Always Gold

How political prisoners on Robben Island built a democracy from a football league.Between 1966 and 1991, political prisoners on Robben Island built and ran a competitive football league with a written constitution, trained referees, and a formal appeals process. The men who built it included a future Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. This is the story of the Makana Football Association — and the direct line from a referee's notebook in a prison cell to the Constitution of a democratic republic.

In November 2016, a plane carrying a Brazilian football club crashed into a mountainside in Colombia. 71 people died — eleven miles from the runway. They were flying to the biggest game in their club's history. This is the full story of Chapecoense: from the fourth division of Brazilian football to the Copa Sudamericana final, and the reckless decision that destroyed everything in an instant.

Three matches, one war — El Salvador vs Honduras, 1969.In June 1969, three World Cup qualifying matches between El Salvador and Honduras preceded four days of armed conflict, thousands of deaths, and a chain of consequences that lasted decades. This is the Football War — what caused it, what happened, and what FIFA did about it. The answer to the last question is nothing.