August 25 – The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) has adjourned an appeal by New Zealand over their under-23 men’s team’s expulsion from the Olympic qualifying tournament final last month in Papua New Guinea.
August 25 – Premier League club West Ham United have announced Royal London as its Official Timing Partner in a two year deal that will cover the club’s final season at the Boleyn Ground and its first at the reconfigured Olympic Stadium.
By Paul Nicholson
August 25 – Three weeks into the Premier League season and the attendance figures have dipped below 95% average capacity for the first time, to 94.82%. Average capacity in week 1 was 97.36%, dropping to 95.82% last week.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 24 – As he enters the final phase of what will be almost 18 years as FIFA president, Sepp Blatter insists he cannot be held morally responsible for the dishonest activities of his inner circle and that he himself has been “clean” throughout his long and often tempestuous tenure.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
August 24 – Following an investigation launched by the Serbian Football Association (FSS), as a response to reports indicating that a match between local rivals Red Star Belgrade and OFK Belgrade was rigged, the Serbian Ministry of Interior has formed special police teams tasked with investigating managers, footballers and clubs’ supporters.
August 24 – The official heading FIFA’s new reform body says Sepp Blatter has been unfairly criticised amid the corruption storm that has enveloped his organisation.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 24 – FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-Joon has issued yet another fierce rebuke against Sepp Blatter, blaming the outgoing Swiss veteran for undermining his credentials for succeeding him and meddling with the election process as well as accusing FIFA of acting like the Mafia.
By Mark Baber
August 24 – Iranian football fans will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of the greats of world football playing this Friday, August 28 as a team of World Stars take on a team of Iranian Stars in a charity match.
August 24 – Twelve years after the tragic death of Marc-Vivien Foe at the 2003 Confederations Cup, another Cameroon footballer has lost his life after collapsing.
August 24 – Former FIFA executive committee Worawi Makudi’s last-ditch attempt to regain some kind of foothold within global or Asian football has failed after he withdrew from the election for the presidency of the 12-member Asean Football Federation (AFF) on the eve of the vote.
By Alexander Krassimirov
August 24 – Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia may have been relegated to the country’s amateur leagues for failing to pass the financial criteria to receive their club license, but their fans still manage to capture national headlines.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 24 – The Swiss probe into possible money-laundering linked to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process has now uncovered more than 100 incidents of “suspicious financial activity” according to the Swiss attorney general’s office.
By Paul Nicholson
August 21 – Expanding the digital experience to connect with more fans in more locations and in different ways, has become a holy grail for clubs worldwide. It is all about building big numbers of connected people to your brand. But what if that digital experience could be turned into a physical experience. Rather than just hearing and seeing action as it happens you could physically feel it as well.
I was interested to read Laila Mintas’s recent column on voting reform at FIFA. But while I can see much logic in the position she stakes out, and can certainly appreciate the democratic anomaly of China (population 1.3 billion) having the same voting power as American Samoa and Andorra (populations each less than 100,000), it seems to me there are more important matters to focus on before the introduction of Mintas’s Point-Voting-System can have any bearing on the calibre of governance in world football.
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” Winston Churchill
It was at Harvard University in September 1943 that Winston Churchill spoke those words. Britain’s prime minister presumed to tell the flower of American youth that they should prepare themselves for death on a distant battlefield because, well, that’s your lot in life, lads.