By Andrew Warshaw
November 23 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter today attempted to close the book on the recent racism in football row, insisting he was not a racist and was determined to move forward with his oft-stated policy of zero tolerance.
By David Gold
November 22 – Former Ajax legends Johan Cruyff (pictured) and Edgar Davids, now both members of the club’s Supervisory Board, have played down a race row which emerged this week, but doubts persist over the former’s future at the Dutch champions.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 22 – Mohamed Bin Hammam’s appeal to the highest sports authority against his lifetime ban is now official, with the former Asian football chief determined to clear his name.
By David Gold
November 18 – Lille midfielder Joe Cole has said that he would “love to play in the Olympics” if selected by Team GB manager Stuart Pearce.
By David Gold
November 22 – French President Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured left) held a secret meeting with Qatar’s Crown Prince Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani (right) in which he encouraged the gulf state to invest in French football and purchase the then financially troubled Paris St Germain, it has been claimed.
David Beckham’s American adventure had the fitting end it was meant to have, as LA Galaxy beat Houston Dynamo 1-0 in the MLS Cup final on Sunday – but then in showbiz, things always seem to go to plan.
So where next for Posh and Becks? So far Beckham’s career has gone from Manchester to Madrid, to Los Angeles to Milan and back (twice), and so Paris would seem a logical next step.
By David Gold
November 21 – Zhang Jilong (pictured), the acting President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), has claimed that Indian football is making progress, at a meeting of an Ad Hoc Committee created to improve the state of the game in the country.
By David Gold
November 21 – Ukraine will focus on introducing high speed travel links between host cities of the 2012 European Championships in the months remaining before the tournament begins, the country’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Borys Kolesnikov (pictured) has said.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 21 – Britain’s FIFA vice-president insisted today that Sepp Blatter (pictured right) is not a racist and said he was “pleased” with Blatter’s attempt to rectify the situation following the outrage that accompanied his statement that racist incidents on the field should be settled with a handshake.
By David Gold
November 21 – The Scottish Premier League (SPL) has signed a five year extension to their current television deal with Sky Sports and ESPN to show live games, on what SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster (pictured) claims are “substantially improved terms”.
Now that the outrage over Sepp Blatter’s unfortunate remarks about racism is receding somewhat, let’s take stock of the entire episode.
Blatter’s comments, as we all know, made headline news across the UK but the fact is they were hardly reported anywhere else; at least not with the same ferocity. Why was that?
By Andrew Warshaw
November 21 – Former Dominica Prime Minister Patrick John is appealing FIFA’s decision to ban him for two years for his role in the cash-for-votes scandal last May.
By David Gold
November 21 – Australia’s women’s football team will not be competing in the London 2012 Olympic Games after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) decided not to appeal FIFA’s ruling that North Korea can compete in London next year despite members of their team failing drugs tests at the World Cup earlier this year, inisideworldfootball can reveal.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 20 – Two days after apologising for his gaffe over racism on the field, FIFA President Sepp Blatter launched a another trouble-shooting offensive today aimed at restoring his battered reputation.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 18 – The FIFA bribery scandal that sent shock waves through world football and led to the departures of two of the sport’s most influential powerbrokers reached another milestone today when six more Caribbean officials were banned.