Mexico 2-0 Suriname:
June 18 – The Mexican national team is perhaps the only country in world football that plays home matches in two countries. The Azteca Stadium in Mexico City is, of course, their spiritual home; however, in Los Angeles – where they roared to victory over the Dominican Republic – and tonight in the heart of Texas at AT&T Stadium in Arlington versus Suriname, the team is welcomed by partisan support and rapturous anticipation.
By Paul Nicholson
October 21 – CONCACAF, rocked by the arrest of its president Jeffrey Webb and Costa Rican president Eduardo Li in May in Zurich over allegations of requesting and accepting bribes to secure marketing sales contracts, has released a new code of conduct for its partners.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 20 – The February 26 FIFA presidential election date will go ahead as planned with all attention now focussed on who will put their names forward to succeed Sepp Blatter by next Monday’s midnight deadline.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
October 20 – Leopold Windtner, the president of Austria’s football federation ÖFB, has unveiled plans to build a new national football stadium following high attendance figures for country’s Euro 2016 qualifiers.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 20 – Asian football supremo Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has been given considerable encouragement by “senior” figures in the game to run for the FIFA presidency.
By Mark Baber
October 20 – Kuwait’s cabinet, hosted by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, have decided the city-state will not host the 2015 edition of the Gulf Cup, whilst describing FIFA’s decision of last week to ban the country from all international football citing government interference as “arbitrary and hasty.”
October 20 – One of England’s most iconic clubs is back in the news for all the wrong reasons with Leeds United’s Italian owner Massimo Cellino banned for the rest of this season from being an owner or director of the club, following his conviction for tax evasion back home.
October 20 – Barcelona say they will use all legal means at their disposal to fight a second fine imposed by UEFA after fans displayed pro-Catalan flags during September’s Champions League game at home to Bayer Leverkusen.
October 20 – With the current US attorney general having unleashed a storm in the world of football worldwide but particularly in the Americas, it is appropriate that a former US attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., will give a keynote address at the Securing Sport 2015 conference in New York, November 3-4, with the aim of giving perspective on the challenges facing sport from a legal and policy standpoint.
October 20 – Marco Polo del Nero, the Brazilian FA president who famously made a quick getaway just as seven other football officials, including his predecessor, were detained as part of the US corruption probe on that dramatic May morning in Zurich, has denied he has been forced out of the FIFA executive committee.
By Ben Nicholson
October 20 – CONMEBOL has cut its links with Argentine sports marketing company Datisa, ending agreements that gave sponsorship and broadcast rights to Datisa for the Copa America tournaments, and in particular the Copa America Centenario scheduled to take place in the US next year, the first time the world’s oldest football tournament had been played outside the South American continent.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 20 – UEFA are considering lining up Dutch FA boss Michael van Praag (pictured) for another crack at the FIFA presidency if, as anticipated, Michel Platini’s candidacy goes up in smoke.
October 19 – FIFA has removed the entire executive committee of Thailand’s football association (FAT) after its controversial president Worawi Makudi was suspended pending a full ethics investigation.
By Samindra Kunti
October 19 – São Paulo may have found English money to abate their current debt crisis with a €33.7 million cash injection into the club looking likely, though the identity of the English group has not been named.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 19 – As FIFA’s executive committee prepares to meet in emergency session to consider the fallout from Sepp Blatter’s 90-day suspension, its Australian member Moya Dodd says cleaning up the organisation after the worst corruption crisis in sporting history is far more important than whoever takes over as president.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 19 – For the first time since being sensationally suspended by FIFA’s ethics committee, beleaguered UEFA president Michel Platini has gone public by admitting he had no written contract over the infamous SFr2 million payment he received from FIFA in 2011 but has issued a staunch defence of his reputation and conduct.