When David Cameron – an Aston Villa supporter – stated his team was West Ham, it represented much more than just an innocent gaffe
Tag: politics
Half-eaten dinners littered the floor of houses sheared in half. Pages from children’s bedtime story books fluttered hauntingly in the wind. On 19 April 2002, amidst the soft lunar landscape of the West…
Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Commander Andrés Urrego was to remember that distant afternoon when he and his unit had played football with a severed head. That distant…
Ché Guevara stares down at you. Eyes stencilled in charcoal, hair dripping wet paint, his lips part to reveal a speech-bubble. “We come from Bab Jedid, the Kasbah and Sangherine,” the message…
BEFORE FORMER SPANISH NATIONAL TEAM COACH LUIS ARAGONÉS noticed that his team could pass the ball faster than any player could run with or without it, Spain were far from a source…
When Egypt beat Tanzania 2-0 in June to qualify for the 2017 African Cup of Nations, it confirmed their first appearance at the tournament after failing to qualify for the last three…
The boy has wisdom beyond his years. “You learn more about yourself in the tough times than you do in the good times,” says James McClean. Less a boy now at 27-years-old,…
When Nchimunya Mweetwa rests his head on his pillow in the moment that he is about to drift into sleep, he sees two versions of himself in his mind. The first one…
Brazil’s fortunes are fading. Since 2014 the economy of the world’s fifth most populous nation has been faltering, leaving millions unemployed, inflation rates soaring and GDP shrinking at unprecedented rates. This economic…
This feature is part of The Tsars of Football THERE’S GREED, and then there’s Vitaliy Mutko. When the Russian Duma’s Audit Chamber completed a review of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver,…
Social media has become something of a breeding ground for letting the average supporter know what former football greats (and not-so-greats) are currently up to. However, somewhere mixed in with the postmen,…
Although there were still several hours left until the game would actually begin, thousands were already gathering outside Benfica’s home, the Estádio da Luz, by Eusébio’s bronze statue. There were people coming…
Vladimir Putin is already a powerful man, but as he purposefully shook hands with his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff in the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro on 13 July 2014, he…
“The state of the sport in general, my dear brother, has deteriorated since the 1990s because politics got mixed in with it,” states Mukhtar Mohammed, a sports journalist for Yemen’s Al Ayam. “Everything…
FROM HERO TO VILLAIN: it is a line written by countless sports journalists hundreds of times throughout a season. It is a heading so common that it has in many ways lost all…
For something that is essentially an expendable pastime, football can wield an extraordinary amount of influence. The temporary truce between supporters of fierce rivals Zamalek and Al Ahly helped to overthrow Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak…
In 1989, Pablo Escobar was ranked seventh by Forbes Magazine on the World’s Billionaires List. A man with immense power, wealth and a notoriously violent streak, Escobar ran the Medellín drug cartel in…
THE BAGS AROUND HIS EYES droop like a weary basset hound. Liver spots creep steadily across his brow and cheeks. Although there are still some wispy strands of silver atop his head,…