Mexico 1 Honduras 0
July 2 – The question on the lips of pundits and fans at Levi Stadium, Santa Clara, was “would tonight be business as usual or unusual business?” as Mexico and Honduras met for the right to face the United States in the Concacaf Gold Cup Final on Sunday in Houston.
Spain 5 Portugal 0
July 3 – With an imperious display, world champions Spain waltzed past neighbours Portugal at the Wankdorff Stadion in Bern, winning 5-0 to back up their status as tournament favourites.
By David Gold
August 4 – When Barack Obama gets around to opening his birthday cards, he will be finding a message of support from FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who wrote to the United States President, hailing him as a “visionary leader and unifier”.
By Emily Goddard
August 4 – PROSKE sports has appointed Christian Fuchs as an account director for its client UEFA TOP sponsor Coca-Cola, with a primary focus on supporting the hospitality and ticketing management programmes at Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.
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Sepp Blatter always complains that he is a leader who is not as powerful as his title of FIFA President may suggest. For a start, he is in the odd position that he cannot choose his own cabinet, something that Barack Obama or David Cameron would find intolerable.
So Blatter’s cabinet, the FIFA Executive Committee, are elected by the Confederations and foisted on him. There is nothing Blatter can do about that. He has to live with their choices.
By David Gold
August 3 – AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani (pictured) has warned that Italian clubs need to renovate or build new stadiums to avoid falling behind France in UEFA’s coefficient rankings, after having dropped below Germany’s Bundesliga last season.
By David Gold
August 2 – FIFA has warned the Venezuelan Government against the creation of a new “Sports Justice Commission”, which could cause a dispute with both world football’s governing body and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
By David Gold
August 2 – Argentina has dropped plans to merge their top two divisions into a 38 team national championship from 2012 after the Argentine Football Association (AFA) announced that it has “suspended consideration of the proposal”.
By David Gold
August 2 – FIFA has published a letter on its website attacking British politicians, with secretary general Jerome Valcke claiming that they should “act and speak on facts and not on unsubstantiated headlines”.
The giant makeshift marquees at the swish Marina da Glória where the 2014 qualifying draw took place have been pulled down and all delegates have now left town. Rio is back to normal daily life. But that, of course, still means a national obsession with football.
Bold and brassy, sexy and spontaneous, there is little doubt that in terms of colour and excitement, this country will put on a show in three years’
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
July 31 – UEFA President Michel Platini has warned European football’s giants not to set up a breakaway league or risk being thrown out of all competitions.
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
July 30 – Eighty-one years to the day since Uruguay won the first ever World Cup, the race for Brazil 2014 was launched in earnest today at a glittering $20 milion qualifying draw ceremony that threw up a whole host of intriguing match-ups that will get under way in Septemer next year.
England’s defeat to Germany in the 2010 World Cup triggered the inquiry into football governance, so humiliating was the nature of the 4-1 loss, and yesterday the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which took on the inquiry proposed its solution to the questions thrown up by that humbling experience. It is this context in which their report on football governance should be seen; a means to an ends, that end being the success of English football,
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
July 29 – To the eyes of the world, one man represents the iconic face of Brazilian football.
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
July 29 – The first major test of Brazil’s ability to organise the 2014 World Cup takes place tomorrow with a star-studded preliminary draw inside a giant makeshift auditorium at Rio de Janeiro’s swish Marina da Gloria.
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
July 29 – Sao Paulo officials today insisted the city will definitely be ready to stage the opening match of the 2014 World Cup, with a final decision to be made by FIFA’s Executive Committee in October.
By David Gold at Westminster in London
July 29 – The Culture, Media and Sport Select committee have urged the Government to use its influence to prevent the European Court of Justice ruling in favour of Karen Murphy (pictured), a Portsmouth landlady, who wants to retain her right to broadcast Premier League football in her pub through a Greek satellite decoder.