By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 12 April 2011 Rivaldo, the former World and European Footballer of the Year who was part of Brazil’s World Cup-winning team of 2002, has spoken in detail for the first time, to sportingintelligence, about his ill-fated two-year spell with the Uzbekistan club, FC Bunyodkor – […]

By Joel Oberstone 11 January 2016 We are terribly spoiled, having the two greatest footballers of the modern era playing at the same time in the same league. As fans this allows us to marvel at the immense talents of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the only two genuine contenders to Pele and Maradona for […]

. Another football transfer window has just shut and again the most commonly traded global commodity has been the Brazilian player. Official data shows players with Brazilian nationality were involved in 1,493 transfers in the calendar year of 2014 (more than any other nation) and they moved clubs for a collective total of $468m (the […]

By Nick Harris 9 September 2013 When the summer 2013 transfer window closed a week ago, the 20 clubs of the Premier League had collectively spent £631,369,000 buying or hiring new players on a permanent basis, not including any players on loan or youth contracts. Sportingintelligence has assessed each club’s total spend and net spend […]

  By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 21 January 2013 The number of non-native players in the football leagues of Europe has climbed to record levels, with 36.1 per cent of all players being ‘foreign’ in the leagues in which they play, according to research released today. The CIES Football Observatory […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 5 February 2011 England’s Premier League is, by far, the nation’s most successful sporting export, watched live each week in more than 200 countries, and earning from foreign TV rights alone £1.437bn for the current three-year overseas deals (or £479m a year) as reported by sportingintelligence last […]

  By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 18 December 2011 The former vice-president of Barcelona has revealed how the club’s previous shirt deal with UNICEF was a ‘strategic decision’ underpinned by a desire for long-term profit rather than any altruism implied by the Spanish giants’ ‘More than a club’ motto. Ferran […]

  * JORGE VASCONCELOS follows the Premier League from Santos in Brazil, where he lives a couple of miles from the Estadio Urbano Caldeira – the footballing home of Pele between 1956 and 1974. Like every Brazilian, he’d claim to know what constitutes a beautiful game. And in his debut article for Sportingintelligence, he explains how […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 28 March 2011 . Neymar is 19 and hails from Pele’s old club Santos, and Lucas is 18 and plays for Sao Paulo, whose alumni include Kaka. Both shone against Scotland at the Emirates on Sunday and when – not if – they come to Europe, […]

By Pete Wilson 18 October 2010 Eduardo has been speaking at The Emirates Stadium this evening about his return to the venue as a player with Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League, just a few months after leaving Arsenal. The Croatian international striker from Brazil was sold to the Ukrainian Premier League team to make […]