Osasu Obayiuwana: Of talent, opportunity and global business sense

Michael Emenalo is, without question, one of European football’s interesting oddities.

As the technical director of English Premiership side Chelsea, where he undoubtedly has the listening ear of billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, the Nigerian belongs to the exclusive club of Africans who’ve transcended their club careers into positions of power in the game’s corridors.

Pape Diouf, the Senegalese who started out as a journalist and player’s agent in France, eventually becoming the president of French club Olympique Marseille and Finidi George,

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‘Ideological wars’ are ‘the new bitterness’

So, FIFA have had their congress which by some – mainly FIFA – was called “historic”, and by others a “whitewash”, “irrelevant” or worse.

Under the rainy skies of the African island nation of Mauritius, 209 FIFA Members met and the individual delegates cast their electronic vote. Actually, they also cast their more traditional manual vote in a secret ballot that determined which one of three women candidates would be FIFA’s first elected Executive Committee (Board) member.

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FIFA reform process backed by Olympic frontrunner

thomas bach

By David Owen
June 9 – The frontrunner in the race for the most powerful post in world sport has backed FIFA’s reform process, saying world football’s governing body is “on the right track”. Thomas Bach, a German ex-fencer and Olympic gold medallist, is one of six candidates vying to succeed Jacques Rogge, as President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organisation behind the Olympic Games.

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Women footballers had higher London 2012 injury rate than men

USA women

By David Owen
June 8 – An in-depth study of injuries across all sports at the London 2012 Olympics has found that women footballers faced a substantially greater risk of getting hurt than their male counterparts. The International Olympic Committee study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, recorded 99 injuries among the 220 women who participated – a rate of 45%.

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Mihir Bose: Can Mourinho make us fall in love with Chelsea?

Jose Mourinho has nothing in common with Richard Burton. But the Portuguese, like the great Welsh actor, is about to discover what it means to go back to your first love. And, while not even the most devoted Stamford Bridge fan will argue that Chelsea is football’s Elizabeth Taylor, the way Mourinho has expressed himself in recent weeks, leading up to return, leaves no doubt that his great love for the west London club almost matches that of Burton for Taylor.

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