March 5 -Major League Soccer will kick off its 20th campaign as scheduled on Friday after a new collective bargaining agreement was finally put in place at the 11th hour to end the threat of a players’ strike.
By Andrew Warshaw
Two of the contenders bidding for Sepp Blatter’s crown as president of FIFA have come away from the Conmebol congress expressing optimism – yet still seem unlikely to be able to wrest South American support away from the veteran Swiss.
By David Owen
March 5 – A new YouGov poll suggests that football fans have a better reputation than is sometimes suggested – in London at least. The poll indicated that Londoners had a broadly positive impression of fans of all but three of the UK capital’s top teams – West Ham, Chelsea and Millwall.
By Paul Nicholson
March 5 – The bitter battle for control of Scottish giant Rangers took another twist today as shares in the company were suspended on the AIM stock exchange when Rangers’ nominated advisor WH Ireland resigned the account.
By Mark Baber
March 5 – The Football Federation of Kenya (FKF) initiated court case, attempting to put an end to the Kenyan Premier League and replace it with a League made up primarily of what were second tier clubs, looks certain to proceed on toady, despite a High Court Judge on Tuesday giving the two sides 48 hours to try and sort the matter amicably.
March 4 – England’s demand for a combined British team at next year’s Olympic Games in Rio has prompted a furious reaction from the head of Welsh football who says his country has been taken completely for granted.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 4 – Red Star Belgrade is being threatened with automatic relegation to the Serbian second tier as a result to its continuing financial woes. Sources close to the club’s management say that such a decision could be taken by the country’s football federation which is monitoring the situation at the club.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 3 – Qatar’s hopes of securing a place at the top table of FIFA look set to be dashed for a second time as Asian football gears up for a powerful alliance between the region’s two most influential officials.
By Paul Nicholson
March 4 – Jeffrey Webb is set to be re-elected unopposed to the presidency of North and Central American and Caribbean confederation CONCACAF. The XXX Congress on April 16 will see one contested election with a battle for the FIFA Executive Committee post for the Central American region.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 3 – The BBC and Sky have officially invited all four candidates for the FIFA presidential election, including Sepp Blatter, to take part in a political-style live TV debate.
By Samindra Kunti
March 3 – Corinthians and the city of Sao Paulo are at odds over a development incentive certificate (DIC) for the Arena Corinthians, worth €12.6 million.
By David Owen
March 3 – New Dutch analysis has estimated that the prevalence of doping in elite sport is “likely” to be between 14 and 39% – far above the level of adverse analytical findings turned up by anti-doping tests. But the analysis also concludes that, while the tools to obtain a far more accurate gauge of true doping levels exist, published studies on the subject are “scarce”.
By Denis de Haas, Sport1
March 3 – As the Bundesliga currently stands both VfB Stuttgart and SC Freiburg need to stay focused on the relegation battle. But now the clubs are haunted by their past.
By Paul Nicholson
March 3 – Buying the wrong player at the wrong price is the biggest mistake a club can make financially. CIES statistics show that the clubs who traded best in the transfer window for the start of the season (in terms of number of best performing players) are Real Madrid and Hoffenheim, followed by Barcelona, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Southampton, Leverkusen and Napoli.
By David Owen
March 2 – The Football Association is keen for Great Britain teams once again to participate in the Olympic football tournament at next year’s Games in the football-besotted city of Rio de Janeiro. This follows the appearance of both men’s and women’s teams at London 2012, when it was felt desirable that the host nation should be represented if possible in every sport. Prior to that, no British team had played at any Olympics for more than half a century.