By Andrew Warshaw
November 20 – All eyes may have been on the four nail-biting playoffs but the most historic European encounter Tuesday night took place in the Algarve region of Portugal where tiny Gibraltar staged their first full international since winning their 14-year battle to become UEFA’s 54th and smallest member.
By Mark Ledsom
November 20 – China has held on to top spot in an international ranking of major sporting event hosts published by the sports data research company Sportcal.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 20 – European representation at next year’s World Cup is now complete after France incredibly came back from the brink to become the first country ever to overcome a two-goal first-leg playoff deficit.
By Mark Ledsom
November 20 – The head of BT TV insisted on Tuesday that the company´s audacious £897 million purchase of the UEFA Champions League broadcast rights earlier this month had been “worth every penny”, and also suggested that BT was ready to mount a similarly aggressive bid during the next round of bidding for the English Premier League TV rights.
By Tom Parsons
November 19 – West Ham forward Carlton Cole has become involved in an unusual twitter rant… against his own club!
By Paul Nicholson
November 19 – Hull City AFC supporters are not giving up their fight to retain their name in the face insistent owner Assem Allam’s (pictured) repeated statements that he will change the club’s name to Hull Tigers.
November 19 – NYCFC, the new New York City MLS franchise scheduled to start play in the 2015 season, is increasing its marketing presence and trading on the group’s assets with a new video featuring Manchester City players in New York.
By Paul Nicholson
November 19 – One of Europe’s most iconic clubs is undergoing a revolution, Viennese style. SK Rapid, better known to most European fans as Rapid Vienna, has a new president, plans for a new stadium and is targeting a new era as one of Europe’s top clubs in the world’s best city to live in according to Mercer’s latest Quality of Living ranking.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 19 – President Sepp Blatter’s personal choice as the first elected female member of his executive committee has been ousted by her own federation after nine years in charge. Lydia Nsekera, elected to FIFA’s inner sanctum amid considerable pomp at this year’s Congress in Mauritius, has been replaced as head of the Burundi football association, an untimely blow to global efforts to increase the influence of women football administrators.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Doha
November 19 – Almost three years after steering Qatar towards arguably the greatest upset in World Cup bidding history, Hassan Al Thawadi is still a driven man. Whilst hardly a week goes by without some new development raising questions over Qatar’s suitability to stage the 2022 tournament, the organising chief bullishly refuses to let himself get distracted, tackling the negativism head-on whilst remaining focussed on the job at hand.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
November 18 – CSKA Moscow owner Yevgeni Giner (pictured) is reportedly in talks with Ales Rebicek, owner of Slavia Prague, to buy the Czech football club.
By Andrew Warshaw in Doha
November 18 – Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisers have agreed to maintain an ongoing dialogue with Amnesty International in the wake of the most explosive report to date into workers’ rights violations in the country.
By Andrew Warshaw in Doha
November 18 – Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisers admit they are becoming “deeply frustrated” by constant negative headlines over whether the country deserves to stage the tournament but will not let all the adverse publicity sidetrack them.
By Paul Nicholson
November 18 – The Club World Cup scheduled for Marrakech and Agadir 11-21 December will not be disrupted by an FIFA Emergency Committee ruling that the governing body will not recognise the elections that were held by the Moroccan Football Association (FRMF) on 10 November 2013.
The plight of journeyman footballer Zahir Belounis and his desperate appeal to be paid what he’s owed and leave Qatar could hardly have come at a more inopportune time for the 2022 World Cup organisers.
Just as the Qataris were proudly unveiling details of the design and construction for the first of their state-of-the-art stadia for the finals in nine years’ time, so all the pomp and backslapping co-incided with yet more adverse publicity about a case which human rights organisations are using as an example of the restrictive kafala employment system that prevents foreign workers leaving the country until being “released”