January 7 – Brazil has released detail of its increased security plan for the World Cup later this year, saying it will be doubling the number of security personnel in comparison to the 2013 Confederations Cup, to 100,000.
By David Owen and Paul Nicholson
February 6 – Sepp Blatter has given what will be interpreted as a clear hint that he intends to run next year for another term as FIFA President, speaking out against the retention of age limits for International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
February 6 – Palestine football’s leading figurehead has warned he will call for Israel’s expulsion from FIFA unless it shows greater willingness to ease the plight of his country’s players and officials. FIFA recently set up a mediation Task Force and earlier this week Palestinian FA chief Jibril Rajoub met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and FIFA President Sepp Blatter in Zurich in the latest move to solve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
February 6 – Burkina Faso coach Paul Put is among 31 defendants in a Belgian match-fixing trial that started this week.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 6 – David Beckham’s dream of running his own club in the United States has become a reality after the global sporting superstar and former England captain announced that he has exercised his option to become the owner of a Major League Football team in Miami.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 5 – Cracovia Krakow has signed a new kit deal with Italian sportswear manufacturer Legea. The contract with Legea will come into force in July 2015, the Polish football club said. Legea will replace Nike which has been Cracovia’s kit supplier since 2012.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 6 – The state in Bulgaria has allocated 3 million leva (€1,5 million) for the reconstruction of the Ludogorets Arena Stadium in Razgrad. The project was approved by ministers yesterday, with the money being allocated from a fund for ‘Growth and sustainable development in the region’. The stadium is home of current league champions PFC Ludogorets.
By David Owen
February 5 – A party from Afghanistan is to pay a knowledge-sharing visit to England, as part of a programme to foster the development of football in the war-torn country and aid the nation-building process that the west is keen to see take root.
February 5 – Barcelona president Sandro Rosell may have departed but the club’s vice-president is continuing Rosell’s legacy of calling for changes to the structure of the game.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – The unpredictable and often precarious nature of foreign ownership in club football has been starkly illustrated by Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung resigning as a director of both the club and its parent company Birmingham International Holdings Ltd (BIHL) as he awaits the verdict of a money laundering trial.
By Paul Nicholson
February 5 – The scale of the financial commitment the Qataris are making in providing in-country infrastructure as it builds towards the 2022 World Cup was made clear again yesterday with $205 billion to be spent in the period up to 2018, according to a senior figure at the state’s largest bank.
By Paul Nicholson
February 5 – Israeli technology specialist Evento have signed a deal with Kroenke Sports Entertainment to launch its SitNearMe social media ticketing application for Kroenke’s sports francjsies including MLS team and the Colorado Rapids.
“Just arrived in Sochi,” Joseph Blatter tweeted on Tuesday. “Looking forward to meeting my friends and colleagues from the Olympic community before Sochi 2014.”
The FIFA President is an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member. So he will attend the IOC Session that precedes the Winter Olympics, the first to be chaired by Thomas Bach, the recently-elected IOC President.
There will no doubt also be opportunities to catch up with Russian officials,
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – FIFA and World Cup organisers will be breathing a lot more easily after Cape Verde lost their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over being expelled from World Cup qualifying – in the process avoiding potential chaos next summer.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – In another alarming example of how matchfixing is blighting Asian football, Malaysian authorities have found an entire lower league team guilty of manipulating games.