By Osasu Obayiuwana, at the CAF congress in Marrakech, Morocco
March 9 – Backslaps, embraces and hearty chat are always on offer, when the great, the good and the miscreants in African football politics congregate, at least in public.
By Mark Baber
March 8 – UNICEF have written to FC Barcelona following a report by insideworldfootball that Barcelona may have breached FIFA regulations on the transfer of young players from abroad.
By Osasu Obayiuwana at the CAF Congress in Marrakech
March 8 – Slim Jdidi, the Tunisian referee at the centre of the controversial 2013 Africa Cup of Nations semi-final between Ghana and Burkina Faso is unlikely to receive further sanctions from the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the continent’s governing body.
March 8 – Bloomberg Sports has launched an update to its match prediction software that will update its projections in-play and every minute across five major European football leagues.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 8 – One of the candidates bidding to become the next Asian football chief has described as “crazy” Michel Platini’s idea that Qatar share the 2022 World Cup with its neighbours.
Exclusive – By Andrew Warshaw, Chief Correspondent
March 7 – Exclusive: At least one of the three west Asian candidates bidding to replace Mohamed bin Hammam as head of Asian football looks set to drop out of the race in the next month to reduce the chances of handing the Continent’s power base to Thailand’s controversial Makudi Worawi.
By Paul Nicholson
March 7 – Sunil Gulati (pictured), president of the US Soccer Federation, has his sights set on international committee work and giving the US a bigger voice at confederation and FIFA level.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 7 – Football’s use of the London 2012 Olympic stadium has been plunged into uncertainty once again – just when it seemed on the verge of being resolved.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – The future of Portsmouth, the stricken English club locked in administration for over a year with debts of about £60m, could finally be resolved next month – to the relief of the fans’ consortium hoping to take over.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – After more than a century without a commercial sponsor, Barcelona will break new ground next season by sporting the logo of Qatar Airways on its shirts – the starkest illustration yet of the club needing to embrace commercial reality as Qatar continues its drive to make inroads into European football.
By Paul Nicholson
March 6 – Fox Soccer channel looks set for closure as News Corp announced it will launch a new cable sports network in August taking ESPN head on in the national sports broadcast marketplace. Fox Sports 1 be available to more than 90 million pay- TV homes.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 5 – African football’s contentious presidential election was thrown even more sharply into focus today when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) threw out Jacques Anouma’s (pictured) last-ditch appeal against being barred from taking on the veteran incumbent Issa Hayatou.
March 5 – Egypt has started its league after a year’s suspension following the Port Said disaster where 74 fans were killed, but now the financial burden of sustaining clubs and playing squads looks to be hitting as players at one club are refusing to train.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 5 – The idea of the two Glasgow giants abandoning Scottish football and being integrated into the English league has once again been raised – this time by Rangers chief executive Charles Green.
By Andrew Warshaw, Chief Correspondent
March 5 – Rocked by corruption and controversy, Chinese football has gone for the boldest of coups in an effort to enhance its battered image on and off the field: signing up David Beckham.