Football Thought Bubble

On Monday, the 27th of August 2019, I was a guest on the High Wide and Handsome Football Index Podcast. Give it a listen here Thanks

Written by Diarmuid Gillingham Inspired by DW Kick-Off and my friend, who supports Barcelona. Part One: Why The American Question Needs To Be Asked Part Two: How The MLS Approach Would Impact The European Game of Football Introduction and Context This will be the first of many blog posts comparing the European football scene with that of the USA.  While Europen societies are better known for their equality than the USA, the American way of doing sports is often more equal than their European counterparts. This fascinating cultural fact extends to the world's most popular game, which is football or soccer. In this first piece, I make a comparison between the European game and the MLS. This piece will mainly focus on why the European game is so one-sided towards the big clubs. On the 16th of August 2019, I watched Barcelona struggle in a 1-0 opening day defeat to Ath. Bilbao. What caught my attention more than anything was my friend's constant complaining about the Ba...

When Manchester City signed Bernardo Silva, their fans had much reason to be excited about the £43 million arrival. The Portuguese was just off the back of a season with AS Monaco in which he scored 8 goals and assisted 11 in Ligue 1 in France. While playing against Manchester City in the Champions League during the 2017/2018 season, Silva playing both on the right and the number 10 in Manchester and Monaco. On both nights, he may not have caught the attention of many City fans having no shots on target or assists to his name. Players such as Benjamin Mendy and Kylian Mbappe would have understandably caught the eye. However, despite this, the Portuguese International made an impression on City manager Pep Guardiola who brought the player to Manchester just a few months later. The player came to England with little fanfare but has slowly become one of their, if not the most crucial player for the blue side of Manchester. Here are some statistics to show why the two-time Premier League w...

The Football Index is a UK-licensed and regulated gambling platform. The platform which was started in 2015 has grown a lot since the opening weeks. The platform allows users to buy stocks in footballers from leagues such as the Bundesliga, the Premier League, La Liga and many more. Users are essentially betting on the value of a player's value rising. Users can buy and sell players on the Football Index website and app. Player prices change like other stocks depending on their demand. Here is a breakdown of all the key terms to get you started: Top 200: These are the 200 players that currently cost the most on the index. The 200 most expensive players on the Index the previous day can win users both media and match day dividends per share. Squad Players: All other players on the index. These players can't win media dividends at the time of writing. But there is talk that this might change in the future. Live Rankings: An area where users can see what players top bot...

Part One here :  Posted First here :  Leading on from what we read at in part 1, which you can find  here  In part two I will examine the effects of population on the standard of club and national football in a country as well as examining the correlation between economic prosperity and success on the football pitch. Finally, both part 1 and 2 will be summed up in a few conclusions at the end. But first of all, the effect of foreign players in leading national leagues will be examined.    Effect % Of Foreign Players In Leading National Leagues.   With the recent success of both Spanish clubs and in particular the national team it should come as no surprise that out of Europe’s top 5 leagues, La Liga has the fewest % of foreign players at 42.8%. While England and Italy whose national teams have struggled in recent times have the highest % of players playing in their top leagues at 69.2% and 55.5%. Surprisingly 49.2% of players in t...

Part Two Here : First Posted: Feb 5th 2018 Here In recent years UEFA has tried to increase the importance of international football. Such measures include the spreading out of European championship qualification fixtures over a week period rather than just a couple of days and more recently the introduction of the Nations League. The Nations League aims to decrease the number of meaningless friendly games as well as reduce the number of one-sided matches often shared between nations. Except for fans from smaller countries, who are keen to see big names such as Harry Kane, or   Antoine Greizman, nobody benefits from seeing a nation like England or France beating San Marino 7-0. The Nation League aims to pit countries of similar standings against each other, by putting them into small groups. On top of this, these groups will have promotion and relegation and can be used as a way for nations to qualify for the next European Championships. Football fans can now look forward to se...

This essay was written as part of final year studies at University College Cork.  Class: EC 3119 Capital Markets and Asset Valuation  Grade: 1st Class Honours  Originally posted on my other blog on 10th of May 2019 here --------------------------------------------------------- Introduction of the Company  Manchester United plc, together with its subsidiaries are the owners of Manchester United Football Club which is located in the United Kingdom. In 2017 the franchise was and still is one of the world’s most recognisable sporting entities, making it one of the world’s highest-earning sports teams. In fact, the franchise ranked as the 3rd highest valued sporting franchise behind the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees in the world across all sports. (Forbes 2017) This makes the club which was founded in 1878 under the name Newton Heath the most valuable sports franchise outside of the United States of America as well as the most commerc...