By Andrew Warshaw
May 20 – Michael van Praag and Luis Figo are reportedly set to withdraw from the FIFA presidential race, leaving Asia’s outgoing FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan to go head-to-head with Sepp Blatter next week.
May 20 – Sprint has renewed its CONCACAF Gold Cup sponsorship as official US wireless provider. This is Sprint’s fifth consecutive Gold Cup, the first being in 2007.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 20 – Elisabeta Lipa, the chief executive of Dinamo Bucharest, has unveiled plans to demolish its Stefan cel Mare stadium and build a new sports facility with a total capacity of 30,000.
May 20 – Italy are making TV production history with the first broadcast of a football match in the new 4K Ultra-HD format. The Juventus versus Lazio TIM Cup Final at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico tonight, will be the first to offer broadcasters a live feed in the fledgling TV format.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 20 – FIFA will agree the bidding regulations for the 2026 World Cup next week with Europe and Asia almost certain to be excluded.
Talk of West Ham turning to Rafa Benitez in place of Sam Allardyce raises the question: what about British managers? If even a club like West Ham thinks foreign what hope is there for Britons who dream of managing the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal or Manchester City? And that this is a question being asked in a season where British managers have made quite a mark shows the problem for the native born.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 20 – Sepp Blatter remains optimistic, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that he can find a solution to the Palestinian bid to ban Israel from world football that threatens to overshadow his re-election bid at next week’s FIFA Congress in Zurich.
By a distance Canada 2015 is the most excited I’ve been about a women’s World Cup. In my job, it’s about the story, and there will be stories no doubt.
By David Owen
May 19 – Hamburg, a confirmed runner in the race for the 2024 Olympics, may be about to suffer an immense blow to its sporting prestige. With just one game to go, the city’s premier football club – Hamburger Sport-Verein – is in serious peril of relegation from Germany’s Bundesliga for the first time in its history.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 19 – With a raft of clubs struggling to comply, UEFA have agreed to relax the rules on financial fair play that were introduced in 2011 to curb overspending, but which have led to the widely anticipated threat of legal challenges.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 19 – Qatari authorities, under fresh pressure to improve their human rights record ahead of the 2022 World Cup, have hit back at BBC claims that a reporting team was arrested and detained for trying to film conditions at migrant workers’ housing despite being on an officially sanctioned visit to the country.
May 19 – A Malaysian supporters group is calling for a boycott of two lucrative close-season games against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, saying the fixtures are fruitless and serve no other purpose than to fill the coffers of the national federation.
By Mark Baber
May 19 – A row has broken out in Nigeria over what is being termed the “slave contract” between Nike and the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) over the sponsorship of national team shirts. The argument sees the NFF marketing department pitted against the Pinnick-led hierarchy, with neither party keen to discuss a major underlying issue – sports brands’ reluctance to sponsor a federation in which homophobia poses significant reputational risks.
When Newcastle last won the English top-division title, they really did do it in black and white. It was 88 years ago. It is 60 years now since Newcastle last won the FA Cup and 16 since they lost the second of two consecutive finals. In short, theirs is not a tradition of trophy-laden triumph.
By Samindra Kunti
May 19 – In the vicinity of the iconic Arc de Triomphe in Paris’s affluent eighth district, football fans milled about the entrance of the ritzy Hotel du Collectioneur under a slight drizzle late in March. They were looking to get a glimpse of Brazil’s football stars. Chelsea’s Oscar briefly sauntered through the plush lobby, a little casual in his flip-flops. Heads turned and outside pandemonium ensued.