The summer of 1992 was a pivotal time for world football. Against all odds, Denmark won the European Championships with a heavily defensive style of play, prompting the introduction of the back pass rule. Spain edged Poland to the gold medal in the Summer Olympics, whilst the Premier League was launched in England. As for James Richardson, he left England to start a new adventure in Italy.
Born in Bristol, England, Richardson grew up during a rather particular time in the game’s history. Similarly to others like Guy Branston and Gareth Southgate, he was raised in a period where England was considered the continent’s pariah, with its national team floundering and its club teams banned from competing in Europe. It’s why Richardson decided to start following Serie A, which was the premium league in the world at the time.
He started dating a girl from Rome, and whilst he didn’t end up marrying her, she did prove influential in his development. Richardson decided to learn and become fluent in Italian, whilst he also started supporting her beloved Roma after watching them for the first time in March 1992. Three decades later, he’s still a dedicated Giallorossi supporter.
“Roma were the first team that I saw in Italy,” stated Richardson in an exclusive EPL Index interview. “As a Roma fan, it seems natural that whatever happened, they would have been my team, but I guess it probably was the fact that the girl that I was going out with was from a Romanista family, so the first game we went to see was Roma vs. Monaco. I used to go out and visit her before I moved across to Italy, and we went to see a derby, and of course, they were all Roma fans, and I was a Roma fan, and I guess I got lucky.”
Thanks to his newfound fluency in Italian as well as his fledgling experience in TV production, Richardson was hired by British network Channel 4 to be a hands-on producer on their new program called Football Italia. Initially chosen to serve as the assistant to footballing icon Paul Gascoigne, who had also left England for Italy and joined Lazio that same summer, Richardson was forced to step up as the main attraction when Gascoigne regularly missed his appointments.
This opened the door for Richardson to become one of the most beloved presenters in England, transmitting his passion for Calcio to millions of intrigued viewers and interviewing key players and coaches in Serie A. Football Italia consisted of two weekend shows — Gazzetta Football Italia on Saturday mornings — as well as La Partita and Mezzanotte on Sunday night and midweek.
Whether reviewing the highlights of one of the weekend’s top matches, or going over the latest headlines in the Italian journals whilst sipping a cappuccino, or scaling the stairs of a stadium whilst previewing the upcoming fixture, Richardson instantly became a cult classic thanks to his refreshing approach, his witty humor and cheerful demeanor, and his widespread knowledge of the beautiful game.
“The instant fame is a really strange thing, and it touches on the fact that when people go on television, we assume that they’re there for some expertise, but quite a lot of the time, they’re really not. Maybe that’s true beyond television: a lot of people end up doing things, and we assume they know what they’re talking about, but most of the time, they really don’t. I certainly didn’t know what I was talking about, but I had the huge advantage that in those days, there were very few channels in the UK.”
“When I started, there were only 4 TV channels. There was very little football on TV in England, and on terrestrial TV, not satellite, not cable packages, which when I say four channels, that’s all there was, because we didn’t even have satellite or cable back in those days. Sky had just started, which became the dominant satellite or pay-pr-view TV provider. That was one of the reasons why we had a big audience, because nobody had Sky, but they’d taken English football off mainstream television, so we were the only live football around.
Richardson returned to London in 2002 after a decade in Rome, presenting Eurosport’s live coverage of Serie A and anchoring Bravo TV’s Football Italia Live as well as the reboot of Gazzetta Football Italia. But his legendary Football Italia chapter came to an end in December 2006 as the Premier League’s ascent and Serie A’s polemic downfall caused the market to dry up.
“Most of the time, I lived in Italy, and I would very rarely come over to England in those early years. I was completely focused on the fact that I was an English guy trying to be an Italian in Rome, and I wasn’t really aware of the fact that anyone in England might regard me as an authority on football, which I’m sure I would have found very, very amusing.”
“I don’t live in Italy anymore. To my very great regret, that particular gig ended in 2002, and I decided that it was probably a good idea to go back to England. However, I’ve had the good fortune to remain working on Italian football for a variety of broadcasters, some dead and gone, some still existent, for UK TV. And I think, like a lot of people who have some contact with Italian football, it’s remained in my heart, it’s still my favorite league.”
Richardson was forced to adapt, and he did just that, switching his focus to English football and the broader European game. After co-presenting Setanta Sports’ The Friday Football Show and Football Matters shows with Rebecca Lowe between 2007 and 2009, Richardson presented BBC’s Late Kick Off for the South-West region.
He then spearheaded ESPN’s coverage of live Italian football before moving to BT Sport (now TNT Sports) in 2013, hosting live Serie A matches and the Sunday night round-up show, European Football Show, until 2017 as well as the UEFA Champions League Goals Show, followed by a multi-year stint at the Fantasy Premier League Show by Premier League Productions. And this summer, he was sent out to the USA as part of the joint DAZN / 5 presentation team for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
“I really enjoyed the Club World Cup. I know there are issues with it, but as a tournament, I really enjoyed it. The thing I would most love to do, I want to go and do a Gazzetta about the J-League. I want to do a show around the J-League, because they have some lovely football in Japan and there’s a lot of things to enjoy there, the culture, the incredible fans…so if J-League are listening and thinking, ‘We really need to promote our league better,’ let’s do it. That would be my number one goal on my bucket list. Apart from that, I’m just really happy to be working.
“I’ve been really lucky to do this job, and I really enjoy it…anybody who works in presenting sports or writing about sports is really lucky, because the athletes do all the work for you, they’ll go out and have an incredible game, and all you have to do is say that they had an incredible game. Do you remember when they did this? Did you see when they did that? And there’s your show, you know? They do all the work, and you just kind of sit and talk about the hard work they’ve done, and bingo, that’s a living. It’s great, so I’d be just really happy if I keep doing this.”
Whether analyzing the J-League title race, or discussing D.C. United’s recent run of form, or comparing the Scudetto favorites, or previewing the Premier League relegation battle, Richardson brings a world-class football knowledge to his day job, hosting The Totally Football Show podcast alongside seasoned journalists like James Horncastle, Raphael Honigstein, Julien Laurens, and Alvaro Romeo.
However, he’s far from just a football-centric presenter — he’s also presented other sports from sumo wrestling to darts to cycling, as well as niche competitions like the World’s Strongest Man and The Great Model Railway Challenge. And at 59 years of age, he shows no signs whatsoever of slowing down.
“I’m not a person who tends to plan too much for the future, for good and for bad. I’ve been fortunate enough that things have just kind of kept going for me, and I’d be really happy if they do. I don’t really feel the need to hang it up, and the nice thing is nowadays, you’re a little bit more in control of your own destiny in the broadcasting world, if you’re doing something like I’m doing in podcasting.”
“If people still want me to host their podcast, I’ll do that. If people don’t, I’ll probably try and do something on my own, maybe travel-related, maybe football, whatever it is, I don’t know. But I really enjoy what I do, and, why wouldn’t I? I haven’t really thought about hanging it up yet, and I’ve got bills to pay as well.”