How to Fix Modern Football


Book Description

"A manifesto to cure modern football's cornucopia of ills." - i paper Shortlisted for Sports Entertainment Book of the Year in the Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2021 "As a player and pundit I've seen and experienced plenty of the good, the bad and the ugly. And let's get face facts - there is still plenty of the bad and ugly. Our game can be so much better, and in this book I'll tell you just how." In his trademark tell-it-like-it-is style, Chris sets his sights on 25 aspects of the modern game that need fixing. From ridiculous rules and feckless agents to dreaded VAR and abusive fans, no subject is out of bounds. Discover which managers Sutton slams for giving bland post-match interviews, which clubs are fleecing their fans and why he believes Messi and Ronaldo aren't as good as Best and Maradona. In You're Better Than That! Sutton also reveals who has bagged a spot in his top 10 lists - from the best-value players and most entertaining teams, to the most underrated players and best FA Cup moments. A former top-level pro player with a 16-year, trophy-laden career behind him, Chris knows the game from the inside out. Now observing from the commentator's perch, his perspective is shot through with experience, passion and occasionally a little anger. Sutton is a man on a mission, determined to get under the skin of the game he loves and to call out exactly what's going wrong.




How to Fix Modern Football


Book Description

"A manifesto to cure modern football's cornucopia of ills." - i paper Shortlisted for Sports Entertainment Book of the Year in the Telegraph Sports Book Awards 2021 "As a player and pundit I've seen and experienced plenty of the good, the bad and the ugly. And let's get face facts - there is still plenty of the bad and ugly. Our game can be so much better, and in this book I'll tell you just how." In his trademark tell-it-like-it-is style, Chris sets his sights on 25 aspects of the modern game that need fixing. From ridiculous rules and feckless agents to dreaded VAR and abusive fans, no subject is out of bounds. Discover which managers Sutton slams for giving bland post-match interviews, which clubs are fleecing their fans and why he believes Messi and Ronaldo aren't as good as Best and Maradona. In You're Better Than That! Sutton also reveals who has bagged a spot in his top 10 lists - from the best-value players and most entertaining teams, to the most underrated players and best FA Cup moments. A former top-level pro player with a 16-year, trophy-laden career behind him, Chris knows the game from the inside out. Now observing from the commentator's perch, his perspective is shot through with experience, passion and occasionally a little anger. Sutton is a man on a mission, determined to get under the skin of the game he loves and to call out exactly what's going wrong.




The Insider's Guide to Match-fixing in Football


Book Description

A WAVE OF MATCH-FIXING THREATENS THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR SPORT. There are dozens of national police investigations; hundreds of matches from top international games to the Champions League to youth teams have been fixed and over one thousand players, coaches and referees have been arrested. This new form of sports corruption will destroy football, unless we fight it. TO FIGHT IT, WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IT. 'The Insider's Guide to Match-Fixing in Football' is an analysis of the motivations, the mechanisms and the methods within this modern form of fixing. Hill was the first person to break the story of the new form of football fixing when he infiltrated an Asian match-fixing gang in 'The Fix' - now he returns with a book that is 'Freakonomics meets Football Corruption'. "Only Declan Hill could write a book with this level of academic rigor and foundation of investigative journalism. I expect Dr. Hill's new book to be the seminal work in the sports corruption space and I have adopted it for use in my PhD seminar on forensic sports law analytics." - Ryan M. Rodenberg, JD/PhD, Florida State University "Declan Hill has broken new ground academically, imparting much-needed order and clarity to the murky world of global match-fixing. This is an important book for anyone who cares about the integrity of sport, and it's an indispensable book for those involved in sports analytics" - Marc Carinci, Managing Director, Sports Gambling Data Services "Tenacious, factual and with an unrivalled understanding of the current threat being posed to the integrity of sport, Declan Hill consistently challenges those who stand idly by." - Senator Cecilia Keaveney, Former Head of the Council of Europe's Task Force on Match-Fixing "Declan Hill's new book is an absolute must-read for every thinking fan of the beautiful game on the planet. Being part of Declan's team preparing the book I know how much effort and research Declan invested in it. Declan's passion for our game, professional courage and expertise pours from every page." - Steven Powell, Director of Policy, Football Supporters' Federation "A new book from one of the best investigative writers on the subject of match and spot fixing in football. The challenge to the integrity of sport from sporting fraud is growing exponentially. This new book documents that cancerous expansion. The author is a renowned expert who focuses on football with the precision of a laser beam. A must read!" - Professor Richard McLaren, Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada "The Insider's Guide to Match-Fixing in Football is an education for scholars and students of organized crime and a wake-up call for sports administrators. Rigorously researched but accessibly written, this book makes sense of match fixing in straightforward, rational terms. Such confirms Declan Hill as both master storyteller and global authority on the corruption threatening the beautiful game. Not to be missed." - James A. Densley, PhD, author of How Gangs Work: An Ethnography of Youth Violence




The Fix is in


Book Description

Factual accounts expose how professional sports manipulate the outcomes of games for TV ratings and profits.




The Fix


Book Description

The Fix is the most explosive story of sports corruption in a generation. Intriguing, riveting, and compelling, it tells the story of an investigative journalist who sets out to examine the world of match-fixing in professional soccer. From the Introduction Understand how gambling fixers work to corrupt a soccer game and you will understand how they move into a basketball league, a cricket tournament, or a tennis match (all places, by the way, that criminal fixers have moved into). My views on soccer have changed. I still love the Saturday-morning game between amateurs: the camaraderie and the fresh smell of grass. But the professional game leaves me cold. I hope you will understand why after reading the book. I think you may never look at sport in the same way again.




Goose


Book Description

A hugely popular and beloved football commentator and former player with the Indianapolis Colts and the Baltimore Ravens, Tony Siragusa offers his uncensored insider's look at the NFL and his hilarious take on life off the gridiron. The New York Times called him a "modern-day John Madden." Tony Soprano called him "Frankie Cortese." His teammates called him "Goose." Whatever you call him, Tony Siragusa is larger than life in every possible sense, from his personality to his physique to his colorful career, hilarious stories, and bombastic take on life. Goose is the book that Siragusa's fans have been clamoring for, to hear more from the Super Bowl champ-turned-commentator-turned-actor, who has brought his unmistakable style and intense love for life to every endeavor. In a memoir that is guaranteed to make you laugh, cheer, shake your head, laugh some more, and then think seriously, Siragusa offers stories, life lessons, and perspective gained from his unbelievable collection of experiences. He also offers a no-holds-barred look at the NFL, with locker room stories and surprising glimpses at the way things are done when the cameras (or the refs) aren't looking. His narratives range from hilarious anecdotes about his New Jersey childhood and wild college days, to behind-the-scenes glimpses at some of the greatest players in football history, to Goose's opinions about the current state of the NFL. And he shares them all with his signature love for life and uncensored insight.




Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0


Book Description

Renowned NFL analysts' tips to make football more accessible, colorful, and compelling than ever before More and more football fans are watching the NFL each week, but many of them don't know exactly what they should be watching. What does the offense's formation tell you about the play that's about to be run? When a quarterback throws a pass toward the sideline and the wide receiver cuts inside, which player is to blame? Why does a defensive end look like a Hall of Famer one week and a candidate for the practice squad the next? These questions and more are addressed in Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0, a book that takes readers deep inside the perpetual chess match between offense and defense. This book provides clear and simple explanations to the intricacies and nuances that affect the outcomes of every NFL game. This updated edition contains recent innovations from the 2015 NFL season.




Three and Out


Book Description

"Like the Moneyball of college football, Three and Out blows the lid off one of the sports world's most perplexing mysteries."—Entertainment Weekly Three and Out tells the story of how college football's most influential coach took over the nation's most successful program, only to produce three of the worst seasons in the histories of both Rich Rodriguez and the University of Michigan. Shortly after his controversial move from West Virginia, where he had just taken his alma mater to the #1 ranking for the first time in school history, Coach Rich Rodriguez granted author and journalist John U. Bacon unrestricted access to Michigan's program. Bacon saw it all, from the meals and the meetings, to the practices and the games, to the sidelines and the locker rooms. Nothing and no one was off limits. John U. Bacon's Three and Out is the definitive account of a football marriage seemingly made in heaven that broke up after just three years, and lifts the lid on the best and the worst of college football.




Fourth Down and Inches


Book Description

When the 1905 football season ended, nineteen players were dead and countless others were critically injured. The public was outraged. The game had reached a make-or-break moment—fourth down and inches. Coaches, players, fans, and even the president of the United States had one last chance: change football or leave the field. Football's defenders managed to move the chains. Rule changes and reforms after 1905 saved the game and cleared the way for it to become America's most popular sport. But they didn't fix everything. Today, football faces a new injury crisis as dire as 1905's. With increased awareness about brain injury, reported concussions are on the rise among football players. But experts fear concussions may only be the tip of the iceberg. The injuries are almost invisible, but the stakes couldn't be higher: the brains of millions of young football players across the country. Award-winning author Carla Killough McClafferty takes readers on a bone-crunching journey from football's origins to the latest research on concussion and traumatic brain injuries in the sport. Fourth Down and Inches features exclusive photography and interviews with scientists, players, and the families of athletes who have literally given everything to the game. It's fourth and inches. Can football save itself again?




League of Denial


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The story of how the NFL, over a period of nearly two decades, denied and sought to cover up mounting evidence of the connection between football and brain damage “League of Denial may turn out to be the most influential sports-related book of our time.”—The Boston Globe “Professional football players do not sustain frequent repetitive blows to the brain on a regular basis.” So concluded the National Football League in a December 2005 scientific paper on concussions in America’s most popular sport. That judgment, implausible even to a casual fan, also contradicted the opinion of a growing cadre of neuroscientists who worked in vain to convince the NFL that it was facing a deadly new scourge: a chronic brain disease that was driving an alarming number of players—including some of the all-time greats—to madness. In League of Denial, award-winning ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru tell the story of a public health crisis that emerged from the playing fields of our twenty-first-century pastime. Everyone knows that football is violent and dangerous. But what the players who built the NFL into a $10 billion industry didn’t know—and what the league sought to shield from them—is that no amount of padding could protect the human brain from the force generated by modern football, that the very essence of the game could be exposing these players to brain damage. In a fast-paced narrative that moves between the NFL trenches, America’s research labs, and the boardrooms where the NFL went to war against science, League of Denial examines how the league used its power and resources to attack independent scientists and elevate its own flawed research—a campaign with echoes of Big Tobacco’s fight to deny the connection between smoking and lung cancer. It chronicles the tragic fates of players like Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, who was so disturbed at the time of his death he fantasized about shooting NFL executives, and former San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose diseased brain became the target of an unseemly scientific battle between researchers and the NFL. Based on exclusive interviews, previously undisclosed documents, and private emails, this is the story of what the NFL knew and when it knew it—questions at the heart of a crisis that threatens football, from the highest levels all the way down to Pop Warner.