By Andrew Warshaw
March 19 – Michel Platini may be Sepp Blatter’s greatest critic when it comes to the veteran Swiss standing for a fifth term of office as FIFA president but one thing the pair agree on is that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar must be staged in winter.
How many goalkeepers are in the top 100 football transfers of all time?
Has their importance in football become strangely underrated? Has the lack of glamour in the position compared to the twinkletoes of outfield players blinded us, and indeed the transfer market, to the real value of a goalkeeper to a football team?
By Andrew Warshaw
March 19 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter has personally intervened to stop Sierra Leone authorities trying to sweep allegations of match-fixing under the carpet.
March 19 – Pakistan’s home World Cup qualifier against Yemen has been switched to neutral ground in Bahrain after it was postponed following Sunday’s deadly bombings in Lahore.
March 19 – French Ligue 2 side Nimes will be relegated at the end of the season after the club’s former president Jean-Marc Conrad was found guilty of attempted match fixing, the French League (LFP) announced.
March 19 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter has rejected a joint offer from UK broadcasters the BBC and Sky to take part in a political-style live television debate alongside his three rivals ahead of the presidential election at the end of May.
By Alexander Krassimirov
March 19 – The beleaguered president of Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia, Alexander Tomov, has said he is now in negotiation with companies from Western Europe as Bulgarian firms can’t afford the price of a major club sponsorship.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 19 – Red Star Belgrade is close to finalising the negotiation of an extension to its Gazprom sponsorship, valued at more than €20 million over a five-year term.
March 19 – Russia’s cabinet passed a 10% cut in the federal budget but was quick to emphasise that the cuts would not effect the build programme of the 2018 World Cup Stadia.
March 19 – Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, who launched their Chinese language site on the Netease platform last month, have increased their Chinese commitment with further support for the AIA China Youth Football Development programme.
By Mark Baber
March 18 – Egypt’s Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat has indicted 16 defendants for the Zamalek massacre in which 20 fans died after a crowd outside the stadium was fired upon by police before the game between Zamalek and Enppi on February 8.
By Matt Scott
March 18 – Greek football is at risk of being broken up unless widespread hooliganism and corruption is tackled by the state authorities, the Panathanaikos president has warned.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – In a week when the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will take centre stage as FIFA announces the exact November-December dates, the country has again pledged to push ahead with reforming its controversial ‘kafala’ labour system – but has stopped short of presenting a timetable for when this will happen.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – China is setting out a blueprint for staging the World Cup a generation down the road by raising the standard of the national team as part of a sweeping development project.
March 18 – Bhutan, officially the world’s worst national team, have pulled off a second straight fairytale victory by defying all the odds – and this time progressed to the second round of Asian World Cup qualifying.