Works in progress: going to the dogs and other big draws, elite football, and conmen
Last week's schedule on Sporting Intelligence was thrown into disarray by an unexpected hospital stay. But we'll be back soon; share your story preferences.
Normal service at Sporting Intelligence was interrupted last week due to a health hiccup; having recently found out I’ll soon need a procedure to shock my heart back into a normal rhythm, I had what was possibly an entirely unrelated seizure, out of the blue, that put me in hospital for a couple of days.
This was a) somewhat surprising; and b) not conducive to a normal working week in which, as usual, there were various stories and projects on the go that might have become published pieces late last week or during this week.
I think I’m going to be okay, with various tests still pending, but I wanted to share with you some of the works in progress that I’m planning to bring you when that’s all out of the way in a week or so.
I also wanted to use this opportunity to ask you, the subscribers, paying or otherwise, for your feedback and any requests for me to look at specific subjects you think I might be able shed light or add some value when telling that story.
Feel free to suggest any subjects you want to see probed, or ask questions on any areas you know that I cover, in the comments section below.
As ever, thank you for supporting my work.
For now, here’s a flavour of some pieces in the pipeline.
Whatever happened to greyhound racing?
A friend pointed me to a story last month that greyhound racing is facing possible extinction in Scotland, with MSPs considering a ban. Welsh lawmakers have already committed to banning the sport there.
My first-hand knowledge of the subject was the occasional trip to Wimbledon dogs in the late 1990s, and a prior fascination with Ballyregan Bob, a record-breaking hound who became globally famous in 1985 and 1986 for winning the most consecutive races in history.
When I started digging into this current story, I wanted to know about the animal welfare issues around greyhounds, and there is masses of data and the sport appears to have made leaps and bounds to good practice.
I used to be shocked how certain animals in sport, not least in horse racing, were treated as mere commodity. Many people don’t know, for example, that until really recently, some 4,000 racehorses per year from Britain alone would end up in the human food chain, typically bound for Italy. Belgium or France.
Do you know what year it became mandatory - in order for a horse to race in Britain - to have it noted in their passport that they wouldn’t end up in the human food chain? Erm, that would 2022. And here’s the British Horseracing Authority announcement about that. And here is a report saying 1,000 horses were still going from the races to become meat in 2023.
Pure ethics is just one facet of what I’m looking at with greyhound racing; I’m also interested in the economics of the industry and the amount of jobs it provides, and the revenue for local venues and the exchequer. And how does that all compare to other sports?
Once upon a time, around 1946, there was a reported annual attendance of 70m people at greyhound meetings in the UK, a figure I find it hard to believe and I’m still trying to authenticate. It was certainly many millions, and these days many, many fewer.
But where does greyhound racing lie today as a magnet for spectators in British sporting culture?
Football is No1, it goes without saying, by millions of country miles, and when this piece finally lands I’ll quantify the figures for football, and for the No2 spectator sport horse racing, and for rugby (both codes), and cricket, and greyhound racing.
Suggestions welcome in the comments if you’re interested in a particular sport that you think attracts a lot more paying fans than many people would realise!
What do the six finalists of UEFA’s three club cup tournaments tell us about the state of elite club football in Spring 2025?
This year’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Internationale will be the first CL final in 21 years not to feature any club from Spain, England or Germany. The most prestigious club match in the world game will take place at the Allianz Arena in Munich on 31 May.
When José Mourinho’s Porto beat Didier Deschamps’ Monaco at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen in May 2004, it was the last time the CL final involved a club from outside Spain, England, Germany, Italy or France.
The 42 finalists since, including this year’s pair, have all come from England (15), Spain (12), Italy (7), Germany (6) or France (2). The 20 winners since 2004 have come from Spain (10), England (6), Italy (2) and Germany (2).
Sporting Intelligence had already anticipated that PSG and Inter would meet in the final of one major club competition this year, although we predicted that would be in the upcoming Club World Cup. You can read about that prediction, and how much every club will earn at that event, depending on how far they go, in this piece.
According to the OPTA Power Rankings - a system where thousands of clubs around the world are ranked against each other - PSG are currently No3 in the world and Inter are No6.
The two clubs who will contest this year’s Europa League final, Manchester United and Tottenham, are currently ranked No25 and No29. That game will be played at San Mamés Stadium in Bilbao, Spain, on 21 May.
The two clubs who will contest the UEFA Conference League final, Real Betis and Chelsea, are currently ranked No40 and No11. That game will be played at the Wrocław Stadium in Poland, on 28 May.
Ahead of those finals I’ll be analysing what these finalists signify, if anything, about trends in the elite European club game, and how these six teams in particular forged their ways to the brink of a major trophy this year, and how that contrasted to how they performed in their domestic leagues this season.
Which football clubs are asking kids to take the strain? And which have produced the cream of global talent over the past 20 years?
The CIES Football Observatory in Switzerland produced a typically interesting post this week comprising fascinating research into which clubs across 65 leagues around the world have played the largest percentage of domestic minutes this season with players aged 21 or under.
Seven teams have fielded players aged 21 or under for a majority of minutes and 12 teams have fielded that age group for 45%-plus of all minutes.
Here are those dozen teams, and a later date I want to explore particularly the extraordinary record of Lommel in the Belgian second division, where nearly 70% of minutes have been played by “kids”. Lommel is a club within the City Football Group organisation where Manchester City is the mother ship.
Eleven teams within the ‘Big 5’ top divisions of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France have fielded players aged 21 or under for 20%-plus of all domestic minutes this season, and it’s notable that two of them are CL finalists PSG and Europa League finalists Manchester United.
In a more detailed piece soon, I want to look at firstly the importance of youth in future planning; and second the vital role of player development, not least clubs around the world who have produced the most players who have ended up at clubs in the “Big 5” divisions of Europe over the past 20 years.
CIES have compiled stats on this in the report below, and I’ll be crunching those numbers to see what they mean and what anyone - not least a club owner - might learn from them.
Where are football’s most notorious conmen now?
A few years ago, I recorded two series of a podcast, ‘Football Uncovered’, and you can find the 18 episodes here and here among other places. Each episode tells the story of owners at a club, or sometimes a series of owners, and the mishaps that occurred during their time in charge, often detailing corruption that happened when they were at the helm or trying to take over.
I’ve been planning for some time to revisit the stories of some of the folk involved, not least some who have cropped up again doing dodgy things in entirely different arenas in different parts of the world, from Kenny Huang and Carson Yeung to Tony Xia, Rob Beal, GFH Capital’s main players, Massimo Cellino and umpteen crooks who converged on Portsmouth in their darkest years.
If you have a favourite crook you want me to chase up, let me know in the comments section below.
What next for Manchester United’s dream new stadium?
How exactly will the stadium discussed in this piece come to fruition?
On sports that had and lost a mass audience, in the 70s and early 80s speedway racing was one of the most popular spectator sports in the UK.
I hope your procedure goes well and that you make a full recovery! Re ideas / subjects...cycling is interesting; are performance increases a function of training, diet, equipment, drugs etc. What is the economics of team cycling - it's hard to capture gate receipts for obvious reasons but on the other hand there may be lots of eyeball passed hence sponsorship. Should teams hire super stars or build teams etc. Just some thoughts!