Monthly Archives: January 2015

Thugs should have no place in football

Posted on January 29, 2015 in the Blog, Misc category

Professional football is not just any sport- at its highest reputational level , it is a money-spinning machine , a show-room of celebrity, as well as talent, of dubious politics, and even less morality, and with enormous social impact, for better or for worse. Players and those who manage them should not be allowed to behave like thugs. Their conduct is one that not only impacts on fans in the stadium, in turn fuelling the most violent and prejuduced attitudes that they may be prone to, but also disrupts domestic …

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Nisman puts Argentina in the dock

Posted on January 20, 2015 in the Uncategorized category

The discovery of the dead body of Argentine judge Alberto Nisman in his Buenos Aires flat has justifiably refocused international attention on a country that has always seemed to inhabit its very own political hinterland somewhere between a western democracy infiltrated by the Mafia and a third world banana republic. Nisman was found dead on Sunday night in his flat on the 13th floor of a luxury tower block in the capital’s prestigious Puerto Madero district just hours away from appearing before the country’s law makers in Congress to explain …

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Barca needs a different Laporta

Posted on January 7, 2015 in the Football category

  I cannot remember when I last watched FC Barcelona play and enjoyed it. But I’ve taken to looking for old DVD’s of Ronaldinho, of Messi, of Iniesta and Xavi and Pujol, of Valdes, and Guardiola, and Johan Cruyff, in an exercise of nostalgia for those halcyon days when a team came together under a manager and a president, struck a harmonious note, and gave us pure magic-the kind of football you would remember for the rest of your life. Nostalgia is a risky business for it draws us into …

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