By David Owen
September 12 – Manchester City have enlisted the help of Sun Jihai, their former player, in their efforts to better exploit the vast 1.3 billion-strong Chinese market. The defender, who turns 38 this month, made 130 league appearances for the club during a six-year stint between 2002 and 2008.
This has been a week when the names of Wayne Rooney and Bobby Charlton have been juxtaposed a million times, making comparisons between these authors of a combined 99 England goals inevitable.
By Paul Nicholson
August 11 – Manchester United have continued their chasing down of the leadership positions in Insideworldfootball’s Twitter rankings, closing to within 60,000 followers of Chelsea in a slower week of Twitter gains but which saw the reds increase their following by 32,000 against Chelsea’s 16,000.
By Mark Baber
September 11 – FA Chief Executive Martin Glenn has said that the FA would be “absolutely supportive” of Chelsea and Tottenham using Wembley whilst they redevelop their stadiums, even if it means they have to ground-share the England’s National Stadium for a period.
September 11 – The International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) has upped its support and commitment to battling against match-fixing and is hosting the first technical meeting on the manipulation of sports competitions as a follow-up on the recommendations and commitments of the Declaration of Berlin with UNESCO in Doha, September 16-17.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 11 – Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber has vigorously defended the unique structure and calendar of his 20-team league, says David Beckham’s Miami franchise is close and insists MLS is not simply a retirement home for ageing foreign stars looking for a career-ending financial windfall.
By Alexander Krassimirov
September 11 – Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia will have to declare themselves bankrupt if the club want to return to professional football. The statement was made by the chief executive director of the club Alexander Todorov (pictured).
By Andrew Warshaw
September 11 – No sooner had he announced in his native Jordan that he was having a second crack at the FIFA presidency than Prince Ali bin al-Hussein flew into London for his first post-declaration function and urged FIFA members to vote with their hearts next time and not give in to the fear factor.
By Paul Nicholson
August 11 – There is a parallel sports world taking place to that of the traditional football world. It is a world that has more active participants than football has registered players, generates billions of dollars and is now filling stadiums full of fans to watch its players.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 11 – FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon is back on the offensive over his claim that his own Asian confederation is guilty of “electoral fraud” in the race to succeed Sepp Blatter, this time all but accusing FIFA, which has refused to support his allegations, of a cover-up.
By Mark Baber
September 10 – The Israel Football Association (IFA) announced on Wednesday that “all professional league and youth league games will take place as planned this weekend,” after Israel’s Attorney-General issued a ruling that the 1951 law mandating permission from the Ministry of Economy in order to work on the Sabbath need not be applied.
By Andrew Warshaw and Paul Nicholson
September 10 – The man charged with overseeing FIFA’s reform process has released details of a thorough and radical blueprint designed to overhaul the organisation’s powers of responsibility and bring an end to the atmosphere of mistrust and the stench of corruption that has plagued world football’s governing body.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 10 – FIFA is at a “watershed” moment when it comes to the credibility of the organisation according to Domenico Scala, the official overseeing the reform process whose comprehensive eight-point plan for widespread change in the post-Sepp Blatter era was made public today.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
September 10 – Gigi Becali, the controversial owner of Romanian football club Steaua Bucharest, is reportedly planning to leave the troubled side and purchase a new club competing in the country’s top tier Liga 1.
By Mark Baber
September 10 – The failure of Barcelona to comprehend that they are in any way at fault for flouting the FIFA regulations designed to stop the exploitation and trafficking of children in football is once again apparent, even as the club, faced with the real possibility of a new transfer ban, decide to treat the issue as of “extremely high priority,” according to reports in the Spanish press.