By Andrew Warshaw
June 19 – Lack of sufficient stewarding and security staff in certain World Cup cities is causing a problem for local organisers and FIFA alike. Brazil’s justice ministry says it added extra personnel at the Castelao stadium in Fortaleza on Tuesday because there were not enough private guards to go round.
By David Owen
June 19 – The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has urged other sports bodies to take a leaf out of FIFA’s book, after world football’s governing body completed the first phase of a groundbreaking World Cup drug testing programme with no positive cases reported.
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 19 – The head of Brazilian football has refused to criticise his disgraced predecessor whose tarnished reputation was once again highlighted at a media briefing today. Jose Maria Marin (pictured) told reporters he could not answer for the conduct of the man he replaced, Ricardo Teixeira.
By Mark Baber
June 18 – Recent western media reports suggesting that Russia is “not giving up on a Football Super League” in the post-Soviet space turns out to be somewhat spurious with the current state of relations between Moscow and Kiev making it even less likely than was previously the case.
June 18 – Three leading Premier League clubs have signed new season sponsorship deals with leading health insurance provider PruHealth and PruProtect to promote their healthy lifestyle insurance and rewards product Vitality.
By Mark Baber
June 18 – Chinese beer industry, and particularly Tsingtao Brewery and Anheuser-Busch InBev owned Harbin Beer are using World Cup to boost market share, especially amongst the younger demographic.
By David Owen
June 18 – The confederation covering North and Central America and the Caribbean (CONCACAF) has surprisingly taken the laurels for the best results achieved by its teams after completion of the first round of World Cup matches in Brazil.
By David Owen
June 18 – Adidas has taken a narrow early lead in the battle of the brands at Brazil 2014. After one round of matches, teams representing the brand of the three stripes, including Mexico, Germany and Argentina, had snared 51.85% of the points available to them.
June 18 – The Birmingham Crown Court match fixing trial has convicted one player from England’s Conference South and two Singaporeans of involvement in a conspiracy targeting lower league clubs. A further player was cleared while verdict is still awaited on another.
June 18: With the first round of group games complete, round two brings a series of make or break games. Croatia need to pull their socks up (and put their clothes on), Spain can expect a spicy contest with Chile, and the Aussies will need to show a lot more than their much trumpeted fighting spirit against high flying Dutch.
June 18 – As The World Cup 2014 progresses, so does One World Futbol’s mission to “bring the healing power of play to youth worldwide by making, selling and distributing nearly indestructible balls that survive the harshest environments” continues on.
Listen to executives and politicians and they will hammer home the L-word, legacy, as what hosting a major sports event is all about. The P-word too. People.
“It’s for them.”
But a major sports event is remembered around the globe for something more simple that that. The action. The goals. The magical moments on the field of play. And that’s the reason Brazil 2014 is likely to be remembered as a glorious month,
By Andrew Warshaw in Belo Horizonte
June 17 – World Cup organisers have promised to tweak the use of goalline technology after the confusion that marred France’s 3-0 win over Honduras. Sunday’s Group E game in Porto Alegre made history after the first ever World Cup goal was awarded as a result of the introduction of technology.
June 17 – Food fiasco as reporters faced to splash the cash; Germans swap their towels for sofas and settle in for World Cup duration; Ronnie’s World Cup gets Messi
By Mark Baber
June 17 – Portugal Telecom (PT) chose the day of the Portugal’s World Cup opener against Germany to announce it has renewed, for four more years, the sponsorship of the national football teams, maintaining until 2018 support for the A, B, Olympic, under-21 and under-16 teams.