Iraq: The Lions of Mesopotamia at Rio 2016

The Arabic nation only has two Olympic medals in their trophy cabinet, both bronze. One for weightlifting in 1960, the other for the men’s soccer team’s astonishing run to the semi-finals in Athens, 2004.

At Rio 2016, The Lions are in the hunt for another after clawing their way to qualifying to compete in Brazil.
Continue reading

UEFA blow hot and cold on Kosovo

With the UEFA Champions League Qualifiers in full swing it is worth sparing a thought for the recently crowned 2016 Kosovo champions who were banned from entering the European completion on technical grounds.

The Panenka looks at football in the newly formed country as the 210th member of FIFA. 

sa_client = “b72a23d4bdf2abf6227b13d5fa8c5b78”;
sa_code = “937277567f1f405f6648b42a3bfb322e”;
sa_protocol = (“https:”==document.location.protocol)?”https”:”http”;
sa_pline = “0”;
sa_maxads = “1”;
sa_bgcolor = “FFFFFF”;
sa_bordercolor = “FFFFFF”;
sa_superbordercolor = “040500”;
sa_linkcolor = “000000”;
sa_desccolor = “000000”;
sa_urlcolor = “008000”;
sa_b = “1”;
sa_format = “banner_468x90”;
sa_width = “468”;
sa_height = “90”;
sa_location = “0”;
sa_radius = “0”;
sa_borderwidth = “1”;
sa_font = “0”;
document.write(unescape(“%3cscript type=’text/javascript’ src='”+sa_protocol+”://’%3e%3c/script%3e”));

Continue reading

What Could Brexit Mean For The English Premier League?


On Thursday 23rd June 2016 the British public took part in a referendum to decide whether it would ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’ the European Union. As results filtered in, it became apparent that it had been determined, by way of democracy, that The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be leaving the EU.

These are very uncertain times and at the time of writing it is still a relative unknown what the future holds politically, socially and economically. The Panenka looks at what this could mean for the English Premier League.

Continue reading