1
Premier gambles
You can’t really turn on the Premier League these days and not notice a curious array of gambling company logos, The Athletic reports.
This season, eight of the 20 main Premier League shirt sponsors are gambling companies, while almost every club in the league has a partnership with at least one gambling firm, with adverts appearing around stadiums and on the boards in front of which players give pre- and post-match interviews.
Many of these companies are not the bookmakers on the corners of English high streets, but relatively obscure Asian gambling entities that have little interest in the British market - but a lot of interest in the visibility of the Premier League in their own countries, where regulations often prohibit them from directly advertising.
“What a lot of football fans won’t understand is how little interest most of these firms have in the UK market and in UK bettors,” says Alun Bowden, head of European markets at US research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. “It’s just about trying to get brand exposure in Asian markets where gambling advertising is banned or heavily restricted. It’s a game within a game, and you’re not playing.”
Credit to The Athletic for running an in-depth, insightful look on an industry that the publication itself is entwined with.
2
Divine Ponytail
Pelé (1960s), Cruyff (1970s), Maradona (1980s), Zidane (2000s), Messi/Ronaldo (2010s) - if you look at it that way, each decade has had its signature stars. The missing decade there - the 1990s - makes for a trickier call: but my sentimental vote goes to Roberto Baggio, who was arguably one penalty kick away from cementing his name more firmly on that list. “The Divine Ponytail,” a new biopic forthcoming on Netflix, had better do the Italian playmaker the justice his maverick talent deserves.
3
Just not cricket
I frequently listen to the Test Match Special podcast from the BBC, a show for anorak cricket obsessives like me. Many episodes pivot nonchalantly from covering the England men’s cricket team to its women’s team, with excellent interviews with the team on tour. This coverage has massively increased my understanding of the England women’s team, its personalities and progress.
In the world of soccer, by contrast, the Football Daily podcast (also from the BBC) does nothing of the sort. Its weekend recaps rotate entirely around the Premier League. Its first spinoff show, “The 72,” is a great deep dive into the clubs and stories below the Premier League. But, only in the men’s game.
These simple, lazy differences in media coverage have massive consequences.
In part, that’s what has inspired the launch of TOGETHXR by Alex Morgan, Simone Manuel, Sue Bird and Chloe Kim. As The New York Times explains, this isn’t simply a “Players’ Tribune” for female athletes: it’s a savvier media play going to the audience across social channels.
“Growing up I didn’t have posters of female athletes, which wasn’t because I didn’t watch sports,” Morgan said. “I just didn’t know enough about female athletes to put them on my wall and idolize them.”
4
Unacceptable
A different avenue of explanation for why we know less about some of the stars of women’s football is perhaps even more depressing: it’s an intentional, self-survival tactic in an era of ugly online abuse, as Melissa Reddy explains in her interview with England and Manchester City’s Alex Greenwood.
Greenwood is a champion of Europe and a champion of the women’s game itself. Yet, bar loose knowledge of her relationship status, there is very little revealed about the girl from Bootle turned national treasure.
That has been by design; a consequence of the toxic culture in football that fuels the sickening abuse resident on social media platforms and every other avenue going.
5
Let there be light
When I was a teenager, and cool darkness descended onto the terraces of the Goldstone Ground on a typically damp December night in Brighton, the twinkling brightness of floodlights from four corners elevated an experience that could otherwise have been quite, well, miserable. There is - unless this is some kind of elaborate joke at my expense - an entire book forthcoming about the magic of floodlights. Yes!
6
Run DMB
There’s a reason Sam Stejskal starts his story about the paucity of Black coaches in MLS with DaMarcus Beasley - if an absolute legend of American soccer can’t even get callbacks after his retirement, there is something MLS needs to address here.
“When I got out of the game a year and a couple months ago, I didn’t get callbacks. These are people I played with, some of my old coaches. Didn’t get a callback. Didn’t get any kind of feedback — no ‘OK, yes, we want to hear more about what you have to say’ or ‘No, we’re not interested.’ Nothing. It was crickets. Literally. Crickets,” he said on a recent episode of The U.S. Soccer Podcast. “I was reaching out. I’m not a guy that’s going to boast about my career or what I did, that’s not how I was raised, that’s not how I move, but I couldn’t even get an ‘OK, Beas, we’re not interested at this point, but maybe down the road.’ I couldn’t even get callbacks.”
7
Qualified
Perhaps, then, that’s why Beasley is making his own mark in the USL, investing in the start-up of Fort Wayne FC. And in the USL Championship, FC Tulsa coach Michael Nsien just made a little bit of history (h/t 2CentsFC).
Earlier this month, Nsien became the first Black man to graduate with a professional coaching license within the United States Soccer Federation.
The USSF pro license is the highest level of license a soccer coach can earn in the U.S.
A prospective coach must be coaching in a professional soccer league such as Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League, or the United Soccer League in order to qualify for the license. (FC Tulsa competes in the United Soccer League.)
Only 75 coaches have earned the license since it was created. Nsien is one of the recipients of the license for the Class of 2020.
8
Pilgrim
Amidst the wave of American investment in English clubs, Simon Hallett and Plymouth Argyle in League One makes for a unique combination. For a start, Hallett - though long a resident of the United States - was actually born in England, and supported Plymouth in his teenage years living in the city. But what’s more interesting is his deeply thoughtful approach to ownership, and seemingly unshakeable faith in committing to and investing in a long-term strategy to succeed on and off the pitch. Where many chairmen might panic when their team loses six games in a row, Hallett merely took rolling with the punches as a way to affirm - and express - a belief in committing to the structure and process set in place.
Take a listen to this fascinating interview with Hallett on the Ornstein & Chapman podcast.
9
My kind of town
Flashy new owners in the NWSL have made news for justifiable reasons: it’s pretty damn awesome that Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka are investing in the game. Less high profile but also meaningfully, the Chicago Red Stars - a club who will soon celebrate its 15th anniversary - announced a new group of locally-connected owners, many female, whose tentacles reach far and wide. And of note: in their own note about the additions, the Red Stars are careful to refer to owners as “caretakers,” a critical reminder of the role anyone involved in running a team actually has.
All are fans first, a rich tapestry of people united around a common goal that reflects the diversity and vibrancy of Chicago and appreciates the world-class excitement of competition the NWSL provides. They include former Chicago Bears defensive end Israel Idonije, Olympic gold medalist and Blackhawks development coach Kendall Coyne Schofield, Emmy and Peabody Award-winning sports journalist Sarah Spain, music executive Colleen Mares, NFL marketing leader Julie Haddon, and local entrepreneur Marie Tillman, in addition to prominent Chicago families, media executives and other distinguished businesspeople. Finally, young Chicagoans will not only be able to imagine themselves as pro athletes, but also as owners and board members deserving of a seat at the table. This group of owners, caretakers, fans and community members are all-in, making this already winning team the future of sports in Chicago.
10
Left-sided
Your gratuitous, stunning aerial football stadium pic of the week.
11
For the good of the game?
How do we tackle the cognitive dissonance of the next World Cup? The Guardian report that 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar over the past decade shocks, especially with a fair assumption that a very large number of those deaths are related to hosting the tournament. We may well watch, but with a gnawing sense about how worth it all of this is.
While death records are not categorised by occupation or place of work, it is likely many workers who have died were employed on these World Cup infrastructure projects, says Nick McGeehan, a director at FairSquare Projects, an advocacy group specialising in labour rights in the Gulf. “A very significant proportion of the migrant workers who have died since 2011 were only in the country because Qatar won the right to host the World Cup,” he said.