MONTROSE / MADRID – Europe reportedly plays host to one in four of the world’s golf courses – with almost 9,000 peppered across the continent. More than 1,450 – almost one in five – including some of the world’s most iconic, can be found in Spain, Italy, and Scotland, where the sport originated.
Green Goals: How European Football Clubs Scored for the Planet
PARIS / MADRID/ BERLIN – This cross-border journalistic investigation examines the environmental footprint of professional football in Europe - a sport that, despite growing awareness and a few promising initiatives, remains largely out of step with ecological imperatives.
The Croatian Bridge: Football Transfers in the Grey Area
ZAGREB – This investigation examines the opaque business model of football agent Andy Bara and his agency, Niagara Sports. Bara is renowned for orchestrating high-profile transfers, including Dani Olmo's moves to RB Leipzig and FC Barcelona. However, his dealings have raised questions about 'bridge ...
KYIV - This investigation examines how Russian sports betting platforms continue to offer live betting on Ukrainian football matches - including those held near active war zones - using data that can largely be traced back to Sportradar. This company promotes itself as a guardian of sporting ...
CHAMONIX / VIOLA / PRAGELATO / TEGLIO – "Who Owns Our Winter" is a cross-border investigation into the lead-up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina and the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps which explores the environmental, social, and economic implications of adopting a development model ...
NAIROBI - For decades Kenya has been a purveyor of Olympic medals in distance running, and it will continue to be so at the Paris Games, but for the past decade or so it has also been clear that there is a strong smell of doping attached to the medals. Athletics is one of the most important economic ...
ASMARA - Biniam Girmay, a 17-year-old promising cyclist from the African country of Eritrea, dreams of one day riding the Tour de France, the world's most prestigious Grand Tour.
Football’s Carbon Footprint: Burning Up the Planet
LONDON – This is a cross-border investigation by five journalists into how the world’s most popular sport is creating a huge carbon footprint and relying on the fossil fuel industry in a never-ending search for more money and more fans.
MANCHESTER - Elite European football has been overrun with advertisements for Asian betting brands in recent years, despite many of these companies being connected to major organised crime figures.
GHENT - 'The Farm', is literally an old Belgian farmhouse outside of Ghent. From the seventies onward it was the operational base for young promising international riders. Michael Tvardovskiy lived at The Farm for eight years, after deserting the Ukranian army. When he got deported from Belgium ...
NAIROBI - The three legs of this investigation reveal:
Kenya's enormous betting addiction;
At the same time the Kenyan government removed a tax for betting companies, a cousin of Kenya's president accumulated a financial stake in betting giant SportPesa;
KABUL/KINSHASHA/JUBA - No Olympics this summer. But Elien did seek and feel the Olympic spirit: in Afghan women's football, wheelchair basketball in South Sudan and with nzozo players in Congo. These champions wouldn't have made it to the Olympics anyway, but the Olympic spirit is clearly present.
GERAARDSBERGEN - In the hot summer of 1996, the square in front of the Cathedral of Oviedo is full of people saying goodbye to their cycling hero 'El Tarangu'. Jose Manuel Fuente, only 50 years old, is buried. But seven years later, he sits opposite another cycling icon Lucien van Impe, eating ...
RWANDA - The Tour of Rwanda is the biggest cycling event on the african continent. In an eight day race it winds through all four provinces of Rwanda. The Tour has been won all four years by the host country, providing a platform to make an international name for Rwandan cyclists.
BELGIUM - At the beginning of 2007, the Belgian FC Bruges launched plans for a new football stadium. A professional club derives a large part of the resources it needs from a modern and attractive stadium to maintain itself at the top in Belgium and to be able to participate somewhat internationally ...
Radio Russia: stories in the margins of the World Cup
IRKUTSK - Radio 1 reporter Ward Bogaert and Russia expert Johan de Boose travel during the first two weeks of the Football World Cup along the trans-Siberian railway line, in search of beautiful stories in the margins of the sporting event. Together they keep a diary...
RIO DE JANEIRO - The World Cup and the Olympic Games always promise beautiful dreams and opportunities for the inhabitants of the host country. But do those dreams come true? The documentary We Must Be Dreaming closely followed three Brazilians for three years – before, during and after the 2014 ...
LISBON – Each year, hundreds of African and South American minors come to Europe in search of a better life and professional success in the European football leagues, which they see as the new El Dorado. In doing so, they expose themselves to the cross-national, multimillion-dollar structures of ...
BRUSSELS - The four-part series SPUL investigates what doping use does to an athlete. Instead of judging or condemning - which is usually the case - SPUL goes in search of what happens to people when they start doping.
Who extracts the value of Nigerian football players?
CALABAR - According to a 2013 study conducted by Paris-based charity Foot Solidaire, around 15,000 young boys from West Africa are trafficked to Europe every year by bogus football agents who promise them trials with top football clubs in exchange for large sums money from their families.
RAMALLAH - In Beyond the Wall, we follow two young Palestinians who face many restrictions on a daily basis, yet have decided to pursue their dreams despite everything. In Palestine, the worlds of sports and politics are closely linked.
SOCHI - Seven years under construction at a reported cost of over 40 billion euros, the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia are the most expensive sporting event in history. But the Games also had a human cost.
RIO DE JANEIRO - Far removed from the stadiums and the sports industry, this series portrays Brazilian FANÁTICOS. We meet people who are part of the real popular culture of the Brazilian Futebol.