July 2 – Having looked like a team that were struggling to find any cohesion or common purpose after four straight losses, including a miserable performance in March at the Concacaf Nations League final, suddenly the USA look as though, if not the real deal, they are certainly worth a reappraisal.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – The 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster has again burst into controversy with reports that video filmed by police may have been deliberately edited.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 8 – It’s not every day that an official football match is staged in the back garden of the world’s most famous royal residence. In fact it has never happened before.
By Panos Bletsos
October 8 – Driven by sheer love for their club and despite its demise to amateur status in the third tier of the domestic league, AEK fans have once again shown their support by buying more season tickets than any other club in the Greek game – including European contenders Olympiakos Pirea and PAOK.
Languid as a footballer, laid back as a football administrator, Michel Platini has never appeared to be one for grand displays of emotion about anything. Even when captaining the victims of one of football’s greatest-ever injustices, as Germany’s goalkeeper Toni Schumacher put his France team-mate Patrick Battiston into a coma in a World Cup semi-final, Platini confronted the negligent referee with a mild flap of his arms.
But if there is one thing that has got the UEFA president exercised in recent times it is the threat of a breakaway European Super League.
As an autumnal evening sunlight settled over FIFA House in Zurich last Friday and a phalanx of cameramen packed away their equipment after a somewhat anti-climactic Sepp Blatter press conference that focussed almost entirely on Qatar, I found myself humming the lyrics to that 1970s hit, More Questions Than Answers, by Johnny Nash.
Two generations after it was released, I reasoned, one could quite easily apply the title of the reggae ditty to the position we are still in as far as the 2022 World Cup saga is concerned.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 7 – With all the focus on the Qatar 2022 World Cup, a number of other ongoing issues went relatively unreported following FIFA’s executive committee in Zurich last week, not least the announcement that Mark Pieth (pictured), the Swiss governance expert appointed two years ago to make recommendations for change, would be terminating his association with FIFA at the end of this year, by mutual agreement.
By Mark Baber
October 7 – With the Hyundai A-League season starting on Friday, Football Federation Australia forecasts a profit for its activities in the 2014 financial year due to an increase in broadcasting revenue and sponsorship.
October 7 – Mario Balotelli, at only 23, is now the 19th most powerful person in world football with fellow players Messi (14th) and recently retired Beckham (8th), according to a list of ‘Football’s 20 Most Influential People’.
By Mark Baber
October 7 – Annual accounts for 2012 filed by Footwork Productions show David Beckham received a £14.1 million pay package as director of the company set up to handle much of the former Manchester United, Real Madrid, Milan, LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and England star’s sponsorship and image rights income.
October 7 – Lazio captain Stefano Mauri has had his ban for failing to report match-fixing increased to nine months after losing an appeal against the original six-month suspension, effectively ruling him out for the rest of the season.
By David Owen
October 7 – High-profile matches at next year’s World Cup tournament in Brazil may effectively be played over four periods rather than two, following FIFA’s endorsement of additional “cooling” breaks to protect the health of players.
By David Owen
October 7 – Clubs which supply squad members for teams qualifying for the 2014 World Cup can look forward to receiving about $2,800 a day for each player selected. The figure represents a substantial increase from the $1,600 per player per day paid by FIFA after the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
By David Owen
October 7 – FIFA President Joseph Blatter is aiming to join forces with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to urge the Brazilian Government to do its utmost to ensure the country’s new doping control facility is operational, and duly accredited, before next year’s World Cup, insideworldfootball has learnt.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Zurich
October 4 – Sepp Blatter admitted today he “took responsibility” for the Qatar 2022 World Cup winter-summer debacle – but left open a key number of questions, not least the eventual rescheduling of the tournament. Announcing, as expected, that a commission involving all the game’s stakeholders would be set up to try and find a way through a myriad of complexities, the FIFA president was in typically canny mood.
By Mark Baber
October 4 – The Russian Foreign Ministry commented on Thursday evening on the possible entry into Russia of Michael Garcia, confirming that the head of the FIFA ethics committee was not welcome.