He has sold the sports soul out to the highest bidder, from Abu dhabi to China at the expense of races such as Montreal and Imola and Indy.

The new FOTA has made it quite clear they want to run the sport themselves and have a bigger say in commercial aspects as well. I only hope they can do it straight away.

As for the expansion of team sports, its TV/internet that is driving globalisation. I remember once upon a time, the only way i could find out Serie A football results was to buy the tuesday edition of the sydney italian paper La Fiamma !!

Now all sports are on 24/7 on the internet and cable tv. This though has caused one problem, in particular for football, the local leagues now have to compete against the EPL, La Liga, Serie A etc. Go through Asia and you will see the EPL is massive, but the local leagues struggle to get much recognition at all.

Thats why FIFA was against the EPL’s 39th game and rightIy so. I understand people want to watch the best, but local development is crucial as well.

The one thing stopping the total globalisation of sport is travel times. If one could fly across the world in say 1 hour, then it would be very interesting to see what would happen. Global leagues would be able to start in every sport, the reality is that long distances ensures that only one off games could be considered at the moment.

And one off games dont build recognition. The NFL’s move into London came about as they knew that they needed to expand internationally to grow the game. Much like the AFL, they can only expand so far in their native country. The NFL had a european league which folded so now they bring a one off game to the UK.

What they dont realise is that unless you are in a place week in week out, people see it as a fad and then move on to what they normally watch. Need an example? How about Sydney FC v LA Galaxy