currybetdotnet Football archive

2008 Olympic "Spambush" marketing
'Ambush marketing' at major sporting events has become a prevalent phenomena in the 2000s, affecting the Olympics despite the incredibly complex sponsorship rules drawn up by the IOC. The 2002 Winter Olympics saw Sprint running a snowy campaign that associated the brand with sponsoring 'everything fast, new, and really quite amazing', whilst during the 2004 Athens games, beer Miller ran a campaign proclaiming victory in an Athens-based taste test. Athens, Georgia, mind you, but Athens nevertheless. And who can...

Read the full post - Published July 19, 2008 in 2010 World Cup, Football, Olympics, Web

Watching Euro2008 on Zattoo in the heart of the BBC
As you may have spotted in my post about last week's TechCrunch / BBC debate at Broadcasting House, I attended it with one eye on what was going on in Basel. Thanks to wifi in the art deco Council Chamber where the debate was taking place, I was able to stream the first Euro2008 semi-final between Germany and Turkey silently on my laptop. The thing that struck me was that I used Zattoo to watch the game. At 7:40pm,...

Read the full post - Published July 1, 2008 in BBC, Euro2008, Football, Television, Web

Reaching their goal? Marketing the Euro 2008 'Score for the Red Cross' campaign online
Tonight Euro2008 reaches a climax, with Germany facing Spain in the final, and tomorrow it will be time for me to retire Euro 2008 Fansivu and the Euro 2008 edition of Chipwrapper. Both have been carrying banner adverts for the tournament's official charity campaign - "Score For The Red Cross" I just wanted to write a little bit about how difficult that was to set up. Now, I'm not knocking the Red Cross here - they've raised nearly €0.5m...

Read the full post - Published June 29, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - League table
Euro 2008 is now down to just 8 teams, but over the last two weeks of matches I've been surveying the websites of the original 16 finalists. There weren't any major surprises there. It seems that the larger and more prosperous nations had the best websites - and the big three of Germany, France and Italy seemed to be dominating in the online world in the way they have so often done in the past on the football field....

Read the full post - Published June 19, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Greece, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Russia & Greece
As the Euro 2008 group stages have progressed, I've been reviewing the websites belonging to the Football Associations of the nations taking part. With today being the last day of group games it is the turn of Group D, and Russia take on Sweden tonight, whilst my old stomping ground Salzburg hosts eliminated Greece against quarter-final bound Spain. Russia and Greece are in the spotlight for my final Euro 2008 site reviews, two languages that stretch my ability to...

Read the full post - Published June 18, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Greece, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - France & Italy
Since the Euro2008 draw was made, probably the most keenly anticipated fixture has been tonight's replay of the epic 2006 World Cup Final between France and Italy - but few could have predicted that at the end of tonight there was the certainty that one would be eliminated from the tournament - and the possibility that both could go. I've been conducting a review of the FA websites belonging to the countries taking part in Euro2008, and today I'm...

Read the full post - Published June 17, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web, Widgets

Zattoo (slight return)
With the climax of the Euro 2008 Group phase rapidly reaching its end, I thought it might be an idea to look again at Zattoo, the streaming TV service that gathers together all of Britain's terrestrial channels into one broadband player. What intrigues me about the service is the potential clash between sports rights holders, broadcasters and Zattoo. A month or so ago I used the example of the UEFA Cup Final, where Zattoo's streaming of ITV1 was, to my...

Read the full post - Published June 15, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Television, Web

Castrol's Euro 2008 Performance Index not performing on Google AdWords
As part of their sponsorship of Euro 2008, Castrol have developed a website which produces real-time performance statistics during the matches. Here, for example, are the figures from the Netherlands' obliteration of France last night. It looks like a very nice site - even if they can't spell 'defence' the European way. There is a downloadable Castrol widget for the tournament as well. It is built using Adobe's AIR, so in theory it should be cross-platform. I didn't download...

Read the full post - Published June 14, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Google, Web, Widgets

Euro 2008: The websites - Sweden & Spain
In my series of posts looking at the national association websites of the teams involved in Euro 2008 I've so far looked at the sites that belong to Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland, Portugal, Turkey, Germany and Poland. That means I've not looked at any teams from Group D yet, and, if my ticket application had been successful with UEFA, I would have been back in my old home Salzburg preparing to watch defending European...

Read the full post - Published June 14, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Poland & Germany
At the conclusion of tonight's Euro 2008 matches we will be exactly halfway through the group stages of the tournament, and with one co-host already eliminated, anything other than a victory against Poland tonight could see the same fate befall Austria in Group B. On Matchday 2 I reviewed the websites belonging to the Austrian and Croatian Football Associations, before their opening fixture in Vienna. Today I'm looking at the other two teams in the group who are all...

Read the full post - Published June 12, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Portugal & Turkey

Published June 11, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Romania & the Netherlands

Published June 9, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Austria & Croatia

Published June 8, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

Introducing Euro 2008 Fansivu

Published June 7, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008: The websites - Switzerland & the Czech Republic

Published June 7, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Basel

Published June 5, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Genève

Published June 4, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Zürich

Published June 2, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Bern

Published June 1, 2008 in Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Vienna

Published May 30, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Innsbruck

Published May 29, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

So what *was* on TV the last time England didn't reach the European Championsip?

Published May 28, 2008 in Euro2008, Football

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Klagenfurt

Published May 27, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

Euro 2008 host cities on the web: Salzburg

Published May 26, 2008 in Austria, Euro2008, Football, Web

Zattoo and the rights holders - it is going to end in tears

Published May 15, 2008 in Football, Television, Web

70 years of televised F.A. Cup Finals

Published April 30, 2008 in BBC, Football, Television

100 years since the first London Olympics

Published April 27, 2008 in BBC, Football, London Olympics, Olympics

Postcard from Macau #8: David Beckham in Hong Kong

Published March 26, 2008 in Football, Macau, Newspapers, Travelogue

Can domain names predict where Euro2016 will be held?

Published March 7, 2008 in Football, Web

'Achtung! Surrender' from The Mirror - Get your Euro 96 newspaper xenophobia here

Published February 25, 2008 in Daily Mirror, Football

African football association websites get ready for the Ghana 2008 semi-finals

Published February 7, 2008 in Football, Web

Following Ghana 2008 on the official Africa Cup of Nations websites

Published February 3, 2008 in Football, Web

Greece lets Athens Olympics domain names lapse

Published January 14, 2008 in Football, Greece, London Olympics, Olympics, Web

The lowest ranked UEFA teams should have to pre-qualify for World Cup and Euro Finals

Published December 4, 2007 in 2010 World Cup, Football

Watching the FIFA World Cup draw in Greece and online

Published November 26, 2007 in Football, Greece, Web

BBC RSS subscription league table for English & Scottish football teams

Published November 23, 2007 in BBC, Football, Google, RSS

Not qualifying for Euro2008 - as it happened in Greece

Published November 23, 2007 in Daily Telegraph, Euro2008, Football, Greece, The Sun, The Times

Telegraph nails England Rugby World Cup Final colours to their mast(head)

Published October 17, 2007 in Daily Telegraph, Football, Newspapers, The Times

Blame 'englandfans' not England fans for empty seats at Wembley

Published September 13, 2007 in Football

The Sun's Dream Team debut nightmare

Published August 14, 2007 in DCMS, Football, Newspapers, The Sun

Gary Lineker isn't leaving comments here

Published August 1, 2007 in Football, Google, Web

Rarer than hen's teeth - No football on the BBC Sport homepage

Published July 9, 2007 in BBC, Cycling, Football, Tour de France

Google search results promoting YouTube's Premier League copyright infringement

Published June 13, 2007 in Football, Google, Search, YouTube

Cheats never prosper. Well, not unless they are religious football cheats.

Published May 24, 2007 in Football

The White Horse bridge comes back to haunt me in Salzburg

Published March 30, 2007 in BBC, Football, Newspapers, The Guardian, Voting

Watching video of the Valencia - Inter Milan brawl via newspaper websites

Published March 8, 2007 in Football, Newspapers

Thanks for the score BBC Sport - but who actually won?

Published February 14, 2007 in BBC, Football, Mobiles

Think Arsenal, Think Israel, but don't think Cyprus or any other national symbol

Published February 12, 2007 in Football

Beckham goes to L.A. from Real Madrid - Someone at the BBC should head back to skool

Published January 11, 2007 in BBC, Football

More reaction to Arsenal's move to ban all national flags from their stadium

Published December 19, 2006 in BBC, Cyprus, Football, Greece, Turkey