It is only an idea at this stage but one which perhaps might work and should be considered.
For the last few months, seemingly everyone involved in football politics has had their say over whether the 2022 Qatar World Cup should be staged in summer or winter.
The latest voice to be heard on the issue is that of Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the FIFA-appointed expert whose inspection team went round the world in the build-up to the December 2010,
By Mark Baber
August 8 – A bomb blast at around 2:20am on Wednesday morning, following a football match in the Lyari district of Karachi, killed at least 11 fans, injuring many more, mostly children.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 8 – Increasingly vigilant as a result of the notorious Kevin-Prince Boateng walkoff back in January, Italian football authorities have handed out a 10-match ban to a player from amateur club Matera for racially insulting an opponent.
August 8 – Manchester United have clinched their 12th financial services agreement by securing a five-year deal with African firm afb which has created an official Manchester United credit card in Kenya.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 8 – Spanish Football League (SFL) president Javier Tebas has revealed that nine domestic games are currently being investigated on suspicion of possible match-fixing, including three in the top division.
By Alexander Krassimirov
August 8 – Bulgaria’s top league clubs have joined together to protest to the government about a sponsorship agreement about to be signed between rival club Levski Sofia and Russian energy giant Gazprom. It is a remarkable move by the clubs who all sell their own sponsorships, but who feel that they have been excluded from sponsorship money they should be sharing.
By Richard van Poortvliet
August 7 – The Anzhi project, to transform a side with little prior success from one of Russia’s poorest regions, into a European powerhouse happened almost overnight. However, this dream looks as though it could be unravelling just as quickly as it was formed with owner Suleiman Kerimov (pictured) taking an axe to the club’s budgets.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 7 – UEFA’s crackdown on match-fixing could seriously affect this season’s Champions League after Europe’s governing body opened urgent disciplinary proceedings against Metalist Kharkiv.
August 7 – Gareth Bale may be the subject of a world record transfer bid from Real Madrid but the Tottenham Hotspur star has failed to make a significant enough impression to place him in the running for UEFA’s Best Player in Europe award.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 7 – At a time when FIFA is promoting greater representation among women on its executive committee, Isha Johansen has become only the second active female leader of a national governing body after being appointed as president of the Sierra Leone Football Association.
By Mark Baber
August 7 – Football Federation Australia (FFA) has appointed World Sport Group (WSG) to represent the worldwide (excluding Australia and Oceania) broadcast rights for the Australian senior men’s national team matches and the Hyundai A-League, for a further four years, until the end of the 2016/2017 season.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 7 – A Jamaican international and one of his country’s team officials have been suspended for 30 days by FIFA after they failed drugs tests following a 2014 World Cup qualifier against Honduras on June 11.
The anniversary of Hiroshima fell this week, as it usually does, in the middle of football’s silly season.
Millions for a few weeks consecrate every spare minute to fretting over what coloured shirt a dozen or so millionaires will be wearing next month; or to reading significance into meaningless matches.
Yet 68 years ago this happened.
It’s progress, I suppose.
By Richard van Poortvliet
August 7 – The future of the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, which will host the 2018 World Cup final, has become a lot clearer, after it was announced that FIFA will allow the arena to have a capacity of 81,000 spectators for the showpiece event.
By Mark Baber
August 6 – More details were published of a suppressed report into the history of doping in West Germany, which includes evidence that three of West Germany’s 1966 World Cup stars may have been involved.