By David Gold
April 19 – Roberto Assis Moreira, the brother and agent of Brazilian star Ronaldinho, has been sentenced to five years and five months in prison for money laundering.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 19 – David Beckham’s hopes of playing for Team GB as one of three overage players at the London 2012 Olympics have received a timely boost after he was named among the 80 players who have made the latest shortlist.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 19 – English Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has reiterated his support for goal-line technology in the wake of Juan Mata’s controversial goal for Chelsea in last Sunday’s (April 15) FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur.
By David Gold
April 19 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is to supply medical equipment and administrative support accessories to its national associations.
This season is turning out to be one in which football has had to look hard at itself. The critical question: is the game capable of examining itself? And if so, would changing things make this a defining football season?
I am afraid I have grave doubts.
The reaction to Bolton Wanderers midfielder Fabrice Muamba’s collapse at White Hart Lane showed that the game has a soul, but much else has happened which indicates that football has a lot to do,
By David Gold
April 18 – England’s lower league clubs will bask in the international spotlight when they host matches in the 2014 UEFA European Women’s Under-17 Championship.
By David Gold
April 18 – A former Spartak Moscow footballer, Andrey Tikhonov, has claimed that racism in Russian football did not exist a few years ago.
By David Gold
April 18 – Tottenham Hotspur defender Ryan Nelsen is to captain the New Zealand football team at the London 2012 Olympic Games, it has been revealed.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 18 – British commercial radio station talkSPORT has struck a groundbreaking deal to secure English Premier League commentary rights of all 380 league games to countries outside Europe, broadcasting live in English, Spanish and Mandarin.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 18 – The crisis facing Scottish giants Glasgow Rangers has taken another damaging twist with the news that the administrators currently in charge of the club are to sue the club’s former lawyers.
By David Gold
April 18 – Sky Deutschland has won the rights to show Bundesliga football live for four years starting from 2013, in a deal worth €2.5 billion (£2 billion/$3.3 billion).
By Andrew Warshaw
April 17 – Former Asia football supremo Mohamed Bin Hammam makes a final attempt to regain his credibility when he tries to overturn his lifetime FIFA ban for corruption tomorrow.
Over breakfast at an Istanbul hotel a couple of weeks ago, I asked one of Turkey’s leading Olympic officials which was the more important: staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2020 or hosting football’s European Championships the same year.
“What we want above all is to secure one big event,” Ali Kiremitciogly, a prominent member of Istanbul 2020, diplomatically replied, hedging his bets the best he could.
He knows full well that hosting both mega-events in the same summer would be out of the question.
By Duncan Mackay in Moscow
April 17 – The Turkish Football Federation (TFF) confirmed today that it had submitted a bid to UEFA to host football’s 2020 European Championship, leaving a fresh question mark over Istanbul’s bid to stage the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 17 – The head of the union representing professional footballers has warned that the 2012 European Championships will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.