By Andrew Warshaw
May 5 – The Gambia, one of Africa’s smallest countries, has been banned from all international competition for two years for fielding no fewer than five over-age players in a qualifier for the Continent’s under-20 Championship.
By Paul Nicholson
May 5 – Depending on which part of the world you ask the questions, you will get different reactions and emotions regarding the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Doha-based Agency 222 conducted a survey that found local feeling was that the World Cup was defining and shaping an emerging nation.
By Paul Nicholson
May 5 – FIFA’s revamp of its development programmes in 2013 and the changes in the regulations have made the year a big one for FIFA’s a team that has been responsible for spending $500,000 a day on development activity and corporate social responsibility projects.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 5 – CSKA Moscow has signed a sponsorship deal with one of Russia’s leading aircraft manufacturers, Russian Helicopters.
By Paul Nicholson
May 5 – Initial reaction to the announcement last week that the Copa America Centenario will be played in the US and hosted by CONCACAF in 2016 has been positive.
By David Owen
May 4 – The most powerful man in world sport faces a nervous week as one of his favourite football clubs battles to avoid relegation from the German Bundesliga.
With Real Madrid and their noisy but vastly improved neighbours Atletico, earning well-deserved places at this year’s UEFA Champions’ League final in Lisbon, the fraternity looks forward to what is certainly going to be a keenly contested encounter.
But as Europe’s – and undoubtedly the world’s – leading club tournament grows in competitive and commercial strength, certainly helped by the huge global audience it continues to pull, it is a telling reminder, to African club football,
By Paul Nicholson in Miami
May 2 – The unveiling of the Copa America centennial tournament to be played in the US and hosted by CONCACAF June 3 to June 26, plants a huge new football tournament right in the middle of what is already a packed sporting calendar with UEFA’s 2016 European Championships in France and the 2016 Olympics in Rio.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 2 -FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne says 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar should be recognised as “innocent unless proved guilty” by the ongoing investigation into the 2018 and 2022 voting process being led by FIFA’s chief investigator Michael Garcia.
By Mark Baber
May 2 – Whilst UK bookmaker Ladbrokes have been laying the foundations for the World Cup the company says that despite a 34% year-on-year increase in football staking, their first quarter profits have been hit by a winning streak by favorites in football matches, leading to big pay outs on accumulator bets.
May 2 – In one of the most severe punishments ever handed out to backup coaching staff in top-flight English football, Rui Faria, assistant to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, has been has been slapped with a six-match stadium ban for an altercation with officials during a recent Premier League game with Sunderland.
May 2 – In a blow to the development of Asian football, the launch of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) Super League could be delayed until 2016 because of administrative issues.
One match, or even two never define a season, let alone a trend although it is tempting to draw sweeping conclusions from the way the Champions League semi-finals have panned out. Two Spanish clubs in the Champions League final, and that from one city, Madrid, must surely mark a very dramatic shift from the German domination of the League. After all it was only last year we had an all German final. And Bayern Munich was seen as the team that defined everything that was strong and worth emulating in European football.
By Paul Nicholson in Miami
May 2 – The invitation promised history and the event delivered it. North American and Caribbean confederation CONCACAF and South American confederation CONMEBOL announced that the centennial edition of the world’s oldest international football tournament, the Copa America, will be played in the US in 2016.
May 1 – Traffic has renewed its CONCACAF representation deal through to 2021, acquiring sponsorship rights to all the confederation’s properties.