By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – Amidst the flurry of high-profile international friendlies played across the globe on Wednesday night, the most symbolic fixture took place in front of 17,000 fans in the divided Balkan city of Mitrovica.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – The human rights issue in Qatar is back in the spotlight following the latest summit hosted by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Theo Zwanziger, the executive committee member mandated with maintaining the pressure on the 2022 World Cup hosts to reform their employment system and comply with international labour standards.
March 6 – Announcing quarterly results, Adidas said its income for the quarter was €42 million. This is higher than the average €37.1 million analyst estimated – for the same quarter last year Adidas made a loss of €7 million. But end year figures look likely to be below analyst expectations.
Il paradosso della globalizzazione selvaggia, in fondo, si nasconde anche nelle pieghe di un calcio specchio dei tempi. Archiviata l’età dell’oro – quella che appiccicava alla Serie A l’etichetta di “campionato più bello del mondo” – proprio in questo periodo di crisi i club italiani stanno scoprendo il gusto dell’espansione estera. Cioè, dalle vere acquisizioni alla semplici partnership – diverse società hanno deciso che per consolidare le proprie posizioni è opportuno scavalcare le Alpi o attraversare il mare.
By Alexander Krassimirov
March 5 – Bulgarian champions Ludogorets will donate 20% of its ticket revenue to charity from the upcoming home quarter final match in the Europa League against Valencia in Sofia next week. The club has established a foundation ‘Ludogorets for Bulgaria’, which will carry our charity work in all spheres of Bulgarian society.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 5 – Romania’s league association LPF is currently negotiating a new broadcasting rights deal for the Liga 1 which is expected to total €100 million for the next three years. The negotiations are expected to be completed this March, with several major media players set to bid for the contract, reported local daily Jurnalul National.
March 5 – Despite the myriad of problems facing the Brazil World Cup, FIFA President Sepp Blatter used this week’s 100-day countdown for the start of the tournament to try and accentuate the positive.
March 5 – Another ‘quenelle’ controversy has hit European football with UEFA suspending Belgian player Omar Rahou for performing the so-called inverted Nazi salute during the European futsal championships in Antwerp.
March 5 – The MLS looks set to draft in replacement referees for the opening matches of its season this weekend as a wages dispute between the league and the referees union over payment looks increasingly unlikely to be resolved before kick off and the referees committed to carrying out their threat of strike action.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Barcelona
March 5 – Hundreds of clubs responsible for developing players before they hit the big time in Europe are being unwittingly cheated out of their rightful compensation. New international transfer figures show that Europe’s clubs are all but ignoring their responsibilities to Continents like Africa and South America by paying out little more than one-fifth of required “solidarity” payments to clubs who train players during their formative years –
By Andrew Warshaw in Barcelona
March 4 – European clubs paid agents a staggering $254 million in international transfer fees over the past two years, representing 14.6% of all deals involving contracted players. That was by far the most eye-catching finding of a wide-ranging independent analysis commissioned by the European Club Association and presented at their annual assembly today.
By David Owen
March 4 – Liverpool’s exciting brand of attacking football, which has carried them to second place in the Premier League, is inspiring dreams of a return to the club’s glory days between the 1960s and 1980s. But the on-field revival has yet to be reflected in the bottom-line – at least judging by the latest published accounts.
March 4 – The painful financial turnround of Aston Villa is still on-going though the club maintain that they are on the right track and have “closed a chapter” on a period of heavy losses and are now self sufficient and within UEFA’s financial fair play regulations.
March 4 – The international friendly between Ukraine and the US looked like it had become a victim of the crisis in the country when Anatoliy Konkov, president of the Ukrainian Football Federation, said that the team would not be travelling to Cyprus for the rescheduled fixture.
March 4 – The next steps towards the creation of a long-talked about Caribbean Professional League were taken yesterday with the announcement by CONCACAF of a Task Force to look at the feasibility of a regional league.