Powerplay: The House of Sepp Blatter: A perfectly timed, insightful BBC podcast

Powerplay: The House of Sepp Blatter

Perfectly timed to coincide the Fifa World Cup happening right now in Qatar, this new series from the BBC, tells the story behind one of the most notorious names in recent football history: Sepp Blatter.

As Fifa’s President from 1998 to 2015, Blatter led the organisation through a period of widespread corruption and controversy.

Powerplay traces Blatter’s rise through the ranks of Fifa and the extraordinary scandals that took place during his time at the top, culminating in the police raids of 2015 that saw dozens of Fifa officials arrested and charged with corruption and bribery.

The actor David Morrissey is in the hosting seat for this one, and throughout the 10-part series, he speaks to whistleblowers, journalists and other insiders about what went wrong during Blatter’s years at FIFA’s helm.

Football novices (like me) and football fanatics alike will find much to like in Powerplay, as the level of detail and insight throughout the series makes it an informative, interesting listen.

New episodes of Powerplay: The House of Sepp Blatter are being drip-fed on your favourite podcasting app, or you can listen to the full series now on BBC Sounds.

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The Tavistock: Inside the gender clinic

Tortoise Media is back at it again, adding yet another stellar podcast to its already-impressive line-up released this year.

This new show delves into what really happened at the Tavistock clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which is the only NHS clinic in England and Wales that treats children experiencing gender dysphoria. In a few months, the clinic is due to close.

GIDS has been shrouded in controversy in recent years, with its loudest critics accusing it of recklessly pushing children down a path of medicalised gender transition. However, there are also many advocates of the clinic who say it provides essential support and treatment for transgender children.

It’s a polarising subject and the show’s host, journalist Polly Curtis, acknowledges this up front in the first episode. But rather than add more fuel to the fire, Curtis says she wants to tell the story of GIDS “respectfully and carefully”, without telling listeners “what to think”.

So far, Curtis has lived up to her promises – her interviews are nuanced and thoughtful, and she approaches the story with the right mix of curiosity and compassion.

The first four episodes of The Tavistock: Inside the gender clinic are available to listen to now wherever you get your podcasts.

Bad Bets: The Unraveling of Trevor Milton

New from The Wall Street Journal is season two of this podcast series that “​​unravels big-business dramas that have had a big impact on our world”.

The latest instalment of Bad Bets looks at the story of Trevor Milton, the charismatic founder of the electric vehicle company Nikola.

Soon after founding the company in 2015, Milton managed to raise eye-watering amounts of investment money by promising to bring a zero-emissions semi truck to market. Milton even took the company public in 2020 at a valuation of US$3.3 billion, despite the company not having sold a single truck.

However, in October this year, Milton was found guilty of defrauding Nikola investors by lying about the company’s electric vehicle technology.

Hosted by journalist Ben Foldy, Bad Bets takes listeners through Milton’s tremendous rise and catastrophic fall, speaking to a number of people he burned along the way.

The series is also directed by Sruthi Pinnamaneni (former senior journalist at Reply All); her influence is clear in the crisp, nicely edited storytelling.

All episodes of Bad Bets: The Unraveling of Trevor Milton are widely available to listen to now.