Money, FCB, LFC, BRFC, RFC, tax, tennis & more: The most read pieces in 2012
By Sportingintelligence
31 December 2012
From everyone at Sportingintelligence to every who has taken time to visit the site and read any single piece we've produced in 2012, thank you.
Wishing you all a healthy and prosperous, and robustly opinionated new year, here are the stories on this website most read in the past 12 months.
Top 20 stories
1: REVEALED: The world’s best paid teams, Man City close in on Barca and Real Madrid (1 May 2012)
2: REVEALED: Barcelona No1 for producing players for clubs in Europe’s elite leagues (13 December 2012)
3: REVEALED: New leaked Blackburn letter lays bare crisis and torment inside Ewood (8 May 2012)
4: Brendan Rodgers inherits … the most trophy-laden club in English football history (31 May 2012)
5: EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United and Real Madrid top global shirt sale charts (8 October 2012)
6: EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool give blogger written apology for ‘inappropriate’ director behaviour (30 October 2012)
7: REVEALED: The letter that exposes the history of Blackburn’s crisis (15 January 2012)
8: Where the money went: Premier League prize and TV payments for 2011-12 (15 May 2012)
9: EXCLUSIVE: Man City won 2011-12 injury league, Man Utd bottom (28 May 2012)
10: Revealed: Facebook role in Blackburn transfers as fans prepare for government meeting (11 June 2012)
11: REVEALED: the best and worst owners in English football (13 December 2012)
12: Premier League TV rights Q&A, including where the money goes and what next (19 June 2012)
13: Football titles world league: Rangers top, but who is most dominant? (14 February 2012)
14: EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool confirm departure of communications director Jen Chang (16 November 2012)
15: ‘Being: Liverpool’ – an intriguing tale of transatlantic sporting disconnect (11 September 2012)
16: EXCLUSIVE: Djokovic, Nadal, Federer – as close to perfection as tennis has ever been (13 February 2012)
17: RANGERS CRISIS: Mystery deepens over Whyte links to former jailbird associate (15 February 2012)
18: EUROPE’S best young footballers: 50 ‘under-21s’ making waves in ‘big five’ leagues (23 January 2012)
19: REVEALED: the £39.6m in unpaid football taxes (and that’s only part of it) (25 March 2012)
20: REVEALED: The art of winning a major tournament penalty shootout (21 May 2012)
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Top 10 columns / analysis
1: The sacking of football managers as an exact science: who got it right and wrong (Tom Markham, 23 April 2012)
2: London 2012: Beware billions bollocks. Ceremony to be huge TV hit, but not that huge (Nick Harris, 26 July 2012)
3: Tell me why … nobody seems to care whether what they read is true? (Ian Herbert, 3 December 2012)
4: ‘The only people who propose a sensible, long-term vision for Portsmouth football club are its supporters, local business and the local authority’ (Micah Hall, 26 August 2012)
5: In memory of Khalil Dale: my gentle, compassionate, tolerant friend. RIP. (NH. 29 April 2012)
6: Lionel Messi’s 234 goals for Barcelona: a complete statistical analysis (NH. 21 March 2012)
7: Tennis players underpaid? Why Djokovic beats Barca and Kvitova is Manchester United (NH. 9 January 2012)
8: Tell me why … I won’t get any substantive answers to these 13 questions for 2013 (Ian Herbert. 31 December 2012)
9: ‘She makes £2 a day from begging. She is a Paralympian and embodies why the Paralympics matter’ (NH. 9 September 2012)
10: You want clinical? Buy Berbatov, Fletch or Odemwingie (and NOT Chamakh) (Dan Kennett. 5 January 2012)