By Andrew Warshaw
November 4 – The dispute over whether Kosovo should be given full international playing rights shows little or no sign of being resolved. FIFA President Sepp Blatter recently hosted the latest in a series of talks with Football Federation of Kosovo President Fadil Vokrri and his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Karadzic.
November 1 – UEFA will refuse any request by Celtic to play European fixtures in either England or Ireland next season as a result of their ground being used for the Commonwealth Games.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 1 – French professional clubs look certain to carry out their threatened strike after the country’s President Francois Hollande (pictured) refused to exempt them from his controversial 75% tax on high earners.
By Jamie Styles
October 31 – Football clubs looking to recruit the best talent into their academies might consider turning to social media which was used by the Boston College Eagles American football programme with transformational effect.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – The climax to the African World Cup playoffs have been thrown into confusion after Cape Verde appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over a FIFA ruling which resulted in them being kicked out of the qualifying competition.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – Qatar’s relentless bid to secure a major profile in Europe has been significantly enhanced by a deal between Qatar Tourism Authority and Paris Saint Germain worth a reported €150-€200m a season. Widely rumoured last season, the partnership is designed to promote Qatar as a tourist destination to European audiences.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – FIFA has imposed global bans on four players and a coach from Australia’s Southern Stars Victorian Premier League side in an escalation of the most serious match-fixing scandal to hit the country.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – UEFA has ordered the partial closure of CSKA Moscow’s stadium for their next home Champions League tie as a result of the highly published racist chanting towards Manchester City’s Yaya Toure. The Russian club, which strongly denied the claims, were charged after Toure complained about being verbally abused by a section of the crowd during City’s 2-1 win on 23 October.
By Gareth Messenger
October 30 – The main supporters group of Spanish La Liga club, Elche, have publicly admitted they were responsible for racist abuse directed at Granada defender Allan-Romeo Nyom (pictured) at the Estadio Martinez Valero on Saturday.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 30 – Seemingly light-hearted remarks made by Sepp Blatter during his much publicised appearance at the famed Oxford Union debating society last week have landed the FIFA president in hot water.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 30 – As widely anticipated having ended his illustrious playing career, David Beckham has decided his next move: starting a Major League Soccer team.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 30 – FIFA and Russia’s 2018 World Cup organisers have joined forces to play down Michel Platini’s idea of expanding the World Cup to 40 teams. The UEFA president made the proposal in a newspaper in which he suggested that all but one of the extra teams be drawn from continents other than Europe in an attempt to find a compromise to pacify Continents seeking greater representation.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
October 29- The head of European football’s leading anti-racism watchdog says kicking Russia out of club and national competitions could prove counter-productive in terms of teaching the country how to eradicate the abuse of black players.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29- Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, who heads the organisation’s anti-discrimination task force, says English football needs to seriously address the issue of coaching and management opportunities for retired black players and other ethnic minorities.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29- Bayer Leverkusen’s controversial Bundesliga win over Hoffenheim will be allowed to stand despite Stefan Kiessling’s “phantom” goal that raised fresh debate over the need for goal-line technology.