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Andrew Warshaw: The Sack Race is on but are there really any winners?

It’s a familiar jibe at almost every game whenever a manager is under pressure to save his job. “Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning,” goes the refrain, belted out with gusto by fans of the opposing team as they taunt the manager in question.

The chant has become part of the fabric of the game in English football and it is around this time of year – in other words close to the mid-season transfer window –

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Been watching the Club World Cup in Morocco?

No I thought not.

It’s taken seriously in South America, where it feels like a Champions League final to them, a chance for the Copa Libertadores winners to topple the best from Europe.

And it occasionally makes its mark elsewhere. I still remember waking to the news that Zico’s Flamengo had humiliated Liverpool 3-0 in the annual Intercontinental game in Tokyo in 1981. I thought my team were indestructible before that.

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David Owen: ‘Don’t play it again, Sepp’: Casablanca’s coup should not distract from the Club World Cup’s shortcomings

Congratulations to Raja Casablanca, whose 3-1 win over Ronaldinho’s Atletico Mineiro in Marrakech on Wednesday has earned them a match-up with Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich in the final of the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup.

The Moroccan side will be following a trail blazed by the magnificently-named Tout Puissant Mazembe Englebert, from the Congolese mining capital of Lubumbashi, who in 2010 became the first African team to contest a Club World Cup final,

Massimo Cecchini

Massimo Cecchini: Tears and recriminations over who is really going to pay in Italy

Le prime lacrime stanno già spuntando da occhi generalmente asciutti e abituati a sguardi ruvidi. Non siamo ancora arrivati a quella sorta di tassa sul lusso partorita dalla Francia del presidente Hollande, ma l’emendamento alla Legge di Stabilità presentato da Stefania Covello e Antonio Castricone, deputati del Partito Democratico, ha messo già in fibrillazione il calcio italiano.

La norma – a cui la Commissione Bilancio ha già dato il via libera col parere positivo del governo –

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: What Adidas’s row with Sports Direct tells us about the direction for sport

JD Sports Adidas

“In one way the constant battling was very good because what it did was make them very competitive. Horst and his family were all very aggressive and all very successful.” Former Horst Dassler aide Patrick Nally, as quoted by Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simson, The Lords of the Rings.

As the president of Adidas, Horst Dassler was until his death in 1987 arguably the most powerful man in sport.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Can Qatar learn from South Africa?

Nelson Mandela, as we have been told endlessly in the last few days, belongs to the world. So it was no surprise to arrive at the Doha Goals Forum last week to see that pictures of Nelson Mandela were festooned all over Aspire Academy, the multi purpose sports and conference venue where the forum was being held. Even had this not been the week when the eyes of the world were glued to Mandela’s funeral a forum such as Doha Goals,

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David Owen: Homage to Catalonia

Can politics (though I hesitate to use the word) ‘succeed’ where football has failed?

I raise the question in the context of a referendum on independence that the President of Catalonia, the region around Barcelona, seems keen to hold in November 2014, less than two months after a similar vote in Scotland.

For the moment, it is far from sure this Catalonian referendum will even take place, or be seen as legally binding,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Helicopter crash fireman is not the only hero at Scottish Club

The last person who would ever think of Scottish footballer Frank McKeown as a hero is Frank McKeown.

But to people around him…

He didn’t ask for the spotlight to be on him, but despite his humility, his story needs telling. And the support of everyone around him at one of the world’s oldest football clubs, Stranraer FC, deserves the widest recognition possible.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Time to overhaul football’s betting relationship

IWFplbettingpartners copy

“First half. Last 10 minutes. Hundred per cent.” Former footballer Sam Sodje appears to promise a yellow card to order.

Betting has a tradition of accompanying football in England in the same way custard goes with English puddings. It just adds a bit of flavour to the proceedings. It is a guilty pleasure, nothing more. No harm done. Gambling is so much a part of the football culture in England that when last week the national-team manager,

Andrew Warshaw: The greatest betrayal of all

Next time you go and watch your local team and you see a totally unnecessary foul or an unexplained provocation leading to a red or yellow card, it might not be because of a rush of blood to the head by the player involved.

Likewise next time you see a crazy penalty or some other ridiculous refereeing decision, it might not be because of genuine if irritating human error.

Massimo Cecchini

Massimo Cecchini: Juventus, children, and bad habits

Sembrava un’iniziativa astuta, ma tutto sommato assai bella. Peccato che – parlando di calcio italiano – sia finita nel modo consueto: tra le polemiche. Ci riferiamo al caso scoppiato dopo che la Juventus aveva aperto gratuitamente le proprie curve a circa 12.000 bambini in occasione del match casalingo contro l’Udinese giocato il primo dicembre.

Inutile dire che a svuotare due settori sempre pieni c’era voluto il giudice sportivo, visto che gli ultrà bianconeri (già recidivi) avevano pensato di continuare le loro squallide performance rivolgendo ai tifosi del Napoli insulti che avevano il sapore della <discriminazione territoriale>,

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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,

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.

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,

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: What’s an African performance worth?

Arsene Wenger is, clearly, not a fan of individual awards for players, such as the FIFA Ballon d’Or, for the reason that the “endorsement of an individual goes against the essence of our sport”, which is about team effort.

“I fight like a mad man against the award, which hurts football… the player is prompted to favour individual performance over that of the team,” he argued during his appearance on Telefoot, a programme on French television.