Knowledge bank article: With the continuing dominance of football in British sporting life it may come as a surprise that the study of cricket features prominently in the university classroom.

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.

The organisation Sport et Citoyenneté has published a special edition of their scientific journal Sport and Citizenship. This Special Edition covers a subject with inevitable media hype from different angles. Sport and Citizenship wishes to take advantage of this unique occasion and the media’s attention to raise this question: “Is this really Africa’s hour?”.

The Examination of Threats to the Integrity of Sports was commissioned by the EU Sports Platform and has been launched in European Parliament. The report, elaborated by Danish research institute Oxford Research, outlines the key problems and also examines what can be done to combat the threats.

The first Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore next year is set to cost at least 25 times more than another sporting event in Finland this summer with a similar amount of competitors.

The PhD and the studentship will focus on corruption in professional sport and be supervised by Professor Simon Chadwick and Dr John Beech. The overall project will be undertaken in conjunction with Play the Game.

Texas Senate approves the largest programme of random steroid tests for athletes in Texan high schools. WADA applauds the efforts. Meanwhile schools in Australia protest against drug testing of non-elite Australian children.