By Pete Wilson 10 October 2010 All 20 managers in the Premier League have delivered messages backing England’s bid to stage to the 2018 World Cup ahead of the forthcoming visit by Fifa’s president Sepp Blatter to No10 Downing Street to meet Prime Minister David Cameron. The 20 managers comprise five Englishmen, four Scots, three […]

By  Nick Harris 8 October 2010 Manchester United made a record operating profit of £100.8m in 2009-10 but today posted overall losses of £83.64m (£79.63m loss on ordinary activities before taxation). The balance sheet is below. The turning of impressive profits into losses that will rattle many United fans can be explained through interest payments […]

8 October 2010 . The latest legal opinion on the Liverpool situation . . . (Earlier opinions here) . John Schorah, Commercial Director at law firm Weightmans LLP (profile) “It isn’t that often that the sole shareholders of a business that isn’t technically in administration are forced to have their stakes sold without them being […]

By Brian Sears 8 October 2010 The international break highlights the multinational nature of the Premier League, with players from every continent bar Antarctica now playing in England’s elite division. There are hundreds of them, most of them full internationals. (Scroll down for table). Sportingintelligence research of league games played so far in the 2010-11 […]

By Brian Sears and Nick Harris 8 October 2010 The Premier League remains global football’s major melting pot, and research by sportingintelligence into the make-up us this season’s teams so far only emphasises the point. Among the players involved in games so far in the 2010-11 season, there have been full internationals representing 60 different […]

By Nick Harris 8 October 2010 Earlier this year William Sichel, Britain’s foremost ultra marathon runner, became the first British man to complete a “non-stop” 1,000-mile running race in 19 years. He finished second in the event in question (taster report here) and the English-born resident of the Orkney islands, just turned 57, has now set […]

By Nick Harris 8 October 2010 Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations won’t wipe out the tradition of benefactor involvement in football. They will merely lead to bans from European competition for clubs whose owners want to spend lots of their own money building up those clubs. Those who want to spend freely can do so, […]

By Nick Harris 8 October 2010 Manchester City will struggle to avoid being banned from Europe by Uefa from 2013 onwards because of £250m already spent on transfers that still needs to be “processed” in their accounts in the next five years. Uefa has confirmed that City will not able to accelerate the “writing off” […]

By Alex Miller at the Leaders in Football Conference, London 7 October 2010 Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy today revealed his delight at the probability of his old club moving towards new ownership. “The club is going through turmoil, but it looks like the situation will be sorted soon. Liverpool being a force makes the […]

By Alex Miller at the Leaders in Football Conference, London 7 October 2010 Dr Rogan Taylor, the University of Liverpool academic who founded the ‘Share Liverpool’ scheme in 2008 to raise cash for a fan-led buyout at Anfield, has told sportingintelligence today that the potential new owners of the club, New England Sports Ventures, must […]