Manchester United won the Premier League in 2010-11, and also finished top of the money-making table with a turnover of £331m, more than £100m more than any other English club. Photograph: John Peters/Man Utd via Getty Images The Premier League's 20 clubs made a record income of £2.2bn in 2010-11, yet still made a collective loss of £392m. David Conn explains the maths here.Only five of the 20 clubs made a profit while Manchester City, whose lavish funding by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan has just won them the league title, reported the greatest financial loss in the history of football: £197m. Manchester City were also the only Premier League club whose wage bill (£174m) exceeded their turnover (£153m).The smallest wage bill in the 2010-11 ... Continue reading →

Brad Pitt's film company claims the payment covers costs such as private jets, hairdressers and makeup artists. Photograph: Niviere/Villard/SIPA/Rex Features Two grand for a 20-minute interview with Brad Pitt at Cannes. That's what film company Alliance is charging for the privilege. So if I took an hour and 20 minutes at £8,000, how many bangs would I expect for my buck? Quite a few, as it happens.Alliance is quick to point out that we will not be paying Pitt Ltd per se. The payment is just a means of covering its star's costs – for example, flying from America to France in one's private jet with one's own army of hairdressers, makeup artists and agents, never mind the matching suits of armour for you and ... Continue reading →

Amir Khan was scheduled to face Lamont Petersonbut the fight was cancelled due to Peterson's raised testosterone levels. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images Amir Khan's next fight in America has been put back a week to 14 July – and the nominated opponent, the unbeaten Philadelphian Danny García, represents a significant threat.García felled and comfortably outpointed the once formidable Erik Morales in his last fight on 24 March to win the vacant WBC light-welterweight title and was due to defend against the mandatory challenger, the London-based Nigerian Ajose Olusegun.Khan's connections, meanwhile, were negotiating a ticking-over fight against a selected opponent while waiting for Lamont Peterson's appeal against his failed drugs test in front of the Nevada State Athletics Commission on 13 June.But the machinations of boxing ... Continue reading →

Facebook's initial public offering was meant to fuel a technology-led resuscitation for sickly Western stock markets. But three days after being transplanted from the hothouse into the exposed terrain of the Nasdaq exchange, the company's carefully nurtured sky-high valuation has withered alarmingly. Trading 18% below the $38 offer price, the company has a new moniker - Fadebook.Slowly, a picture is emerging of what went wrong. And US regulators are being urged to intervene: the top securities regulator in Massachussetts has issued a subpoena on Facebook's lead adviser, Morgan Stanley, to find out more about its discussions with lead investors. Separately shareholders have filed a lawsuit with the Manhattan district court on Wednesday accusing Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his advisers, including Morgan Stanley, of ... Continue reading →

Ninety-one-year-old athlete takes gold – video Mary Wixey, 91, a former school PE teacher form Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, competes in an athletics meeting in Tipton, near Wolverhampton. She wins three gold medals in the long jump, where she leaps 1.15 metres, the shot putt (3.49 metres) and in discus, which she throws 6.20 metres. Video courtesy of Tina Oloyede Continue reading →

The Stanford football team no longer has an "offensive coordinator." Instead they have the "The Andrew Luck Director of Offense." This is not an Onion Sports article. This really happened. There is even a press release, announcing that some anonymous donor has endowed the position in honor of Luck. So Pep Hamilton is your official first Andrew Luck Director of Offense. "It is a tremendous honor to hold this position and to be associated with an outstanding young man like Andrew Luck, who means so much to Stanford football and the Stanford community," said Hamilton. (If any wealthy donors are out there, I'd like to announce that my title at Around the League is available for sponsorship.) We absolutely love how serious the press release ... Continue reading →

Just to prove that there is life outside the Premier League – and away from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for good measure – here are 10 stunning goals that you might not have seen, with their origins in Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Israel, Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Portugal and Finland.There are no favourites here, or rather 10 equal favourites. While the goals are numbered, they are in no particular order: I just needed to make sure I chose the right number. Enjoy.Not that one. This is emphatically not the large, lumbering Israeli defender Tal Ben Haim, but rather the young, speedy Israeli forward Tal Ben Haim. The fact that there is another footballing Tal Ben Haim represents such an unlikely coincidence that Uefa has ... Continue reading →

"It feels close now, really close," Jessica Ennis says as the shadow of London 2012 stretches across another drizzly day in Sheffield. It is supposed to be spring, and a time of gentle sunshine and new warmth, but Ennis can be excused just a small shiver as the penultimate stage in her long journey to the Olympics rises up this weekend.There might be more rain in Götzis, the small Austrian town which, every May, hosts the world's leading athletes in the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon. Yet, this year, the heat of competition and the significance of Götzis is intensified by its proximity to the London Olympics and the fact that Ennis is locked in a fierce battle with Nataliya Dobrynska and Tatyana Chernova."Götzis ... Continue reading →

JOHN Terry’s single-handed capture of the Champions League trophy was especially for John Terry, it has emerged. Terry now plans to spend a few days gazing at his reflection in a pond Speaking from his eighteen-bedroom mansion built in the shape of his own face, the pathologically-confident Chelsea defender also suggested his England team mates need not fly out to Poland as he has this one covered. Terry said: “When John Terry beat Barcelona, many said John Terry couldn’t repeat that effort against Bayern, but they underestimated how much it means to John Terry to make John Terry’s dreams come true. “John Terry can now take this form into the Euro 2012 tournament and face some of the best non-John Terry teams in Europe to ... Continue reading →