Paul Nicholson, Author at Inside World Football - Page 1792 of 1897

Matt Scott: Crisis, what crisis? Football thrives amid economic turmoil, for now

“With the glamour and opportunity also comes responsibility.” Michel Platini

Those were the words with which UEFA’s president introduced its interim club-licensing benchmarking report. It is a study that makes for fascinating reading and, to a certain extent, Europe’s top clubs have demonstrated they recognise the Platini creed.

Despite the ongoing economic crisis that has seized the global financial system since 2008, club revenues grew almost 7% year on year between 2011 and 2012,

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Ronaldo vs Ibrahimovic is pick of euro play-offs for Brazil

Cristos and maracana

October 21 – Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal against Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s Sweden was the pick of the ties when the draw for the European playoffs for next year’s World Cup finals was made today.

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CFU kick off inaugural U-20 finals, with sights set on Cayman 2014

CFUwomensfootball

October 21 – The inaugural finals of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Under-20 Tournament kicked off Friday at the Waterhouse Mini Stadium in Jamaica with a 7-2 win for Cuba over Grenada. In the second match of the doubleheader, Trinidad & Tobago took the maximum three points with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over Anguilla.

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CONCACAF appoints Mintas to lead regional fight against match-fixing

By Paul Nicholson
October 20 – CONCACAF has moved against the scourge of match-fixing by appointing a new full time executive to lead the fight regionally. Dr. Laila Mintas will take up the new position of Director of Sports Integrity on November 15 with a brief to design and implement processes that will prevent and investigate match-fixing issues in the region.

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David Owen: Brazil 2014: England will be hoping for something better than Brazil 1950

It isn’t World Cup fever, but Tuesday night’s win over Poland has left England gripped by what I would diagnose as a mild case of World Cup euphoria.

More than 15,000 fans were said to have registered their interest in going to Brazil; bookies predicted a £100 million betting bonanza; and a much-publicised tabloid story about manager Roy Hodgson’s half-time team-talk seems only to have redoubled the country’s determination to get behind the team.

2014 News

Brazilian crime gang issues ‘World Cup of Terror’ warning

drug gng raids

By Paul Nicholson
October 20 – Fears of a series of terror attacks during the Brazil 2014 World Cup have emerged following a threat from Brazil’s largest organised crime group, the First Capital Command (PCC) drug cartel, to unleash a ‘World Cup of Terror’ during the summer of 2014, as well as attacks during local political elections.

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UEFA club audit calculates €4.9bn of fixed assets across Euro clubs

uefa flag

By Jake Gable
October 20 – Arsenal have topped a UEFA benchmarking report of tangible fixed assets with the governing body, valuing the club’s long-term assets at over €500 million. UEFA carried out an audit of all 237 clubs competing in this season’s Champions League and Europa League for its report in line with Financial Fair Play regulations.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Fight against racism is too important to be derailed by tabloid sound bites

The problem with race these days is that the whole subject too often gets reduced to a tabloid presentation with the result that England manager Roy Hodgson, a cultivated man of wide culture and sensitivity, ends up by being absurdly labelled as racist. We can all accept that Roy Hodgson made a mistake in repeating an old NASA joke about the monkey in his half time talk as an illustration to remind English players that they should get Andros Townsend involved in the play as often as possible.

John Yan

John Yan: An insult to the public mood 中国足球，侮辱公众情绪

Away to Indonesia on October 15, the away round of qualification group matches of the Asian Cup, Team China earned an embarrasing draw, 1:1. Indonesia’s FIFA ranking before the match was 170th.

Funny thing happened again. A week before the match, the President of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, was visiting Indonesia, and made some comments about his beloved game of football: “I hope one day that China and Indonesia could meet in the finals of World Cup,”

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Is Libya safe for a 2017 Cup of Nations?

As the opening stage of the 2014 World Cup play-offs for Africa ended on Tuesday, another four weeks must pass before knowing, for certain, the quintet that will represent the continent in Brazil.

But Algeria, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria and particularly Ghana’s Black Stars, which gave Egypt a surprising 6-1 wallop in Kumasi, will be feeling they are closer to earning their qualification tickets.

Whilst fans were concentrating on the action taking place across the continent,

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Sexwale to open landmark CONCACAF summit

Tokyo Sexwale

October 16 – The landmark CONCACAF summit in the Cayman Islands next week (October 21-22) will kick off with an address by South African freedom fighter and football supporter Tokyo Sexwale (pictured) at a dinner hosted by president Jeffrey Webb.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: World Cup Qualification, a drama you live through over and over again

Apologies to those whose national football teams face a nerve wracking World Cup play-off.

And to those who dreams of reaching Brazil 2014 are already over.

For I’d like to talk about qualification. As in achieving it, sealing the deal.

As an Al Jazeera Correspondent I must be neutral, yet all around me in England there has been the agony, the pain, then the relief at securing a place in the finals.

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Murdoch in five-year deal to take Bundesliga to the world

Bundesliga TV

By Mark Baber
October 16 – The DFL (German League Association) and Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox have agreed a new broadcast deal which will take the Bundesliga to more than 80 TV markets including Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, all of North and Latin America and much of Asia from the start of the 2015/16 season.

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Crowdfunding comes to Kettering’s rescue

Kettering town fc

By David Owen
October 16 – A 141-year-old English football club may have been saved from closure thanks in part to the generosity of fans from as far afield as Iceland and Vietnam.

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IFA: Is there a future for mega events?

Brazil fan in stadium

By Paul Nicholson
October 15 – The second day of the IFA conference in Zurich, October 29, has picked a topic that goes to the very heart of questioning the existence of major world championship sporting events in their current form. Titled ‘Is there a future for Mega sports events?’ a panel will discuss the demands major events put on host nations and whether the model is broken or not.