By Andrew Warshaw
October 18 – After months of sensitive negotiations, Greek and Turkish Cypriot officials are celebrating securing a landmark meeting with FIFA president Sepp Blatter aimed at possible footballing re-unification on the disputed Mediterranean island.
By Mark Baber
October 18 – Pay TV provider BSkyB said it is enjoying record demand for its TV and broadband services, despite the launch of BT’s new rival sports service. BSkyB, which is 39% owned by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, added 111,000 broadband customers and 37,000 TV customers in the quarter to the end of September.
By Mark Baber
October 18 – The slogan for UEFA EURO 2016 was announced in the Marseille city hall, after being approved by the tournament’s steering group. The new slogan is ‘Le Rendez-Vous,’ which represents the organisers’ desire to bring together the best of football, of Europe and of France.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 18 – Controversial Thai football boss Worawi Makudi has finally retained control of his federation after months of internal squabbling. Makudi was re-elected president of the Football Association of Thailand for another four years after defeating former national team boss Virach Chanpanich 42-28 in a secret ballot to earn his fourth straight term. Two votes were deemed invalid.
By Mark Baber
October 17 – Libya’s most popular football club, Tripoli’s Al-Ahly, have withdrawn in protest from the newly relaunched Libyan Football League after their coach was shot at while at home, players were threatened and star player Mohamed Al-Maghrabi was shot in the arm.
By Mark Baber
October 17 – After failing in a forlorn attempt to get FIFA to make a last minute change to the seeding system, this morning’s FIFA Ranking confirms that France have missed out on being seeded for the decisive World Cup qualifiers, after being ranked 21st in the world on 870 points, just a single place and a single ranking point below Ukraine, who are in 20th place on 871 points and who will be seeded.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 17 – Egypt look set to hang on to their American coach Bob Bradley despite Tuesday’s humiliating 6-1 World Cup playoff first leg defeat to Ghana which all but ends the Pharoahs’ dream of reaching next year’s finals.
Away to Indonesia on October 15, the away round of qualification group matches of the Asian Cup, Team China earned an embarrasing draw, 1:1. Indonesia’s FIFA ranking before the match was 170th.
Funny thing happened again. A week before the match, the President of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, was visiting Indonesia, and made some comments about his beloved game of football: “I hope one day that China and Indonesia could meet in the finals of World Cup,”
As the opening stage of the 2014 World Cup play-offs for Africa ended on Tuesday, another four weeks must pass before knowing, for certain, the quintet that will represent the continent in Brazil.
But Algeria, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria and particularly Ghana’s Black Stars, which gave Egypt a surprising 6-1 wallop in Kumasi, will be feeling they are closer to earning their qualification tickets.
Whilst fans were concentrating on the action taking place across the continent,
By Mark Baber
Ocotber 17 – FIFA and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) have appointed a normalisation committee to take control of the Solomon Islands Football Federation (SIFF) after the federation’s funding was put on hold whilst an investigation looks into poor accounting by the federation’s administrators.
By Gareth Messenger
October 17 – Barcelona president Sandro Rosell has backed his decision to start charging under-sevens for entrance to games at the Camp Nou.
October 17 – Switzerland’s meteoric rise in football’s world rankings has been rewarded with the central European country being seeded for next year’s World Cup finals.
By Andrew Warshaw
17 October – Amidst all the hullaballoo over the 2022 Qatar World Cup, a younger version of football’s biggest global jamboree was set to begin in the Gulf today (Thursday), almost unnoticed outside the region itself. The under-17 World Cup is being staged in six venues by one of Qatar’s neighbours, the United Arab Emirates, with little controversy and hardly any hot air – metaphorically speaking.
October 16 – The landmark CONCACAF summit in the Cayman Islands next week (October 21-22) will kick off with an address by South African freedom fighter and football supporter Tokyo Sexwale (pictured) at a dinner hosted by president Jeffrey Webb.
Apologies to those whose national football teams face a nerve wracking World Cup play-off.
And to those who dreams of reaching Brazil 2014 are already over.
For I’d like to talk about qualification. As in achieving it, sealing the deal.
As an Al Jazeera Correspondent I must be neutral, yet all around me in England there has been the agony, the pain, then the relief at securing a place in the finals.