By Mark Baber
October 27 – President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Issa Hayatou spoke out over the weekend on Nigeria’s football administration crisis, saying he had managed to delay a ban until after the African Women Championship final between Nigeria and Cameroon, which the country won 2-0, but that a ban was likely to be imposed on Monday.
By Andrew Warshaw
Ocotber 27 – His ban for biting may be over and last weekend’s Barcelona debut may have been incident-free but the infamy Luis Suarez brought on himself at the World Cup continues to generate widespread fascination.
October 27 – Michel Platini has re-ignited his well-publicised falling-out with FIFA president Sepp Blatter by accusing the veteran Swiss of having stopped serving the cause of football.
October 27 – CONCACAF completed its first Women’s football development summit yesterday with 39 of its 41 member associations present in Philadelphia, coinciding with the finals of the 2014 CONCACAF Women’s Championship at PPL Park in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania.
October 27 – Bulgaria’s biggest club rivalry was marred by a serious outbreak of crowd trouble at the weekend but of a somewhat unusual nature when CSKA Sofia coach Stoycho Mladenov was knocked unconscious by a snowball thrown from rival Levski Sofia supporters.
October 27 – English Football Association chairman Greg Dyke is back on the offensive over FIFA’s reform process, saying senior officials, including the president, should be restricted to two terms of office.
By Ricardo Setyon
Ocotber 27 – A pornstar called Stick Kid. The only ever Brazilian astronaut. A series of sexy women that adopted artisitic nicknames of fruits (Pear Maria, little strawberry), all linked to their body formats. A Hollywood-based plastic surgeon, born in Brazil. A blind comedian. Three Big Brother reality TV Show winners. Five or six local country singers. A Volleyball World Champion and a famous boxer. And 12 ex-football players and coaches. They all have two things in common: they are famous and they all failed to get enough votes to be winners in the recent elections in Brazil.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – South African football has been plunged into mourning after national team captain Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead by intruders at his girlfriend’s home.
When UEFA president Michel Platini decided to expand the European Championship finals from 16 to 24 countries, starting in 2016 in his homeland, the purists threw their collective arms up in the air, screamed “Zut alors” – or far worse – and accused the Frenchman of being seriously misguided.
October 24 – Poland’s Ekstraklasa has launched a free app that will broadcast coverage of the matches as well as latest news and personalised updates from the league. The app is available on IOS and Android devices.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
October 24 – Romanian government authorities have unveiled the design of a planned stadium for top tier football club CS Universitatea Craiova.
By Mark Baber
October 24 – The Nigerian High Court sitting in Jos on Thursday held that the disputed September 30 elections for the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) Board, in which Amaju Pinnick was elected President, were invalid, upholding the disputed August 26 election in which Chris Giwa was elected President.
October 24 – Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber says an apparent lack of political will is hindering David Beckham’s bid to set up a new franchise in Miami.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 24 – In one of the most scrutinised judgments handed down in recent years, UEFA have effectively punished both parties for the politically-fuelled mayhem that caused last week’s Euro 2016 qualifier between Balkan rivals Serbia and Albania to be abandoned while goalless on 41 minutes after descending into chaos.
October 24 – Piara Powar (pictured), executive director or Football Against Racism in Europe and a member of FIFA’s anti-discrimination task force, has added his voice to growing calls that Russia needs to stop paying lip-service to racism in the country and to tackle the problem head-on rather than from the current position of denial.