A no-holds-barred exposé on the financial transactions of the world's favourite sport The transfer fees clubs pay to sign top players now top €4 billion a year but much of the money has been flowing out of the game. A small group of wealthy investors including Russian oligarchs, English racehorse owners and a former billionaire gold miner have seized the opportunity to enter this booming market. Some have moved in on the territory of banks and lent money to clubs in exchange for a share in fees generated by Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and dozens more of today's stars. Others have acquired obscure teams to get a piece of the pie. Even as the global financial crisis sent fortunes tumbling this select group found a profitable place to park their money. The size of the transfer market has continued to rise –- it increased seven-fold in value the last two decades, more than the FTSE share index. Between them, these wealthy investors have amassed hundreds of millions of euros in profits. At the same time, they have managed to stay out of the spotlight the world’s most popular sport brings. Football’s Secret Trade follows the money along a trail very few know about, from nondescript offices in the U.K. and ramshackle stadiums of South American clubs you have probably never heard of to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean. Warning – you won’t see a major transfer deal in the same light again.

A no-holds-barred exposé on the financial transactions of the world's favourite sport The transfer fees clubs pay to sign top players now top €4 billion a year but much of the money has been flowing out of the game. A small group of wealthy investors including Russian oligarchs, English racehorse owners and a former billionaire gold miner have seized the opportunity to enter this booming market. Some have moved in on the territory of banks and lent money to clubs in exchange for a share in fees generated by Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar and dozens more of today's stars. Others have acquired obscure teams to get a piece of the pie. Even as the global financial crisis sent fortunes tumbling this select group found a profitable place to park their money. The size of the transfer market has continued to rise –- it increased seven-fold in value the last two decades, more than the FTSE share index. Between them, these wealthy investors have amassed hundreds of millions of euros in profits. At the same time, they have managed to stay out of the spotlight the world’s most popular sport brings. Football’s Secret Trade follows the money along a trail very few know about, from nondescript offices in the U.K. and ramshackle stadiums of South American clubs you have probably never heard of to offshore bank accounts in the Caribbean. Warning – you won’t see a major transfer deal in the same light again.

"One of the most insightful books ever written about college football." —The New York Times Now revised and updated by the author, MEAT MARKET proves that in college football, the game off the field is more brutal than the one on the field. In this shattering expose, Bruce Feldman goes into the war rooms to show who stands to profit when champions get built, and at what cost. A college football program can become a multi-million dollar industry for its school, but only if that program wins. The quest for excellence goes beyond the guts and the glory of the gridiron—it goes into the war rooms where recruiters size up every metric to determine which high-school phenom they want to recruit to the university. Bruce Feldman—FOX Sports College Football Insider—rips the cover off the game’s frenzied pursuit of raw talent, taking you deep inside the SEC war room of recruiting legend Ed Orgeron, the combustible Cajun who helped build national championship teams at the University of Miami and at USC. In a stunning, blow-by-blow account of the year leading up to National Signing Day 2007, the award-winning journalist shadows Orgeron and his Ole Miss assistants as they set about hunting high school students, pleading, plotting, and inventing ways to lure them to their sleepy Oxford campus. Packed with candid confessions and outrageous off-the-field action, Meat Market makes what happens on the field seem almost tame by comparison. MEAT MARKET is a must-read for all college football fans, an eye-opening discovery of what it takes to put their favorite team on the field.

"I saw men under pressure. I saw men succeed and more men fail. I always wondered where the difference lay." What separates the good from the truly great players? How do football managers get the best out of their team? How do you come back from a crushing defeat to win? In an inspirational, funny and thought-provoking new book, The Secret Footballer teams up with The Secret Psychologist to crack the secrets of success and share with us the tricks and tips that keep the top players at the top of their game. Exploring the winning mindset from confidence to concentration, exposing the successes, the failures and the frauds, this book will shock and entertain. And while most of us will never dribble like Messi or strike like Suarez, we can learn to think like them. How To Win is the thinking fan's handbook for those who want to win. At football or at life.

From the post room to the board room, everyone thinks they can be the manager. But how do you manage outrageous talent? What do you do to inspire loyalty from your players? How do you turn around a team in crisis? What's the best way to build long-term success? How can you lead calmly under pressure? The issues are the same whether you're managing a Premier League football team or a FTSE 100 company. Here, for the first time, some 30 of the biggest names in football management reveal just what it takes. With their every act, remark, and success or failure under constant scrutiny from the media and the fans, these managers need to be the most adroit of leaders. In The Manager they explain their methods, offer lessons they've learned along the way, and describe the decisions they make and the leadership they provide. Each chapter tackles a key leadership issue for managers in any walk of life and, in their own words, shows how the experts deal with the challenges they face in an abnormally high-pressure environment. Offering valuable lessons for business leaders and fascinating behind-the-scenes insights for football fans, The Manager is an honest, accessible and unprecedented look at the day-to-day work of these high-profile characters and the world of top-level football management. Featuring: Roy Hodgson, Carlo Ancelotti, Arsène Wenger, Sam Allardyce, Roberto Mancini, José Mourinho, Brendan Rodgers, Harry Redknapp, Sir Alex Ferguson, Walter Smith, Mick McCarthy, Gerard Houllier, Tony Pulis, Martin O'Neill, Neil Warnock, Howard Wilkinson, Kevin Keegan, Dario Gradi, Andre Villas-Boas, David Moyes, Alex McLeish, Hope Powell, Martin Jol, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Hughton, David Platt, Paul Ince, and George Graham.

In the vein of Hotel Babylon and Confessions of a GP, The Secret Player will fascinate footballs fans with its wealth of insider knowledge and willingness to talk, albeit anonymously, about the inner workings of the game. Based on the hugely popular 'The Player' columns in FourFourTwo magazine, the book gives a warts-and-all insight into the daily life of professional footballers. Month by month, it chronicles the oscillating rhythms of the season, from the trudge of pre-season to the 'squeaky-bum time' of promotion and relegation. The player himself has played at all levels of English football - from Premier League to a season of non-League - and represented England.

'The F2 are unbelievable - what they do is not possible!' - Pelé We're The F2 and this is our World of Football. Inside we give away the biggest secrets of the greatest footballers on the planet. Want tricks like Neymar? Or to hit free-kicks like Ronaldo? Or to dribble like Messi? We show you how. We've been travelling the world, meeting the biggest stars, like Gareth Bale, Ronaldinho, Mesut Özil, Pelé and Stevie G, and now we give you the lowdown on what they're really like, and how they got their edge. We'll also let you in on our journey from aspiring pros to YouTube superstars with over 10 million followers. Want to know how to become a social media star? That's inside too. There's a free app to download that will make these pages come to life with exclusive videos, tricks and games. So, what are you waiting for? Open, read, learn, download and get out on the pitch and practise. Love, peace and tekkers, Billy and Jez, aka The F2 Enter the F2 World of Football competition!! Submit your pre-order confirmation for a chance to win a selection of amazing prizes, including having your book delivered to your door by Billy and Jez and featuring on their Vlog! Go to www.F2playlikeapro.co.uk for all the details.