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My autobiography
by Didier Drogba
Hodder & Stoughton, £20
Reviewed by Si Hawkins
From WSC 348 February 2016

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A couple of lines late in Didier Drogba’s autobiography really drive home that this isn’t your average burly striker life story. “On November 2009 I teamed up with Bono to help launch an initiative with Nike on the eve of World Aids Day,” Drogba recalls, before rattling through his UN work, including “mobilising people to eradicate the use of cluster bombs/munitions”. Clearly we’re in a different ballpark to, say, Micky Quinn’s Who Ate All The Pies.

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Andrew Crawford believes that an influx of money, famous players and foreign managers could help football become China’s most popular sport

The Chinese Super League (CSL) season gets underway on March 15. Most of the country’s big clubs receive substantial funding from various wealthy business tycoons or state-owned enterprises, and several teams have recruited expensive foreign reinforcements. Shanghai Shenhua started things off last December in spectacular fashion by snapping up Chelsea’s Nicolas Anelka for £190,000 a week. Since then, Beijing Guoan have spent around £1.9 million to secure strikers Andrija Kaludjerovic and Reinaldo, while Shandong Luneng have paid a reported £830,000 for their own Brazilian forward, Gilberto Macena.

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While the tournament was not an unqualified success, Zambia’s continental title win was poignant and triumphant in ways that could have never have been expected, writes Paul Giess

With so many of Africa’s major footballing nations not qualifying for this year’s Cup of Nations, the big story of the group stages was the unexpected success of co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. Both qualified for the knockout rounds with a game to spare and both did it in dramatic style.

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Commentators and pundits on Britain’s flagship football shows make for awkward viewing, writes Simon Tyers

One could make a list of the things Gary Lineker is really good at – goalscoring, smiling stoically through undignified photo opportunities, keeping Mark Lawrenson awake and being a popular subject of pub conversations that begin “a mate of mine’s friend works for a paper and he reckons…” You would not necessarily put lightning-fast improvisation skills high in the list.

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Footballers’ attempts to communicate online show a human side. Dave Lee believes it’s something we should be encouraging

Our online personas, while not generally untruthful, are an exaggerated portrayal of what we see ourselves to be. Footballers are no different. The online representations of some of the top players are not those shown in heavily managed media appearances.

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