Dear WSC
I don’t know what the rest of you think but all the recent media coverage of the Italian national team had led me to one major conclusion: Paolo Maldini gets his good looks from his Mum’s side of the family.
Alex Anderson, Ardrossan
With more Norwegian players leaving every week, Ole P Pedersen explains why the player drain to the English league is causing concern back home
I never thought I would see Norwegian footballers be a major part of English football. But there are now more Norwegian internationals than Scottish in the Premiership: cheap, solid footballers who can run all day, never drink and accept lower wages than their British compatriots.
Nick Wyke looks at the efforts being made to promote women's football in Italy in the face of media indifference
Italy’s Serie A is, arguably, the most prestigious and rigorous league in world football. As a result, Italian women have a reputation to live up to. Their cause has not been helped by a media that shirks the women’s on-pitch efforts in preference for sideline gossip.
John Williams explains why the women's game in the UK is in need of a major overhaul
According to FIFA, 20 million women play organized football worldwide. In Scandinavia, where views about women as athletes, and almost anything else, are at least post-Jurassic, football is the most popular sport for females. Most local clubs cater for both male and female teams and foreign stars such as the USA’s Michelle Akers are brought over to join the semi-professional ranks. No surprise, then, that Norway won the recent women’s World Cup in Sweden and that they and Denmark are as tough as they come in international competition. England? Well, you reap what you sow; in Sweden we were simply outclassed by, no avoiding it now, the Germans.
Paul Fryer explains why he was tempted, in spite of himself, by a new football investment scheme promising quick profits
Football is rolling in money just now, but those of us wondering when the bubble might burst can hark back to a precedent in in the early eighteenth century. Then, the South Sea Company, with a monopoly of trade with South America, offered to take on half the national debt in return for further concessions. With the prospect of huge profits, its 100 shares rapidly increased to 1000 as investors rushed in. The trade could not service the shareholders, the ‘bubble’ burst and thousands were ruined.