At its meeting on 5 December 2017, the IOC’s Executive Board met to consider the Schmid Report, its own commissioned report on the Russian doping question, produced for the Disciplinary Commission (DC) by a panel chaired by Samuel Schmid, a member of the IOC Ethics Committee and a former President of the Swiss Confederation. [1]… Continue reading Vitaly Mutko’s Life Ban: The IOC matches its bark with some bite
Tag: Sport
Reflections on the corrupt leadership in the Russian Federation’s sports hierarchy: more on Mutko
Reflections on the corrupt leadership in the Russian Federation’s sports hierarchy: more on Mutko Alan Tomlinson The McLaren Reports showed, in July and November 2016, involvement at the highest levels of the Russian Federation (across government, the Russian Federal Security Service [FSB], and the national sport organisations) in the corrupt doping practices that stained the… Continue reading Reflections on the corrupt leadership in the Russian Federation’s sports hierarchy: more on Mutko
Castro and Cuban Sport
Fidel Castro, Godfather of Sport When Cuba, as a colonial outpost of Spain, sent its athletes to the first Olympic Games to be held in the Americas, in St. Louis in the USA in 1904, the small country bagged more than its fair share of medals, 9 in total, the bulk of these of for… Continue reading Castro and Cuban Sport
Putin’s Placeman and FIFA Ethics
Putin’s Placeman and FIFA Ethics: riding conflicts of interest in Russia’s international sport strategy Qatar has dominated the headlines in the FIFA corruption debate, since the 2010 decision to award two men’s World Cups at once, to Russia for 2018, to Qatar for 2022. Human rights issues, labour exploitation, the absurdity of the careless consideration… Continue reading Putin’s Placeman and FIFA Ethics
Questions in Brazil
IN THE EVENT: Questions in Brazil Scott Reid, Orange County Register posed these questions on the eve of the World Cup kick-off and I answered them whilst in Rio, after a spell in Manaus. SR: How much will the corruption within FIFA and the CBF leave a cloud hanging over this World Cup? AT: The… Continue reading Questions in Brazil
Seizing the Olympic Platform: 6.6 million and counting
This is an edited-down version of a chapter of the same title, published in Vassil Girginov (ed.),Handbook of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Volume Two: Celebrating the Games, London, Routledge, 2013, pp. 239-251. The piece draws upon research supported by the British Academy’s small grants scheme for my personal research on ‘The construction… Continue reading Seizing the Olympic Platform: 6.6 million and counting
Blatter: FIFA’s Supreme Leader triumphs again
If a week is a long time in politics, 6 months is no time at all in the world of international football politics. FIFA president Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter was trained as a young man by timepiece giant Swiss Longines, pedigree watchmaker since 1842. He must have learned a lot about longevity in business and organisational… Continue reading Blatter: FIFA’s Supreme Leader triumphs again
Lording it: London and the getting of the Games
[This entry comprises extracts from the beginning and the end of the first chapter of Alan Tomlinson and John Sugden (eds), Watching the Olympics: Politics, Power, and Representation (Routledge, publication July 2011)] [i] Introduction In 2012 London will become the only city to have staged the Summer Olympic Games more than twice (the so-called interim… Continue reading Lording it: London and the getting of the Games
Book Review: Raymond Boyle, Sports Journalism: Context and Issues
Raymond Boyle, Sports Journalism: Context and Issues London: Sage Publications, 2006. 198pp, ISBN 1-4129-0798-5 Raymond Boyle’s study of the practices and conventions of sports journalism is based upon his long-standing grasp of the nature of contemporary sport media, and his balanced concern with both the interpretive scrutiny of journalistic texts and output, and the nature… Continue reading Book Review: Raymond Boyle, Sports Journalism: Context and Issues
Theorising a Critical Politics of Sport
Text of oral presentation at Political Studies Association Inaugural Sport Group Meeting, University of Reading April 6 2006 Opening comments In the book Power Games: A Critical Sociology of Sport (2002) critical sociology is presented, by John Sugden and myself, as one of six overlapping elements characteristic of our sociological approach to researching sport: its… Continue reading Theorising a Critical Politics of Sport
Professor Alan Tomlinson - Research 