By Alex Miller 29 September 2010 The Football Association has told sportingintelligence that talks with interested parties to become the next chief sponsor of the England team – succeeding Nationwide – are “progressing well”. And despite a slew of lurid recent headlines surrounding the private lives of a number of England players, including strikers Wayne […]

By Brian Sears 28 September 2010 Premier League attendance levels have risen year-on-year, and if the trend at this fledging stage of the season remains constant through the campaign, crowds will hit record levels in 2010-11, according to analysis and projections by sportingintelligence. Our statistical reasoning is summarised in the table below, more of which […]

By Alexandra Willis 24 September 2010 . Serena Williams is in danger of surrendering the world No.1 ranking, after her long-awaited return to the game at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo was further delayed. Williams, who this week travelled to London for the Burberry show at London Fashion Week, has not competed since […]

By Brian Sears 24 September 2010 Four teams remain unbeaten in the Premier League after five rounds of matches and three of them are the “usual suspects” in that Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United have done it the most often of all the Premier League clubs.  But Fulham have now achieved the feat for the […]

By Nick Harris 23 September 2010 A new poll of almost 4,000 football fans has found that up to one in 12 season ticket holders are sharing their tickets with other fans to keep costs down, and within the Premier League it is Manchester United fans who are most likely to be sharing (12 per […]

By Nick Harris 22 September 2010 Kenny Huang, the New York-based Chinese businessman who showed an interest in bidding for Liverpool (historic Huang stories here) before ending his interest without explanation on 20 August, is still scheduled to appear at a major sports conference in London next month, where the media will be given the […]

By Nick Harris 22 September 2010 Liverpool’s managing director Christian Purslow has today attempted to reassure fans that the club is not in danger of administration and won’t go bust next month; that the board won’t support attempts by the owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett to stay in control; and says there are still […]

By Nick Harris 21 September 2010 David Douglas, the former high-ranking Metropolitan Police officer who investigated match-fixing allegations against the world No1 snooker player John Higgins, has spoken in detail for the first time about why he concluded Higgins never intended to fix any match. Higgins was banned earlier this month for six months, and […]

By Nick Harris 20 September 2010 The Spirit of Shankly fans group will lead a sit-in at Anfield after this weekend’s match with Sunderland to demonstrate “the growing anger and frustration towards the ongoing ownership saga” at the club. Further “direct action”, including a protest march, will take place around the following weekend’s game against […]

By Nick Harris 20 September 2010 The date of John Higgins’ return to competitive snooker will be dictated to some extent by  the health of his father, John Snr, who is suffering from cancer and whose condition will occupy the Higgins family above all else for the immediate future. In a bitter irony in the […]