March 13 – CONCACAF has appointed a team of Diversity Officers who will have special responsibility for ensuring that the recently introduced ‘Protocol for Racist Incidents During Matches’ is implemented.
By David Owen
March 12 – A man who had a hand in Canada’s recent Olympic men’s ice hockey gold medal is replacing Nicola Cortese as chairman of Southampton.
By Paul Nicholson
March 13 – Egypt’s turbulent political situation has become inextricably linked to club football in the country and the political activities of the fans who have been leaders and activists in the revolution and the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak and the President Mohammed Morsi. Now a joint Ultras statement is calling for removal of the police from all football stadia.
March 12 – Newcastle United’s Alan Pardew has been handed a seven-game ban, a Premier League record for a manager, for the headbutt inflicted on Hull City midfielder David Meyler that was flashed around the world on television.
March 12 – FIFA has opened on-line sales for another 345,000 World Cup tickets. Tickets will be sold on a first come, first saved basis.
By Mark Baber
March 12 – Swedish police have confirmed that three men, charged with attempted murder after an apparently pre-meditated attack on a group returning from a Reclaim the Night International Women’s Day event in the early hours of Sunday morning, are known Nazis belonging to the Senskarnas Parti (Swedes Party).
March 12 – Police in Ghana have launched an investigation into the death of an assistant referee who was apparently attacked by spectators after a second division game.
By Alexander Krassimirov
March 12 – Botev Plovdiv owner Tsvetan Vassilev (pictured) has said he wants to buy the land on which the club’s Hristo Botev Stadium stands, according to the mayor of Plovdiv Ivan Totev. If the deal goes through, Botev will become the first Bulgarian club to own its stadium.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 12 – In a break from tradition, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has reportedly decided to refrain from making a formal speech at the World Cup’s opening ceremony for fears of jeering by protesting fans.
By Paul Nicholson
March 12 – Nigeria’s seemingly endless struggle and debate over how much and when to pay win bonuses to its national team players and officials has begun for the World Cup already. But while there is a will to pay, there may not be a way with the current budget for the 2014 tournament to be granted by the government expected to come in at only half the requested amount by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
‘Tourist shot dead on golf course’. ‘Stadia will never be finished on time’. ‘Political mayhem leading up to World Cup’. ‘World Cup will be a failure, local population protests’. ‘Street violence and lacking infrastructure’.
No.
These are not headlines pre-Brazil.
These, and worse, were the headlines prior to the first ever World Cup in an African country, in South Africa, four years ago.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 11 – What was expected to be a celebratory landmark occasion in terms of stadium readiness for the World Cup didn’t go completely to plan as another 2014 venue held its first test event.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 11 – The conflict between the management of Zawisza Bydgoszcz and the club’s Ultras has escalated into cyberwarfare.
By Paul Nicholson
March 11 – The UEFA Professional Football Strategy Council (PFSC), meeting at UEFA HQ in Nyon yesterday, have slammed the percentage of agent commissions being paid and demanded regulation in the agency marketplace. The PFSC also threatened that if FIFA does not ban third party ownership of players then UEFA will take matters into its own hands.
By Richard van Poortvliet
March 11 – In what is now becoming a football version of an old-style East-West Cold War, deputies from the Russian State Duma, from the United Russia and Fair Russia parties, have asked for FIFA to revoke the membership of the USA.