News from Play the Game

UEFA’s cash distribution from the Champions League is continuing to help the same clubs monopolise national leagues across Europe according to new research for Play the Game.

The most important battle in football this fall is not between Norway and Portugal or Barcelona and Real Madrid. It is the battle between the great powers that seek to host the World Cup in 2018 and...

A spot-fixing scandal has rocked international cricket as investigative journalists from the British newspaper, News of the World, went undercover to expose match-fixing activities on the Pakistani...

When considering the impact of ethics in sport, the mega-stadia constructed especially for the 2010 World Cup certainly is a controversial talking point. Many South Africans have expressed the...

Human rights activists in India are demanding that the 2010 Commonwealth Games are called off. Human rights violations have grown in leaps and bounds around the event, one NGO said a few days ago....

After two successful visits to Iceland and the United Kingdom, Play the Game is now returning to the European mainland. Last week an agreement was settled by which the German Sport University Cologne...

Last Sunday Ali Karimi - aka Asia's Maradona – was fired from the Tehran team Steel Azin FC for not fasting during Ramadan. Karimi is no ‘nobody’ in Iran. He is the second most merited on the...

In the buildup to the Vancouver Olympics, Canadians were shocked to learn that the IOC could legally discriminate against female ski jumpers because their contract with VANOC resided in Switzerland,...

After being found guilty of staging a coup to bring down the democratically elected government, Lang Tombong Tamba has been sentenced to death and will be replaced as NOC president.

Tamba, President...

Richard Pound, member of the IOC and the only IOC-internal critic of the Youth Olympic Games, waived the trip to Singapore, where the first Youth Olympic Games started this weekend.

In return for the all inclusive package offered to participants at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, athletes and trainers are expected to participate in all of the arranged events throughout the...

A new study entitled “Using Football for HIV/AIDS Prevention in Africa”, has found that football-based programmes aiming to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS has proved to be very successful.

The Somali National Olympic committee on Saturday disclosed that the war-ravaged country will participate in the upcoming world youth Olympic Games in Singapore, the first ever such competition for...

A.T. Kearney has recently released the EU Football Sustainability Study. The study claims that clubs in the biggest leagues in Europe have the potential to go bankrupt if nothing is done. It argues...

The disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has left its clear mark on David Cameron's visit to Washington. The biggest oil disaster of our time overshadows the war in Afghanistan and the...

The World Cup is undoubtedly over. It is time for reflection. I want to speculate on the future of the football World Cup based on this year's tournament. Will the World Cup be destroyed by political...

Greg LeMond is again speaking out against doping and Lance Armstrong, much like he did at the Play the Game Conference in 2009.

Every four years, during or after the World Cup, there is some breathless report of an "unprecedented" police raid on Asian illegal bookmaking operations. Now, yet another one is being announced in...

The party is over and the World Cup has left South Africa, and generally the reviews have been very good. FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, praised South Africa’s efforts in hosting this year’s World Cup...

The bidding processes for the World Cups 2018 and 2022 are nearing their concluding phase and in an attempt to heighten the transparency of the bidding for the event, FIFA introduced a new...