By Mark Baber
May 15 – A new app, which has undergone field-testing at Burnley, Leyton Orient and Sheffield Wednesday, allows football fans to use their smartphones to order and pay for refreshments from the comfort of their seats, cutting down considerably on queuing times.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 15 – Panathinaikos is planning to overhaul and expand its stadium, according to Giannis Alafouzos, the Greek football club’s chief executive. Construction works at the facility are scheduled to begin in December 2014, and are expected to take between three and four months.
By Mark Baber
May 15 – FIFA and UEFA have reacted with dismay at the weak sanctions employed by national Football Associations in the recent cases of racist incidents, demanding the sanctions regime which they have put in place is applied.
How important is it to you that your country succeeds on the football pitch?
And what would World Cup success mean to you?
The announcement of the England squad for the tournament raised this question for me.
Surrounded by English hype about the Ashley Cole-less 23 I was in a fortunate work position of being able to treat it as simply the latest of 32 squads. Interesting, without it being a major story.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 14 – Qatar authorities have made the most forceful pledge to date that they will scrap part of the country’s medieval kafala employment system that has caused so much outrage directed at the 2022 World Cup hosts – but stopped short of abolishing it completely.
By Andrew Warshaw in Jordan
May 14- The demonstrations and street protests that have marred Brazil’s reputation and increased safety fears in the buildup to the World Cup will be aimed more at politicians than football if they are repeated during the tournament.
That was the claim made today at Soccerex Asian Forum by Pitagoras Dytz, a legal adviser to the Brazilian Sports Ministry.
“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.” Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine
Since it first issued from its English womb on a centuries-long odyssey of global cultural conquest, the game of football has been like a scornful child towards its disdained parent.
By Mark Baber
May 14 – The Court of Appeal of Sierra Leone has upheld the conviction of Alimu Bah, former Secretary General of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA).
By David Owen
May 13 – World Cup tourist spending in Brazil in June and July may exceed $3 billion, the Brazilian Government has forecast. In the latest of a series of announcements that appear designed, in part, to convince ordinary Brazilians that staging sports mega-events is a good investment for South America’s biggest country, the Ministry of Tourism unveiled research findings suggesting that foreign tourists would spend nearly $2,500 each, excluding airfares,
By Andrew Warshaw in Jordan
May 14 – One of world football’s most influential female executives has joined the chorus of disapproval over English Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore’s already infamous sexist remarks.
Greg Dyke says Manchester City winning the Premiership is depressing, given how few English players they have. There is, of course, nothing he can do about how City chooses its team, let alone force the City manager to field more players so as to help Roy Hodgson when the England manager comes to select his squad.
Yet there is one way the chairman of the Football Association could get over his depression. That is by getting the FA to pass a sporting regulation similar to one that many countries have.
By David Owen
May 14 – Major League Soccer (MLS) has secured a big financial boost, agreeing a new eight-year television and media rights partnerships with a total of three US networks.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 14 – After days of silence, UEFA finally came clean today and admitted that they are not yet ready to announce any financial fair play sanctions. In what will be widely interpreted as a partial fudge, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino made it clear that negotiations with nine clubs deemed in breach of the strict regulations were still ongoing.
Lewis Hamilton in Spain, Dani Alves the other week, now Kevin Constant of AC Milan v. Atalanta Bergamo – only a few people who suffered racist abuse by “fans” of Formula 1 and Football.
The list is of course much longer than the three names mentioned above, and it appears that some very sick pigs disguised as “fans” take particular joy in insulting those whose performance gives them fun and joy. One would have thought.
May 14 – Lewis Hamilton in Spain, Dani Alves the other week, now Kevin Constant of AC Milan v. Atalanta Bergamo – only a few people who suffered racist abuse by “fans” of Formula 1 and Football. The list is of course much longer than the three names mentioned above, and it appears that some very sick pigs disguised as “fans” take particular joy in insulting those whose performance gives them fun and joy. One would have thought.