By Nick Harris 3 March 2011 Manchester City’s Kolo Toure has failed a drugs test for a ‘specified substance’ his club have announced this evening. Depending on the ratification of the finding, he could receive a sanction ranging from a caution to a two-year ban. The length of any ban will be dependent on the […]

By Brian Sears 28 February 2011 Stoke City are on their way to surviving a third consecutive season in the Premier League. They have so far finished 12th and 11th and look on course to be 10th or thereabouts, although things are tight and a mere six points separate the bottom club Wigan (27 points) […]

By Nick Harris in Budapest 23 February 2011 David Howman, the director-general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, has today called for the establishment of a global anti-corruption agency to tackle malpractice ranging from match-fixing to institutional corruption. In a statement released at the European Union Sports Forum, which concluded today in Hungary, Howman says he […]

By Brian Sears 19 February 2011 While Everton and others are relishing the romance and the glory of FA Cup victories, Wigan are possibly not too unhappy they were knocked out the other day, meaning they can focus on their Premier League survival. And goodness how they need to focus, with an unwanted record among […]

** Based in Buenos Aires, Neil Clack is a writer who specialises in South American football. His book, ‘Animals!: Argentina versus England’ is now out in paperback. Below he describes what inspired him to write the history of this famously and famously acrimonious fixture, but starts with an extract from the book, and ‘keeper Carlos […]

By Brian Sears 17 February 2011 With the FA Cup fifth round taking centre stage in English football this weekend, it still remains possible that a record low number of Premier League teams (one) could make it to the sixth round, or a joint-record high number, namely all eight of eight quarter-finalists. For the ‘romantic’ […]

By Sportingintelligence 15 February 2011 . Match-fixing and betting-related corruption have been cited in recent years by various senior sports figures as the biggest threat to sport in the near future. Michel Platini, the head of Uefa, has said so numerous times now, including in this interview from November 2010, when he said: “To fix […]

By Pete Wilson 11 February 2011 Manchester United have become the world’s most popular team, as measured by fans on Facebook, the social networking site that has more than 600 million active users across more than 200 countries. United overtook Barcelona in the past few hours, and currently have more than 9.053m ‘fans’ against Barca’s […]

By Brian Sears 10 February 2011 The biggest gap between any two clubs in the current Premier League table is six points – that is the margin separating Tottenham in fifth place (44 points) from Liverpool in sixth (38 points). Liverpool fans will argue with some justification that their ‘natural’ place is higher, but they […]

* DAVE BOYLE is the chief executive of Supporters Direct, the organisation that works with supporters trusts at football clubs to help them buy shares and increase influence at their clubs. A former long-serving National Council Member of The Football Supporters’ Federation, he supports AFC Wimbledon. Rather marvelously, he was also the advisor on ‘football […]