It is 29 July 2012. I am on a bus with other journalists being whisked through south-east London on a lane reserved for Olympic vehicles. Beside us, I am uncomfortably aware, snakes a long queue of non-Olympic traffic. It is at this point that I spot a road sign that makes me do a double-take. It says: “Ha Ha Road Closed”.
I later checked on a city map and there is, bizarrely, a Ha Ha Road in that area of the UK capital.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
October 29- The head of European football’s leading anti-racism watchdog says kicking Russia out of club and national competitions could prove counter-productive in terms of teaching the country how to eradicate the abuse of black players.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29- Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, who heads the organisation’s anti-discrimination task force, says English football needs to seriously address the issue of coaching and management opportunities for retired black players and other ethnic minorities.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29- Bayer Leverkusen’s controversial Bundesliga win over Hoffenheim will be allowed to stand despite Stefan Kiessling’s “phantom” goal that raised fresh debate over the need for goal-line technology.
October 29- Gareth Bale, the world’s most expensive footballer, has been named among the candidates for Fifa’s prestigious world player of the year award – along with several regular names.
October 29- Under the chairmanship of Fifa vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, Asian football officials have concluded a high-profile round table in Jordan by recommending a series of proposals to boost the development of grassroots football in the region.
By Jake Gable
October 29 – The European Professional Football Leagues’ (EPFL) Best Practice Awards have recognised The Football League in England as its Golden Award winner at their ceremony in Paris.
“Charlie bit me,” Harry Davies-Carr, aged three.
The sight of a three-year-old boy named Charlie having his finger bitten by his baby brother was once the defining image of YouTube. It has been viewed nearly 600 million times and, despite no longer being the most-viewed YouTube video of all time (which once it was), ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ remains in the top 10.
But just as the young faces in that 57-second film from 2007 had to grow up,
By Matt Scott
October 28 – The FIFA World Cup would be expanded to a 40-team tournament under a proposal aired by Michel Platini today. UEFA’s president has responded to a plan discussed by Sepp Blatter, his FIFA counterpart, to cull the number of European teams competing at the tournament finals.
By Paul Nicholson in Zurich
October 28- The 15th International Football Arena conference was opened in Zurich today by FIFA president Sepp Blatter who, in front of an invited audience of 200 football business executives, said it was vital that the spirit of the game was maintained as “the game of the people”.
October 28 – Lionel Messi’s Argentina, the first country from South America to qualify for next year’s World Cup finals, have chosen Belo Horizonte as their training base camp well before the draw on December 6.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 28 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter will make a personal visit to the emir of Qatar on November 9 to discuss the treatment of migrant workers following highly publicised reports of severe labour rights abuses that have caused widespread embarrassment to organisers of the 2022 World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 28 – FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, who has been acting as the organisation’s main trouble-shooter for next year’s World Cup in Brazil, says fans should not be put off from attending by the latest outbreak of violence in the country.
October 28 – UEFA president Michel Platini has warned that a planned strike by French clubs over the government’s proposed supertax could backfire.
By Alexander Krassimirov
October 28 – Bulgarian football club Lokomotiv Plovdiv has announced it is on the verge of signing a new partnership agreement with the Gazprom petrol station. The news, announced on the club’s website, was denied by the the Executive Director of NIS Petrol Ivan Kostadinov 24 hours later.