Sport

Up your game

Emily Eastman picks this season’s sports essentials for higher-quality workouts

NOHrD Sprintbok in walnut, £6,095

Take recovery to the next level with this full-body system, which gives a targeted massage, via an app, to the areas you want to focus on – increasing circulation and reducing pain after high-intensity training sessions. Who says that gym equipment can’t be beautiful? This treadmill has won awards for its design and it’s easy to see why. Powered only by the user, it is virtually silent and made to feel like you are

NormaTec Pulse 2.0, $1,895 (£1,490)

running through a forest.

Vollebak Solar Charged Jacket, £345

Vollebak’s designers mix science and fashion to futuristic effect. Powered by the sun, this jacket glows in the dark – excellent if you’re regularly on deck at night. It’s also waterproof, stretchy, lightweight and highly breathable.

Valentino Garavani Urgan shearling-lined rubbertrimmed leather boots, £1,000

Valentino’s Urgan boots offer style as well as substance – perfect whether you’re hitting the trails or simply shopping about town this winter. The ‘V’ logos stitched at the back of the ankles are a nice touch, too.

Louis Vuitton dumbbells, £1,730

Perfect for anyone who’s looking to elevate their home gym or as a gift for those who wish to exercise in style, the Louis Vuitton dumbbells are made from lustrous metals and include the famous monogram on canvas handles.

Peloton indoor training bike, £1,990

If there’s one bit of kit that’s proved to be more in vogue than the Peloton bike, we’re yet to hear about it. Access on-demand spin classes or join them

live – broadcast from slick studios around the world – from your living room.

Suunto 9 Baro Titanium Leather, £765

This watch has been created to support athletes competing in ultraendurance events. Packed full of features, including GPS navigation, heartrate monitor and barometer, it also has a battery that lasts up to 120 hours, making it the best in class.

Business plays ball

The football business has a strong tradition, and as new players emerge, a compelling narrative endures, writes Marcus Long

Football, it’s fair to say, is a rich man’s game. Today, the ten richest football club owners in the world are together worth more than $111 billion; in England, 15 of the 20 clubs in the Premier League, the most lucrative league in the world, are owned by billionaires.

Gone it seems are the days of simply rich football-club owners – this is a new era of ultra wealth. Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian businessman who co-founded the Red Bull energy drink company, is the 53rd richest person in the world – and second richest in football, second only to Sheikh Mansour, the Emirati politician and businessman who is worth $20 billion (compared with Mateschitz’s $19.4 billion). The pair each own a trio of clubs, including rival clubs in New York (Mansour owns Manchester City, Melbourne City and New York City while Mateschitz owns Red Bull Salzburg, RB Leipzig and New York Red Bulls).

The pair have had a transformative effect on the individual clubs and their leagues. Manchester City has been the dominant force in the Premier League (although it’s now playing second fiddle to a resurgent Liverpool): under Pep Guardiola, City won the Premier League in 2018, becoming the only Premier League team to reach 100 points in a single season, and, in 2019, became the first English men’s team to win the domestic treble. In the 2017/18 season, RB Leipzig finished runners-up in the Bundesliga – a

remarkable achievement given the club was only founded in 2009 when the playing rights of fifth-tier side SSV Markranstäd were purchased. The plan was to reach top-flight Bundesliga football within eight years – which it did, although not without criticism in Germany where accusations of ‘buying success’ abound.

Unlike Leipzig, Manchester City is a team with a long and storied history – sometimes marked by success, but often not. Buying existing clubs with decent infrastructure – as Mansour did with City and Roman Abramovich did with Chelsea – is far more common the formation of new clubs in England, where only nine formed since 1932 are in the Football League (that being the Championship, Leagues One and Two), while none are in the Premier League. The best known is MK Dons, which grew out of Wimbledon’s FC’s ashes after being moved from south of the river Thames to a town in Buckinghamshire, 70 miles north (the team now competes in League One, having been promoted at the end of the 2018–19 season).

Wimbledon fans, understandably, were not happy, and met in a local pub to discuss their next moves after the English FA prevented an appeal. They decided on the only sensible course of action: to start a new club, AFC Wimbledon. The club, which began in the bottom tier of English football, took 14 years to reach the Football League – the first club formed in the 21st century to do so. The crucial element is time. After all, in England, FA Affiliation costs just £80 a season, while league affiliation and entry costs £88 a season; the pitch can be as little as £500–£1,000; and kitting out the team and providing footballs costs about £600, with a referee about £30 per game. Money can buy success, but in historic leagues patience is necessary.

The Major Soccer League in the US is more akin to England at the end of the 19th century, when football clubs were springing up thick and fast. MLS’s 26 teams are divided evenly between the Eastern and Western Conferences, with the New York Red Bulls and DC United among the eastern division, and LA Galaxy the best known in the west. The league has regularly expanded since the 2005 season, with two new clubs (Miami and Nashville) joinng in 2020. There are plans to expand to 30 teams with the addition of Austin FC and Charlotte in 2021, and Sacramento Republic FC and St Louis in 2022.

Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami – or Inter Miami – with its distinctive pink and black kit, and David Beckham as owner and president, is likely to become a hipster fans’ favourite. The story of the club began when Beckham – who had received an option to purchase an expansion team at a price of $25 million when he joined the league in 2007 – hung up his boots in 2013. The ownership group behind the franchise was first formed that year as Miami Beckham United (now Miami Freedom Park LLC). The present ownership group is led by Miami-based Bolivian businessman Marcelo Claure, while Masayoshi Son and brothers Jorge and Jose Mas were added to the ownership group in 2017. The club plays at the 18,000-capacity Inter Miami CF Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on the site of the former Lockhart Stadium, but a proposed 25,000-seat stadium, along with retail shops, hotels, restaurants and a training centre, is planned for the team’s home city, under the name the Miami Freedom Park. In December, it was reported that the Mases are leading the effort to negotiate a 99-year lease with the city of Miami to construct Miami Freedom Park, a $1 billion commercial and stadium complex on Melreese golf course. It is the only course inside Miami city limits, next to Miami International Airport.

Football may be a very old story, but new characters are emerging all the time.