By Mark Baber
June 13 – The United States Soccer Federation and Chevrolet announced a three-year sponsorship deal on Monday which makes Chevrolet the Official Partner of U.S. Soccer for the next three years.
What on earth are Tahiti doing in the Confederations Cup?
They will be the biggest Tahitian whipping boys since Captain Bligh sailed the south Pacific in the 18th century and there was a ‘mutiny on the Bounty’.
It underlines the problem FIFA have had since Australia became part of Asia’s football family, and even they would not be an ideal ‘eighth’ team in a major tournament on current form.
Australia’s departure in 2006 has given opportunities to New Zealand in international and club football that may not be entirely fair,
By Gareth Messenger
June 13 – Barcelona forward and World Player of the Year Lionel Messi is under investigation by Spanish tax authorities for allegedly defrauding the state of more than €4m. The Argentina international and his father Jorge have reportedly filed fraudulent tax returns for 2007, 2008 and 2009, according to a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, for tax crimes in Catalonia.
By Mark Baber
June 12 – Argentinean fans have been banned from attending away games for the next two matches following the death of Lanus football fan Daniel Jerez at the Clausura match between Estudiantes de La Plata and Lanus at the Ciudad de La Plata Stadium, near Buenos Aires, on Monday night
By Paul Nicholson
June 12 – BT will kick off its live football coverage on its new sports channel, BT Sport, with excusive Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard’s testimonial game, Liverpool vs Olympiacos, August 3.
By Mark Baber
June 12 – The Quebec Soccer Federation has been suspended by the Canadian Soccer Association after failing to reverse its decision to ban the use of turbans/patkas/keski on the football pitch.
By Paul Nicholson
June 12 – The first African Football Film Festival (AFFF) opens tomorrow in Lagos, Nigeria. Starting small, the first edition of the festival will be over three days and will screen five films. The organisers, non-government organisation (NGO) PLAY!YA have set up a cinema in Gowon Estate in Lagos, one of the more neglected districts in the Nigerian capital Lagos.
Nothing in recent years has changed football as much as television.
The box in the living-room corner has spawned Manchester United fans from Tacoma to Tahiti and made top players as wealthy as successful bond traders.
Few of us now, not even the most avid groundhoppers, consume as many matches live as on TV.
Even professional football reporters, who think nothing of covering 100 games a season, will turn instantly to the screens scattered around the press stands to assess whether a foul has been committed or the ball has crossed the line.
By Mark Baber
June 12 – Despite FIFA’s decision to move Friday’s Libya-Togo World Cup qualifier from Benghazi to Tripoli, Togo’s captain Alaixys Romao (pictured) and Jonathan Ayite are refusing to take the trip on the grounds of personal security.
By Paul Nicholson
June 12 – Pick the best 30 players in the world and play them off against each other – Europe vs Rest of the World – is something that could generally only happens in a computer game. Having football fans globally pick the top 30 players makes it slightly more unlikely. Or is it?
By Gareth Messenger
June 12 – Spanish Primera side Malaga are out of next season’s Europa League following The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejection of their appeal against the UEFA ban imposed last December.
By Mark Baber
June 11 – The saga over Chelsea’s search for a new stadium has taken a new turn, as Jose Mourinho returns, with the revelation that the club may be invited to bid on a 17-acre plot of land, owned by Transport for London (TfL) near Earls Court and just a mile north of current home Stamford Bridge.
By Mark Baber
June 11 – Iya Mohamed, the president of Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) and CEO of the Cameroon Cotton Development Corporation (Sodecoton), a state owned company, was arrested by the police on Monday on his return home from Togo where he attended Sunday’s Cameroon’s World Cup qualifier.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 11 – Prince Ali, head of the Jordanian FA, has had an increasingly influential and vocal role as a member of the FIFA executive committee and successfully championed the lifting of the ban on the hijab in women’s football.
June 11 – Russia’s preparations for the 2018 World Cup have taken another step forward after President Vladimir Putin signed off on the so-called ‘World Cup Law’ that has caused so much debate.