Highlights
Why World Bank's Doing Business Index is flawed
Carlos Slim: world’s richest man no more
Chinese graduates face toughest job market ever
Hungama: Bollywood by mobile
Chart of the week: who’s afraid of a weaker yen?

Tag: football

Man Utd: the ultimate EM club

May 8, 2013 2:10pm by Rob Minto
Share
Share this on

As Sir Alex Ferguson steps down after one of the most successful football managerial careers of all time, the numbers machine is kicking into gear – trophies, win-loss records, you name it.

The thing is, Manchester United FC is a statistician’s nightmare. A famous Guiness beer ad from a few years back said that 98 per cent of Man U fans had never been to Old Trafford, the club’s stadium. It’s not clear where that little factoid came from.

But one thing is for sure: in terms of its fans, Man U under Fergie has become one of the world’s leading emerging markets football clubs. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Global |

FC Spartak Moscow to IPO? Good for governance, maybe not for investors

Mar 11, 2013 5:48pm by Isabel Gorst
Share
Share this on

Leonid Fedun, the billionaire deputy chief executive of Lukoil, is considering taking his Spartak football club public in what could be the first ever Russian football IPO.

Investors should not get carried away. Football is not a particularly profitable business and even the most successful clubs tend to live beyond their means. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Russia |

Chinese football’s new ambassador: David Beckham

Mar 4, 2013 9:12am by Simon Rabinovitch
Share
Share this on

Football leagues around the globe draw heavily on foreign imports as both players and coaches. But as ambassadors?

In China, where the sport is struggling to escape the taint of match fixing and bribery scandals, the masters of the football world have decided that their best representative is someone who has never played in the country’s league: David Beckham. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Asia, China |

Indonesia football: English clubs pitch for fans as local league falls apart

Jan 29, 2013 7:42am by Ben Bland
Share
Share this on

Football is far and away the most popular sport in Indonesia and, with the domestic game in a sorry state, clubs from the English Premier League are looking to cash in.

In the latest round, Arsenal have just announced that they will play a friendly match against a national team in July, marking the team’s return to the country after a 31-year absence. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Asia, Indonesia |

Brazil’s football coach tackles bankers

Nov 29, 2012 9:17pm by Samantha Pearson
Share
Share this on

Football bosses are not normally ones to mince their words, but Brazil’s new coach really surpassed himself on Thursday. Luiz Felipe Scolari, or Felipão (Big Phil) as he’s known, has only been in the job a few hours but he’s already managed to spark a national scandal, it seems.

At a press conference to announce his appointment, the former Chelsea manager was asked about the pressure the Brazilian team would be under to win the World Cup on their home turf in 2014. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Brazil, LatAm |

Qatar Airways muscles in on Barça

Nov 19, 2012 12:09pm by Camilla Hall
Share
Share this on

So, Qatar Airways will appear as the main logo on FC Barcelona’s shirts from next year, replacing the Qatar Foundation.

That means Doha’s state-run carrier will go head-to-head with Dubai’s Emirates, which sponsors Arsenal, and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, which sponsors Manchester City, in yet another battle ground for regional aviation supremacy: football sponsorship. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in MidEast, Qatar |

Football fiasco fouls Poland’s image

Oct 17, 2012 11:41am by Jan Cienski
Share
Share this on

The debacle at Warsaw’s National stadium – where a Poland-England match had to be scrubbed on Tuesday night because the brand new ground failed to close its roof despite a deluge of rain – tested the talents of Polish and English Facebook and Twitter jokers.

The most popular photo shared online seemed to be a black-and-white one of men in flippers trying to kick a ball, but the football fiasco points to a deeper problem with Polish infrastructure. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , Posted in Europe, Poland |

Putin: quit smoking and drinking, watch the World Cup

Oct 1, 2012 3:21pm by Isabel Gorst
Share
Share this on

Vladimir Putin has been holding forth about what Russia will gain by investing billions of dollars in preparations for the 2018 World Cup. Apart from boosting investment in infrastructure, the football will have a positive impact on the health of the nation by encouraging people to quit smoking and drinking and play sports instead. Or so he says. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Russia |

Slim’s football clubs ponder IPOs

Sep 7, 2012 1:32am by Ron Buchanan
Share
Share this on

With Carlos Slim as their new striker, leading Mexican soccer clubs Pachuca and León are pondering a listing in the stock exchange.

Forget Manchester United’s listing on Wall Street, the two Mexican clubs would be the first  to be floated on the Mexican stock market. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in LatAm, Mexico |

Football finance: top Turkish club plans hydropower plant

Aug 14, 2012 7:40am by David O'Byrne
Share
Share this on

A  top Turkish football club has found a novel way of raising extra revenue.

Forget scarves and shirts, and corporate entertainment, Trabzonspor is building a hydroelectric power station. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Turkey |

Net profits: Abidjan football academy branches out

Aug 7, 2012 3:55pm by Peter Vanham
Share
Share this on

In a sport where making profits has taken a back seat to on-pitch results, former French football international Jean-Marc Guillou is bucking the trend.

Players trained at his JMG Academy have contracts at top clubs like Manchester City and Arsenal. And his investors are averaging nominal returns of over €15m – over 200 per cent over a ten year period. And Guillou himself, of course, does well too. But it’s a model that is not without critics. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Africa, Ivory Coast |

Kiev politics: after the football, boxing

Jul 5, 2012 3:25pm by beyondbrics
Share
Share this on

By Stefan Wagstyl and Roman Olearchyk

The successful staging of the Euro 2012 football tournament helped unify Ukrainians in a surge of well-deserved national pride.

But hopes that the event will help promote political harmony in a fractured country – and boost investor confidence – have been knocked on the head, literally so. Continue reading »

Tags: , , Posted in Europe, Ukraine |

Euro 2012: Poland looks to World Cup

Jul 2, 2012 4:45pm by Jan Cienski
Share
Share this on

For Poland, co-hosting the European football championships was about getting a PR boost rather than making a big wodge of cash off visiting fans – and that’s the way the tournament seems to have worked out. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Poland |

Poland: soccer inspires TV sales surge

Jun 26, 2012 2:14pm by Jan Cienski
Share
Share this on

Cyprus and Spain may be lining up for EU bailouts, but that isn’t spooking Polish shoppers, who are spending more than analysts expected, adding resilience to the economy at a time of growing crisis in the rest of the EU.

The government’s statistical agency on Tuesday released retail sales numbers for May, showing a 7.7 per cent increase over the same period in 2011, with the European football championships playing a key role in boosting business by encouraging Poles to buy televisions. Continue reading »

Tags: , Posted in Poland |

Ukraine: something to cheer about

Jun 14, 2012 10:50am by Yuri Bender
Share
Share this on

‘Ukraine is not dead yet!’ These opening lines of the beleaguered country’s national anthem were sung defiantly by yellow-and-blue-clad hordes of fans, thronging the recently rebuilt Olympic Stadium in the centre of Kiev before the national team’s 2-1 victory against Sweden on Monday night. Continue reading »

Tags: , , , , Posted in Europe, Ukraine |
BackOlder entries

BB: time to register

Dear beyondbrics readers,

After more than three years of fully open access, we are taking the step of asking our readers to register on FT.com to read our articles. Beyondbrics will still be free but we'd like to know a bit more about you, our readers. Other FT blogs (including Alphaville) already do the same thing. Registration is active on beyondbrics from May 6.

Many of you are already registered on FT.com, or are subscribers - in which case, if you are logged in to the site you will not notice any difference. Just carry on as before.

For those of you not yet registered, it's a simple process which only takes a few moments.

Reading beyondbrics articles will NOT deduct from your free monthly quota of stories on FT.com.

Many thanks

Stefan Wagstyl, emerging markets editor

Global equities macromap

beyondbrics

The emerging markets hub

About this blog Headlines email Blog guide
News and comment from more than 40 emerging economies, headed by Brazil, Russia, India and China.



'Like' our beyondbrics Facebook page, where we showcase a top story of the day
Sign up for our news headlines and markets snaphot service. We have two emails per day - London and New York headlines (sent at approx 6am and 12pm GMT).

Pretty much everything you need to know about beyondbrics is in our About this site page. But briefly:

To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments.

There is an overall beyondbrics RSS feed, as well as feeds for all our countries, tags and authors. Learn more in our full RSS guide.

All posts are published in UK time.

Get in touch with us - your comments, advice and even complaints. Find out how to contact the team.

See the full list of FT blogs.

BB shortcuts

Regulars Series Archive
Chart of the week
Behind the numbers

Corporate watch
A regular in-depth look at a significant emerging market-based company

The Weekender
Catch up with the week in emerging markets
Hello 2013
Guest posts on the outlook for the year ahead

2012 review
Quiz, charts, most read and more

BB review
An occasional series reviewing books and arts from around the beyondbrics world

Brics at 10
A decade of growth
12 for 2012
Guest writer predictions
2011 review
The year in numbers
The Diaspora Digest
EM diasporas, seen through their community media (Oct-Nov 2011)
Sick brics (Sep 2011)
Brics and mortar (Aug 2011)
Beyondbrics on the beach (Jul-Aug 2011)
China bubble? (June 2011)
Post-election Nigeria (June 2011)
Hey bric spender (Aug 2010)

Emerging markets data

Archive

« AprMay 2013
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031