Reporting about powerful people can be a dangerous line of work. In Azerbaijan, it may cost you your freedom. Investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova is currently in jail for exposing corrupt practices in the Azeri elite. Play the Game has invited her to speak at the conference in October.

Europe salutes its athletes in June at the first European Games. Salutes in the shadow of the crackdown of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.

Human Rights Watch has issued a ‘Reporters’ Guide’ with information about Azerbaijan relevant to those planning to report from the 2015 European Games. The information covers political and economic aspects but has a special focus on how the country acts up to human rights.

Hosting the most compact Games ever has been one of Tokyo’s selling points since the city won the 2020 Olympics’ hosting rights. But as the Tokyo bid has had to realise, making a geographically compact event is not always economically compact.

Book review: In his new book, economist Andrew Zimbalist analyses the benefits and risks of hosting a sports mega-event and finds that the economic risks by far exeed the benefits.

A planned anti-Qatari protest ahead of a match between Chelsea and Manchester United, the first major fan demonstration against the 2022 World Cup host, and the imminent publication of a Sunday Times book documenting Qatari political interference in world soccer body FIFA’s 2011 presidential election that returned Sepp Blatter to office at the behest of the FIFA president casts a shadow over next month’s FIFA election and is likely to renew debate about the integrity of the Qatari bid.

Multi-sport events are facing a crisis yet there are more and more of them. In his first column contribution to Play the Game, Rowland Jack considers the best way forward for multi-sport games.

In a letter sent to the IOC president Thomas Bach, a coalition of NGOs, sports groups and trades unions recommends that the IOC includes labour and human rights standards in the 2024 Olympic Host City contract.