By Paul Nicholson in Miami
May 2 – The invitation promised history and the event delivered it. North American and Caribbean confederation CONCACAF and South American confederation CONMEBOL announced that the centennial edition of the world’s oldest international football tournament, the Copa America, will be played in the US in 2016.
May 1 – Traffic has renewed its CONCACAF representation deal through to 2021, acquiring sponsorship rights to all the confederation’s properties.
Imagine the scene on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Shouting and panic, white papers being waved in the air, frantic conversations into cellphones and one lone trader desperately trying to discover the route of the pandemonium.
“What’s the Pwanic?”
“It’s Mwoyes,” says the Wolf of Wall Street, “he’s gahn.”
“Omg get me a cwarfee. Dis is BIG!’
By Mark Baber
May 1 – King Abdullah Football Stadium, the new national stadium of Saudi Arabia which will be home to Jeddah’s two Premier League clubs, Al-Ittihad FC and Al-Ahli SC officially opens today with an inauguration ceremony and the hosting of the final of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Cup.
By Tom Parsons
May 1 – Football statistics website whoscored.com has signed an exclusive deal with SkySports to share their unique ‘player characteristics’ on the SkySports website.
May 1 – The Champions League Final in Lisbon later this month will be the first featuring two clubs from the same city after Atletico Madrid joined Real Madrid in the showpiece climax to the European club season.
How much more ugly can the divisions within Asian football become? In a couple of weeks’ time, Jordan stages the latest Soccerex football business conference for the game’s movers and shakers but it does so against the backdrop of festering resentment and unsavoury internecine warfare.
The recent decision by FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, head of Jordanian football, to issue an open letter to the entire Asian football membership denouncing Asian Football Confederation chief Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa for trying to mastermind his downfall by playing politics took most observers totally by surprise.
May 1 – Thousands of fans could struggle to use the internet at half of the stadiums during this summer’s World Cup, a top government official has admitted, the latest headache in a sea of worry as Brazil readies for the world’s biggest sporting event.
By Richard van Poortvliet
May 1 – Russia’s Minister for Sport, Vitaly Mutko, in his promotion of the bid for hosting Euro 2020 matches, said that “EURO 2020 will be a continuation of the 2018 World Cup.”
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
April 30 – With several foreign-based investors reportedly eyeing acquisitions of a number of Polish football clubs, a new story has broken on the planned take over of Flota Swinoujscie by a Portuguese investment group.
By Richard van Poortvliet
April 30 – The Russian Football Union has moved Russia’s friendly match against Slovakia in May from Kazan to St. Petersburg, due to the poor state of the pitch in the capital of Tatarstan.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 30 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter has revisited the home-grown player debate by arguing that too few are given a chance to prove themselves because of the foreign invasion.
April 30 – Horrific pictures of a Polish fan emerging unhurt after being doused in flames has been picked on up social media around the world and has heaped more concern on a country that has struggled to eradicate spectator violence.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” John Donne, No Man Is An Island
Liverpool’s time was the 1970s. This is not at all to diminish their achievements or the anguish that great club enjoyed and endured in the 1980s. But the foundations for becoming the club they are today were laid under Bill Shankly in the decade before.
April 30 – The Stade de France in Paris will host both the opening game and the final of Euro 2016 after UEFA confirmed the match schedule. Host nation France will get the competition under way on June 10, with the climax to the tournament – the first Euros to comprise 24 instead of 16 teams – a month later.