Comment: English side Manchester City may be about to embark on their first Champions League campaign but the riches earned by clubs playing in continental competitions is bankrolling increased domination of domestic leagues. That is the evidence in Play the Game’s annual Champions League diversity index for 2011, which shows a third of the countries in this year’s competition are represented by exactly the same sides as a year ago.

The new UEFA concept of Financial Fair Play is blurry and mounts the risk of court cases, according to leading sport economic, Professor Stefan Szymanski from the CASS Business School in London. Others do not see any good alternatives.

UEFA has strengthened the new rules of economic fairness and threatens economically irresponsible clubs with sanctions. At the same time a new UEFA report documents record losses in Europe's top clubs.

Danny Jordaan, head of the 2010 World Cup Local Organising Committee described the world’s largest sporting event as a ‘rebranding of South Africa’.

UEFA’s cash distribution from the Champions League is continuing to help the same clubs monopolise national leagues across Europe according to new research for Play the Game.

A.T. Kearney has recently released the EU Football Sustainability Study.

The pensioner was talking himself into a rage. “Football is becoming too commercialized”, he scolded. “The young people today are too focused on money”. In his time, Eusébio da Silva Ferreira argues, everything was better. Back then, you focused on the game.

South Africa, which is hosting the World Cup this year, is projected to get a major boost to its advertising economy.