* 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 […]

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 considers the implications of a […]

* By Nick Harris 9 February 2010 * The enthusiastic feedback to the publication yesterday of sportingintelligence’s updated list of most popular domestic (professional) sports leagues in the world has prompted us to look at the absolutely extraordinary numbers of fans who watch college football in the USA. (See graphic at bottom). The NFL average […]

. Football will thrive if the purist’s desire for a meritocracy is wedded with a business approach that heeds the principles of economics, argues Oscar Howie, who contends that Uefa’s Financial Fair Play is a step in the right direction – and that Fernando Torres (left) can’t be value for money. .. . . By […]

* By Nick Harris 31 January 2011 . Chelsea have this evening announced their latest massive financial losses, £70.9m for the year to June 2010. This year’s comical headline on the official announcement was ‘Chelsea becomes cash positive’, above an article about Chelsea’s confidence at meeting Uefa’s financial fair play criteria. Here is a summary […]

* 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, Paul Gaff and Andrew Nixon […]

* . 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 considers the […]

By Nick Harris 20 January 2011 A special series about the new Indian owners of Blackburn Rovers is running on sportingintelligence this week. The main feature is at the link in the last sentence. This is one of several sets of related photographs, annotated. Here are some shots of posters that adorn the walls on one of […]

By Nick Harris 17 January 2011 Blackburn Rovers became the first Premier League club to be owned by an Indian company when Venky’s, part of the poultry conglomerate the VH Group, finalised their takeover in November. The Rao family – brothers Venkatesh and Balaji, and their sister Anuradha Desai – have been accused of knowing […]

ALEXANDRA WILLIS is the former Deputy Editor of ACE Tennis Magazine, and alongside mag work and an affair with social media, has the honour of sitting in on a few tennis tournaments from time to time as part of her professional duties. If you happen to bump into her court-side, she’ll probably tell you that she […]