Looking back through my Insideworldfootball columns throughout 2013 it struck me that with few exceptions, the subjects are actually bound by a common theme.
Whatever the story, without the angle, whatever the history and characters, and wherever in the world, there is one barely disputable rule of football 2013.
Winning is everything.
Hands up everyone who thought that Liverpool would be top of the Barclays Premier League at Christmas.
In truth, the Merseysiders are precariously perched: their next two games are away at Manchester City and Chelsea respectively. Lose those and they would probably be back below local rivals Everton and out of the Champions League places before the year-end. A New Year’s Day engagement back at Anfield against newly-promoted Hull then has the look of an ideal fixture with which to stop the rot – until you remember that the Tigers claimed their first-ever win over Liverpool on Humberside less than a month ago.
With just days to the end of the year, and his tenure as the chair of FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee (IGC), you would think Mark Pieth is extremely glad to be well rid of an assignment he admitted has been extremely difficult to manage – getting the game’s chieftains to radically change the way they do business.
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Pieth was quoted as telling the German newspaper that he “would not take on the task again,
The 2013 edition of China Super League Value Report was recently released by Netease.com and Total Sports. This is the second edition of the annual report on professional football in China.
The report is divided into four parts: the management of the China Super League Company, which is a body like the English Premier League Committee; the second part covers the financial situation of the 16 clubs in the top division; the third part looks at a hot issue –
December 23 – UEFA has enforced its Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules with sanctions of fines and exclusion from European competitions for five clubs and a reprimand for a sixth. The sanctions all relate to overdue payments and were handed down by the UEFA Club Financial Control Body’s adjudicatory chamber.
By Alexander Krassimirov
December 23 – Bulgarian airline company Balkanian Airways has become one of the main sponsors of second tier French side Tours FC. The club and the company have signed a cooperation agreement. The Balkanian Airways logo has already put on the team’s shirts and stadium as well.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 23 – Schalke 04 has extended its sponsorship deal with betting operator Bet-at-home until 30 June 2016.
By Paul Nicholson
December 23 – Human rights abuses in Qatar have made the Gulf state the whipping boy of the western media. If there was no World Cup planned for 2022 in Qatar then probably the rest of the world might not be so interested – perhaps a comment on the west as much as the Qataris. But the World Cup will be in Qatar and the world has been drawn into the story.
Much has been made in recent weeks of the terrible working conditions of migrant labour in Qatar. As the hosts for the 2022 World Cup, the spotlight was always going to be on the Gulf state but even then Amnesty International’s report on migrant workers presented a dreadfully bleak picture of the conditions of those involved in the infrastructure projects Qatar is undertaking as it prepares for its historic moment in the sun.
The Amnesty report mentioned that more than 80 migrant construction workers,
December 23 – Malaysian authorities have imposed lifetime bans on five players and three officials for match-fixing in their domestic league.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 23 – FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke says it’s time to “recharge the batteries” over the Christmas period after what he has described as a “momentous” year – in part related to trying to organise next year’s World Cup in Brazil where half the stadiums will not be ready by FIFA’s end-of-year deadline.
December 23 – Vanishing spray, used for several years in South America to stop defensive walls encroaching at free kicks, is to be employed throughout next year’s World Cup by referees.
December 23 – Favourites Bayern Munich crowned a momentous year by winning the Club World Cup in Morocco and finally ending the brave challenge of Raja Casablanca who did the host nation proud by reaching the final.
December 20 – The 11th Match Against Poverty will take place on 4 March 2014 at the Stade de Suisse in Berne, announced United Nations Development Project (UNDP) ambassadors Ronaldo and Zinédine Zidane yesterday.
December 20 – London’s only top level Rugby League side, London Broncos, have agreed a two-year ground share with Barnet Football Club, relegated last year to the Football Conference, England’s fifth tier of football.