Soccernomics

Soccernomics PDF Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568588860
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Why do England lose? Why does Scotland suck? Why doesn't America dominate the sport internationally...and why do the Germans play with such an efficient but robotic style? These are questions every soccer aficionado has asked. Soccernomics answers them. Using insights and analogies from economics, statistics, psychology, and business to cast a new and entertaining light on how the game works, Soccernomics reveals the often surprisingly counterintuitive truths about soccer. An essential guide for the 2010 World Cup, Soccernomics is a new way of looking at the world's most popular game.

Soccernomics

Soccernomics PDF Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568588860
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why do England lose? Why does Scotland suck? Why doesn't America dominate the sport internationally...and why do the Germans play with such an efficient but robotic style? These are questions every soccer aficionado has asked. Soccernomics answers them. Using insights and analogies from economics, statistics, psychology, and business to cast a new and entertaining light on how the game works, Soccernomics reveals the often surprisingly counterintuitive truths about soccer. An essential guide for the 2010 World Cup, Soccernomics is a new way of looking at the world's most popular game.

Bamboo Goalposts

Bamboo Goalposts PDF Author: Rowan Simons
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 9780330506724
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Soccer.

The Spirit of the Game

The Spirit of the Game PDF Author: Mihir Bose
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 184901826X
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
The spirit of the game was first nurtured on the playing fields of the English public school, and in the pages of Tom Brown's Schooldays- this Corinthian spirit was then exported around the world. The competitive spirit, the importance of fairness, the nobility of the gifted amateur seemed to sum up everything that was good about Britishness and the games they played. Today, sport is dominated by corruption, money, celebrity and players who are willing to dive in the box if it wins them a penalty. Yet, we still believe and talk about the game as if it had a higher moral purpose. Since the age of Thomas Arnold, Sport has been used to glorify dictatorships and was at the heart of cold war diplomacy. Prime Ministers, princes and presidents will do whatever they can to ensure that their country holds a major sporting tournament. Nelson Mandela saw the victory of the Rugby World Cup as essential to his hopes for the Rainbow Nation. Mihir Bose has lived his life around sport and in this book he tells the story of how Sport has lost its original spirit and how it has emerged in the 20th century to become the most powerful political tool in the world. With examples and stories from around the world including how the sport-hating Thomas Arnold become an icon; how a German manufacturer gave Jessie Owens a pair of shoes at the Berlin games of 1936 and went on to dominate the world of sport; how India stole cricket from the ICC; how an Essex car dealer become the most powerful man in Formula 1; and who really sold football out. Praise for Mihir Bose: 'Mihir Bose is India's CLR James.' Simon Barnes, The Times. 'Mihir's insider knowledge is unsurpassed' David Welch. 'His Olympic contacts are second to none. He knows everybody.' Sue Mott.

The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim

The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim PDF Author: Young Hoon Lee
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319100378
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Following consistent and rapid general economic growth, Pacific Rim countries have grown as a major force in sports. Australia, China, Japan and Korea populated the top ten medals list at the 2012 London Olympics. Pacific Rim countries are major consumers of international sports and domestic professional sports have expanded continuously over time. Nippon Professional Baseball and the Korean Baseball Organization are the second and third largest baseball leagues measured by attendance and revenue following Major League Baseball in the U.S. This book also includes event studies of team ownership, assessment of human capital markets, analysis of the relationship between attendance and competitive balance, the components of fan demand in common the world over, and business decisions concerning attendance and pricing. There is already demand for comprehensive study of the sports business in the Pacific Rim as witnessed by this growth. This book will be of interest of researchers studying and/or teaching in the fields of sports economics and sports management as well as a general audience interested in business governance around the world.

The Billionaires Club

The Billionaires Club PDF Author: James Montague
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472923138
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A compelling examination of football club ownership in the era of the super-rich Once upon a time football was run by modest local businessmen. Today it is the plaything of billionaire oligarchs, staggeringly wealthy from oil and gas, from royalty, or from murkier sources. But who are these new masters of the universe? Where did all their money come from? And what do they want with our beautiful game? While almost cloaked in secrecy, the billionaire owner has to raise his head above the bunker when it comes to football ownership – a rare Achilles heel that allows access to worlds normally off limits journalists and outsiders. In the Billionaires Club James Montague delves deeper than anyone ever dared, to tell this story for the first time. He criss-crosses the world – from Dhaka to Doha, from China to Crewe, from St Louis to London, from Bangkok to Belgium – to profile this new elite, their network of money and their influence that defies geographic boundaries. The Billionaires Club is part history of club ownership, part in-depth investigation into the money and influence that connects the super-rich around the globe, and part travel book as he follows the ever-shifting trail around the globe in an attempt to reveal the real force behind modern-day football. At its heart The Billionaires Club is a football book, about some of the biggest clubs in the world. But it is also about something bigger: the world around us, the global economy, where the world is headed and how football has become an essential cog in this machine. The book discusses the dawn European Super League, and the repercussions for the future of the game.

Soccer Against the Enemy

Soccer Against the Enemy PDF Author: Simon Kuper
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 0786736356
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Soccer is much more than just the most popular game in the world. It is a matter of life and death for millions around the world, an international lingua franca. Simon Kuper traveled to twenty-two countries to discover the sometimes bizarre effect soccer can have on politics and culture. At the same time he tried to discover what makes different countries play a simple game so differently. Kuper meets a remarkable variety of fans along the way, from the East Berliner persecuted by the Stasi for supporting his local team, to the Argentine general with his own views on tactics. He also illuminates the frightening intersection between soccer and politics, particularly in the wake of the attacks of 9-11, where soccer is obsessed over by the likes of Osama bin Laden. The result is one of the world's most acclaimed books on the game, and an astonishing study of soccer and its place in the world.

The Ref's Call

The Ref's Call PDF Author: Owen Doyle
Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland
ISBN: 1529396069
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
'A genuine presence on the field, Owen refereed with the perfect balance of respect and authority' Keith Wood 'Highly respected with vast experience and knowledge, Owen Doyle contributed hugely to the world of rugby refereeing, both on and off the field' Nigel Owens 'Owen Doyle was a highly respected referee who officiated matches with passion, commitment, knowledge and, occasionally, some great humour' Will Carling With a foreword by Donal Lenihan. Owen Doyle is an Irish Times columnist and former Irish rugby Test match referee. Here in his frank, revealing and often humorous memoir, The Ref's Call, he gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the high-pressured world of international rugby. From the processes involved in becoming a referee, to officiating in the Five Nations, touring Internationals and a World Cup, Doyle takes us through the most memorable matches of his career and how, following his retirement, he became instrumental in coaching the most successful generation of referees in the IRFU's history. Covering over forty years of rugby, and written in his own inimitable style, Doyle looks at the challenges facing modern rugby, particularly the issues of concussion and dementia, to give a fascinating insight into the great game, told from a unique perspective.

Pandemonium

Pandemonium PDF Author: Ross Fitzgerald
Publisher: Hybrid Publishers
ISBN: 1922768146
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The bumbling and eternally famished Grafton Everest appointed as the first Australian Secretary-General of the United Nations? A secret game of Australian Rules football skilfully played by Tutsis and Dinkas in a tiny African state? In this novel our hapless hero reaches the culmination of his haphazard career. Despite Grafton’s fervent hope that it will be a purely honorary position, he finds himself forced to actively head an organisation not only made ineffective by its Byzantine organisation, but threatened by a deadly conspiracy within its own ranks. Our woebegone world leader not only endures attempted kidnappings and assassination but finds that a mysterious young woman who has been assigned to write his biography is possibly not who or what she seems. On top of this unwanted intrigue, Grafton discovers that, despite having no desire to save the world, or anything else, he is an essential part of a plan, implemented by a rough-edged Australian diplomat, to avert a looming global disaster – a plan which, strangely, seems to involve Australian Rules football. ‘Pandemonium is a work of comic brilliance, a perfect consummation of the uproarious Grafton Everest series’ – Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid Sixty ‘Grafton Everest is a wonderful creation whom I would place without question in the ranks of Phillip Roth’s Portnoy and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim.’ – Barry Humphries

"We used to eat people"

Author: R.M.W. Dixon
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476630704
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Living in a reed hut on Taveuni--the "garden isle" of Fiji--the author studied the native language and carefully observed their traditions until he was accepted as a (somewhat unusual) member of the village. Despite five cyclones the summer of 1985, daily life was idyllic. Cannibalism has been abandoned, reluctantly, at the behest of the new Christian God. But the old religion survived beneath the facade and priests danced naked on the beach beneath the full moon. The village pulsated with factions and feuds, resolved by the stern but benevolent chief, whose word was law. Legends told of a princess born as a bird, who was killed and thus became a comely maiden--but the murderer had to be cooked and eaten.

The Unyielding Clamor of the Night

The Unyielding Clamor of the Night PDF Author: Neil Bissoondath
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 159691971X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
A mesmerizing novel about the brutal and lasting effects of poverty and violence. Arun, a young man of privileged background, leaves his home in the prosperous north of his Southeast Asian island nation to teach in the devastated south, where a civil war between the military and rebel insurgents profoundly affects daily life. Idealistic and driven by a need to give meaning to his life, Arun relinquishes the trappings of wealth to dedicate himself to improving the lot of the "2 percenters," as the country's southern population is called. Over the course of several months he befriends some of the local people-Jaisaram, the local butcher, and his daughter Anjani, who reads to her father from romance novels; Kumarsingh, a "go-getting" entrepreneur; Seth, an American-trained army captain stationed at the local base; and various pupils. In Omeara, however, nothing is as it seems; everyone has secrets and truth is elusive. At the village school, attendance is meager and irregular. The only students who attend are those who, damaged by the conflict, are incapable of working in the fields. Surrounded by poverty and the constant threat of violence, Arun's optimism is eventually depleted and frustration with educating the village's schoolchildren overwhelms him. When violence finally touches him personally, he is forced to confront basic truths about his friends, his family, his country and, most wrenchingly, himself.