David Owen: Why the Tiger brand name may be necessary to keep Hull’s future burning bright

Tradition versus success; it is a trade-off at the heart of some of sport’s most agonising dilemmas, and it has been spotlighted again by the shenanigans at Premier League new boys Hull City.

As a Bristol City fan of some decades’ standing, I have a certain amount of sympathy with members of the City Till We Die campaign group who oppose owner Assem Allam’s idea to rebrand the club Hull Tigers.

Then again,

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Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why Nelson Mandela had a unique understanding about the power of sport

Nelson Mandela may not have been a professional sportsman but his understanding of sport surpassed that of most high profile sporting stars. Mandela knew how sport could be used for wider political and social purposes. In his long years in prison, as he closely studied his white oppressors, particularly the Afrikaners, he began to appreciate that sport in general and rugby, in particular, had an extraordinary hold on the white nation.

He also realised that since the rise of international sport in the 19th century white South Africa had used sport to drive forward its hideous racial agenda.

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Archive

Mystery Pot X gets the 2014 World Cup ball rolling

World Cup draw

By Paul Nicholson
December 6 – “There is a bit of mystery about pot X,” said FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke at the 2014 World Cup draw in Costa do Sauipe in Brazil. There was no mystery once the draw was made and the teams were allocated – the World Cup is without doubt underway.

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2014 News

2014 World Cup Draw: Floaters and sinkers, days of reckoning begin here

World Cup draw

By Andrew Warshaw
December 6 – It’s being described as the European ‘floater; and it could have major ramifications at today’s eagerly awaited World Cup draw in Brazil. Under a new formula designed to ensure an even geographical spread, before the main draw even takes place one of the nine unseeded European teams from Pot Four will be drawn at random by organisers and switched to Pot Two alongside Ecuador, Chile and the five African contenders,

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Archive

Football’s leaders pay tribute to Nelson Mandela

NelsonMandela

December 6 – As the world’s leaders unanimously paid tribute to Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday, aged 95, so the leaders of world football have added their personal tributes to a man who changed the world and whose inspiration is a driving force behind a determination to change football culture and attitudes.

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2014 News

Sao Paulo stadium finish put back to mid-April – FIFA pray, LOC keeps faith

Sao Paulo stadium

By Andrew Warshaw
December 6 – The stadium hosting the opening match of next year’s World Cup will not be ready until a mere eight weeks before the start of the tournament. Twenty-four hours after the Brazilian government promised that the Sao Paolo venue damaged when two crane workers died in a recent accident would be finished by February, FIFA president Sepp Blatter revealed that it would in fact not be completed until “April 14th or 15th”.

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Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: In Switzerland, they play football as well

Sometimes the FIFA HQ in Zurich feels more familiar than my own office with the amount of stories I’ve needed to cover there in my role as Al Jazeera Sports Correspondent. The most powerful man in that building, and indeed world football, is of course Swiss, Mr Blatter. And over in Nyon we find UEFA, that powerful continental governing body. Olympic football is run in conjunction with the IOC, based in Lausanne. As football reflects life,

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