By David Owen
February 5 – Yet more US investment is flowing into European football, with the announcement that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) has forged a strategic partnership with Hertha BSC of the German Bundesliga.
February 5 – FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke says all Brazil’s World Cup stadia, most notably Curitiba, will be completed by April even though that is only two months before the start of the tournament.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who heads the European Club Association representing the interests of more than 200 clubs across the Continent, has urged UEFA to crack down on any big spenders who breach financial fair play regulations.
February 5 – Croatian playing legend and now president of the Croatian Football Association, Davor Šuker, is in the Caribbean visiting the Turks and Caicos Islands this weekend. The trip follows an initial approach from the Croatians to the Turks and Caicos Islands last December offering assistance and seeking to build a stronger relationship with the federation.
February 4 – FIFA believe they are making progress in an effort to break the footballing impasse between Israel and Palestine and improve the long-term problem of access for officials, competitors and equipment to and from the latter.
February 4 – The Football Conference, which organises the fifth and sixth tiers of English football across three divisions, is looking for a title sponsor following the decision by current sponsor Skrill, to finish its relationship with the league at the end of the year.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – Football’s law-makers are to study the idea of video replays, a controversial topic the FIFA hierarchy has long pledged will not be introduced as an addition to goal-line technology.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The comedian who invented the infamous Nazi-style gesture that led to former French international Nicolas Anelka being charged by English football authorities has been barred from entering Britain.
February 4 – The Union of Central American Football (UNCAF) has said that it will play its next championship for national teams, the UNCAF Copa Centroamericana, in the US, most likely 1-13 September 2014, in the FIFA window for international fixtures.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The Leeds United ownership saga shows no sign of being resolved as the club prepares for fresh talks while re-instated manager Brian McDermott says he is going nowhere – for the moment anyway.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 3 – Arpad Paszkany (pictured), owner of CFR Cluj, has confirmed plans to find a new investor for the Romanian club which currently plays in Liga 1, the top tier of the country’s professional football league.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Qatar World Cup organisers are in England this week as part of a fact-finding trip designed to boost trade relations between the two countries ahead of the 2022 tournament.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – Pep Guardiola’s biographer Daniel Martinez reckons that the Bayern coach sees Philipp Lahm as his most important player. And if Bayern retain the Champions League and Germany win the World Cup then the aging defender turned midfield general would be nailed-on for the next FIFA player of the year.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Mental strength has long been regarded as one of German football’s greatest qualities but Franz Beckenbauer, the country’s most revered footballing icon, believes it may have been lost.
February 3 – French football stars Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema have been cleared on all charges in their underage sex trial in Paris. The prosecution had been tasked with proving they had illegally slept with a teenage prostitute – a crime which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.