By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – Africa’s elite players could be forced to play two major tournaments in the space of a month if FIFA rubber-stamps the recommendation to switch the Qatar 2022 World Cup to winter.
By Rafael Buschmann and Michael Wulzinger
March 6 – Where did the money go from six benefit football matches played by Lionel Messi and friends? The world famous football player says they went to charity. Tax investigators believe they went to the players. Documents have emerged that are fueling those suspicions.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – FIFA’s new chief ethics investigator insists he will not be influenced or sidetracked by anyone within the heirarchy of football’s world governing body when it comes to making independent decisions – including FIFA president Sepp Blatter.
By Paul Nicholson
March 5 – Scottish giants Celtic have traded Nike in for another US firm, New Balance, in a new kit deal estimated to worth $5.8 million per year, the biggest ever for the club and easily the largest sponsorship in club football in Scotland.
By Mark Baber
March 5 – Greece’s deputy sports minister Stavros Kontonis confirmed Wednesday that the Super League will resume this weekend, with matches initially being played behind closed doors. The decision came after day long talks with Super League president Giorgos Borovilos and Hellenic Football Federation chief Giorgos Girtzikis on plans to tackle violence.
By Andrew Warshaw, Chief Correspondent
March 5 – Michel d’Hooghe, FIFA’s longest-standing executive committee member and head of its medical committee, has expressed his relief at being cleared of any misconduct in the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and says he just wants to get on with what he has been doing for the last 27 years.
Scotland have followed Wales in voicing their opposition to a combined British football team for the 2016 Rio Olympics as the dispute between the individual British associations intensifies.
March 5 -Major League Soccer will kick off its 20th campaign as scheduled on Friday after a new collective bargaining agreement was finally put in place at the 11th hour to end the threat of a players’ strike.
By Andrew Warshaw
Two of the contenders bidding for Sepp Blatter’s crown as president of FIFA have come away from the Conmebol congress expressing optimism – yet still seem unlikely to be able to wrest South American support away from the veteran Swiss.
I don’t often say this, but three cheers to the Football Association (FA) for signalling its desire to continue sending teams to the Olympic football tournament. I just hope that at some point it becomes possible once again for a Great Britain Olympic squad to be genuinely British.
By David Owen
March 5 – A new YouGov poll suggests that football fans have a better reputation than is sometimes suggested – in London at least. The poll indicated that Londoners had a broadly positive impression of fans of all but three of the UK capital’s top teams – West Ham, Chelsea and Millwall.
When it comes to serious doping allegations at the highest levels of the sport there has to transparency and the presentation of as much information as possible. Performances like that of the legendary Mehmet Scholl witnessed on German television this week are surely counterproductive.
By Paul Nicholson
March 5 – The bitter battle for control of Scottish giant Rangers took another twist today as shares in the company were suspended on the AIM stock exchange when Rangers’ nominated advisor WH Ireland resigned the account.
By Mark Baber
March 5 – The Football Federation of Kenya (FKF) initiated court case, attempting to put an end to the Kenyan Premier League and replace it with a League made up primarily of what were second tier clubs, looks certain to proceed on toady, despite a High Court Judge on Tuesday giving the two sides 48 hours to try and sort the matter amicably.
March 4 – Europe’s leading clubs are reported to have softened their anger over the decision in principle to switch the 2022 World Cup to winter following a meeting between the head of the European Club Association and FIFA president Sepp Blatter.