By David Owen
April 1 – The all too brief experiment with fielding men’s and women’s Great Britain Olympic football teams is over. Barely a few weeks after signalling its desire to continue sending teams to the Olympics, the Football Association (FA) has been obliged to backtrack and to formally withdraw its proposal.
By David Owen
March 17 – FIFA has backed down over the inclusion of the Amazonian city of Manaus on the list of venues for the Rio 2016 Olympic football tournaments.
February 16 – The US will host the 2016 Olympic qualifying competition for the CONCACAF region this October 1-13. Eight teams will battle for two automatic qualification spots and a play-off against Colombia for a further entry to the Rio 2016 games.
By David Owen
February 12 – FIFA and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Organising Committee are at odds over whether the Amazonian city of Manaus would make a suitable venue for next year’s Olympic football tournament.
February 2 – The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Governing Board has given the boot to the seven-a-side football discipline for the 2022 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, but five-a-side football is staying in.
By David Owen
January 28 – Brazil’s brightest current football star Neymar has said he hopes to help his country win its first men’s Olympic football gold medal at South America’s first Olympic Games next year in Rio de Janeiro.
By David Owen in Monte Carlo
December 9 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter on Monday went along with the Agenda 2020 recommendation that will force him to retire from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the end of 2016, telling Insideworldfootball he was a “team player”.
By David Owen
December 5 – Any last flickering prospect of a re-run of the race for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in a move that could conceivably have sparked the emergence of a southern hemisphere candidate and freed up the January-February time-slot for the FIFA World Cup, has been snuffed out by the announcement of a lucrative new TV deal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
By David Owen
November 19 – There was potentially good news for one senior FIFA figure in a strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement unveiled with a flourish in the Olympic capital of Lausanne on Tuesday. But not so, apparently, for another.
February 13 – Park Jong-woo, the South Korean Olympic team footballer, will be able to receive his Bronze medal from the 2012 Olympic Games after an International Olympic Committee Disciplinary Commission ruled in his favour.
By Duncan Mackay at the Palace Hotel in Lausanne
December 7 – A Disciplinary Commission has been set-up by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which could see South Korean footballer Park Jong-woo denied the bronze medal he won at London 2012 for his political protest.
By Duncan Mackay
November 20 – Namibia’s women’s football team have been put forward to represent Africa at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing.
By Duncan Mackay
November 20 – FIFA will today revisit the long running case of South Korea’s Park Jong-woo and whether he should receive his Olympic bronze medal following his political protest which sparked a diplomatic row with Japan at London 2012.
By Duncan Mackay
November 19 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter will continue to try to get futsal or beach football on to the Olympic programme, he has promised.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 5 – FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein has called for the abolition of football’s overage player rule for the Olympic Games saying it does nothing to enhance the credibility of the event.