By Duncan Mackay
January 21 – Turkey is concentrating its efforts on successfully bidding for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, the country’s Sports Minister Suat Kılıç (pictured) has revealed following reports that they were also planning to launch a campaign to host football’s European Championships that year.
The amount of muck poured on this competition reminds me of the words Kelvin MacKenzie said to John Major after he had taken Britain out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). As MacKenzie recounted to the Leveson inquiry on the press, as the hapless Prime Minister rang to ask the then Sun editor how he would treat the news, he replied, “Prime Minister, I have a bucket of shit by my desk and I am about to pour it on you.”
By David Gold
January 20 – Dignitaries from the world of football and politics, including the FIFA President, Sepp Blatter, and Russia’s Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, have gathered in St Petersburg to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Football Union (RFU).
By Andrew Warshaw
January 20 – Liverpool have responded to a claim from the adidas chief executive, Herbert Hainer, that the club priced themselves out of a new kit deal by saying they could soon be worth £300 million ($464 million/€359 million).
By David Gold
January 20 – Four goals from Christine Sinclair helped Canada to an easy 6-0 win over Haiti in the opening game of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) women’s London 2012 Olympic football qualifiers at BC Place in Vancouver.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 20 – Former Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam’s (pictured) attempt to clear his name after being banned for life for bribery by FIFA’s Ethics Committee reaches the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday (January 23) in a related case against his own Confederation.
By David Gold
January 19 – Chris Coleman has been unveiled as the successor to the late Gary Speed as Wales manager at what he described as “the most difficult press conference I am ever likely to do,” though Greek club Larissa claim he is still under contract to them.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 19 – Beer must be freely on sale inside stadiums at the 2014 World Cup, FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke reiterated today.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 19 – Horace Burrell (pictured), the Jamaican Football Federation (JFF) President suspended by FIFA’s Ethics Committee over the cash-for-votes scandal, has refused to explain exactly why he was sanctioned.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 19 – David Beckham says captaining Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics would be a “special” way of giving something back to his country after a distinguished career.
By Andrew Warshaw in London
January 18 – Jeff Webb (pictured), the man charged with putting Caribbean football back on the map for the right reasons, flew into London today for talks with English Football Association chairman David Bernstein aimed at kick-starting a relationship soured by England’s failed 2018 World Cup bid.
By David Gold
January 18 – CSKA Moscow general director Roman Babaev (pictured) has been ordered to pay one rouble in compensation after telling Spartak Moscow forward Welliton to “walk the streets with care” after a game between the sides last year.
By David Gold
January 18 – The chief executive of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), Stewart Regan, has told players hoping to compete for Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics that they will face a backlash from fans.
By David Gold
January 18 – Hassan Al-Thawadi (pictured), secretary general of the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, has promised to give more rights to construction workers building stadiums for the World Cup in the gulf state.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 18 – Swiss football, already tarnished by the FC Sion affair, has been plunged into yet more disarray after Neuchatel Xamax, a club whose honorary President is Sepp Blatter, were thrown out of the league and stripped of their licence less than a year after being taken over by the Chechen businessman Bulat Chagaev.