Like most Australians, I will be staying up late to watch our country play in the FIFA World Cup. But I will also be watching the other World Cup. We’re being bombarded by pre-publicity for the Football…
FIFA suggests that 270 million people are involved in playing or officiating football around the world, with billions also tuning into the World Cup every four years.
EPA/Sebastiao Moreira
In 1863, the newly formed English Football Association (FA) drew up and published the first Laws of the Game of football. The aim was to provide a set of universal rules to govern the various forms of…
On the eve of the World Cup, football seems bigger and more dominant than ever. It’s the world’s richest, most watched and most played sport. The summer Olympics is the only sporting event able to match…
The heroics of South Korea’s national football team in the 2002 World Cup, which it co-hosted with Japan, energised the country and restored its national pride.
Damien Gabrielson
The host nations of major sporting tournaments like the football World Cup are usually obsessed with the international status and prestige that comes with holding these events. However, the impact that…
FIFA, led by president Sepp Blatter, is under fire once more for its decision to award hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup to the Gulf nation of Qatar.
EPA/Atef Safadi
Qatar did not win the right to host football’s World Cup in 2022 legitimately. That was impossible. Awarding the World Cup to Qatar was clearly not about passion for the game, nor about offering communities…
Similar protests to those that rocked Brazil during 2013 will no doubt re-appear during the World Cup, as many locals aim to increase their social and political rights.
EPA/Marcelo Sayao
During last year’s Confederations Cup football tournament in Brazil, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the country’s streets to demand change. Protests that started with a clear opposition…
Will Essendon players face sanction if it is proven that they took banned substances during the 2012 AFL season?
AAP/Joe Castro
Speculation continues to mount that Essendon Football Club players will face sanctions from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) over the club’s controversial 2011-12 supplements program…
Australian sport has been in a so-called ‘crisis’ since 2013, but what is the best way address it?
AAP/Lukas Coch
The “crisis” in Australian sport in 2013 prompted calls for change to rebuild integrity and public trust. But while beefing up policing and instituting harsher penalties seems to be a natural reaction…
Worrying about doing well in a competitive situation may lead to poorer physical performance, new research shows. Some 18…
Despite the increasing prominence of women’s sport, the number of women in leadership positions in professional sport is still low. Why?
AAP/Joe Castro
Recently, it was reported that the AFL, the Australian Sports Commission and the Richmond Football Club have jointly funded research to “investigate the real and perceived blocks to women reaching the…
Chris Paul and Blake Griffin of the LA Clippers.
EPA/John Mabanglo
In a scandal that has rocked the American sporting world, David Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, was caught on tape excoriating his girlfriend for associating with black people…
The cases of Donald Sterling in the US and Dani Alves in Spain serve to emphasise that sport – and society – still has work to do to combat racism.
EPA/Paul Buck
Two recent instances of sports-related racial abuse have seen athletes take strong, united stands against the scourge of racism. While the cases of Donald Sterling in the US and Dani Alves in Spain are…
AFL fans are being turned off by tactics based on tackling and crowding to deny stars space to display their skills.
AAP/David Crosling
Is Australian football, the “people’s game” in its traditional motto, under threat? Will it remain Australia’s number one sport in its bicentenary year 2058? Or will the AFL’s greedy ticket pricing and…
Chelsea could soon be champions of England and Europe, but they may end up with nothing.
EPA
There is a scene during the film Pulp Fiction in which Vincent Vega (John Travolta) recounts his experiences of eating at McDonalds in France to his fellow partner in crime, Jules Winnfield (Samuel L Jackson…
The signs did not augur well for David Moyes. He began his career as the Chosen One, anointed by no less a person than Sir Alex Ferguson, the most successful manager in Manchester United’s history. Very…
Was McKinnon’s spinal injury a freak accident?
AAP Image/Action Photographics, Brett Crockford
After Newcastle forward Alex McKinnon’s neck was broken in a lifting tackle in March, some commentators and parents have questioned whether rugby is just too dangerous for children, amateurs – and even…
It’s easy to make the game safer without significantly altering the collision aspect that makes rugby so attractive.
AAP Image/David Crosling
The legendary American Football coach Vince Lombardi once said “Football is not a contact sport, it’s a collision sport – dancing is a contact sport”. This is equally applicable to the various codes of…
Rio prepares to prevent a ‘World Cup of Terror’
EPA/Antonio Lacerda
What we anticipated might happen in Sochi, in the end did not. Following bomb attacks in the Russian city of Volgograd a couple of months prior to the Winter Olympic Games, several governments issued grave…