By Andrew Warshaw
April 3 – After months of trouble-shooting and no end of efforts to stave off negative headlines, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke seems resigned to the fact that Brazil will not be completely ready to host the World Cup despite having had seven years to prepare.
By Richard van Poortvliet
April 3 – Zenit St. Petersburg and the clubs former players have strongly denied allegations of match fixing made by Erik Hagen. The Norwegian defender, who played for Zenit between 2005 and 2008, claimed that players bribed an official in a UEFA Cup group stage tie against Vitória de Guimarães on 20 October 2005 in St. Petersburg.
By Paul Nicholson
April 3 – In global politics it is normally the all-powerful US that has the ‘Big Brother is watching you’ reputation. But in football it is different. Mexico’s Deportivo Toluca has been handed a $5,000 fine by CONCACAF’s disciplinary committee for spying on a San Jose Earthquakes training session.
By Paul Nicholson
April 2 – FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee has handed FC Barcelona a two term transfer ban, fined the club CHF450,000 ($509,000) and given it 90 days to “regularise the situation of all minor (under 18) players”. The Spanish federation (RFEF) has also been fined CHF450,000 for breaking transfer and first registration rules for a number of ‘minor’ players.
Football. You win some you lose some.
It was only basketball’s Harlem Globetrotters who didn’t do defeats.
Accepting that sometimes things aren’t quite going to plan on the pitch can sometimes require intelligence and immaturity. It’s not always the sign of a defeatist or someone who is past caring.
But have you noticed that all perspective has now gone from football. Every defeat becomes a crisis. Every bad result a surge of speculation over the manager.
By Richard van Poortvliet
April 2 – Former Zenit St. Petersburg defender Erik Hagen has admitted he bribed a referee during his playing career in Russia. The former Norwegian international said he and his teammates each paid an official $3,000 who took charge of a European club match.
By David Owen
April 2 – Tottenham Hotspur, the north London football club currently struggling to sustain a challenge for a top-four Premier League finish after a season of considerable change, has announced a small profit for the year to end-June 2013.
April 2 – English football fans have taken to social media to slam the cost of the national team’s new World Cup replica shirt.
April 2 – More than one in four professional footballers suffer depression and anxiety according to a new mental health study released today by the world footballers’ association FIFPro. That figure rises to a massive 39% amongst retired footballers.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 2 – Uruguayan football is in chaos just two months before the World Cup after the entire board of its national association resigned over increasing fan violence. FIFA has yet to comment on the crisis which could potentially threaten Uruguay’s World Cup participation if there is no leadership in place to take the country to Brazil.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 2 – Dutch football authorities are launching an investigation into Chelsea’s links with one of their top-flight clubs, Vitesse Arnhem, following sensational – some might say fanciful – allegations in the Dutch press. Chelsea have been using Vitesse as a training club for their emerging players in recent seasons, with four of their younger players currently on loan there.
By Richard van Poortvliet
April 2 – Former Russia head coach, Valery Gazzaev (pictured) has hit out at the lack of Russian football fans passing through the turnstiles to watch domestic Premier League games.
April 2 – Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has warned that if he doesn’t get his way in negotiations over the acquisition and redevelopment of the club’s Stadio Sao Paolo he will take the players and his manager, Rafa Benitez, and buy a club in England.
Michel D’Hooghe, the long standing FIFA executive member, should have every reason to feel happy. The man who chaired the Belgian football federation for many years, and led the country’s joint bid with the Netherlands for the 2018 World Cup, will travel to Brazil confident that this is the best Belgium side for more than a quarter of a century. “We have,” he tells me “the best generation after the generation of 86,” the one whose deeds in Mexico are still talked about in his country.
April 1 – A group of influential Russian players has put forward a proposal to limit the number of non-Russians in club football to six per club by the start of the 2018 World Cup.