Mihir Bose's Blog, page 23
May 20, 2016
Mihir to speak at Loughborough’s Hall of Fame Induction ceremony Sunday 22 May
Mihir will be one of the speakers at the annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony at Loughborough University on Sunday 22nd May. The Hall of Fame celebrates the outstanding achievements of athletes and coaches who have made a significant contribution to sport beyond Loughborough and this year’s inductees are Carl Johnson (Performance Coach, athletics) and […]
April 15, 2016
West Ham deal exposes the moral vacuum at the heart of UK politics
Inside World Football
The great gift the London Legacy Development Corporation, chaired by Boris Johnson, has given West Ham football club is the sort of gift that makes the money that David Cameron’s mother gave him to help avoid inheritance tax look like chicken feed. It also exposes the fact that when it comes to the national game not only are our political masters grossly unfair, favouring some clubs while penalising the vast majority, but there is also a huge question of whether football has lost its moral compass.
The details of the deal finally revealed, due to the exemplary tenacity of football fans, should come as no surprise. Many of us suspected it, Barry Hearn has for more than two years been shouting from the rooftops that Hammers got amazing sweeteners and, in recent months, there have been media disclosures. Even then the details now confirmed take the breath away.
The great gift the London Legacy Development Corporation, chaired by Boris Johnson, has given West Ham football club is the sort of gift that makes the money that David Cameron’s mother gave him to help avoid inheritance tax look like chicken feed. It also exposes the fact that when it comes to the national game not only are our political masters grossly unfair, favouring some clubs while penalising the vast majority, but there is also a huge question of whether football has lost its moral compass.
The details of the deal finally revealed, due to the exemplary tenacity of football fans, should come as no surprise. Many of us suspected it, Barry Hearn has for more than two years been shouting from the rooftops that Hammers got amazing sweeteners and, in recent months, there have been media disclosures. Even then the details now confirmed take the breath away.
March 30, 2016
Discrimination is always a battle about power
London Loves Business
Vladimir Lenin’s great dictum “who, whom” was never better illustrated than in the last month in two different sports, tennis and racing. The founder of the Soviet Union’s phrase, “the whole question is who will overtake whom”, has always been understood to mean who will have power. Back in 1921 Lenin was talking about the class struggle, with sport now it is the struggle for women to have the right to be treated as the equal of men.
Raymond Moore, the now disgraced former chief executive of the Indian Wells tennis tournament, clearly feels that women in tennis should not. As he put it, “In my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA, because they ride on the coat-tails of the men. They are very, very lucky. If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have.”
Vladimir Lenin’s great dictum “who, whom” was never better illustrated than in the last month in two different sports, tennis and racing. The founder of the Soviet Union’s phrase, “the whole question is who will overtake whom”, has always been understood to mean who will have power. Back in 1921 Lenin was talking about the class struggle, with sport now it is the struggle for women to have the right to be treated as the equal of men.
Raymond Moore, the now disgraced former chief executive of the Indian Wells tennis tournament, clearly feels that women in tennis should not. As he put it, “In my next life when I come back I want to be someone in the WTA, because they ride on the coat-tails of the men. They are very, very lucky. If I was a lady player, I’d go down every night on my knees and thank God that Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal were born, because they have carried this sport. They really have.”
March 14, 2016
Paul Nicholls: I would dearly love, more than anything else, to train another Gold Cup winner
London Evening Standard
Paul Nicholls is aware Cheltenham could decide whether he claims his 10th champion jump trainers’ title.
Nicholls’s winnings of £1.64million this season leave him £466,000 ahead of his nearest rival, Philip Hobbs, but the man the Somerset trainer fears most is Willie Mullins.
The Irishman has never won the title and is 17th in the table, £1.2m adrift of the leader.
However, there is £4.1m on offer at this week’s Festival and Nicholls is sure a significant slice of that will be heading to Mullins, who claimed a record eight wins last year to be crowned Cheltenham champion trainer.
Paul Nicholls is aware Cheltenham could decide whether he claims his 10th champion jump trainers’ title.
Nicholls’s winnings of £1.64million this season leave him £466,000 ahead of his nearest rival, Philip Hobbs, but the man the Somerset trainer fears most is Willie Mullins.
The Irishman has never won the title and is 17th in the table, £1.2m adrift of the leader.
However, there is £4.1m on offer at this week’s Festival and Nicholls is sure a significant slice of that will be heading to Mullins, who claimed a record eight wins last year to be crowned Cheltenham champion trainer.
March 11, 2016
Victoria Pendleton: Olympic champion remains defiant ahead of her Cheltenham Festival debut
London Evening Standard
Victoria Pendleton’s decision to ride Pacha Du Polder in the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham next Friday has been dismissed as a prize-winning PR stunt.
A year ago the double Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist had never been on a horse, apart from a couple of ponies she rode as a child. Then Betfair, who are not sponsors of Cheltenham, bought the horse, assembled a panel of experts including champion trainer Paul Nicholls, and offered Pendleton a rumoured £200,000.
Betfair has been so successful in publicising the race under the catch phrase Switching Saddles that more has been said about the novice jockey than jump racing’s biggest festival of the year.
When we meet, Pendleton insists that her motivation was not money, nor PR, but a fresh challenge after putting away the bike following the London Olympics four years ago and an appearance in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing the same year.
Victoria Pendleton’s decision to ride Pacha Du Polder in the Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham next Friday has been dismissed as a prize-winning PR stunt.
A year ago the double Olympic gold medal-winning cyclist had never been on a horse, apart from a couple of ponies she rode as a child. Then Betfair, who are not sponsors of Cheltenham, bought the horse, assembled a panel of experts including champion trainer Paul Nicholls, and offered Pendleton a rumoured £200,000.
Betfair has been so successful in publicising the race under the catch phrase Switching Saddles that more has been said about the novice jockey than jump racing’s biggest festival of the year.
When we meet, Pendleton insists that her motivation was not money, nor PR, but a fresh challenge after putting away the bike following the London Olympics four years ago and an appearance in the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing the same year.
February 26, 2016
Could FIFA do with a Donald Trump?
London Loves Business
FIFA’s presidential candidates are a bland bunch. They should be calling for revolutionary change, argues Mihir Bose
Imagine an election which has some of the elements of the US primary race but is in many ways more bottled up than the election of board of directors of a well-run company.
That is exactly what the election for the FIFA President to succeed Sepp Blatter is turning out to be. I have spent the last two days in Zurich and this city of bankers has never seen anything like this.
FIFA Congresses have always been football’s equivalent of the barons of the medieval age meeting for a joust. The 209 member countries that make up FIFA herd together under the various continental confederations. Each of the confederations have their own hotels dotted round the main conference centre, their flags fly outside the hotels, and the atmosphere is very much like the barons pitching tents round the jousting field.
FIFA’s presidential candidates are a bland bunch. They should be calling for revolutionary change, argues Mihir Bose
Imagine an election which has some of the elements of the US primary race but is in many ways more bottled up than the election of board of directors of a well-run company.
That is exactly what the election for the FIFA President to succeed Sepp Blatter is turning out to be. I have spent the last two days in Zurich and this city of bankers has never seen anything like this.
FIFA Congresses have always been football’s equivalent of the barons of the medieval age meeting for a joust. The 209 member countries that make up FIFA herd together under the various continental confederations. Each of the confederations have their own hotels dotted round the main conference centre, their flags fly outside the hotels, and the atmosphere is very much like the barons pitching tents round the jousting field.
February 25, 2016
Fifa elections: Limos but no parties as world football picks new chief
London Evening Standard
The first thing greeting passengers arriving at Zurich airport is a sign reading “Fifa Congress: Limousine Service”.
When I ask one of the two young ladies holding up the placard who is entitled to ride in the limos she tells me they are reserved for the high officials who run world football.
The US Justice Department may have charged high Fifa officials with racketeering, and even Zurich taxi drivers talk of its bosses as “mafiosi”, but the hierarchy is entitled to the perks of office. Yet the corruption scandal that has engulfed the organisation means that for many in it the landscape has changed. The mood is so subdued it is hard to believe Fifa is even in town.
The first thing greeting passengers arriving at Zurich airport is a sign reading “Fifa Congress: Limousine Service”.
When I ask one of the two young ladies holding up the placard who is entitled to ride in the limos she tells me they are reserved for the high officials who run world football.
The US Justice Department may have charged high Fifa officials with racketeering, and even Zurich taxi drivers talk of its bosses as “mafiosi”, but the hierarchy is entitled to the perks of office. Yet the corruption scandal that has engulfed the organisation means that for many in it the landscape has changed. The mood is so subdued it is hard to believe Fifa is even in town.
February 22, 2016
Star diver hails return of Euro aquatic contest to London
London Evening Standard
with BENEDICT MOORE-BRIDGER
The European Aquatic Championships are returning to London for the first time since 1938, a period when Adolf Hitler was trying to use sport to prove the superiority of the Aryan race.
Helping promote the competition in May is former diver Edna Child, who won a bronze in the three-metre springboard event that year.
While the forthcoming championships — billed as the biggest sporting extravaganza in the capital since the 2012 Olympics — will be at Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre, Ms Child, 94, competed at the old Wembley pool, which she toured recently.
The Romford grandmother said: “Starting in the 1936 Olympics, Hitler was suddenly promoting the master race theory. We heard at that time what was happening in Germany. He sent a team for the European championships with a lot of men and two women.
with BENEDICT MOORE-BRIDGER
The European Aquatic Championships are returning to London for the first time since 1938, a period when Adolf Hitler was trying to use sport to prove the superiority of the Aryan race.
Helping promote the competition in May is former diver Edna Child, who won a bronze in the three-metre springboard event that year.
While the forthcoming championships — billed as the biggest sporting extravaganza in the capital since the 2012 Olympics — will be at Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre, Ms Child, 94, competed at the old Wembley pool, which she toured recently.
The Romford grandmother said: “Starting in the 1936 Olympics, Hitler was suddenly promoting the master race theory. We heard at that time what was happening in Germany. He sent a team for the European championships with a lot of men and two women.
February 15, 2016
Clubs should treat fans not as customers but investors
Inside World Football
The sorry Liverpool saga about season ticket prices, increasing prices, fans walking out, then price rise rescinded, has once again raised the question of what is the place of fans in modern football.
The moment the question is asked the answer comes there can be no football without fans. But this is as much a cliché as taking each game at a time and the various other sound bites football managers and chairmen come up with.
The fact is the role of fans has changed since football became a business and neither clubs nor fans have really appreciated that.
The sorry Liverpool saga about season ticket prices, increasing prices, fans walking out, then price rise rescinded, has once again raised the question of what is the place of fans in modern football.
The moment the question is asked the answer comes there can be no football without fans. But this is as much a cliché as taking each game at a time and the various other sound bites football managers and chairmen come up with.
The fact is the role of fans has changed since football became a business and neither clubs nor fans have really appreciated that.
February 4, 2016
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