Exclusive: Recent criticism overshadows our achievements on the pitch, insists Chelsea’s Gourlay

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By Andrew Warshaw at the International Football Arena in Zurich

November 13 – Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay has launched a staunch defence of the club’s image insisting the vilification the European champions have suffered in recent weeks over the racism-fuelled John Terry and Mark Clattenburg cases has unfairly overshadowed what they have achieved on the field and in supporting local communities across the world.

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Mihir Bose: Schmid on getting more for less, a winter World Cup and managing social media deluges

mihir

Last Sunday Marcel Schmid was at Wembley to watch the New England Patriots play the St Louis Rams. Nothing remarkable in that you may think, some 84,000 others were also there as NFL made its annual foray outside its homeland in an effort to reach a worldwide audience.

But for Schmid, chairman of the International Football Arena (IFA), it provided renewed focus for one of the themes that will dominate this year’s conference in Zurich on November 12-13.

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Ban on women footballers wearing hijab to be lifted

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By Andrew Warshaw in Baghsot

March 3 – The ultra-conservative International Football Association Board (IFAB), comprising FIFA and the four British Home Associations, rarely if ever reverses its decisions but made an exception by unanimously agreeing to lift the ban on the Islamic headscarf being worn by female footballers, pending health and safety checks.

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