September 18 – CONCACAF completed the third of its D-License coaching course at the weekend in Aruba, part of a programme of development throughout the confederation to raise the future standards of play and provide a base qualification and path for coaches to follow.
Sometimes in football, as in other walks of life, a debate splits public opinion so far down the middle that it seems impossible to reconcile the two sides of the argument.
For once I am not talking about the Qatar 2022 World Cup but a highly complex domestic issue in England that is generating emotion-packed comment and opinion.
Anyone who has suffered from anti-semitism knows how vile, pernicious and hurtful the insults and alienation can be.
By Mark Baber
September 18 – Current UAE Champions, Al Ain Football Club has unveiled Abu Dhabi Airports as a premium partner of the club. The three-year agreement, which is reported to be the first major foray into sponsorship by the club, will see the logo of the Abu Dhabi Airports on the back of player jerseys, including star players Asamoah Gyan and Omar Abdul Rahman.
By Mark Baber
September 18 – Athletic Bilbao celebrated their first game in their new San Mamés stadium with a 3-2 win over Celta Vigo in the driving rain on Monday night.
By Alexander Krassimirov
September 18 – The head coach of Bulgarian CSKA Sofia Stoycho Mladenov (pictured) said he is expecting a murder at the Bulgarska armia stadium. Mladenov was speaking after CSKA’s 6-2 win over FC Haskovo in the Bulgarian Cup.
By Panos Bletsos
Septeber 17 – Greece’s biggest club, Olympiakos Pirea, has pulled out of its sponsorship deal with OPAP SA. The club made the decision soon after OPAP, the exclusive operator of lottery and sports betting in Greece, changed ownership.
September 17 – Football is not always highlighted for humanitarian gestures between professionals, hence the interest generated by the relevation from Monaco captain Eric Abidal that his former Barcelona teammate Dani Alves offered to donate part of his liver when the French international needed a transplant last year.
The FFA – Australia’s Fabulous Football Association – have started to shout. Sometimes, one gets the feeling that people think the louder they scream, the more their argument rings true. Not so. Content still rules over tactics and style. And Australia’s most recent style is unique, to say the least.
There goes a sore loser. Nearly three years after having secured just a single vote (where two were promised “for sure”, and another 10 at least confirmed with hugs between old men,
September 18 – Inter Milan have been ordered to close the north end of the San Siro for their next home game against Fiorentina.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 18 – As the Champions League group stage got into full flow this week, one of Europe’s most prominent football administrators says something has to be done to stop the tournament being thrown into chaos by last-minute disruptive appeal decisions.
By Mark Baber
September 17 – An imaginative new campaign to tackle homophobia in football, devised by bookmaker PaddyPower in association with gay rights charity Stonewall, kicked off on Monday . The campaign includes the distribution of rainbow football laces to every professional player in the UK, who have been asked to wear them for the upcoming weekend fixtures (September 21 and 22).
By Mark Baber
September 17 – The Spanish football federation (RFEF) is to forego a state subsidy for the third year in a row in 2014, according to the Spanish Sports Council.
“We are financial products. A football club is like a factory, and we are its outputs. You have to be realistic.”
It is not often you hear a human being reduce himself to the status of a balance-sheet item. But with these words that is exactly what Eliaquim Mangala, a France-international defender at the Portuguese champions, FC Porto, has done. Mangala’s words were in response to being confronted with the fact he is not merely an intangible fixed asset belonging to his club but also to two offshore funds whose investors’
By Andrew Warshaw
September 17 – One of football’s more bizarre episodes is still gripping the Italian public and media after a coach from Genoa was caught “spying” on local rivals Sampdoria dressed in Rambo-style camouflage ahead of their derby clash last Sunday.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 17 – Six people have been charged in relation to Australia’s biggest match-fixing scandal, prompting FIFA’s former anti-corruption specialist to call for greater global co-operation.