By Mark Baber
January 2 – Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa) vice president Ndumiso Gumede has said that Zimbabwe will no longer take part in any games unless all costs are sure to be covered.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – Crisis Spanish club Malaga have announced their intention to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in protest at UEFA’s move to ban them from future European competition for at least a season for allegedly flouting financial regulations.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – UEFA president Michel Platini has re-iterated his call for the 2022 Qatar World Cup to be played in winter –making his latest stance at a sports conference in nearby Dubai.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – The eagerly awaited start of the Egyptian league this season, due to have taken place at the third time of asking on December 30, has been postponed yet again – this time until February 1 to allow for the necessary restructuring to be put in place.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – Just a couple of weeks after goal-line technology was used in official competition for the first time – at the FIFA Club World Cup in Japan – Germany’s top refereeing administrator has questioned its accuracy.
By Mark Baber
December 31 – The Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko (pictured) has commented on plans to set up a new CIS League involving teams from Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
By Mark Baber
December 31 – Zenit St Petersburg fans can’t keep the club out the news at moment. The club has submitted an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, following violence at a league match against Dynamo Moscow.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 31 – Emirates Airlines, one of FIFA’s most important sponsors who only a few weeks ago disclosed they were concerned about the organisation’s image, say they are now satisfied that football’s world governing body is putting its house in order.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 31 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter (pictured) has criticized the progress of the professional game in the United States.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 31 – Getting the sack is one of football management’s occupational hazards but two sudden dismissals in the second tier of English football have brought into sharp focus the impatience of foreign ownership in domestic leagues.
Those who forget the past, said the great American savant George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it. Football in 2013 runs the same risk. This is because many of the administrators who run the game seem to have forgotten the past. Or perhaps they never cared for the past despite their many references to it in public utterances.
This explains why 2013 will be for the world’s favourite game a question of dealing with issues many thought had long been settled.
Von Andi Gross
Europarat – Das Parlament befasste sich mit dem Fifa-Reformprozess – und der Rolle des Weltverbandspräsidenten.
By Andi Gross
December 28 – The culture committee of the Council of Europe addressed the FIFA reform process and the role of the President of world football’s governing body at a Paris hearing this week.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 28 – The British government at one point considered pulling its nations out of the 1982 World Cup because of the Falklands War with Argentina, it emerged today.
By Mark Baber
December 28 – After months of vicious in-fighting, Real Mallorca president Jaume Cladera has chosen to resign with immediate effect.