Canada 2-0 El Salvador
June 24 – Fresh from emerging from a Concacaf-imposed timeout, Canadian head coach Jesse Marsch returned to the technical area at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, knowing any more misbehaviour would send him back to the naughty room. He needn’t have worried as their opponents El Salvador simply imploded in a red mist.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 24 – Amr Fahmy, former general secretary of the African Football Confederation who blew the whistle on the corrupt activities of his boss Ahmad Amhad, has died of cancer at the age of 36.
February 24 – China will play their next two World Cup qualifying matches against the Maldives and Guam behind closed doors in Thailand because of the coronavirus in a further escalation of the outbreak’s disruption of sports events in the country and beyond.
February 24 – The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has retained Juninho Paulista as national team coordinator after a conflict of interest arose over Paulista’s ties with Sao Paulo club Ituano.
February 24 – Mastercard has sent a clear integrity message to the sports industry that it expects its sponsor partners to meet the highest standards of governance.
February 24 – UEFA has agreed a sponsorship with Hublot for its women’s competitions as well as its Together #WePlayStrong platform that aims to get more girls and women involved in the game.
By David Owen
February 23 – The coronavirus outbreak has started to impact European football, with three matches postponed in Italy’s top-flight Serie A on Sunday.
February 22 – The Scottish FA is the latest British football body to announce the end of a major betting company sponsorship.
February 21 – In a time of little international football Belgium have remained top of the FIFA ranking. Palestine moved up the ranking following their success in January’s Bangabandhu Cup.
February 20 – In a week where financial cheating and corruption have again dominated sports headlines with the UEFA ban on Manchester City and the Swiss indictments surrounding FIFA’s media rights, SIGA’s conference in Rome which focussed on Anti-Corruption in Sport had an almost eerie-like timing.
February 21 – UEFA have been forced to apologise to hundreds of fans after a technical error meant tickets for Euro 2020 that should not have been on sale ended up being cancelled after being paid for.
February 21 – South Korea has postponed next week’s opening home matches for top-flight clubs Daegu FC and Pohang Steelers due to a surge of coronavirus virus cases.
February 21 – Germany’s Borussia Dortmund will have two shirt sponsors from the start of next season with telecoms company 1&1 taking over for the Bundesliga short position while long running partner Evonik take over for European and other competitions.
February 21 – In a significant move to break through footballing ethnic barriers, 17-year-old Ilija Ivic is set to become the first Serb-kosovan player to represent Kosovo having been named in the country’s under-19 squad.
February 21 – Tickets have gone on sale for what will be one of the oldest historical match-ups in world football history. Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest football club (founded in 1857) will play First Vienna Football Club 1894, the oldest club in Austria (founded in 1894) on June 1, the night before Austria host England in a pre-Euro warm-up.
February 21 – Sports News Television, SNTV, have struck a deal to manage the J League’s new international YouTube channel.