By Mark Baber
April 12 – Current Africa Cup of Nations champions Nigeria have announced they are to withdraw their national team from the 2014 African Nations Championship qualifiers due to the poor state of its finances.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
April 12 – Claims that UEFA are deliberately stalling FIFA’s reform process, designed to make football’s corridors of power more transparent and accountable, have been dismissed by UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino. FIFA advisors have laid the blame for many of the original reform proposals being blocked squarely at the feet of UEFA, not least integrity checks for senior officials.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 12 – Brazil’s iconic Maracana stadium, plagued by setbacks since the start of reconstruction work, will stage its first test game on April 27 between teams representing two of Brazil’s greatest players – Ronaldo and Bebeto – and featuring some of the workers who helped rebuild the famous venue.
By David Owen
April 12 – FIFA’s player insurance scheme has cranked into action, with payments totalling $18.4 million made to around 20 clubs in the latter part of 2012. The Club Protection Programme (CPP) is designed to compensate clubs when their players are injured on international duty.
By Tom Parsons
April 11 – In a first for any football league globally, the English Premier League has voted to bring in goal line technology from next season, choosing British-based firm Hawk-Eye to provide the science. Hawk-Eye beat three other potential suitors, including German firm GoalControl, to the contract, announced by the Premier League this afternoon.
By Tom Parsons
April 11- Wembley plays host to this weekend’s FA Cup semi-finals with football’s first social media pen opening at the historic venue at the same time.
By Mark Baber and Andrew Warshaw
April 11 – The Russian Duma has passed a new bill banning violent and abusive fans from stadiums with 226 votes for and just one abstention. The bill will now go to the Federation Council, before being signed off by President Vladimir Putin.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Manchester
April 11 – Russian football may have been blighted by hooliganism, racism and other misdemeanours on and off the field, but the whole image of the country will have changed by the time the World Cup takes place, said Alexander Djordjadze, deputy CEO of Russia’s World Cup organising committee, speaking at the Soccerex conference in Manchester today.
By Mark Baber
April 11 – Libya’s minister for Youths and Sports, Abdussalam Guaila has confirmed that Libya is planning to build a 60,000 capacity stadium in Tajoura, Tripoli and a 23,000 seater in Misrata for the 2017 African Cup of Nations.
Two years ago, whilst at the Championship of African Nations (CHAN) tournament in Khartoum, Sudan, I bumped into a FIFA official, often tasked with the duty of firefighting governance problems in various national associations across the world.
When we sat down, for a frank conversation about the challenges of improving football administration in Africa, I made it clear that better methods need to be devised by FIFA, in order to ensure that good governance is prevalent amongst the continent’s national associations.
A violent thunderstorm rages while we talk in Singapore, but Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck is a man used to dealing with turbulence. Including the furore over the club’s ruthless attitude to sacking managers.
” I know we have fired what most people would say are a lot of managers – terminated their relationship is a better way to describe it – but we’ve always thought long and hard when we’ve done it,” said Buck.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 11 – After years of pain, heartache and broken dreams, the biggest fan ownership in the history of English football has finally been rubber-stamped after administrators of Portsmouth football club struck a last-minute deal for the sale of the club’s ground hours before the High Court hearing was to rule on its value.
Mrs Thatcher’s death not only marks the passing of a leader, the like of which we may not see again, but it also marks a watershed in sport.
Thatcher was the last of the British Prime Ministers who did not care about sport. Her husband Denis was passionate about sport, particularly his golf and was a former rugby referee, her son Mark played cricket for Harrow’s first XI but Mrs Thatcher could not understand why people cared about sport.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Manchester
April 10 – In arguably the biggest crackdown to date to tackle racism in football, UEFA will ban players and officials for a minimum 10 games if they are found guilty of abuse – and are also hitting fans hard by ordering teams to play behind closed doors.
By Mark Baber
April 10 – A proposal by two politically right-wing-leaning football figures for a minute’s silence before this weekend’s Premier League fixtures, in tribute to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has been met with an almost unanimously hostile reaction from English football fans and writers, who have been remembering her approach to football.