By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – Football’s law-makers are to study the idea of video replays, a controversial topic the FIFA hierarchy has long pledged will not be introduced as an addition to goal-line technology.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The comedian who invented the infamous Nazi-style gesture that led to former French international Nicolas Anelka being charged by English football authorities has been barred from entering Britain.
February 4 – The Union of Central American Football (UNCAF) has said that it will play its next championship for national teams, the UNCAF Copa Centroamericana, in the US, most likely 1-13 September 2014, in the FIFA window for international fixtures.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The Leeds United ownership saga shows no sign of being resolved as the club prepares for fresh talks while re-instated manager Brian McDermott says he is going nowhere – for the moment anyway.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 3 – Arpad Paszkany (pictured), owner of CFR Cluj, has confirmed plans to find a new investor for the Romanian club which currently plays in Liga 1, the top tier of the country’s professional football league.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Qatar World Cup organisers are in England this week as part of a fact-finding trip designed to boost trade relations between the two countries ahead of the 2022 tournament.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – Pep Guardiola’s biographer Daniel Martinez reckons that the Bayern coach sees Philipp Lahm as his most important player. And if Bayern retain the Champions League and Germany win the World Cup then the aging defender turned midfield general would be nailed-on for the next FIFA player of the year.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Mental strength has long been regarded as one of German football’s greatest qualities but Franz Beckenbauer, the country’s most revered footballing icon, believes it may have been lost.
February 3 – French football stars Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema have been cleared on all charges in their underage sex trial in Paris. The prosecution had been tasked with proving they had illegally slept with a teenage prostitute – a crime which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
February 3 – The base camps for all the 32 teams at the World Cup have been confirmed by world federation FIFA, with two thirds choosing the more developed south of the country despite the fact that they have to travel huge distances for matches.
February 3 – Tributes have poured in from around the world for Luis Aragones, the man who ended Spain’s 44-year wait for a major international trophy by winning Euro 2008.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – First he was the manager, then he wasn’t, then he was again: all within 24 hours. The mayhem surrounding the prospective Italian takeover of iconic English club Leeds United took several farcical twists over the weekend when Brian McDermott was re-instated by the club’s directors after seemingly being sacked.
February 3 – The Genoa derby, one of the most passionate in Italian football, will take place tonight after its original lunchtime kick-off on Sunday was called off when fans threatened to boycott the game in protest of a switch from the traditional afternoon start to accommodate television schedules.
By David Owen
February 3 – Premier League clubs spent a moderate £130 million in the January transfer window, far less than the record £225 million disbursed in January 2011, in spite of the boost to income provided by the new cycle of TV deals.
By David Owen
January 31 – The market continues to applaud BT’s high-profile push into sports broadcasting, in spite of the impact its strategy is having on costs both in its retail division and at rival Premier League broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting.