By David Owen
May 16 – “Yes, of course.” With these words, Joseph Blatter, FIFA’s President, sent social media networks into a frazzle today. What the boss of world football had done, under questioning on Swiss TV channel RTS, was acknowledge that FIFA’s decision to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup in the blazing heat of a Gulf summer was a mistake.
By Mark Baber
May 16 – In response to protests by fans, the Ukrainian football federation (FFU) overturned its original decision to stage yesterday evening’s Cup final between Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk behind closed doors – the final being won by Kiev 2-1.
By David Owen
May 16 – The head of the UEFA body probing whether Europe’s clubs are complying with financial fair play has died, just as the ambitious programme to restore discipline to football club finances is starting to bite. Jean-Luc Dehaene, 73, a former Belgian Prime Minister and, as such, a prominent figure in European politics, was head of the investigatory chamber of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB).
By Mark Baber
May 16 – Four Nigerian players were imprisoned in Tanzania for overstaying their visas this week. Meanwhile Tanzanian clubs have requested they be given at least three years to reduce the numbers of foreign players to three per club.
By Mark Baber
May 16 – FC Dinamo Bucharest, Romania’s second most popular club, filed for insolvency on Wednesday. Dinamo, currently fourth in the league, won the Championship for the 18th time in 2007 and was bought by Ionuț Negoiță in 2013 on a promise to return the club to its former glory.
By Richard van Poortvliet
May 16 – The Russian Football Union have confirmed Zenit St. Petersburg will be handed a 3-0 technical loss after one of their fans punched Dynamo Moscow player, Vladimir Granat in their Russian Premier League encounter on Sunday at the Petrovsky Stadium.
By Richard van Poortvliet
May 16 – A year is a long time in football, especially for Anzhi Makhachkala. This time last year, they were on their way to finishing third in the Russian Premier League and could dream of European football and bringing in yet more reinforcements to try and win the title the following year.
By Paul Nicholson
May 16 – Wasting no time following the announcement two weeks ago that the Copa America Centenario will be played in the US in 2016, CONCACAF and South American Football Confederation Conmebol have unveiled the tournament logo and named their first broadcast partner, Univision as the US Spanish-language television rights holder.
By Paul Nicholson
May 15 – Just days after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol), CONCACAF has hosted a three-day joint FIFA-Interpol Workshop in Miami. A second workshop will be hosted next week.
By Mark Baber
May 15 – Liverpool Football Club and the online sports betting and gaming provider 188BET, have announced a two-year extension to their partnership allowing 188BET to continue to use LFC platforms to promote its services until the end of the 2015/16 season.
By Mark Baber
May 15 – A new app, which has undergone field-testing at Burnley, Leyton Orient and Sheffield Wednesday, allows football fans to use their smartphones to order and pay for refreshments from the comfort of their seats, cutting down considerably on queuing times.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 15 – Panathinaikos is planning to overhaul and expand its stadium, according to Giannis Alafouzos, the Greek football club’s chief executive. Construction works at the facility are scheduled to begin in December 2014, and are expected to take between three and four months.
By Mark Baber
May 15 – FIFA and UEFA have reacted with dismay at the weak sanctions employed by national Football Associations in the recent cases of racist incidents, demanding the sanctions regime which they have put in place is applied.
How important is it to you that your country succeeds on the football pitch?
And what would World Cup success mean to you?
The announcement of the England squad for the tournament raised this question for me.
Surrounded by English hype about the Ashley Cole-less 23 I was in a fortunate work position of being able to treat it as simply the latest of 32 squads. Interesting, without it being a major story.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 14 – Qatar authorities have made the most forceful pledge to date that they will scrap part of the country’s medieval kafala employment system that has caused so much outrage directed at the 2022 World Cup hosts – but stopped short of abolishing it completely.