By Andrew Warshaw
April 25 – Europe’s loss-making clubs will be breathing a sigh of relief after UEFA president Michel Platini confirmed that none of them will face the ultimate sanction of competition bans for breaching financial fair play regulations.
When Liberia’s George Weah became the first African to win the FIFA World Player of the Year title, in 1995, many thought that it was going to be the first of many for the continent’s players.
With their ascendance and growing impact in European club football – which, fairly or unfairly, remains the yardstick for picking the best on the planet – it was taken as a given at the time.
But nearly 20 years have passed since the former AC Milan forward earned the game’s top individual award and it does not appear that another African will be following in Weah’s footsteps anytime soon.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – The head of Japanese football has been forced into an embarrassing apology to the Qataris for suggesting his country could step in as replacement host for the 2002 World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – Mark Pieth, the Swiss governance expert appointed by FIFA to propose recommendations for change following the worst corruption-tainted period in its history, says the organisation must allow an ongoing investigation into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup ballots to take its course if it wants to retain any sense of credibility.
April 24 – Barcelona have appealed their two-transfer window ban and been granted a suspension while the appeals process works through FIFA and ultimately any further appeal to the court of arbitration for sport.
April 24 – Belgium’s already powerful World Cup squad has been boosted even more after Manchester United starlet Adnan Januzaj opted to play for them rather than a string of other countries including newly developing Kosovo.
April 24 – Wilson Raj Perumal, renowned as one of the world’s most notorious and elusive matchfixers, has been arrested yet again in Finland on an international arrest warrant, two years after the Singaporean was jailed there for fixing domestic league games.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – Twenty four hours before the deadline for final bid submissions, Poland and the Czech Republic have pulled out of the race to stage Euro 2020 while Scotland prepared to officially launch its campaign.
By Paul Nicholson
April 24 – Sports group Doyen Global has invested in Squawka, the social media-driven sports app. Doyen principals Simon Oliveira and Matt Kay will both join the Squawka board.
Fifteen years seems a long enough time to prepare for an event you know will happen. That is double the time countries hosting the World Cup or the Olympics get. But despite knowing about it for so long, and supposedly preparing for it, the fact that Manchester United has failed to manage the transition into the post Alex Ferguson age raises serious questions of how it went about this, arguably, the most crucial job the United management has faced since the 1960s.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 23 – FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne has denounced what he describes as the polarisation of European football in the latest edition of his thematic manifesto policy distributed to all FIFA’s 209 member federations.
April 23 – The negotiations between the Scottish FA (SFA) and the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) over who controls the direction of the game in Scotland found part resolution after a meeting of the two boards.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 23 – The row between France and FIFA over the issue of headscarves shows little sign of diminishing. France’s new sports minister is defending the right of his country to uphold its policy of banning headscarves for footballers – in defiance of the game’s lawmakers.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 23 – On his latest four-day inspection visit to Brazil’s World Cup host cities, an anxious FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has made it abundantly clear yet again that time is running out to complete the necessary construction work – not least at the Sao Paolo venue where the tournament begins.
By Alexander Krassimirov
April 23 – There was yet more chaos in Bulgarian top tier football after the shocking scenes of violence that caused the abandonment of the Plovdiv derby at the weekend. This time it was the extreme Ultras of Levski Sofia who took action into their own hands amid fears that the top level of the game is getting out of control in the country.