Interesting. The named writer was a student on the University of Brighton's sports journalism degree course two years ago when I was a visiting lecturer. It is amazingly impressive that he could possibly have developed a sufficiently sophisticated network of contacts since then to know what a...
Technically speaking, it's the present perfect, a form that refers to a time that began in the past and includes the present. It implies "and I still enjoy working with him."
With all due respect* to The Times, its sports desk is not what it was and there are a lot of bluffers employed there, especially in the London area.
(*i.e. with no respect at all)