By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 23 – Polish city Katowice is preparing to dip into public funds to build a new stadium for its struggling football club GKS Katowice and support its bid to return to the top division of the Polish league. The investment is estimated to be worth about PLN 100 million (€24 million).
February 24 – Yet another case of alleged racist chanting by English fans is being investigated by the authorities. Following the high-profile incident involving Chelsea fans on the Paris Metro, video footage has emerged of a group of men, thought to be West Ham followers, chanting anti-Semitic abuse on a train in London.
February 24 – Footballers in Cyprus have a 34% chance of being asked by a stranger to fix matches and a 23% chance of being approached by an official from their own club, according to a damning survey commissioned by the Cyprus Footballers’ Association.
By Mark Baber
February 23 – Egypt has this morning officially abandoned its bid to host the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in favour of Algeria, whilst the government has confirmed the Egyptian Premier League will not be cancelled for this season, although no fans will be allowed into stadiums and President El-Sisi promised in a speech on Sunday that any official found culpable in the deaths of at least 20 Zamalek fans earlier this month would face punishment from the courts.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 23 – Twenty-four hours before what is likely to be a formal recommendation to play the 2022 Qatar World Cup in November-December, representatives of Europe’s major leagues have urged supporters of the first ever winter tournament to think again.
Before anybody starts throwing stones, let me clarify: there is no racism in English football only. But there is racism in England as a whole.
February 23 – Brazilian football, still rocked by endemic fan violence despite last year’s rhetoric about a World Cup legacy, suffered more of the same on Sunday when police arrested more than 100 fans before the Vasco da Gama-Fluminense match.
By Mark Baber
February 23 – Sam Nyamweya (pictured), head of the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) has taken his battle against the Kenyan Premier League (KPL) to a new level, reportedly obtaining an injunction from a civil court in an attempt to stop the KPL from kicking off. Nyamweya’s move has raised eyebrows, not least due to his own previously expressed stance with regard to recourse to the courts in football matters.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 23 – A serious row is brewing in the Bulgarian A group over the distribution of TV rights money with two of the country’s biggest clubs – CSKA Sofia and Levski – threatening to boycott the league unless they receive the lion’s share of the TV cash.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 23 – Organisers of Asia’s main football forum in Jordan have set a new date for the spring summit, pushing it back to within three weeks of the FIFA presidential election and therefore generating considerably more interest.
February 23 – Italian Serie A club Parma, twice former winners of the old UEFA Cup, took the dramatic step of calling off Sunday’s league game against Udinese on safety grounds as the division’s bottom club edged closer towards the financial abyss.
In October 2013, the Daily Telegraph wrote this headline and leader:
“Madcap proposals by Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini to increase World Cup finalists to 40 just do not add up – Sport’s top men claim that world Cup finals should be open to more nations but it is just another political football being kicked about by the hierarchy”
The paper continued to say:
“Under the madcap World Cup expansion plans dreamed up by Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini,
February 20 – A private family business standing in the way of Tottenham Hotspur’s plans to build a new £400 million state-of-the-art stadium has lost its court challenge against a compulsory purchase order to force it out.
February 20 – The Tunisian Football Federation (FTF) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the sanctions imposed by African Football Confederation (CAF) after their dramatic and emotional exit from the Africa Cup of Nations last month. The country faces exclusion from the 2017 championships unless it complies to CAF’s demands.
February 20 – The International Football Arena (IFA) have set September 10 as the date for their second Berlin conference, following on from the success of last year’s inaugural trip to Berlin for the Zurich-based talk shop.