Phil Ball (writer)
Phil Ball (born 1957 in Vancouver, Canada) is a British writer based in Spain.[1] He has lived in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, for over twenty years.[2] Born in Canada to English parents, Phil Ball grew up in Grimsby on the north east coast of England, having moved there as a child in 1957. As a youngster Phil Ball supported Grimsby Town, saying "I was brought up on lower league football".[3] After finishing University, Ball took up an English teaching post in a state comprehensive school in Hull. He subsequently taught in Peru and later Oman, eventually moving to San Sebastián after the first Gulf War.[4]
Phil Ball is a lifelong football enthusiast, and his first published book was the acclaimed Morbo: the story of Spanish football (2001). The book linked the traditional antagonisms in Spanish football (the “Morbo” of the title) to the regional, linguistic and political divisions of Spain as a country. Morbo was listed for the William Hill award and won the GQ Sports Book of the Year. A Spanish translation of the book was published in 2010 and a new updated edition in English came out in 2011.
White Storm: 100 years of Real Madrid (2002) was the first English-language history of the famous Spanish football club, written to celebrate its centenary, using a similar socio-political approach to that taken in Morbo. The book is on its third edition, has been translated into various languages, and was finally published in Spanish in September 2009 under the title 'Tormenta Blanca'.
An Englishman Abroad : Beckham’s Spanish adventure (2004) chronicled the first year of English footballer David Beckham's spell at the Real Madrid club.
Phil Ball’s 2006 publication The Hapless Teacher’s Handbook marked a departure from sports writing, being a humorous autobiographical account of his own early years as a schoolteacher in England.
Phil Ball has contributed football articles to a number of sports publications, including When Saturday Comes, ESPNsoccernet, The New York Times[5] and Financial Times. Phil Ball has also worked as an announcer for Sky Sports' La Liga broadcast.[6] He has also written a regular weekly column on Spanish football for ESPN Soccernet since 2002.
Phil Ball is also prominent in the world of language education, and has authored a wide variety of scholastic material for the Spanish curriculum. He specialises in the area known as CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and has contributed a number of articles and publications to the field.
Controversy
On November 21 2013, Ball was subject to accusations of propaganda on behalf of Qatar's bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.[7] Ball wrote a piece for ESPNFC, entitled 'Inside Doha: Give Qatar A Chance To Shine', however the article was later removed from ESPN's website after negative reaction to the in-article line that he was "invited on an all-expenses paid trip to see the inner workings." [8] ESPNFC announced in a tweet that they had "carefully re-evaluated ... [their] recent Qatar story and decided to remove it. It did not meet ... [their] journalistic standards. We apologize." Subsequently, in an article published by ESPN's ombudsman Robert Lipsyte ('Conflict of interest?' Dec.22, 2013), it was revealed that Ball had pre-warned ESPN that the trip (to attend the 'Aspire4Sports' conference in Doha) was funded, but that ESPN had accepted the offer in good faith and would publish two articles based on Ball's conclusions regarding the conference. Having accepted and merged the two original articles into one, an editor in the US then inserted the line regarding the 'all-expenses paid trip' without Ball's permission. Lipsyte quotes e-mail evidence to show that ESPN considered the article 'well-written' and 'balanced' on receipt, sentiments that contradict their subsequent behaviour in hastily pulling the piece when the controversy broke. [9] [10]
References
- ↑ Ball, Phill (2008), "Camp Nou catharsis", ESPNsoccernet
- ↑ Ball, Phil, White Christmas, ESPN.com
- ↑ Phil Ball (October 2007). http://laligatalk.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=268378 (Podcast). La Liga Talk. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ Phil Ball (October 2007). http://laligatalk.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=268378 (Podcast). La Liga Talk. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ Ball, Phil (2003), "The Game in Spain", The New York Times
- ↑ Phil Ball - books from rBooks.co.uk
- ↑ Manfred, Tony (2013), "Here's The Glowing Story About The Qatar World Cup That ESPN Doesn't Want You To Read", Business Insider
- ↑ Ball, Phil (2013), "Inside Doha: Give Qatar a chance to shine", ESPNFC
- ↑ http://espn.go.com/blog/ombudsman/tag/_/name/robert-lipsyte
- ↑ ESPNFC, ESPNFC (2013), "Tweet", Twitter
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