Financial Times columnist and football writer, Simon Kuper, and Mehreen Khan, Economics Editor at The Times of London are to host a new football podcast.
Heroes & Humans, brought to life by the newly created media venture studio Immaterial, will provide in-depth audio-biographies from the world of football including Kylian Mbappé, Mo Salah, Roman Abramovich, Megan Rapinoe, Hakan Şükür and Sir Alex Ferguson.
“I’ve spent 30 years interviewing and trying to understand these people. When podcasts came along, I thought this is the perfect venue to present it all. And Mehreen is obviously the perfect co-host. The aim is to do a football podcast like no other, which treats these heroes as humans,” says Simon Kuper.
Acknowledged as ‘one of the world’s leading writers on soccer’ by Time Magazine, and having attended the last nine World Cups, Kuper has an incomparable understanding of the game’s impact on and off the field. He is a long-time columnist for the Financial Times, twice awarded Columnist of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors.
Kuper is the author of several acclaimed football books, including ‘Football Against the Enemy’, ‘Soccernomics’ and ‘Barça: The Rise and Fall of the Club that Built Modern Football’.
Mehreen Khan adds: “My start in journalism came through football writing and I’ve always found sport can be a brilliant shortcut in how to understand societies, economies, and politics.
“I’m delighted to be back in the game with a distinguished co-host in Simon to share insights into what makes our figures tick and understand where they come from.”
Khan, a football obsessive and die-hard Chelsea fan, intertwines socio-political narratives with pop culture savvy. She is a pioneering female voice in football podcasting.
Khan was earlier the FT’s Brussels correspondent, before moving to The Times in 2022. She started her career in sports journalism at the Daily Telegraph in 2014 and wrote a football blog that touched on themes including Russia’s breakaway Muslim separatism, German multiculturalism, and the earth-shattering magnificence of Andrea Pirlo.
Heroes & Humans is produced by OneFinePlay and backed with a launch campaign in partnership with 433, the world’s largest social community for football. It will be released across platforms on 21 March.
