By Andrew Warshaw
September 23 – A senior FIFA executive committee member has broken ranks to predict that the 2022 World Cup will be switched from Qatar, incurring a strong and immediate reaction from the organisers who insist there is no chance of the Gulf state being stripped of host status.
By David Owen
September 23 – A 40% increase in broadcasting revenue boosted FA Cup winners Arsenal’s turnover to more than £300 million in 2013-14, and kept the North London club in the black, despite a sharp reduction in profits on player sales.
By Mark Baber
September 22 – The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) met on Saturday to set the date for new elections, in line with FIFA’s directives, but apparently in contravention of a court order obtained by the Chris Giwa faction, who still regard their man as the legitimately elected President.
No-one could possibly argue with Wembley being chosen as host for the climax of Euro 2020. England’s national stadium is among the finest in the world while the country had the best bid and has not held a major football tournament since 1996. But anyone who believes there was no politics involved in last week’s decision by UEFA’s executive committee should think again.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 22 – Revelations that FIFA’s much-discussed report into possible corruption surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process might never be made public threatens to plunge the organisation into yet more discomfort and debate over morality.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 22 – UEFA president Michel Platini has denounced FIFA’s ethics committee over the way it has handled the growing controversy regarding 65 designer watches donated to many of the world’s leading football administrators at the World Cup.
September 22 – UEFA has confirmed that financial fair play fines imposed on clubs will be redistributed among teams who managed to balance their books.
September 22 – Any hopes rivals to Sepp Blatter might have in swaying the African vote away from the present incumbent at next year’s Fifa presidential election look like finding it tough going.
September 22 – Chris Rehner, CEO of Helios Partners, has confirmed he will speaking the session ‘Russia’s Host Cities: Development and Priorities’ at the World Football Forum in Moscow, November 13.
By Ben Nicholson
September 22 – The upcoming MLS expansion team NYC FC has targeted a new site for its soccer-specific stadium in the parking lot south of the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. Manchester City owned NYC FC will play its inaugural season, 2015, inside The Yankee Stadium – a baseball arena owned by the New York Yankees, who also own a fraction of NYC FC.
September 22 – The MLS has unveiled a new logo ahead of its twentieth season, to go along with its rebranding and rejuvenated aspirations to become a leading league in world soccer. Discarding the old boot and ball in black and white, the league has gone for the classic crest template normally seen as club logos.
September 22 – When Fort Lauderdale Strikers, a North American Soccer League (NASL) club, announced on its website that a major announcement was to be made on September 19, rumors started flying that David Beckham, whose group had suggested they had some announcements to make shortly too, may have had a change in strategy. However, the truth is that three Brazilians are the ones rocking this boat.
‘If you build it, UEFA will come.’ With apologies to Kevin Costner and the rest of those responsible for Field of Dreams, the fantasy Black Sox baseball movie, this looks like a more and more apposite slogan for a venue some four thousand miles east of Ray Kinsella’s ploughed-under Iowa corn-field: Wembley Stadium.
By Andrew Warshaw in Geneva
September 19 – After two humiliating failures in trying to secure the World Cup, English football can at last celebrate victory after being handed the climax to the one-off pan-European Championship finals in 2020.
September 19 – The man who will deliver verdicts following the report into the World Cup bidding investigation has re-iterated that he will try and make public any sanctions by November – and meanwhile keep the files secret.