By Paul Nicholson
March 22 – The US is set to become the land of Europe’s giant clubs at the end of July in a pre-season football extravaganza that conceivably could feature at least three of Europe’s Big 5 league champions.
March 22 – Nine of the Brazilian footballers that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) found were playing under fake Timor-Leste passports have had their passports declared ‘null and void’, according to information from the Ministry of Justice of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste provided to the AFC.
March 22- Bundesliga CEO Christian Seifert may have expressed concerns about the dominance of Bayern Munich in the German league, but that debate has not held back his bullish expectations and strategy for growth of the league, especially internationally.
March 22 – Champions League final tickets are on sale and will set buyers back £390 for a Category 1 seat at the Cardiff venue on June 3. Bayern Munich fans who protested at the price of Arsenal away tickets, will be apoplectic at the cost if their team reaches the final.
March 22 – The Players’ Tribune, a US-based website set up for sportsmen and women to tell their personal stories and express their views, wants to pull in English Premier League players and other footballers across Europe.
March 22 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) completed its third accelerated learning course for referees in Japan on Monday. Designed to identify and speed up the development of refereeing talent in the region, the two-year programme aims to graduate more officials to FIFA standards.
March 21 – South African football has been plunged into yet another scandal after Ghanaian referee Joseph Lamptey was banned for life by FIFA for “match manipulation”.
March 21 – Iraq wants United States-born striker Justin Meram to rethink his decision not to join up with the squad for their upcoming World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia.
March 21 – With attention switching to World Cup qualifiers this week, the battle for a place at the Russia 2018 finals is no more competitive than in Asia where AFC qualification has reached the half way point. There are no runaway leaders and the traditional regional dominance of Australia, Japan and South Korea is under threat.
March 21 – Italy’s Internazionale have signed car manufacturer SWM Motors as an official partner with the company’s SWM X7 becoming the Official Car of F.C. Internazionale for the Greater China area.
March 21 – South Korea is taking steps to ensure the safety of its players as its national women’s team prepares to play North Korea.
March 21 – The German Bundesliga is often portrayed as a model example of fair play when it comes to club ownership rules and affordable ticket prices. But according to the league’s own CEO, Christian Seifert, Bayern Munich’s domination threatens the Bundesliga’s reputation and their rivals must show more ambition in order to close the gap.
March 21 –Premier League teams head the rankings of having the oldest players on average of all Europe’s leagues. Ten club from England’s top tier rank in the top 100 teams having on average fielded the oldest line ups in the domestic league matches played during the last six months.
March 21- Liverpool became the fourth Premier League club to break through the 7 million Twitter follower barrier this week. They put on 27,100 new followers for the week.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 20 – African football’s new leadership faces immediate and important questions about transparency and double standards after electing an official who was banned from running for FIFA president on to its own ruling body.