By Paul Nicholson
February 4 – With all the noise around FIFA presidential elections and reform you could be forgiven for forgetting that the Confederations Cup, the warm-up for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, is just 500 days away. That is unless you were in the GUM department store by Red Square in Moscow yesterday.
Even the slickest, best choreographed media events – and I have attended few slicker than this week’s descent on Wembley by FIFA Presidential candidate Gianni Infantino and his footballing legends – have revealing moments.
By Mark Baber
February 3 – A German court has ruled former president of the German soccer federation Theo Zwanziger was exercising his right to free speech in referring to Qatar as a “cancerous growth of world football” just as Germany’s most successful club, Bayern Munich, signed a partnership with Qatar’s Hamad International Airport.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – The growing influence of Domenico Scala as the prime mover in the drive to clean up FIFA has been further underlined by this week’s unprecedented ruling to block $20 million of payments to CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, the two confederations most seriously damaged by football’s ongoing corruption scandal.
February 3 – Dynamo Kiev will no longer have to face Manchester City in the Champions League behind closed doors after UEFA’s appeals committee controversially reduced a sanction imposed for racist behaviour and crowd disturbances.
By Mark Baber
February 3 – Sunderland AFC have become the latest Premier League club to launch a Mandarin version of their web site, building on the success of their Chinese social media platforms Sina Weibo and Tencent WeChat and working in association with the club’s principal partner Dafabet.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Just days after dismissing Gianni Infantino’s World Cup promises as pure electioneering, Russian football boss Vitaly Mutko says his federation will support him at the February 26 ballot to succeed Sepp Blatter.
February 3 – The vice-president of CONMEBOL’s disciplinary committee has resigned in protest at the governing body’s top brass reducing Boca Juniors’ stadium ban for crowd violence from eight games to two.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – Premier League Liverpool have unveiled a revised match day ticket pricing structure which includes a rock-bottom £9 ticket price as well as priority access to 20,000 tickets for local fans. The club will have an additional 8,500 tickets available for matches next season with the opening of its new Main Stand.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – FIFA may have suspended their funding but CONCACAF are getting used to operating on reduced cashflow. The US Justice Department partially froze funds back in May 2015 when they arrested then president Jeffrey Webb and Costa Rican president Ricardo Li, and followed that up with a raid the confederation’s Miami headquarters.
By Samindra Kunti
February 2 – Brussels’s EURO2020 stadium may face delays in construction after an environmental report cast doubt over the viability of the venue. The projected public funding of €432 million is also raising eyebrows.
January 2 – Under-fire Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini has been given a one-game ban for his antics during Sunday’s derby defeat.
February 2 – Qatar have failed to qualify for their first Olympic football tournament since 1992 after losing 2-1 to Iraq, a significant blow to their strategy of developing a credible squad ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
By David Owen
February 2 – Next season’s new surge of broadcast income for Premier League clubs appeared to exert a heavy influence on another lacklustre January transfer window, with clubs in the relegation or promotion scraps in the top two tiers of English football accounting for a high proportion of expenditure.
By Samindra Kunti
February 2 – Earlier this month the Olympic dream of the Olyroos, Australia’s U23 team, faded in Doha as they made a backdoor exit from the Asian Cup, collecting a meagre 2-0 victory against Vietnam in group D alongside the UAE and Jordan. Neither the elimination nor the absence of European-based players caused disgruntlement, only the manner of capitulation did.