Jeffrey Donaldson sits in a prison cell, waiting to be sentenced for the most horrific crimes. 

On Free State today we look at the rise and fall of Jeffrey Donaldson.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Donald Trump destroys everyone in his orbit. His transactional nature means that eventually whoever is close to him is ruined Gianni Infantino might soon know how that feels.

‘I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup with the President of the United States,’ Infantino said as he explained how FIFA had lifted the suspension on the USA forward Folarin Balogun. 

“During our conversation, I explained that there was an ongoing legal process involving FIFA’s independent judicial bodies and that the case would be decided in due course by the competent bodies. That is how FIFA’s system works, and it is a principle that I will always uphold.”

On Free State, we look at those principles and how they fit in with Donald Trump’s. The White House insists that Trump’s only concern is the American people. As he spends every hour thinking about them, he just happens to have made more than a billion dollars from crypto in his first year back in office.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You might not have heard of Helenio Herrera but without him, you might not have the modern football manager. Herrera was a lowdown and a dirty football manager who wasn't so much a pragmatist as an absolutist. He was full of contradictions: he hated his players having sex but he ruined many lives with his own pursuit of sex. He would do anything to win and stopped at nothing for victory. He wasn't a pragmatist, it was more pathological than that.

On Free State today, Dion talks to Richard Fitzpatrick about HH and how he shaped the modern football world, for better and for worse. Although not a lot of it was for the better.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The World Cup continues to captivate. France stunned the world with their performance against Sweden, with a display of pace and skill that was as good as anything witnessed in the competition.

But what is the hidden World Cup? What is the secret anguish that this and all sporting events facilitate.

In their final episode in this series looking at the dangers of online gambling, Joe and Dion look at how the dopamine hit is so carefully regulated and how the ebb and flow of sporting events became another hook.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How many times do you look at your smartphone each day? How often do you pick it up? How aware are you of how it makes you feel?

On Thursday’s Free State we looked at how gambling has got out of control.

Today Dion and Joe examine how what we are dealing with is an entirely new phenomenon, a supercharged addiction of smartphone and gambling, a dopamine hit of huge power. 

We look at the demographic most affected and ask when will people do enough to help them?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act prohibited betting on baseball, basketball, American football and most other sports in nearly every US state.

In 2018, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, opening up America to a stampede of betting.

On Free State today we look at how the gambling industry achieved such prominence and how they made gamblers feel that the problem wasn’t them it was you. 

With tens of billions being bet on the World Cup and prediction markets like Polymarket allowing people to take a position on everything, we wonder where it will end?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘I have come to sell a product called soccer.’ The former FIFA president Joao Havelange announced himself in 1974 with these words. They have been the model for the expansionist, grasping FIFA that has existed to this day.

But maybe what matters was not the product but everything but the product?

On Free State today we look at why the World Cup matters and why it might be everything that Donald Trump’s America is not.

From David Clifford and Kerry to Messi and Argentina, sport is what it is because of the communities that are brought together.

Could it be that as America experiences the World Cup, they see that the world is a better place than their leaders want them to believe?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are no atheists in the foxholes and in the darkness of the night there is nobody who won’t find consolation in the World Cup.

On Free State today Joe talks about his own World Cup journey. Joe and Dion look at why the tournament captivates and what it tells us about communities as opposed to the leaders of those communities.

At a time when Elon Musk had become the world’s first trillionaire, we look at the hatred he is trying to foment. 

And we look at the story of Palestine Action and what it tells us the authoritarian direction of the world today.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How have Donegal got themselves in this mess? Has Jim McGuinness’s obsession with Kerry blinded him to the other threats.

On Free State today, Joe examines why some counties accumulate All Irelands and others fail, while Dion surprises him with his knowledge of Roscommon’s football history.

Joe and Dion also look at how the Belfast Riots happened. 

For months the PSNI were warned that houses were being identified and that people were stockpiling food for fear their homes would be attacked but according to reports nothing was done.‘My daughter was crying, saying she doesn’t want to die,’ one father said of the terror his family endured during the riots.

Why has this happened and what is the hypocrisy at the heart of loyalism that allows this hate to prosper?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.