Quick Facts
VirgoBiography
James Oliver Richardson (born 21 September 1966 in Bristol) is an English television presenter and journalist.
He is best known as a former presenter of Channel 4's Football Italia programme and co-presenter of Setanta Sports' The Friday Football Show and Football Matters shows. He currently presents the Football Weekly podcast on guardian.co.uk, Sunday Night Football on BT Sport, and the English regional Late Kick Off (South, South West and West) football show for BBC One as well as making appearances on Football Today for the official Premier League Channel, Italian Serie A football Live on ESPN and British Eurosport's Tour de France live cycling coverage.
Football Italia presenter
Richardson was the anchor of Football Italia on Channel 4 from 1992 until 2002. Football Italia saw Richardson become well known and the show was cult viewing for football fans in the UK. Football Italia consisted of two weekend shows. On a Saturday, Richardson would present Gazzetta Football Italia, a magazine show which would round up the previous weekend's games, as well keeping viewers up to date with the latest Italian football news. The show would have Richardson sitting in a café in a picturesque setting somewhere in Italy. Usually armed with a sundae ice cream and a pile of Italian sports newspapers he would use them to show viewers the latest football stories and headlines from the country. He would interview players and managers on a regular basis for the show, since he was able to speak Italian. Meanwhile, on a Sunday he would host live coverage from the stadium of one of the top Italian games that particular day. He also presented Mezzanotte, a Sunday night and mid-week show with highlights of one of the top matches of the weekend.
Later television career
From 2002 until 2005, he presented British Eurosport's live coverage of Serie A, then Bravo TV's Football Italia Live and the return of Gazzetta Football Italia. He has presented British Eurosport's live Tour de France cycling coverage.
He presented Bravo TV's first live PDC darts coverage alongside Dave Gorman during the 2010 European Darts Championship. In 2011 the BBC announced Richardson as the new presenter of regional football programme Late Kick Off, for the South, West and South-West region. He presented World's Strongest Man 2012 on Channel 5.
Since 2012 he has presented ESPN's coverage of live Italian Football and will move to BT Sport from August 2013, to host live Serie A matches on the channel and also the European Football Show.
Other media
Richardson also contributes articles to the football magazine, FourFourTwo, as their Italian football correspondent. He has contributed articles to The Guardian.
For the guardian.co.uk, Richardson hosts the Football Weekly series of podcasts. Prior to hosting that he fronted The Guardian's The World Cup Show for the 2006 World Cup. He is noted for his usage of puns and humour. Richardson was the voice behind a series of Euro 2008 previews leading up to the final tournament in June.
Providing Internet content, Richardson hosted the online coverage of England's World Cup 2010 qualifying game with Ukraine on 10 October 2009 alongside former England coach Sven-Göran Eriksson.