Paul Nicholson, Author at Inside World Football - Page 1795 of 1897

John Yan: Politicians in club shirts 异乡与故乡

Chinese leaders

When a whole nation just has one club to support, there must be something wrong. Even though the club might become the most successful one ever in China’s football history.

Guangzhou Evergrande, yes, the club from Guangzhou again. After winning convincingly in the Asian Champions League (ACL) semi-final, they took their third successive domestic league title with 4 rounds to spare. This time they won the league at their nearest rival’s pitch, defeating Shandong Luneng FC 4:2 on October 6.

Archive

Prince Ali calls for ‘official’ Arabic language and lifting of Iraqi home ban

Prince Ali

By Andrew Warshaw
October 9 – FIFA’s Asian vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein has called on the organisation to make Arabic one of its official languages in addition to English, French, German and Spanish. In a wide-ranging statement on a number of issues, Prince Ali said FIFA needed to recognise how many people across the world spoke Arabic as a first language.

2014 News

WADA hints at LADETEC reprieve to give ‘swift solution’ for 2014

drug testing

By David Owen
October 9 – The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has hinted there may yet be time for the Rio de Janeiro doping control laboratory to win back its accreditation in time for it to handle samples collected at next year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Archive

Italian clubs eye €5.5bn Infront TV rights deal for Serie A

Serie A

By Matt Scott
October 9 – Serie A clubs are considering a proposal to sell their TV rights from the 2015-6 to 2020-1 seasons for an up-front €5.49bn (£4.63bn).

Archive

Inside Insight: Obsessive-Compulsive (FIFA) Disorder, OC(F)D

Definition:

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry; by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety; or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions. Symptoms of the disorder include excessive washing or cleaning; repeated checking; extreme hoarding; preoccupation with sexual, violent or religious thoughts; relationship-related obsessions; aversion to particular numbers; and nervous rituals, such as opening and closing a door a certain number of times before entering or leaving a room.

Archive

No more Mr Nice Guy. Garcia warns he will sanction the un-cooperative

Michael Garcia 2

By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – FIFA’s leading corruption buster Michael Garcia has broken his silence over his much-publicised upcoming tour of 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding countries by warning that anyone who breaks an obligation to co-operate with the investigation could face sanctions.

Archive

AC Milan stunned at order to play behind closed doors and will fight their territory

AC Milan fans

By Mark Baber
October 8 – AC Milan have been fined €50,000 and ordered to play their next Serie A home game, against Udinese, behind closed doors, due to some of their fans chanting “We are not Neapolitans”, at their game against Juventus in Turin on Sunday.

2014 News

Valcke back in Brazil to keep the pressure on race to finish 2014 stadia

jerome valcke3

By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke, charged with sorting out the Qatar 2022 World Cup debacle, has more pressing matters on his hands having returned to Brazil amid uncertainty about whether next year’s hosts will be able to deliver the final six stadiums by the December deadline.

Archive

FIFA and UEFA lead anti-racism debate at UN forum

Michel Platini 4

By Mark Baber
October 8 – At a special United Nations event on racism and football on Monday in Geneva, UEFA President Michel Platini gave the keynote speech emphasising UEFA’s fierce determination to fight racism, discrimination and intolerance in football. FIFA delegate Tokyo Sexwale said a new global “barometer of racism” would be set up to help in tackling discrimination.

Archive

Hillsborough shame worsens as evidence of police cover-up deepens

Hillsborough Justice

By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – The 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster has again burst into controversy with reports that video filmed by police may have been deliberately edited.

Archive

After 150 years, Royals finally get to play footie in the Palace garden

Palace football

By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – It’s not every day that an official football match is staged in the back garden of the world’s most famous royal residence. In fact it has never happened before.

Archive

Third-tier AEK tops the Greek season ticket league

AEK fans

By Panos Bletsos
October 8 – Driven by sheer love for their club and despite its demise to amateur status in the third tier of the domestic league, AEK fans have once again shown their support by buying more season tickets than any other club in the Greek game – including European contenders Olympiakos Pirea and PAOK.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: High stakes game for TV rights will keep UEFA’s club giants content

Languid as a footballer, laid back as a football administrator, Michel Platini has never appeared to be one for grand displays of emotion about anything. Even when captaining the victims of one of football’s greatest-ever injustices, as Germany’s goalkeeper Toni Schumacher put his France team-mate Patrick Battiston into a coma in a World Cup semi-final, Platini confronted the negligent referee with a mild flap of his arms.

But if there is one thing that has got the UEFA president exercised in recent times it is the threat of a breakaway European Super League.

Andrew Warshaw: More questions than answers in the long ball game

As an autumnal evening sunlight settled over FIFA House in Zurich last Friday and a phalanx of cameramen packed away their equipment after a somewhat anti-climactic Sepp Blatter press conference that focussed almost entirely on Qatar, I found myself humming the lyrics to that 1970s hit, More Questions Than Answers, by Johnny Nash.

Two generations after it was released, I reasoned, one could quite easily apply the title of the reggae ditty to the position we are still in as far as the 2022 World Cup saga is concerned.

Archive

Pieth blows out, Israelis and Palestineans blow in

Mark Pieth

By Andrew Warshaw
October 7 – With all the focus on the Qatar 2022 World Cup, a number of other ongoing issues went relatively unreported following FIFA’s executive committee in Zurich last week, not least the announcement that Mark Pieth (pictured), the Swiss governance expert appointed two years ago to make recommendations for change, would be terminating his association with FIFA at the end of this year, by mutual agreement.