By Mark Baber
May 13 – As of Monday morning, Pakistan’s football coach Bahraini Mohammed Shamlan was still waiting for a permit from Israel to allow him to join his team at the Al-Nakba International Football Tournament in Palestine.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
April 22 – Legia Warsaw could launch an initial public offering on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in the few next years, according to Dariusz Mioduski, the majority shareholder of the Warsaw-based club.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 20 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter says points deductions are a far better deterrant for tackling racism than stadium closures – which UEFA have been particularly keen on – since the latter are ‘unduly excessive’ punishments that hurt the game itself rather than penalise the guilty parties.
April 17 – In a week when financial fair play (FFP) came under renewed scrutiny, Manchester City have emerged as the best paid squad in global sport, according to a new study.
April 11 – Football will be one of the main beneficiaries from a global growth in advertising rates, and commercial television will be the most dominant medium within that growth. For football’s rights holders that is good news as ad-driven TV stations will be able to afford premium rights, and sponsorship values will continue to grow as mass market audiences are delivered.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 20 – The international players’ union FIFPro has again called on FIFA to reform the international transfer system which, it says, is failing the game and badly need to be addressed.
March 7 – Mexican top tier club Gallos Blancos de Queretaro looks certain to be caught up in a government investigation into a corporate money laundering. The chief executive of Oceanografia, an oil services company being investigated by Mexican authorities, is the owner of the Gallos Blancos.
February 28 – The Beautiful Game is an increasingly overused expression; of course it is beautiful. It has a depth of beauty and meaning to football fans and players that is rarely communicated in words. But can this depth be expressed in art? The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) thinks it can.
By Paul Nicholson
February 28 – World players union FIFPro has renewed its vehement criticism of the current transfer system following the latest FIFA Transfer Matching System (TMS) data which reported global transfer fees in 2013 of $3.72 billion, an increase of 41% on the previous year.
By Paul Nicholson
February 14 – “Barrow’s Holker Street ground is no more. It is now the Furness Building Society Stadium, Wilkie Road. But on emerging through the turnstiles on to the terraces, it is difficult to see what substantive changes the Furness Building Society have actually made, beyond financing a new mundane rectangular administrative block at one end of the ground, from which the teams later came out,” writes Steve Leach,
January 29 – Third party ownership of footballers’ economic rights is a hot issue that raises questions of integrity, money being siphoned out the game, and unbalancing of the football market. The big European nations generally hate it, the South Americans, in particular, embrace it. Lawyer Pāvels Tjusevs examines the business and draws some uncomfortable conclusions for football.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
January 29 – Just over a week after announcing he was running for FIFA president, Jerome Champagne has given the strongest hint yet that he will withdraw rather than stand against Sepp Blatter – and that he would readily accept a new position under his former boss if he fails to land the top job.
January 22 – Former Argentine World Cup star Osvaldo Ardiles says he is “fine and doing well” after being admitted to hospital following a car crash in the Falkland Islands. Ardiles, 61, became a legend not only in his country after Argentina’s 1978 World Cup triumph but also at Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur where is regarded as one of the all-time greats, winning both the FA Cup and Uefa Cup.
By Paul Nicholson
January 10 – Nike and adidas have been referred to the UK government’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) anti-cartel unit following their decisions to supply major outlets only. So far, though, adidas have not been contacted by the OFT regarding an investigation.
By Paul Nicholson
January 9 – The messages of anti-discrimination and social inclusion of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people might be starting to get through as more high profile athletes and governing bodies are taking stands. Thomas Hitzlsperger became the biggest name footballer to come out as gay, while in the US the National Soccer Coaches Assn. of America has added a ‘Gay, Lesbian and Ally’ page to its website.