Gooner Usmanov fronts the cash to cover Capello’s unpaid salary

Alisher Usmanov

By Mark Baber
February 6 – The desperate financial situation of the Russian Football Union (RFU), which has been unable to pay national team manager Fabio Capello’s salary, looks set to be resolved in the next two days as billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov (pictured) has pledged to grant a loan to the federation to cover the arrears.

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Exclusive: Belgian FA boss backs van Praag, D’Hooghe and demands 2018 honesty

Francois De Keersmacker

By Samindra Kunti
February 6 – Francois De Keersmacker presides over an upwardly mobile Belgian football federation with a national team that will be a Euro2016 challenger. He talked exclusively to Insideworldfootball about his home front challenges, why he backed Michael van Praag, why FIFA are not “a bunch of swindlers” but need to change, and the “stomach-churning” 2018 World up bid.

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Matt Scott: MLS digital media deal is a new road for rights holders and sponsors to travel

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“Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agein’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand. For the times they are a-changin’.” Bob Dylan

For the past 20 years football has had a very healthy and profitable relationship with pay-tv. This will be underlined once more over the next 24 hours or so when the Premier League makes its announcement over the result of the auction it has being holding for its UK rights.

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‎Hammers duck FA Cup axe but hit with FIFA fine

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February 5 – English Premier League club West Ham have been fined 100,000 Swiss francs and reprimanded by FIFA but have avoided being thrown out of the domestic FA Cup after fielding Senegalese striker Diafra Sakho just 18 days after he withdrew from his country’s Africa Cup of Nations squad.

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