By Jaroslaw Adamowski
August 1 – Moldovan businessman Valerii Moraru has acquired 94.72% of the shares in Romanian club Rapid Bucharest. The full cost of the club to Moraru has not been declared but it has been reported he paid between €2.7 million and €4 million for the 20% stake he purchased from Adrian Zamfir, one of the club’s former co-owners.
By Mark Baber
August 1 – Meeting in the House of Football, the Russian Football Union (RFU) decided on Thursday to allow Crimean football clubs to play Russian league football from next season.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 1 – Former US presidential candidate John McCain has added his voice to calls for Russia to be stripped of the 2018 World Cup finals because of the Malaysian Airlines disaster and Russian support for separatists in the east of Ukraine.
Paul Nicholson
August 1 – The Glazer family are selling just under 5% of their shareholding in Manchester United. The sale of the eight million shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) will realise about $150 million for the family.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 1 – An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone has led to the Seychelles forfeiting Saturday’s African Nations Cup qualifier rather than risk the disease spreading to the Indian Ocean island. Sierra Leone were due to travel to the Seychelles for a second-leg tie only for the game to be called off on the advice of the host authorities.
August 1 – The Asian Football Confederation has extended the domestic ban on nine Vietnamese players to confederation level for their role in the country’s match-fixing scandal. The chairman of the AFC Disciplinary Committee took the move following a request from Vietnam’s own national federation.
By David Owen
August 1 – Further details of alleged shortcomings at the Rio de Janeiro doping control laboratory whose accreditation was revoked last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), obliging FIFA to send blood and urine samples from the recent World Cup for analysis in Switzerland, have emerged in minutes of a WADA meeting in South Africa now available on the agency’s website.
July 31 – Honduras is to host the CONCACAF U17 boys championship in February next year. Meanwhile the confederation has announce that the crucial 2014 CONCACAF Women’s Championship, the regional qualifier for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada next year will be played in four host cities in the United States: Chicago, Kansas City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 31 – Barcelona may have had one of their worst seasons in recent years by their own high standards – having not won a single trophy – but the Catalan giants have still managed to post record revenues and their second highest profit ever.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 31 – Organisers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have been quick to respond to the latest wave of criticism over the mistreatment of construction workers saying they are “actively looking into” the latest reports and are “heavily dismayed” at some of the claims.
By Mark Baber
July 31 – The High Court has rejected Arsenal’s appeal against a planning inspector’s decision against their proposal to increase the number of concerts held at the Emirates Stadium from three to six per year, rejecting Arsenal’s contention the inspector had not properly taking into account the benefits of the proposal and its overall accordance with the local area’s development plan.
By Paul Nicholson
July 31 – Fabio Capello committed his future to the Russian team through to the 2018 World Cup yesterday. There had been criticism internally of Russia’s failure to make it through the group stages of the Brazil World Cup, as well as of Capello’s reported $12 million salary.
July 31 – New York City FC has announced that Hays, a British company providing recruitment and human resources services, will be its official recruitment partner for at least the next three years. According to NYC FC, Hays will help “recruit the off-pitch talent [NYC FC] need”.
July 31 – Vanishing spray, introduced by FIFA for the World Cup in Brazil to mark out the defensive wall at freekicks just outside the penalty area, is to be used in the English Premier League this coming season.
July 31 – Julio Grondona, FIFA’s senior vice-president and arguably the second most powerful man in world football, has died aged 82 after running Argentine football for the past 35 years.