1, Motta encourages his centre-backs to push forward and act as a pivot player when in possession — in a similar way you might see Manchester City’s John Stones rolling into midfield.

    With goalkeeper Lukasz Skorupski trusted as the “first attacker” within build-up, the core idea is that there should always be a free man to pass to when progressing the ball through the thirds.

    An example of this can be seen from the first minute during Bologna’s game with Inter Milan earlier this month. As Jhon Lucumi has possession, fellow centre-back Sam Beukema ventures into a central area ahead of the ball to provide a passing option on a different attacking line. Beukema’s positioning helps Lucumi to receive the returned pass in space before releasing right-back Stefan Posch down the right flank.

    Later in the first half, it is Lucumi who pushes into midfield to receive the ball as Bologna form a back three — this time with midfielder Michel Aebischer (20) dropping in. On this occasion, Lucumi does not receive the ball, but his positioning drags an Inter player with him to make space elsewhere, with Bologna continuing to have a free man as they build out.

    Where Bologna differ from Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City is that Motta encourages both centre-backs to drift into midfield, with full-backs tucking inside to be… fully back.

    Whether it is Lucumi, Beukema, or 21-year-old starlet Riccardo Calafiori, this approach is foundational to the fluidity of Bologna’s play and relies on a strong technical profile among Motta’s centre-backs.

    In his UEFA Pro Licence thesis, titled “The Value of the Ball”, Motta discusses collective “technical trust” as a key part of his philosophy, where each player is given the freedom to make decisions that they believe are most beneficial to the team in a given situation.

    Unsurprisingly, possession is central to the decisions that are made.

    Only Napoli boast a higher share than Bologna’s 58 per cent possession in Serie A this season, with Motta keen for his side to patiently work an opening with their dynamic positional rotations.

    As shown by this season’s playstyle wheel, Bologna’s high “Circulate” ranking shows that Motta’s side are not quick to progress the ball forward, but will instead make short, sharp passes to move the opposition structure and bait the press before working an opening — not dissimilar to Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton.

    Motta is also a keen admirer of Marcelo Bielsa’s vast body of work and will frequently focus on third-man combinations and off-ball running as a key part of Bologna’s progression upfield.

    One example can be seen during Bologna’s game against Roma this season, where Beukema attracts pressure on the right touchline with team-mates gathering closely. A blindside run from midfielder Remo Freuler sees Beukema thread the ball into the space to transition forward at speed, with winger Dan Ndoye subsequently cutting it back for Nikola Moro to finish the fast break that Bologna have curated for themselves.

    Such penetrative runs from Bologna’s forwards are a key theme in Motta’s style. As you can see from their “Central progression” rating (98 out of 99), Bologna are not frequent crossers of the ball — only Frosinone average fewer than their 13.4 crosses per 90 — but will use the pace and trickery of dangerous wingers in Ndoye, Alexis Saelemaekers and Riccardo Orsolini to drive forward and shoot or create from advanced positions.

    Ultimately, Bologna’s key attacking threats run through the centre of the pitch, with versatile Scotsman Lewis Ferguson able to drift into a No 10 position behind the technically gifted Joshua Zirkzee.

    The pair have forged a potent partnership together and are responsible for over one-third of Bologna’s goal involvements in Serie A this season.

    “I play close to Joshua. Technically, he’s really, really good,” Ferguson told The Athletic last year. “He’s strong, fast, powerful. He’s got everything you’d want in an attacker. It’s enjoyable to play with him. We bounce off each other. If he makes one run, I make another.”

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Lewis Ferguson: The not-so-secret ingredient behind Bologna’s impressive form

    While Zirkzee’s 10 Serie A goals (eight non-penalty efforts) lead the way within the Bologna squad, the 22-year-old Dutchman is not your typical No 9. Beyond his technical ability, Zirkzee is more appreciated by his team-mates for his ability to bring others into play — regularly dropping off into a false 9 position or pinning a centre-back to release runners ahead of him.

    Judging him on his goals alone — he is yet to register an effort from inside the six-yard box this season — would be to misunderstand his role within Motta’s system.

    Bologna’s recent goal against Empoli brings together a lot of the discussed themes in how Motta likes his side to play in the opposition half. As Empoli’s centre-back plays the ball into a central area, Moro pounces to nick the ball away. As it falls to Zirkzee, he pins the defender with his back to goal before flicking the ball to Orsolini making the overlapping run. The Italian drives into the box and converts emphatically.

    From regaining possession high up to breaking the deadlock in no more than seven seconds.

    If Motta is able to guide Bologna to a top-four spot this season (fifth place may also suffice), the prospect of leading the Rossoblu into their first European Cup campaign since 1964-65 will surely be the highlight of Motta’s early managerial career.

    The reality is that Motta’s contract expires in the summer and there are already plenty of top European clubs who are in the market for an exciting young manager ahead of the 2024-25 season. Bologna CEO Claudio Fenucci was understandably deflective at the possibility of losing his coach in the coming months.

    “Thiago is very happy in Bologna,” said Fenucci in a radio interview recently. “It’s as if he had a longer contract than he actually has.”

    Whatever the outcome in the summer, Motta has shown himself to be one of the most attractive managerial prospects in European football.

    Wherever he goes, success typically follows.

    (Top photo: Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)

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    The New York Times

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  • Jamie Cassidy – the Liverpool prodigy who became a cocaine conspirator

    Jamie Cassidy – the Liverpool prodigy who became a cocaine conspirator

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    He appeared in the dock at Manchester Crown Court like a familiar-looking stranger, a vivid memory from a distant past.

    Jamie Cassidy had once been one of the most promising young footballers at Liverpool, England’s most successful club, a player deemed good enough to train with his national team ahead of the 1996 European Championship.

    Today, Cassidy was jailed for 13 years and three months for his part in a conspiracy involving South American drug cartels that saw 356kg (784lb) of cocaine with an estimated street value of £28million ($35.8m) flood cities across northern England.

    Cassidy, now 46, did not have a “pivotal” role like his 50-year-old brother, Jonathan, who received 21 years and nine months, but it was nevertheless “significant”, according to the judge, Sir Ian Dove.

    Jamie’s job was to “ensure things ran smoothly” once the drugs arrived in Liverpool from the Netherlands, hidden in modified vehicles. He acted upon instruction, being paid a wage for his “managerial” input, which involved taking care of collections and deliveries that amounted to around 150kg of the drug.

    Huge profits were laundered every month but the Cassidys’ operation was stopped after the EncroChat messaging service, once the preferred tool of communication in the criminal community, was intercepted by French authorities.

    Jonathan Cassidy and Nasar Ahmed, 51, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to import and supply class A drugs and to launder money, while Jamie admitted to supply and laundering. Like Jonathan, Ahmed received 21 years and nine months.

    Having been held on remand since November 2020, former footballer Cassidy had more than three years to consider his future.

    It might explain why on Wednesday, as he emerged from the steps that led from the cells in Manchester Crown Court, he seemed relaxed and focused, as the scale of the charges against him were laid bare in a legal setting for the first time.

    In his closing notes, the judge suggested “it seemed likely” that Jamie had been drawn by his brother into a “business” that was also described as “sophisticated”.

    Each of the offenders will serve half of their sentence before being released on licence.

    Across a hearing that stretched over two days, there was only a brief mention of Cassidy’s life as a footballer whose talent was so vast that his name sometimes appears in the same sentences as true Liverpool greats.

    In 1994, two summers before Cassidy lined up with future internationals Michael Owen and Jamie Carragher in the Liverpool Under-18s team that won the FA Youth Cup by beating a West Ham United side that featured Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, he played for England as they reached the quarter-finals of Under-16 European Championship in the Republic of Ireland.


    Liverpool, featuring Michael Owen (far right), won the 1996 FA Youth Cup final against Rio Ferdinand’s West Ham (Aubrey Washington/EMPICS via Getty Images)

    As a centre-forward, the regard in which he was held was reflected by the fact he was given the No 10 shirt in that England squad while Emile Heskey, who six years later would join Liverpool from Leicester City for a record £11million fee, had to make do with No 12.

    Carragher became a legendary figure at Liverpool, making 737 appearances, second on the club’s all-time list behind Ian Callaghan’s 857. Yet when it came to England junior selection, Cassidy was called up ahead of him and David Thompson, who later featured in 56 Liverpool first-team games before fruitful spells in the midfields of Coventry City and Blackburn Rovers.

    Thompson came from Birkenhead, which is separated from Liverpool by the River Mersey. In the early 1990s, Cassidy and Carragher, born in the same school year, were regarded as the best two young players in the city for their age group.

    While Carragher came from Bootle and went to Savio Salesian College, representing Sefton Boys, Cassidy played for Liverpool Boys having attended the Alsop comprehensive where future Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier taught when he lived in the city in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

    Cassidy’s home turf was Walton and the warren of streets near City Road, close to Everton’s Goodison Park stadium, which became infamous in 1993 because of its proximity to the old railway line where two-year-old James Bulger was murdered by two 10-year-old boys.

    Much of the reporting that followed painted an unremittingly bleak picture of the area and an “urchin” culture where children roamed freely after dark, causing havoc. There was little attention or sympathy given to a district that had been compared, in a paper published by the European Union, to some of the poorest parts of southern Italy and the old East Germany.

    Before he joined Liverpool, Cassidy played for a Sunday league team affiliated with a pub called The Pacific. This brought him into contact with Carragher for the first time, because he was signed to another team in the same league, Merton Villa. Other young boys from The Pacific, such as Jon Murphy, Ged Hennigan and Dominic Morley, would make it into the youth systems of Liverpool and Everton. Yet Cassidy went the furthest.

    In his early years with Liverpool, he played up front with Carragher. The pair were so good that the coaches at Liverpool allowed them to play two years above their age group, even though they knew they were not quite physically strong enough. This meant that, sometimes, one would replace the other at half-time.

    To his family, Carragher is still “James”. He is only known as “Jamie” to the wider world because Steve Heighway, Liverpool’s academy director, started referring to him and Cassidy as “the two Jamies” when they were both selected for Lilleshall, the FA’s residential School of Excellence in the Midlands.

    Upon returning to Merseyside from a visit to Lilleshall in 1995, Heighway wrote in his Liverpool match-day programme column, “Both boys are super players.”

    Cassidy was also ‘Cass’, a player team-mates wanted on their side because of his subtle leadership qualities. His presence provided reassurance because of his consistency and his maturity. Some looked up to him, not only because of his talent but also because of his dress sense.

    His football associates from the time – all of whom spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity due to the severity and scale of his criminal case – describe Cassidy as an “elegant” footballer, with a shot as ferocious as his tackles. If a challenge was there to be won, he relished it. In conversations, comparisons are made with Steven Gerrard, then three years his junior, and now one of the greatest players in Liverpool’s history.

    go-deeper

    While he was good in the air and an able runner, Cassidy was also left-footed, which gave him an added grace. Those who watched the youth teams at that time describe a footballer who had it all — one good enough to be invited to train with England’s senior squad, under Terry Venables, in the build-up to Euro 96.

    The Liverpool team who won that FA Youth Cup is described by Carragher in his autobiography as a group of “scallies”, not necessarily high on talent but full of desire. Cassidy fitted right in, albeit playing on the left of midfield. That success was timely for Liverpool because the first team was under fire due to their performance in an FA Cup final defeat to arch-rivals Manchester United. Over the months that followed, Cassidy, Carragher, Owen and Thompson all got more exposure to senior training. Their performances were rewarded with new contracts, rising from £250 to £750 a week.


    Jamie Cassidy at an England training session with Terry Venables

    In December 1996, aged 18, Cassidy was given a squad number (22) and was selected on the bench for first-team game at Anfield against Sheffield Wednesday. Though he did not get on that day as Liverpool lost, 1-0, he was getting closer to a first-team debut.

    Some of the coaches at Liverpool identified that he was different to Carragher and Thompson, who were obsessives. Carragher would treat training sessions like they were full-scale games and Thompson would tell senior figures in the squad that he was coming to take their place. Cassidy could be aggressive on the pitch but his otherwise calm demeanour led to questions over his body language.

    Did he care enough? His team-mates thought so. This was evidenced when he flew into a tackle during a reserve game not long after snapping his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). A leg break meant he spent 18 months out in total, with those injuries having an impact on three seasons, just at the point his peers were breaking into the first team and establishing themselves.

    There was some belief that this period caused him to lose a yard of pace, particularly damaging as football at the highest level was becoming more about physicality, especially in midfield. One person with an understanding of Cassidy’s position describes him as being “really, really unlucky”.

    After another long period out, team-mates would stare at Cassidy’s legs at Melwood, the club’s former training ground. Above specialist shin pads, which looked like they were shatterproof, it seemed as though one of his knees had doubled in size.

    Owen became a global superstar because of his performances with England at the World Cup in 1998, and by the summer of 1999 he had represented Liverpool 86 times.

    Carragher, meanwhile, had made it to 70 appearances, and Thompson had 25. Gerrard had also emerged from the youth ranks, playing in 13 games in the 1998-99 season.

    Following a succession of setbacks and operations, Cassidy, aged 20, was still waiting for his first-team debut. All of this was playing out against a backdrop of vast cultural change at Liverpool instigated by manager Houllier, who was driving more professional standards. That shift ultimately led to some players, regardless of previous status, moving on.

    According to administrators at the club, leading academy figures considered Cassidy to be a huge talent, though he was never quite in the same bracket as Owen and Carragher. These sources have told The Athletic that they cannot remember him causing any problems for the coaches, pointing only towards injuries as a reason he eventually left.

    There was shock, however, when he signed for Cambridge United, a four-hour drive away, in 1999. Cambridge were fighting to stay in the third tier of English football; many at Liverpool believed Cassidy could have made a fresh start at a higher level, earning decent money, for example, in Division One (now the Championship — England’s second tier).


    Cassidy at Cambridge United (PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo)

    Quickly, Cassidy lost touch with the players at Liverpool with whom he’d spent his teenage years. Most of the band of brothers who had won the FA Youth Cup in 1996 suddenly had less in common, and while some fell into the non-League system at clubs such as Barrow, Droylsden and Vauxhall Motors, others became associated with the game’s amateur scene in Liverpool.

    Having entered a relationship with a woman, Cassidy slipped off the radar entirely. Some wondered whether he was too embarrassed or proud to try to work his way back up the football ladder, given how highly rated he had been.

    go-deeper

    If he lost his love for the game, he did not show it at Cambridge, but he made little impression on a dressing room dominated by senior professionals.

    He stood out mainly because he was a Scouser, far away from home. Though it was obvious in training sessions he was technically excellent, he could not emulate team-mates such as Trevor Benjamin and Martin Butler, who would both sign for clubs higher up the food chain in Leicester City and Reading.

    In a season when Cambridge finished two places and four points above the relegation zone, Cassidy started just four league games, with another four appearances from the bench.

    He did not strike one of Cambridge’s most senior players at the club as a bad lad. “Quite the opposite, I liked him — a really nice kid,” he said.

    Nonetheless, he continued, he seemed the type of player “that might need a rocket up his a**e now and then”.

    Cassidy’s career was over by the time he was 23. After brief spells at non-League sides Cambridge City and Northwich Victoria, he reappeared at Burscough, a sixth-tier club in west Lancashire, 18 miles north of Liverpool, partway through pre-season in the summer of 2001.

    A match programme at the end of the subsequent campaign suggests he made just five appearances for the club, with three of them starts.

    Money was tight at Burscough, and players were paid small sums, cash in hand. Yet the club were developing a reputation as a place where players could trampoline into the professional ranks, thanks to the manager John Davison, who worked as a schoolteacher, and his assistant, Peter King, who came from Liverpool and had a strong grip on a local football landscape where Burscough might naturally recruit.

    Those who flourished at Burscough tended to be strikers, such as Michael Yates (who went to Dundee in the Scottish Premier League), Ryan Lowe (Shrewsbury Town), Robbie Talbot (Morecambe) and Lee McEvilly (Rochdale).

    go-deeper

    Cassidy, however, never really got going. One player thinks he arrived carrying a back injury. Had he been more established at the club, maybe he would have been sent to a specialist but he believes Burscough did not have the means to treat him.

    After one training session, Cassidy seemed to disappear for a while. His absence was never explained. Though he returned to the squad, his stay at the club was ultimately brief. Even though he did play, some team-mates needed to be reminded of the data to prove it — he barely made an impression.

    Elsewhere, Carragher and Owen were now Champions League players, having won their first trophies at Liverpool, lifting the League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup (today’s Europa League) in the 2000-01 season. Cassidy, however, faded out of sight and mind.


    Michael Owen with the 2000-01 FA Cup (Tony Marshall/EMPICS via Getty Images)

    It is thought Cassidy turned to the building trade, where he worked with his father.

    When he was arrested in 2020, a month after his brother Jonathan was apprehended after landing at Manchester Airport following a flight from Dubai, officers found an encrypted telephone with an Estonian SIM card in a search of his property.

    On EncroChat, where drug deals were arranged with traffickers in the Netherlands who had connections to cocaine cartels from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, it was established by investigators that his user name was Nuclear Dog.

    In April 2020, another EncroChat user going by Whisky Wasp engaged a contact by sending a photograph of his television screen. He was on Netflix, watching El Chapo, a dramatised TV series about a Mexican drug lord. Whisky Wasp joked that they shared the same birthday. He was, in fact, Jonathan Cassidy.

    Judge Dove would later describe the comparison as a “stupid exaggeration”, albeit “one not so far from the truth to be fanciful”.

    According to the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Jonathan was the “leading” figure behind a cocaine import operation that delivered quantities of the drug on an “industrial” scale.

    On Wednesday, it was revealed that, between March and April 2020, the Cassidy brothers were using EncroChat almost every day.

    After Jonathan brokered agreements with suppliers in the Netherlands, Jamie “acted on direction” in his “operational role”, ensuring the drugs made their way around the north of England. From there, a third man, Nasar Ahmed, who was sitting beside the Cassidys’ in the dock today, dealt with the money. On at least one occasion, an exchange was made using a reusable bag from the Asda supermarket chain.

    It was revealed that when one of Jonathan’s couriers was stopped by police as he met a supplier, “it did not dent his enthusiasm for the next deal”, and the following day, he went to work on EncroChat again.

    When a consignment arrived in England, Jamie, as Nuclear Dog, sent his brother a list of clients and their shares. He was, in effect, the book-keeper in the operation. Subsequent correspondence suggests the pair considered using another encrypted device offered by the Sky organisation at the end of the April, but any change of direction at that point would have been too late to avoid the authorities.

    On June 13, an administrator at EncroChat told users that the company’s domain had been seized by a “government entity” and that the service could no longer guarantee security. That entity turned out to be the French intelligence services.

    On the same evening, online records showed investigators that Ahmed searched for Emirates airline flights to the United Arab Emirates. He was arrested in Bury, in the north of Greater Manchester, the following morning.

    On July 8, Jonathan used his iPad to read an article about Mark Fitzgibbon, a Liverpool fugitive who had been arrested in Portugal following 16 years on the run. He also read stories on the Manchester Evening News’ website about police operations in the city.

    That evening, he drove to Manchester Airport and flew to Dubai, where he told an estate agent that he had a budget of £2.3million to spend on a villa, which was later furnished with a bed costing £22,000.

    By the end of the September, he searched the internet again, this time for his brother’s name, after he had briefly left the United Kingdom. Investigators established that he was trying to find out whether Jamie had been arrested.

    It seemed the pair were in the clear but, the following month, Jonathan was arrested on arrival at Manchester Airport after returning from Dubai, telling officers that he “did not know what they were talking about”.

    Jamie was arrested a month later. His defence tried to argue that he was the first of the three men to admit his part, yet this admission only came only after a long battle to try to prove the EncroChat evidence as inadmissible.

    The smashing of EncroChat has ultimately helped the National Crime Agency carry out “the UK’s biggest law enforcement operation”, one which has since “dismantled entire organised crime groups”, leading to 746 arrests and the seizure of £54million in cash and more than two tonnes of drugs.

    On remand, Cassidy was described by prison officers as a “positive role model for his peers”. In the three years since his arrest, he had taken on a role for the Samaritans and one letter partly read out in court heard how he had “listened to others in crisis, helping prevent callers from taking their own lives”.

    Amid the prison population, he lived with drug users, coming to understand the impact of his decisions as a dealer. He admitted to being “ashamed” of what he had done and, in sentencing, the judge removed two years from Cassidy’s term due to his “redemptive behaviour”.

    Cassidy will, in time, have the chance to rebuild his life, but for those who remember him from his early days, there is just regret at how a special talent was derailed.

    (Top photo: Liverpool celebrate winning the 1996 FA Youth Cup, with Jamie Cassidy circled; Aubrey Washington/EMPICS via Getty Images)

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  • Forest handed four-point deduction for breaching Premier League’s financial rules

    Forest handed four-point deduction for breaching Premier League’s financial rules

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    Nottingham Forest have been handed a four-point deduction following a breach of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSRs).

    Forest were referred to an independent commission in January after the club reported losses that exceeded the allowed amount over the three-year reporting cycle ending in the 2022-23 season.

    Under the guidelines, they could have been fined or deducted points for the breach, and their four-point deduction now drops them to 18th in the Premier League.

    The new Premier League table

    They are the second Premier League team this season to be deducted points following a PSR breach after Everton had 10 points docked in November. This was later reduced to six points following a three-day appeal. Everton could face a second points deduction this season after they were charged alongside Forest with another breach of PSR rules in January.

    Forest now have seven days to notify whether they intend to appeal against the sanction. The Premier League itself can also appeal the decision, which was made by the independent commission, in order to increase the penalty. That will be decided by the league’s board, in consultation with its legal team.

    The Premier League has pencilled in May 24 as a backstop date for any appeal which comes after the end of the season on May 19. This date comes ahead of the league’s annual general meeting.

    What did the Premier League say?

    A statement read: “An independent commission has applied an immediate four-point deduction to Nottingham Forest FC for a breach of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSRs) for the period ending season 2022/23.

    “Nottingham Forest was referred to an independent commission on January 15, following an admission by the club that it had breached the relevant PSR threshold of £61million by £34.5m.

    “The threshold was lower than £105m as the club spent two seasons of the assessment period in the EFL Championship. The case was heard in accordance with new Premier League Rules, which provide an expedited timetable for PSR cases to be resolved in the same season the complaint is issued.

    “The independent commission determined the sanction following a two-day hearing this month, at which the club had the opportunity to detail a range of mitigating factors.

    “The commission found that the club had demonstrated ‘exceptional cooperation’ in its dealings with the Premier League throughout the process.”

    GO DEEPER

    The season of asterisks – PSR rulings have created a PL campaign like no other

    What did Forest say?

    A club statement read: “Nottingham Forest is extremely disappointed with the decision of the commission to impose a sanction on the club of four points, to be applied with immediate effect.”

    “We were extremely dismayed by the tone and content of the Premier League’s submissions before the commission,” it added. “After months of engagement with the Premier League, and exceptional cooperation throughout, this was unexpected and has harmed the trust and confidence we had in the Premier League.”

    The club also called the Premier League’s initial starting point for a sanction of eight points as “utterly disproportionate” and pointed to a number of “unique circumstances” involved and the mitigation they put forward.

    They also said the commission’s decision “raises issues of concern for all aspirant clubs” and that the rationale that clubs should only invest after they have realised a profit on their player development “destroys mobility in the football pyramid” and will lead to “the stagnation of our national game.”

    “We believe that the high levels of cooperation the club has shown during this process, and which are confirmed and recorded in the commission’s decision, were not reciprocated by the Premier League,” the statement added.

    How did we get here?

    Forest were referred to the commission by the Premier League in January for the alleged breach, which concerns the PSR calculation for the three-year reporting period ending with the 2022-23 season.

    Forest stated they would “continue to cooperate fully with the Premier League on this matter and are confident of a speedy and fair resolution”.

    Forest have signed more than 40 players since securing promotion in May 2022, with owner Evangelos Marinakis sanctioning a transfer spend of around £250m ($318m) to help the club establish themselves in the top flight.

    Forest believed they had worked within the regulations when it came to the allowable losses with a lot of the issue centring around Brennan Johnson’s sale to Tottenham Hotspur.


    Johnson’s sale to Tottenham was key to Forest’s argument (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

    The club’s argument — which they have made in conversations with the Premier League — was that they could have sold Johnson earlier in the window but doing so at that point would have meant accepting a markedly lower price. His sale did not go through until September 1, well after the financial year ended, for £47.5m.

    New guidelines aimed at fast-tracking PSR decisions have been introduced to ensure any basic breaches of the regulations are dealt with in time for punishments, such as points deductions, to be levied in the same season as the charge is brought.

    All clubs had to submit their accounts for 2022-23 by December 31 — rather than in March as they had previously — with any breaches and subsequent charges confirmed 14 days later.

    What are profitability and sustainability rules?

    All Premier League clubs are assessed for their adherence to the competition’s profitability and sustainability rules each year.

    Their compliance with said rules is assessed by reference to the club’s PSR calculation, which is the aggregate of its adjusted earnings before tax for the relevant assessment period.

    Under the PSR, clubs are allowed to lose a maximum of £105m over three seasons (or £35m a season) but certain costs can be deducted, such as investment in youth development, infrastructure, community and women’s football.

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    There were also specific allowances relating to COVID and, to help clubs, the league combined the two pandemic-hit seasons into one, turning the three-year accounting period into four years.

    Forest’s permitted losses are lower than the £105m limit because the club were in the Football League during a portion of the accounting period. Their top figure instead amounts to £61m, which breaks down as £13m for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons when they were in the Championship, plus £35m for last season, their first back in the top flight.

    Have there been any other cases like this?

    Forest are just the third club to face action like this, following Everton’s two separate breaches and subsequent points deduction this season, while Manchester City were hit with more than 100 charges last February.

    The outcome of City’s case has not yet been communicated, with The Athletic reporting that a verdict — which would be subject to appeal — likely to take considerable time to be reached.

    Last year, Chelsea’s new owners self-reported incomplete financial information related to transactions that took place during the stewardship of the previous owner, Roman Abramovich, between 2012 and 2019.

    abramovich-chelsea


    Transactions made under Abramovich are still under investigation (Paul Gilham/Getty Images)

    European governing body UEFA fined them €10m for the historical breach in July while the Premier League and English FA are continuing to investigate.

    There have been several precedents in the English Football League in recent years, but a punishment relating to breaches of PSR in the top tier of English football was unprecedented before Everton.

    In fact, on only two other occasions has a club been handed a points penalty in Premier League history.

    Middlesbrough were docked three points for failing to fulfil a fixture in the 1996-97 season while Portsmouth were hit with a nine-point penalty in January of the 2009-10 campaign after going into administration.

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    ‘Frustration and disappointment for Forest’

    Analysis by Nottingham Forest correspondent Paul Taylor

    There is frustration and disappointment at Nottingham Forest, as they find themselves plunged into the Premier League relegation zone by a four point deduction for breaching profit and sustainability regulations.

    And, over the weekend, the suggestion from within the club was that four points was the level of punishment at which they would consider making an appeal. They have 14 days to lodge that appeal, so they do have time to digest the verdict, before rushing into a decision. But it is likely that they will.

    The fact that it drops them into the bottom three, will rub a little additional salt into the wound.

    Nottingham Forest’s run in

    Team Date Home/away

    March 30

    Home

    April 2

    Home

    April 8

    Away

    April 13

    Home

    April 20

    Away

    April 27

    Home

    May 4

    Away

    May 11

    Home

    May 19

    Away

    As will the fact that, throughout the process, Forest feel as though they have gone out of their way to work with the Premier League — to accept that they have breached regulations, but to explain what they believe were mitigating circumstances — largely surrounding the sale of Brennan Johnson, late in the window.

    But, amid the frustration — at a time when Forest have felt hard done by over a number of controversial refereeing decisions —  there will also be an understanding that the punishment might have been more severe.

    And, even amid the possibility of an appeal, Forest at least now know what they are facing, as they look to secure a third season of top flight football, under Nuno Espirito Santo.

    (Top photo: Jon Hobley/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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    The New York Times

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