11v11 blog

Reaction to Luis Suárez biting Branislav Ivanovic on the arm has varied from Simon Burnton describing the Liverpool striker as responsible for a “perfect storm of evil” in the Guardian to Jim Edwards in Business Insider arguing Suárez is “probably not a psychotic man-child racist” but rather a hyper-competitive player who is all about “winning, at all costs” - just the attitude Liverpool require to escape from the mid-table mediocrity into which they have fallen.

But what of the business consequences of Suárez’s bite? In the context of the match itself, Suárez escaped punishment, and although he failed to draw a penalty out of Ivanovic’s reaction, he did score in the dying minutes to significantly dent Chelsea’s Champion League ambitions. However, after Suárez accepted a charge ...

In an unexpected escalation of tensions, FIFA today responded to Costa Rican plans to play the return leg of the USA-Costa Rica World Cup qualifier in La Guayaba de Talamanca, by awarding a 3-0 walkover to the USA.

Costa Rica had petitioned FIFA to schedule a rematch of the first game, citing player safety concerns and inhospitable conditions. The U.S. beat Costa Rica 1-0 in the blizzard at Colorado’s Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in near whiteout conditions with half a foot of snow on the field.


Costa Rica’s protest on the ground of players’ safety, the fact the grounds crew were allowed on the field during play, that the lines were not visible, and that the ball was unable to freely travel over a layer of snow was refused. ...

Manchester United has today (15 January) agreed three-year sponsorship deals with China Construction Bank (CCB) and soft drinks manufacturer Wahaha.

As part of the deal with CCB, the Chinese bank will hold the exclusive rights to produce the official Manchester United branded credit card in mainland China. CCB will market the card to its almost 102 million personal banking customers in mainland China offering a range of United based incentives.

United’s commercial director Richard Arnold said: "Through our relationship with CCB we hope not only to give fans an excellent product, but also bring them closer to the club they so passionately support.

“As China’s fiscal and industrial strength continues to grow, it is establishing itself ...

Wilson Raj Perumal is regarded by investigators as a member of a major fixing network possibly funded from Hong Kong and China. The fall-out from his activities led on Sunday to the South African Football Association (SAFA) asking its President and four other officials to take voluntary leave of absence prior to answering questions raised by possible interactions with Perumal’s company, Football 4U International.

Perumal, a Singaporean citizen, was arrested after entering Finland on a fake passport in February 2011. He was convicted on July 19 2011 and sentenced to 2 years. The case in which he was convicted involved players from Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS) who Perumal bribed into manipulating 24 games, achieving the intended score in 11 of them.

On ...

Corinthians send-off from the airport - imagine the welcome home.

The only sensible reaction to Chelsea’s sacking of Roberto Di Matteo today is - utterly ridiculous.

Utterly ridiculous, because he guided the Blues to Champions League triumph just six months ago and winning Europe’s premier club competition had been the Holy Grail for Roman Abramovich since the Russian billionaire took over as Chelsea owner in 2003.

Utterly ridiculous, because in less than ten months in charge, he also led Chelsea to only their seventh ever FA Cup Final success.

Utterly ridiculous, because Di Matteo was in charge for just 23 Premier League games for Chelsea. Only David Webb and Guus Hiddink managed fewer (13 each).

Utterly ridiculous, because under the Abramovich regime, even before today’s dismissal, Chelsea ...

We have made the step of setting up the facebook commenting system on 11v11 for the first time.
Now you can add your own comments to player and match pages using your facebook, Yahoo, AOL or Hotmail account.
It is up to you , the site users, as to how this develops but here are some suggestions:
1) Find your favourite players and write a few sentences about what made them so great.
2) What were the best matches you have ever seen - find them on the database and write a little about them.
3) Have you found something which needs adding to the database about a player or match - add a comment and a moderator will pick up the suggestion.
4) Write short pen-picks of all the players of your team.
5) Write short match reviews of all your team's matches. ...

Whilst many of us have been distracted by the goings on around London, our programmers have been busy and we are now releasing our new Premier League and Football League transfer section!

In the new section you will easily find constantly updated all Premier League and Football League transfers with links to the players involved.

For those of you who have been completely blinded by Team GB's peformances in the velodrome and on the track, here are what we reckon are the top ten transfers of the close season to date:

Eden Hazard – Lille to Chelsea (£32M)
Oscar – Internacional to Chelsea (£25M)
Olivier Giroud – Montpellier to Arsenal (£12M)
Gylfi Sigurdson – Hoffenheim to Tottenham Hotspur (£8M)
Nick Powell – Crewe Alexandra ...

It’s that time of year again when we put out the call to those (be they AFS members or not) who may be interested in helping us with the rewarding task of inputting match data on to the AFS database during the upcoming 2012-13 season.

We consider this to be an excellent opportunity for anyone wishing to explore a career in sports media or statistics or those who wish to increase their involvement in football or AFS.

A commitment of probably two or three hours most Saturday evenings / Sunday mornings is required along with a keen eye for detail.

Previous inputting experience would be an advantage but not essential as full training notes will be provided.

All training and work can be done from home so applications are welcomed from ...

There is some confusion over Russia's exit from Euro 2012 in Group A. This isn't surprising as there are different systems for tie-breakers when teams are level on points in the group stages of international football tournaments - one operated by FIFA and the other by UEFA.

Russia have been knocked out because the UEFA system gives priority to the head to head results between the teams equal in the points standings, rather than separating the sides on goal difference in all group games.

So in the case of Russia their 4-1 victory against eventual group winners the Czech Republic, counts for nothing in deciding whether they or the Greeks go through to the next round.

The system operated by UEFA leads to fairly complex calculations and bizarre results regarding ...