@FT
writer. New football podcast: Heroes and Humans - follow it at
@heroesandhumans
. My memoir of modern Paris, Impossible City, is out in the UK in April
I cannot believe it's out, after months of work, but here's our very first Heroes and Humans of Football podcast! Me with
@MehreenKhn
. It's about Kylian Mbappé: made in Paris, in an extraordinary family, about to be exported to Madrid. Please listen!
Short thread: it's quite right that the UK has sanctioned Roman Abramovich and deprived him of control of Chelsea. English football has suddenly turned against him. But: all this is just hypocrisy as long as the English game doesn't go after far more culpable club owners //
1. The fact that Manchester United are largely targeting Ten Hag's favourite players from the Dutch league (F de Jong, Timber, Lisandro Martínez + Malacia whom he considered buying for Ajax) suggests that the club doesn't have a scouting system of its own that it takes seriously
1. We say in Soccernomics: "Anyone who spends any time inside football soon discovers that just as oil is part of the oil business, stupidity is part of the football business."
Martin Jol always said "nothing in football is what it seems". What he meant was that behind the glitz, the game was a lot more amateurish than you could imagine.
What a clown show this $4.2bn Super League of the "world's greatest clubs" has turned out to be.
As a young journo in 1995 I interviewed Kate Hoey about sport. I came away quite shaken by how stupid she was. I had thought till then that that would be a bar to even modest career success
Hi
@KateHoeyMP
, thanks for the feedback. Actually, I was elected by my constituents with over 500k votes.
Imagine an elected MP campaigning on Europe, not knowing that MEPs are elected?
Eden Hazard has broken an ankle three times. Every time he gets the ball, the Portugese target his ankles, having already put Kevin De Bruyne out of the game. This was the way great players were treated before the 1990s. Such a shame
#BELPOR
Even many senior Brexiteers now understand, quietly, that Brexit failed. Lots of them will probably exit government next year and never return. One day Brexit will be the first line in their obits. So how do the guilty men and women live with that? Me
@FT
After one minute we were leading, solidly. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise German goals were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the bookmakers got it completely & historically wrong!
4. So which Premier League owners are more culpable? The Saudis at Newcastle. For 7 years now, they have been fighting a war in Yemen that's as gruesome as the war in Ukraine, albeit that the world hardly cares. That war is under control of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman
Getting rid of huge cars is just about the easiest thing we can do for the climate - and given the sevenfold increase in SUVs since 2010, pretty important. It's much easier than banning planes or cows. Me
@FT
“STOP asking me these questions. I’m not a politician!” 😳
Thomas Tuchel loses it after being asked another question related to war & Roman Abramovich 😡
#CFC
1/ Today I heard again a familiar piece of old nonsense about the French team that I want to refute: the falsehood that France imported gifted players from African countries in order to put them in the national team. Not true. All the starters in the final were born in France
6. As long as the Saudis own Newcastle, the Premier League is a shamefully compromised operation. Getting rid of Abramovich after his comfy 19-year ride in which he accomplished everything he wanted won't change that
I doubt this is being shown in the tv images but stadium was about half-empty long before the end. Mostly just Ecuadorians and the paid claque of chanting Qataris behind the goal left now. FIFA have devalued the World Cup way more than I had imagined
It's out: my interview with Arsène Wenger on everything from growing up in an Alsatian village where nobody would talk about the war, to living with workaholism, to his pain that Arsenal don't want to see him around anymore
Roger Federer and I chilled on his private plane, gorged ourselves, and reviewed his career and fatherhood. A really nice guy. Lunch with the FT: via
@financialtimes
Note the clubs that stuck with the Super League longest: Agnelli's Juve, Perez's Real Madrid + the US-owned profit-seeking quartet of Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal and Milan; Spurs and Inter also in the profit-seeking group. Oligarch-run Chelsea + Man C don't care about profits
I've just unfollowed a smart man whom I admire because he can only view the horrendous Israel-Hamas war through a one-eyed lens. In his case, everything Israel does is right. For others, Hamas is always right. I fucking despair + never want to hear from any of these people again
I got to peek behind the curtain at
@FCBarcelona
. How the club and its Innovation Hub are rethinking football - from beetroot juice to what Messi does in the first few minutes of the game to why many players won't join Barça. Also on facing the right way
2. What happens to all Ten Hag's purchases if he fails like all United managers of the past 9 years? And is it really the case that the optimum buys for one of the world's richest clubs are almost all players from 1 small league? This is no way to run a football club
1. Quick thoughts on what's happening in France, after I've been out this morning watching gilets jaunes in Paris. Purchasing power has long been a bigger problem in France than in other western countries/
Paris St-Germain isn't some fake club invented out of nothing by the Qataris. It's new (from 1970), but so are most of the suburbs of Paris, where most PSG fans live. Me
@FT
on Neymar, Mbappé, and the filling-in of the biggest hole in Europe's football map
Today
@FT
publishes the first extract from my book Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK. To understand this ruling caste - Brexit, Partygate, the distance from people who cannot afford fuel or food - you need to return to 1980s Oxford
A great Ajax team emerges every 24 years, so next time I’ll be 73 if still around. Right now I hate football. Thanks to everyone who sent kind messages
On the same day that Barcelona says Messi is leaving, my new book on the club is launched with this
@FT
extract on how their terrible transfers of the last 5 years left them with no more money to pay him. Here's the backstory to his departure
6. That's the basic weirdness of the football industry. On the field, it's pure meritocracy. There are no bad professional footballers. (I hear your jokes, but really, there aren't.) But off the field: zero quality control, many mediocrities in top jobs (including some coaches)
4/ It's fine to point out that many French players have African origins, and are proud of them. But don't say they 'are African'. They are French and feel French. Like so many people, they have mixed identities. The French far right denies their Frenchness. Don't be like that
2. Abramovich has a 'no enemies' policy and always made sure he stayed chummy with Putin, doing his bidding whenever asked. But it's wrong to imagine he's still at the heart of the Putinist elite. The oligarchs were pushed aside 20 years ago, replaced by Putin's old KGB pals
5. How close are links between Mohammed Bin Salman and Newcastle United? This is from last week's
@FT
football business conference. 'PIF' referenced here is the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which bought Newcastle in October. Sanction Abramovich, sure, but what about the Saudis?
In 1986, when I was 16, I wrote my first ever paid football articles on 2 rising young Dutch talents: Gullit + Van Basten. Now, after Holland beat France, me for
@ESPN
on Frenkie de Jong + Matthijs de Ligt
2. Related to this: a fellow football writer once told me he'd tried and failed to do business with a legendary English football institution. He said, "I can work with crooks, and I can work with stupid people. But I can't work with stupid people who think they are crooks."
3. Abramovich came by his money dishonestly, paying for political protection, but he's not a warmonger. This war is the last thing he wants - it will probably cost him most of his assets and his easy access to the west
What's also interesting is that Brexiters no longer have "If we do xyz, then Brexit will work" narratives. No sunlit uplands anymore - just whining about Remoaners and explaining why all the various PMs messed up Brexit
"Brexit checks on food imports pushed back until 2024 in fifth delay"
Latest installment in the "Brexit only works if it's not implemented" series.
(I expect it will be delayed again next year until shortly after the GE, making it Labour's problem.)
Only a photo, but I've just been sent my first sighting of my new book on Barça - for which the club threw open many of its closed doors to me. This is the UK edition, with big thanks to
@GaryLineker
for the lovely blurb. It's available for preorder now:
It's just not true that populists were brought to power mostly by unemployed factory workers. The main person behind the revolution? The comfortably-off, middle-class, suburban or small-town man. Me for
@FT
3. My argument isn't that these are bad players. They are all v good. My point is how a giant club goes about making such big choices. It was fair to 'trust the manager' in era of SAF as everyone knew he'd be around for years after making the signings. Not true at United lately
All of us columnists like to think that our own random personal experiences explain the world. But I went to Oxford in the 1980s, so mine really do. Me
@FT
on the origins of today's Tories, Brexit and the unravelling of Britain
Marcus Thuram comes out against the far-right Rassemblement National, which is closer to national power than ever before in July's legislative elections. Ousmane Dembélé hinted in this direction yesterday, saying that "the alarm bell had rung" and people should vote. Bleus vs
Marcus Thuram: "la situation en France est triste, très grave. C'est la triste réalité de notre société aujourd'hui. Il faut aller voter et surtout en tant que citoyen que ce soit vous ou moi, faire en sorte que le RN ne passe pas."
@franceinfo
We say in Soccernomics that the main reason why male football clubs don't appoint female coaches is that stupid fans, journalists, players, sponsors and directors would object
4. Related: football is an industry where practically everyone in a boardroom is a white man, so the talent pool they are drawing from is not large. There's also a fast track for ex-players, sons of senior officials, people's mates etc where intelligence is not a criterion
I was innocently writing a book about FC Barcelona, going around interviewing dozens of staffers, when suddenly the club imploded. Here's me
@FT
on how Messi became omnipotent inside Barça without really wanting to be
1. Last thoughts on Euro 2020, before I switch off. Here's the stand near me at Wembley yesterday. More people than seats, whole gangway filled with standing insurgents. The reason this bothered me: I've written about football security officials and what keeps them awake at night
I'm not an anti-BBC conspiracy theorist but here's my experience. For my book Chums, I've done loads of media interviews but zero for BBC. They haven't asked me, though did cover all my apolitical books. Now Johnson's going, I'm suddenly getting BBC requests. Their fear is gone
David Cameron's decision to go for that referendum just keeps on paying off. First he put the Europe issue to bed for good, and now he's saved the Tory Party and seen off the Farage threat
Every Norwich City player has been given a phone list of dozens of elderly club supporters, with instructions to call them for chats during confinement, goalkeeper Tim Krul tells De Telegraaf newspaper. Kudos, and an example to follow
Quick calculation: after scoring 2 so far at Valencia tonight, Messi has scored or assisted more than half of Barcelona's league goals since Jan 1. That's a crazy proportion - hardly ever equalled in football history, not even by him. See this from my forthcoming book on Barça
Amazing. French players just broke into Deschamps' press conference chanting "Didier Deschamps!", sprayed him and all the journos with water, sang, danced, and there was a "Vive l'Europe! Vive la Republique!" from Pogba
Gilets jaunes: a bit over 8,000 in Paris. Marche pour le Climat: about 25,000 in Paris. Which one will get more coverage? (Both marches were also nationwide - the climate one drew many more people across France, with some of the marchers wearing yellow vests in solidarity)
I wanted to tweet this before June is out: 25 years ago this month, my first book, Football Against the Enemy, appeared. Original cover here. Happy memories but I never want to sleep in an overnight train or a dorm room in a youth hostel again
You can say, "Many French players have African heritage, they are proud of it, it's part of who they are. They are also French, Parisians, men, humans etc." But for God's sake stop saying - whether you are racist or pan-Africanist - "France is an African team". Harmful nonsense
This is how a weak referee lets what could have been a great football match degenerate into a 1970s-style display of thuggery, with the possible loss of one of the tournament's best players
#BELPOR
Boris Johnson has now lost 7 of his first 7 commons votes, the first PM in history to do so. He takes the title away from previous record holder Boris Johnson, who lost 6 of his first 6.
5. More on the football/stupidity thread: one club president told me that ex-players who get executive jobs don't understand office work, e.g. even the basic concept of working 8-hour days. My response would be: 'So don't hire ex-players.' But fans and media love it when you do
Author with book. Chums is published today! The roots of the caste of Oxford Tories that runs the country and made Brexit. Why Britain is an Oxocracy, and how to change that. Get your copy here:
The French far-right tells a really good story about the collapse of France. There's only 1 problem with it: it's not true. Me
@FT
on how I often feel I'm the only person in the country who thinks🇫🇷 is actually doing pretty well (at least till July 7)
Excuse the very rare selfie and this will definitely not become a habit, but my first Euro final was 1988 in Munich, so a brief commemoration is in order
5. BUT let's not exaggerate the level of turmoil in France. Two weeks ago, there were more people at the (barely reported) women's march in Paris than the 8,000 gilets jaunes who demonstrated the same day
9. Conclusion: big, long-lasting problem of purchasing power, personal dislike of Macron, persistent French discontent for over a decade now. But last weekend's images of violence (which play beautifully on TV) exaggerate the level of disorder in France. No revolution
Imagine for a moment that this is you, with your kids, while thousands of children are being killed around you. The Hamas murders of October 7 are unforgivable. None of the people in this video committed them. These bombings will not undo those murders or make Israelis safe
An Israeli air strike blasted the area just outside the Latin Church in Gaza while the Christian community was praying: “Holy Mary, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
They're playing Football's Coming Home at Wembley. Memory of England-Holland 4-1 in 1996: towards the end the crowd spontaneously sang the song. From my seat I could see Frank Skinner and
@Baddiel
, who had cowritten it. They were standing up gazing around, entranced, disbelieving
Author with book - first copy I've had in my hands. Two years of work, or nearly 30 depending when you start counting. Thanks very much,
@shortbooksUK
!
I was thinking of writing a column trying to explain how the UK got this incredible generation of lazy opportunistic politicians, but I wrote it already in 2016
Big misunderstanding that clubs have been profit-driven since 1990s. In all of Europe, that's only true of Man United + maybe Arsenal. Almost all other clubs lost money. Most didn't even pursue profits. What's new with the Super League is that several owners are in it for profits
Roger Federer now has the distance to look back on his career. He talks to me
@FT
about how he never expected to become a star, how Nadal transformed him, when he peaked, Leo Messi, and his new photo-biography (published with Assouline)
For the first time ever, there's a fully functioning Anglophone country in continental Europe: The Netherlands. What happens to a country when its own language starts to die out. Me
@FT
Later when I was less naive I thought: ‘well you can get on if you’re stupid but not if you consistently get caught lying.’ Wrong again. Brexit has been an incredible learning opportunity in so many ways
3. The English FA had been complaining for decades that it never got to host a tournament even though it was supposedly brilliantly equipped to do so. Much whining every time they weren't chosen. Then the first time they get to host a tournament final, we're back in the 1970s
5. Most would have liked England to win, but they understand it's only a game. People at the coffeeshop were talking about completely different things this morning. A football tournament is like a dream, and when it ends, it leaves almost nothing behind, which is just fine
My sense at Wembley last night - when there was barely any booing of the knee - is that the players have won that battle. I never believe that football changes much in a society, but that is something
Supposedly the crowd is limited to 60,000, but in the sections next to me, there are more people than seats. Not sure how people got in. Large crowd of able-bodied people standing in the disabled section right in front of me. Not safe
#ENGITA
Spanish results illustrate a more general problem of how we cover politics. Far-right Vox and far-left Sumar are each on around 12% of the vote. Each could be a junior coalition partner - Sumar currently more likely. But which of them made headlines around the world pre-election?
There is a randomness to success - it has v little to do with talent, except in sport - but increasingly I think Anthony Powell got it right with his Widmerpool character: once you correct for high birth, success goes to the people who want it most
England will be pleased with that first half, considering the players only met for the first time this afternoon, had never trained together and didn't have time for a tactical talk before kickoff. Top tip for 2nd half: maybe someone could move off the ball?
#ENGSLO
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