Mihir Bose's Blog, page 50

Why is Sky suddenly on the back foot?

The Premier League season is barely a week old and results for all the hoopla hardly count. But off the field we already have the makings of a fascinating duel between BT and Sky, both of whom have the rights to broadcast live matches. Now on the face of it this is the biggest mismatch ever.

Sky has the rights to most of the matches, it has built its entire broadcasting structure on the back of the Premier League and played a huge role in making the League what it is today. The Premier League, at least in this country, is synonymous with Sky. And, of course, back in 1992 its success in winning the rights was crucial to the very survival of the broadcaster. Since then it has seen off any number of competitors including ITV Digital and ESPN.

Alastair Cook exclusive: ‘Players should not walk if umpire gets it wrong’

England are on the verge of making history. Defeat Australia at The Kia Oval this week and it will be the first time they have won four Tests at home in an Ashes series.

But even if Alastair Cook’s men succeed, it will not be the only thing this summer’s contest will be remembered for.

At home: Simon Walker, head of the Institute of Directors

When Simon Walker, director-general of the Institute of Directors, first saw his west London home in 1994 it was a ruin. Nevertheless, both he and his then eight-year-old son fell in love with it. “My son,” he recalls, “went back home and said to my wife, ‘I’ve just seen the house we’re going to buy’. He loved it because there’s a tree in the back garden and he thought he could spend all his time climbing it.”

Walker had no such ambitions. What attracted him most to the property was the setting, overlooking Brook Green and its tennis courts. “It makes the house open. The light is fantastic,” he says, “and living on a green means there are no houses on the other side of the road, it automatically doubles the parking places.”

Watch out for the long game that Greg Dyke is playing

Greg Dyke has never been afraid to take on the big battalions. His fights with Rupert Murdoch first over the rights to televise the newly formed Premier League and then over Sky's attempt to buy Manchester United are legendary. And, as has been well recorded, he famously took on Tony Blair, and particularly his PR guru Alistair Campbell, over the dossier about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. This ultimately cost him his BBC job but the way he waged that war showed his lust for battle.

However his decision to take on the Premier League and come down firmly in favour of Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup in winter seems on the face of it surprising. After all Dyke played a huge part in helping create the Premier League. Also it is widely accepted that as the new head of the FA he needs to build workable relations with the Premier League if the English national team is once again to taste success. There is no point in having the most powerful and successful league in the world if the national team evokes pity rather than wonder.

Qatar 2022 discussion

Catch me in a recent voice of Russia discussion talking about the situation surrounding Qatar 2022 on their website below:

http://ruvr.co.uk/panel_discussions/

Joe Kinnear does not interfere. There is no crossover

You would expect Alan Pardew to be reticent about Joe Kinnear’s return to St James’ Park as director of football. If the appointment in itself was not astounding enough, Kinnear’s mangling of the names of some of the Newcastle players turned it into a Monty Python sketch.

Pardew will not tell me if Mike Ashley warned him of Kinnear’s arrival during the close season. All he says is: “He alluded to me he was going to bring in a football director. I’m the football manager of Newcastle, which is owned by Mike Ashley. It was Mike’s decision and I abide by that.”

The debt we owe Luis Suarez

There may not be many people who feel kindly towards Luis Suarez at this moment, apart that is from his mum. Yet this whole unedifying Suarez transfer saga may well help us understand and, even possibly, get a workable buy out clause in future contracts. And that can only be for the good of the game.

Now transfer talk invariably involves coded language where words acquire a wholly different meaning. So the player who seeks to move - and this also applies to managers in the same position - will wax eloquently as to how they want the club they are seeking to leave to show "ambition". The supporters invariably interpret this to mean the club's board must buy players that will help their club win trophies. Or, if the club is in the Premier League, at least get into the top four and qualify for the Champions League.

Keith Mills ‘We want Bale to stay but if he’s desperate to go we can’t force him to play for us’

Tottenham director Sir Keith Mills accepts that the club cannot stop Gareth Bale from making his dream move to Real Madrid.

The 63-year-old has just been awarded a second knighthood — a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire — for helping to win London the 2012 Games and then organising them.

Darren Campbell: There’s been a sea of change

Darren Campbell is certain Britain’s team in Moscow for the World Athletics Championships next week will be the most confident track and field squad ever to leave these shores. The reason, he says, is: “Our sense of inferiority towards the Americans has gone. Now no British athlete is scared of them. There has been a sea change.

“I used to stand on the starting line against the Americans and they’d talk of getting out of the ghetto and how they had made it. You would hear all this American talk and you’d be afraid.

Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley: I can learn a lot from cricket, so I’m going to meet Andrew Strauss

Towards the end of our ­conversation Paul McGinley asks me a question I was not anticipating. “Who, in recent years, has been England’s best cricket captain?”

When I say Andrew Strauss, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain replies: “I’m meeting him soon.” He then makes it clear this is not for a social round of golf but that he plans to pick the brains of the man who took England to No1 in Test cricket and won back-to-back Ashes.