By Andrew Warshaw
December 5 – UEFA chief Michel Platini has again denied that he bowed to government pressure to vote for Qatar to stage the 2022 World Cup. Almost exactly three years since the vote in December, 2010, Platini, who has made no secret of which country he supported in the secret ballot, is still having to fend off suggestions that he did not make an independent decision.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 4 – The prospect of football re-unification between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, an item on the agenda at the two-day FIFA executive committee meeting which began today in Brazil, has received another timely boost.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 4 – German investor Michael Budzinski has announced plans to sell his majority stake in Hungary’s Vasas SC, Budapest-based football club. Vasas has a particularly strong following in Budapest’s north-eastern Angyalfold district. In spite of this, over the past years, the Hungarian club has been struggling to stay financially afloat.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 4 – UEFA president Michel Platini is reluctantly considering staging a u-turn over goal-line technology for the 2016 European Championship finals – even though he still opposes the system.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 3 – Zahir Belounis, the French-Algerian footballer whose story of being trapped in Qatar claiming 18 months’ of unpaid wages prompted the intervention of human rights organisations and even the French government, has broken his silence over his treatment by saying he plans to sue the two clubs he played for in the Gulf state.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 3 – In a case that has again brought focus in Spain on to the hot topic of clubs and the sale of their TV rights, Barcelona and Real Madrid are among four Spanish teams that have been fined for breaking broadcast competition rules.
By Matt Scott
December 3 – Clubs should run background checks on their players’ betting habits before recruiting them or they will risk becoming targets for match fixers. That is the view of Peter Limacher (pictured), one of the foremost authorities on the illegal activities that threaten football from within.
December 3 – Match-fixing has again hit Estonia as illegal gambling dens continue to spread their criminal activities.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 2 – Poland’s Ekstraklasa is planning to host the country’s next Super Cup match abroad. The top tier of Poland’s professional football league wants to move its showpiece match to a location in Western Europe, primarily to increase its advertising revenues from the high-profile event.
November 29 – Scottish Premier league club Heart of Midlothian looks set to exit administration after creditors today voted in favour of a company voluntary arrangement (CVA). Fan group Foundation of Hearts (the preferred bidders of the administrators BDO) offered £2.5 million towards debts of £30 million.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – The match-fixing scandal in Austria is escalating with the news that 20 current or former players are now being treated as suspects amid reports that at least 17 first and second division matches could have been manipulated over the last seven years.
By Paul Nicholson
November 29 – UEFA have opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic after fans unveiled banners depicting IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and Scottish warrior William Wallace at their Champions League game against Milan. But the Green Brigade fan group who were responsible for the banners have now escalated the issue raising questions about their rights to the freedom of political expression.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – Two men have now been charged as part of the investigation into alleged match-fixing in English football as fresh details emerged amid claims that even World Cup games may have been rigged. Chann Sankaran, a 33-year-old Singapore national, and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, a 43-year-old with dual UK and Singapore nationality, have been remanded in custody and will appear in a Birmingham magistrates court.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 28 – One of the world’s leading match-fixing investigators says it was “only a matter of time” before English football was targeted and says the latest case should serve as a wake-up call in the battle to bring down the criminal gangs and their ringleaders.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 28 – The endemic scourge of matchfixing, which has tarnished the reputation of leagues across the globe, has struck at the heart of English football, until now considered by many to be immune from what FIFA and crime-busters have long believed is the most serious danger to the sport.