By Sportingintelligence 17 May 2011 France have won the right to stage the 2018 Ryder Cup, seeing off challenges from rival bids from Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal. France’s campaign had a number of high-profile supporters from sports away from golf, including Manchester City’s Patrick Vieira, who outlined France’s Ryder Cup case to sportingintelligence […]

By Sportingintelligence 16 May 2011 An English team will play in the Europa League next season through Uefa’s Fair Play scheme, with Fulham in pole position because Blackpool’s record has been marred by Ian Holloway’s constant chatter at the fourth official during matches. Uefa have awarded three places into the qualifying rounds of the 2011-12 […]

. By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 15 May 2011 Manchester United’s point at Blackburn yesterday earned them a 19th English league title. In the run-up to the game, I interviewed Rio Ferdinand in Manchester for a feature (linked here) and another story (third item in the column linked here) in today’s […]

By Brian Sears 13 May 2001 Liverpool may be about to go 18-19 behind Manchester United in the tally of top level English football titles but their recent revival has put hope in the hearts of their fans. History says this should endure through the weekend because on Sunday they welcome to Anfield one of […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 12 May 2011 Rio Ferdinand is closing in on a new Twitter landmark of one million followers, a milestone that will cement the Manchester United centre-half’s place as the most popular English footballer on the micro-blogging network. The 32-year-old England international is also the most […]

By Brian Sears 11 May 2011 For the 25th season, 12 clubs have made it through to the play-offs in the three divisions of the English Football League – and most attention will inevitably fall on the four teams chasing the £100m jackpot of entry to the Premier League. Swansea have the best play-off pedigree among […]

* THE SPORTS LAWYER is actually a posse of Britain’s brightest lawyers, from the Sport & Media team at the UK law firm, Thomas Eggar, who will be contributing features, analysis and insight on a regular basis on the key sports law issues of the day. In TSL’s latest column, Andrew Nixon discusses the alleged […]

By Nick Harris SJA Internet Sports Writer of the Year 9 May 2011 Fanciful predictions said two billion people would watch the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton live on TV around the world – and around 300m actually did, according to preliminary findings of research by sportingintelligence into the real global audience. That […]

By Brian Sears 6 May 2011 These are w-w-w-worrying times for West Ham, Wolves and Wigan, who occupy the bottom three places in the Premier League before this weekend’s games, if not for West Brom under Woy, sorry Roy, Hodgson, who has lifted his team to safety. Woy’s boys could even storm into the top […]

By Brian Sears 6 May 2011 If Manchester United are to be crowed Premier League champions again, it will be down to their superb Old Trafford form. Never have they relied so heavily on their home form as the top table of the two below demonstrates. Wins over Chelsea and Blackpool would bring their total […]