Osasu Obayiuwana: Charting a path for Africa’s future

With roughly five months to the World Cup finals, the burning question of how the African quintet will perform in Brazil and what it might say, about the competitive state of the continental game, will soon be answered.

But what really bothers me, as we begin another year, way beyond whether an African team is able, for the first-time, to reach the semi-finals – as desirable as that is – is when the various countries within the continent will get down to the much-needed business of hammering out sustainable plans for long-term development.

Read more …

Mihir Bose: Why the FA Cup is going the way of the British manufacturing

Time was when the third round of the FA Cup produced excitement, surprise, fun and often a touch of magic to keep the winter blues away. Now all it does is produce moans about how the Cup has been devalued and the competition is not what it was back in the old days. The only surprise is this year the moans began even before the third round matches had been played, ignited by comments of Paul Lambert of Aston Villa that the FA Cup did not mean much to Premier League teams.

Read more …

Andrew Warshaw: Mickey Mouse? He would have killed to win the FA Cup

Driving back from an English FA Cup game in the pouring rain last Saturday, I was listening to a radio phone-in and suddenly became so incensed by a Chelsea-supporting caller, I gripped the steering wheel even more tightly in the treacherous conditions to avoid swerving into the path of another car in my rage.

The caller, displaying an arrogance so common among Johnny-come-lately fans whose clubs have enjoyed unlimited success and who disregard everyone else,

Read more …

David Owen: A team of African-Europeans in honour of Eusébio

In 2002, I travelled to Sedan in northern France to watch a match against Lens that featured some of the Senegal players likely to represent their country in the opening match of that year’s World Cup against France.

Afterwards I wrote: “If Dakar-born Patrick Vieira were playing for the country of his birth, Senegal would have a real shout at springing the World Cup’s first upset.” I was wrong, of course: Senegal beat the then World Cup-holders,

Read more …

Football pays tribute to Portuguese and African legend Eusebio

Eusebio

By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – Tributes continue to pour in from across the world following the death of Eusebio, the darling of Portuguese football who will for ever be remembered as one of the game’s true greats as well as true gentlemen. Top scorer at the 1966 World Cup, Eusebio died Sunday of a heart attack at the age of 71 with Portugal declaring three days of national mourning for their “eternal symbol”

Read more …

Brazil has left World Cup preparations too late, says Blatter

Sepp Blatter

By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter has revealed the full extent of Brazil’s lack of World Cup preparations with an unprecedented blast at this year’s hosts. As FIFA’s December 31 deadline for the 12 World Cup stadiums to be ready came and went with half of them still behind schedule, Blatter criticised the organisers by declaring no host had ever been as far behind at this stage in his 38 years with football’s world governing body.

Read more …

Blatter takes plunge by dropping a bomb on ‘preposterous’ divers

Blatter and diving

By Andrew Warshaw
January 3 – In his first public pronouncement of 2014 on the game’s ills, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has denounced the “deeply irritating” practice of diving and has urged referees to take stronger action. In his latest column in FIFA Weekly magazine, Blatter doesn’t hold back on the subject of simulation which continues to infuriate fans and which he clearly would like to stamp out ahead of this year’s World Cup.

Read more …

Tan lands Solskjaer to lead the Cardiff challenge

Ole Gunnar Solsjaer

January 34 – Former Norwegian international striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, known in his playing days as the “baby-faced assassin”, has taken on the challenge of trying to manage Premier League newcomers Cardiff City following the controversial sacking of Malky Mackay by the club’s Malaysian owner Vincent Tan.

Read more …