Major European clubs and anonymous investment funds are fighting across cities, countries and continents over football’s new gold – talented minors.

The lack of physical activity in everyday life has become such a rapidly increasing problem globally that a broad international effort is necessary, say the more than 70 organisations and stakeholders behind a new report called 'Designed to move - a physical activity action agenda'.

Australia, one of the world’s leading sports nations, has so far not lived up to its own expectations at the London 2012 Olympics. This has caused serious public debate and prompted the president of the Australian Olympic Committee to call for giving school sports a higher priority. In this comment piece Bonita Mersiades agrees, but not for the rationale of winning medals.

Justifying the Olympic spending by claiming that the Games in London will inspire more Britons to participate in sports may be plain wrong, reveals a new study.

When London won the right to host the 2012 Olympics, Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the London Organising Committee, promised that the Olympics’ legacy would be to change the face of British sport and inspire two million Britons to become more active – a promise that was later cut down to one million. With little more than 50 days to go until the event, spending cuts and declining numbers for youth participation in sport paints a picture of a legacy goal set to fail.

Comment: Ice hockey and football have much to answer for, writes Canadian journalist Laura Robinson in her comment piece on new revelations of hazing and sexual abuse in North American sport. Under the glittering surface a depraved subculture is still not being addressed properly.

Too many young people offer too much in the pursuit of gymnastic success, says Bruno Grandi, President of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) who worries that many young athletes lead imbalanced lives because of too hard training and risk of burning out before the age of 20.

With kids in sports, parents struggle with two images of reality. Either you see your child – or the children of others – as talented or as hopeless cases. Many parents easily see that a child is talented. What most people mean by talent is that the child can be great when she/he enters adulthood. Children’s talents are thus seen in the context of an adult world.