@duffofbrentford.bsky.social
Author of Smart Money (Brentford FC), Le Fric (Tour de France) & Football's Secret Trade (Player transfers).
Old but gold Brazilian football quote. #Fluminense 🇧🇷
07.12.2025 15:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 0That's it.
(It's not clear to me whether they can bet on PL games not involving their clubs. We don't know the rules on that because they have not been published.)
It's uncomfortable because players in England can be banned for betting hundred of pounds on football, but club owners can gamble millions of pounds on football.
As the podcast says there are some extenuating circumstances in that Bloom and Benham are exemplary owners in a sea of dodgy owners.
One small clarification @michaelcaley.bsky.social their clubs Brighton & Brentford were both in League One, not the Championship, when they bought them.
The story has so much intrigue and depth that it blows the Wrexham 'fairy tale' out of the water.
This is a good explainer about Tony Bloom and Matthew Benham and how they came to run Premier League clubs and major football gambling syndicates.
It's not (yet) a scandal, more an uncomfortable juxtaposition that has avoided the limelight until now.
He bets on football - just not his own club or league.
Bloom's syndicate has probably the most sophisticated mathematical modelling of football players / teams of any professional gambling operation.
That's part of the reason Brighton is 5th in the Premier League.
Bizarrely, those 2014 rules are secretive and unpublished but give the right for English football authorities to audit Bloom's (and Benham's) syndicates
www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/b...
I'm pretty sure Tony Bloom has not broken any rules, far too smart for that.
1. There were no specific rules for owners in English football pre-2014
2. The 2014 rules were agreed to take into account Bloom's (and Matthew Benham's) profession as gamblers
Full BBC story:
www.bbc.com/sport/footba...
Big, if true .. at ManU. 🧐
13.11.2025 17:18 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Another option not sold out:
the audio book.
The narrator Simon Shepherd is 🔝
I understand the good people of @escapecollective.bsky.social are responsible for this.. 😳
#1 in cycling on Kindle; paperback sold out in Australia; hardback gone in UK.
Allez, Vive Le Fric 🇫🇷
A magnificent piece of work. Comprehesive, revelatory & shocking. Journalism this good is always rare & precious but never moreso than at times like this. Latter day Lord Haw Haws being plumped, preened & delivered to your doorstep in plain sight by a Nazi-saluting goon
news.sky.com/story/the-x-...
Full review here: www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
04.11.2025 06:58 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
🤩
04.11.2025 06:51 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
👀
28.10.2025 08:17 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
I've always wondered (and feared) what might happen if everyone started taking set pieces seriously. The first eight weeks of the Premier League season might be giving us a glimpse into the future, where soccer no longer features much, well, soccer: www.espn.com/soccer/story...
21.10.2025 13:16 — 👍 50 🔁 11 💬 27 📌 29
In other football / Central Line nostalgia:
Stan Bowles used to take the Central Line to training at Orient when he lived at Lancaster Gate.
Stan also took public transport to his first Brentford match in 1981, carrying his boots in a plastic bag.
Greenwood covered the trophy in cloth to avoid attention.
Asked by a passenger what was underneath, he said: Sweet FA.
He captained Brentford before becoming West Ham manager.
🐝⚒️
Here's Ron Greenwood on the Central Line with the FA Cup in 1964.
20.10.2025 09:43 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Gino Pozzo has fired 15 Watford managers in the last decade.
In the modern era, few football club owners are in the same league.
The Times: let's just outsource all U.K. government policy to the Dutchies 🇳🇱
09.10.2025 13:22 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Great to see 'Smart Money' is available in public libraries in Brentford, Chiswick, Hounslow, Richmond, Sutton and Luton! Come on You Hatters. Keep the faith.
06.10.2025 13:43 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Plus an ode to Kayode, the king of throwins.
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
The 'NFL-ification' of set pieces in the Premier League.
link.thetimes.co.uk/view/61951cb...
More from @publico.es including the nugget that the 4 grandchildren of Tour de France matriarch Marie-Odile Amaury, 85, are now shareholders in the family business.
Looks like TdF (family-owned since 1947) will not be for sale for another couple of generations.
www.publico.es/politica/inv...
C. 1995
1. Get the story.
2. File to the copy taker.
3. Go to the pub.
More scrutiny on Amaury family than usual in Spain following La Vuelta protests and criticism of Spanish government.
When they bought La Vuelta there was barely a murmur.
Now Publico story links the family receiving public money including subsidies with investing offshore.
The Amaury family (which owns the Tour de France and La Vuelta) made €2.3 million from offshore investments last year, according to @publico.es
It is an above-board scheme known as 'cash pooling' using the family's reserves - profits taxable in France and Spain.
www.publico.es/politica/inv...
More details here: football-observatory.com/WeeklyPost513
17.09.2025 16:55 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
