ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

2012 was always going to be a very special year for sport - but surely none of us could have imagined quite how much it would exceed expectations.

To find a time when sport created such a sense of national pride and euphoria you have to go all the way back to 1966 and England winning the World Cup on home soil.

There have been many special sporting moments since then but surely nothing that compares to the events of this year.

Much has been said and written about the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. It was billed as the β€˜greatest show on earth’ and it's difficult to imagine how they could have gone any better.

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It's pretty basic stuff. A polystyrene cup, about half a pint of hot water, a bag of dried leaves and a splash of milk.

There you have it, one cup of tea, a bastion of Britishness and a price difference of Β£2 - from 50p in Scotland to Β£2.50 at Old Trafford and the Etihad. But why?

And that, very simply, is what the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Price of Football 2012 report - to be published on the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sport website on Thursday and discussed on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 5 live - is all about. Asking why? Discussing how?

It isn't an exercise in kicking clubs for charging too much, nor is it about hopping on the bandwagon and shouting "disgrace" at that those that charge the most. It's about a day of discussion and debate about the cost of watching your team play football and how that has changed, at whatever level.

It's also the chance to ask questions of the people in the game who set the prices at the 166 teams involved across 10 divisions in England, Scotland and Wales.

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With the Olympics fresh in the memory and some experiencing 'withdrawal symptoms', a number of you are asking about our plans for the Paralympics. Will we be replicating the extensive Olympic coverage across all of our output when the Paralympics start in a week's time?

The answer is, unfortunately, no. The simple fact is the television rights for the Paralympics were awarded to by the London organisers, We've known about this since January 2010 and my colleague Roger Mosey blogged about it at the time.

So, the reason is not that we think the Paralympics doesn't deserve all-embracing coverage. On the contrary, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has had a long standing commitment to the Paralympics and indeed a proud tradition of covering disability sport - one that's valued by sports governing bodies here in the United Kingdom and envied around the world - so it would be bizarre for us to make such a decision without cause.

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