By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 26 – Uruguay’s entire coaching staff have leaped to the defence of Luis Suarez as FIFA decides what sanctions to take over his already infamous biting episode. FIFA’s disciplinary panel was due to make a ruling either Thursday or Friday ahead of the country’s last-16 fixture against Colombia on Saturday.
June 25 – Media tracker Moreover Technologies has come up with a number of data sets around how the media worldwide is covering the World Cup and what is trending in terms of stories. While doubtless Luis Suarez’s bite night last night will be the current most covered story globally (stats still to be released), the data throws up interesting information on what is capturing the world’s imagination.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 25 – FIFA has acknowledged that its television production team should have thought twice before broadcasting a graphic suggesting Brazil forward Fred was offside when scoring in the 4-1 win over Cameroon.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 25 – Prince Harry wasn’t the only VIP attending England’s final game of the World Cup in Brazil’s third largest city. Just when England fans thought it could not get any worse, the match took place in the very city where England’s much-lauded team were humiliated by a bunch of amateurs from the United States all of 64 years ago.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 25 – Uruguay’s Luis Suarez faces the possibility of a lengthy FIFA ban after bringing infamy to the World Cup with yet another biting storm that has once again cast a dark shadow over the brilliant but highly temperamental striker.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 24 – FIFA medical executives have hit back over Costa Rica’s protests about dope tests on its players as the row continued to simmer on the eve of the tournament’s surprise package playing its final Group D tie against England here tomorrow.
By David Owen
June 24 – The exploits of Costa Rica and Belgium have helped smaller combatants in Brazil 2014’s Battle of the Brands to steal a march on their Big Three rivals. The perfect records compiled by the Red Devils and their Central American counterparts after two rounds of matches have provided four of the five wins recorded by teams not sporting Adidas, Nike or Puma shirts.
By David Owen
June 23 – South American teams have excelled in the second round of World Cup group matches, taking over from CONCACAF as the competition’s most successful region. While this could be interpreted as an example of making home advantage count, host-nation Brazil, held to a goalless draw by Mexico, were ironically the only South American side not to win their second match at the tournament.
June 23 – Cost control of World Cup stadium build and accusations of corruption is not an issue confined to Brazil. Russia’s state Audit Chamber has found that the design work for its 2018 stadia has been over-priced by as much as 3 billion rubles ($88 million).
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 22 – Costa Rica’s football federation has sent a letter to FIFA demanding an explanation for why so many of its players were required to take dope tests following their stunning victory over Italy that qualified them for the last 16 of the World Cup for only the second time in their history.
June 22 – Qatar’s 2022 World Cup organisers have unveiled the name and design for another of its proposed World Cup stadia – a 60,000-capacity venue in Al Khor which is scheduled to stage a semi-final and is due to be completed in 2018.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 21 – FIFA’s monitoring of World Cup warm-up matches revealed no apparent instances of match-fixing according to head of security Ralf Mutschke (pictured). Several friendlies before the 2010 World Cup were later found to have been rigged leading FIFA to take a close look at dozens of similar games in the build-up to Brazil.
June 20 – Castrol Activ has avoided the scramble for TV audiences and switched from a traditional TV-based marketing campaign to focus their world cup promotion on ‘second screen’ technology. The World Cup sponsor is running a digital and social media campaign in collaboration with digital marketing agency FoxyMoron called ‘Castrol Activ Cling On To Football’.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 20 – FIFA and World Cup organisers have promised there will be no repeat of the security breach that saw dozens of ticketless Chilean fans detained after smashing their way into the Maracana stadium media centre ahead of their team’s 2-0 win over Spain that knocked out the defending champions.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 20 – Two ticket touts have been arrested after infiltrating one of the official FIFA hotels in Rio de Janeiro, FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil revealed at a news briefing today. FIFA called police to the Sofitel hotel near the famous Copacabana beach and “the reaction was immediate,” Weil said.