Play the Game is known as “home for the homeless questions in sport”. Many of these questions are posed by journalists. The conference asked whether the drift from traditional to Internet-based platforms would make investigative journalism less healthy.

Qatar’s success in securing the rights to host the 2022 World Cup will be cheaper than fighting a war and could improve workers’ rights but may not prove successful in garnering soft power. That was the message from a session titled ‘Qatar and the Soft Diplomacy of Sport’.

The existing transfer systems in sport has failed to protect young players from being exploited and reform is needed, a debate at Play the Game 2015 concluded.

Watch professor Andrew Zimbalist talk about economic consequences of hosting a mega-event.

The woeful state of governance across four of the six FIFA confederations was exposed in a fascinating evening session discussing also what the role of the confederations should take in world football.

The International Olympic Committee’s ‘Agenda 2020’ is a series of reforms that include sweeping changes to the host city bidding process. But will the changes be effective and do they go far enough?

Cost overruns and absent tourism benefits are the norm when hosting mega-events, US economist Andrew Zimbalist told Play the Game 2015. And according to Hans Bruyninckx from the European Environmental Agency, hosts should also start thinking about the carbon footprints of their events.

Look for evidence if you want to promote physical activity. And realise who your target groups actually are and where they are most likely to be physically active. Those were among the recommendations in a debate on the ‘inactivity crisis’ hosted by ICSSPE at Play the Game 2015.