By Mark Baber
June 30 – The popularity of the World Cup is making for some unexpected relationships in Egypt, especially after a mooted deal to show the games on Egyptian TV fell through.
June 30 – FIFA’s ’11 for Health’ initiative has been using the tournament to spread its messages throughout Brazil. A closing ceremony was held at the Arena Amazonia in Manaus to mark the climax of a thirteen-week long schedule of events that involved children from the surrounding area, engaging them with the lure of football to learn about health.
June 28 – Villain or victim? Serial offender or just misunderstood? Fit for purpose or needing treatment? Luis Suarez is splitting opinion depending on where you come from. Here is some of the comment.
By Andrew Warshaw in Rio de Janeiro
June 28 – Uruguay’s football federation has confirmed to FIFA that it intends to appeal against the record World Cup suspension imposed on Luis Suarez for biting. FIFA announced that Suarez’s team have seven days to prepare the necessary paper work before an appeals panel sits to deliver a final verdict.
By Andrew Warshaw in Brazil
June 28 – Waving national flags and carrying banners accusing FIFA of a conspiracy, hundreds of Uruguay fans gave Luis Suarez a hero’s welcome when he returned to the country following his record World Cup ban for biting Italy’s Giorgio Chiellini as the severity of the punishment split world opinion.
By David Owen
June 28 – Elite club football may be increasingly the province of the monied few, but the very biggest names from the club game are not having things all their own way at the 2014 World Cup.
By David Owen
June 27 – European teams finally began performing to their potential in the last round of World Cup group matches, running up an impressive eight victories and enabling UEFA to snatch second spot in the race to be the best-performing confederation at Brazil 2014.
By David Owen
June 27 – Adidas teams enjoyed a storming final round of group-stage matches at the World Cup in Brazil, as those supplied by rival Puma wilted. With 75% of Brazil 2014 games now completed (even if the most important are still to come), the company, which expects to sell more than 8 million World Cup team replica shirts and 14 million ‘Brazuca’ footballs, has taken a grip on the World Cup Battle of the Brands.
June 27 – The Wall Street Journal has published its own findings on divers and writhers at the world cup. In an article that laments the nuisance of ‘injuries’, they have tallied up all the incidents in which a team’s player has seemingly feigned hurt, accumulating the total time spent portraying the absent agony, which they have dubbed ‘writhing time’.
By Andrew Warshaw in Brazil
June 26 – Luis Suarez was plunged into international disgrace today when the Liverpool and Uruguay striker was banned by FIFA from all football-related activity for four months for his already infamous bite on Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini at the World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw in Brazil
June 26 – Sulley Muntari and Kevin-Prince Boateng, two of Ghana’s best-known and most experienced players, were expelled from their World Cup squad for alleged indiscipline prior to the nation’s final group game which they lost to Portugal 2-1 last night.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 26 – FIFA medical experts have admitted they are powerless to intervene in cases of concussion if national team doctors decide players are fit enough to continue after taking knocks to the head. The controversial issue has re-emerged at the World Cup after Uruguay’s Alvaro Pereira (pictured) was allowed to continue playing against England after being briefly knocked unconscious in the game between the two sides last week.
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.