🔥The 9th Round of Easy Loan, Earn $40 Reward is in progress❗️ ⏰ Promotion Period: January 15th - Feburary 15th, 2025 👉 Register now and check more details at gate.io/campaigns/358

What a dilution of the #Olympic spirit to ban the people from the spectator seats at #Beijing2022; and to invite political sidekicks and corporate élites along to fawn over the competitors and organisers.

A muddled and bizarre message here from #FIFA president #Infantino presenting World Cup expansion and money-making as a life-saving initiative for desperate migrants. theguardian.com/football/2022/…

Investigative journalist #AndrewJennings is the sole focus of a special issue of "Sport and Politics" Number 3, brilliantly edited by #JensWeinreich - a must-read for all aspiring investigative researchers, both journalists and academics. See: jensweinreich.de/eshop/

What catastrophic leader the UK #PrimeMinister has turned out to be; no surprise to many of us. How will he be remembered? Boris Johnson, Master of Lies, An Eton toff who justifies Himself above the rest. A Bullingdonian pest. May he be consigned to scoffing porky pies.

The #Guardian’s Andy Bull catalogues the supine conduct of international sport organisations that have lauded and laurelled Putin and his sidekicks over the last two decades. theguardian.com/sport/blog/202…

A readable piece here, as ever, from #Liew. I first saw #BurnleyFC at Turf Moor more than 60 years ago, when we were League champions, an earlier contender for the title of Peak Burnley; an attacking team far removed from Dyche’s dogged defensive PL model. theguardian.com/football/blog/…

What’s the real price of sporting celebrity? Bradley Wiggins reflects on his deep unhappiness at the top of his game and fame. theguardian.com/sport/2022/apr…

Immediate thoughts on the Tory transition after the new PM's underwhelming and banal address to the nation on returning from Balmoral: Could a squid ever be damper Than Liz Truss’s empty hamper? With a mind like a sieve, She has little to give. Soon be the time to just yank her.

Qatar's World Cup is certainly displaying the power of football to generate critique, mobilise protest: even the odd clerihew: Gianni Infantino. The only man who we know, Can spout hours of hooey all day and all night, Augmenting FIFA's reputational blight.

Lining up in the last 16 at the 2022 World Cup: UEFA & CONMEBOL 10 - 6 OCEANIA, CONCACAF, AFC & CAF How about a winner from somewhere other than the old power blocs of Europe and South America?

X is all news to me and given my silence since the end of Titter - good typo that, sorry I meant Twitter - I feel like a ghost mumbling in a dark graveyard. Nevertheless, it's Summer Olympics time again, with fancy festivals in the middle of the Seine, eye-catching stuff indeed.

Paris looks pretty much as it is expected to be on the eve of the day of the Opening Ceremony that launches the city’s third Summer Olympics. At the same time, Paris looks as it does on a Thursday evening of a hot July day and evening: tourists, ok food, lots of wine into the

Paris 2024: the opening This was the big pitch from Paris: give the welcome to the Olympic Games to the city, the people, out in the open, rather than squished into an ancient stadium in the unfashionable northern commune of Saint-Denis. There might be great memories up there at

Whoops, I must have been tiring when the end of the Olympic Opening Ceremony was getting closer and closer, and I attributed the brilliant rendition of "Imagine" to Céline Dion; it was in fact delivered by French singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet. Apologies for that in my last

The Olympics: a persisting contradiction The Tokyo 2021 (2020) Summer Olympics was, due to the global Covid crisis, an almost eerie event, athletes performing and competing in empty stadia lacking atmosphere and any sense of engagement with a public. Paris 2024 has revelled in

How about the final Olympic spectacle? Got the odd few Euros available at the end of the fortnight? A Paris 2024 ticket app(lication) has befriended, bedazzled or frustrated millions of sport fans and enthusiasts across the globe over the build-up months and during the period of

Olympic Legacies One of the most persistent arguments for the importance of the Olympic Games is that the event generates positive outcomes, what are projected as potentially long-lasting and embedded forms of legacy. These claims, or hopes, are incessantly reproduced by

How come people stick around for rather trivial ceremonies and rituals at the Olympic Games? There’s something intriguing about medal ceremonies at Olympic Games events. If you’ve a tight schedule on, say, athletics at the Stade de France, you can carry over a few victory

(Mis)Governing World Football? Agency and (Non)Accountability in FIFA academic.oup.com/ojls/article-a… New publication, with EA "Teddy Brett", in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. Responses welcome.

I am moving to bluesky, so if anyone is interested please have a look. alantomlinson.bsky.social