February 7 – The Caribbean Football Union (CFU) has adopted a series of integrity measures with immediate effect and to include the CFU Cup which kicks off. While there has never been allegation of match-fixing in the Caribbean, the measures will warn and educate players and officials of one of the biggest challenges facing top level football worldwide.
February 7 – Egypt’s Court of Cassation has ordered a re-trial of 21 people sentenced to death in connection with the infamous February, 2012, Port Said riot in which more than 70 spectators died, causing two successive league seasons to be called off and plunging the sport into chaos.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 7 – Qatar’s World Cup organisers have described a fact-finding mission to England as a key development in what will be a “milestone year” in terms of planning for the 2022 tournament.
January 7 – Brazil has released detail of its increased security plan for the World Cup later this year, saying it will be doubling the number of security personnel in comparison to the 2013 Confederations Cup, to 100,000.
By David Owen and Paul Nicholson
February 6 – Sepp Blatter has given what will be interpreted as a clear hint that he intends to run next year for another term as FIFA President, speaking out against the retention of age limits for International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.
“And the big Gun guffawed,” The Last Laugh, Wilfred Owen
The military connection endures today in name only, and in the cannon that is borne on the club’s crest, but there is no question that in football terms the passage of history has made Arsenal one of England’s big guns. Thirteen league titles and 10 FA Cups point to a record bettered only by Manchester United and Liverpool. But,
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
February 6 – Palestine football’s leading figurehead has warned he will call for Israel’s expulsion from FIFA unless it shows greater willingness to ease the plight of his country’s players and officials. FIFA recently set up a mediation Task Force and earlier this week Palestinian FA chief Jibril Rajoub met with his Israeli counterpart Avi Luzon and FIFA President Sepp Blatter in Zurich in the latest move to solve the long-term issue of access to and from Palestinian territories.
February 6 – Burkina Faso coach Paul Put is among 31 defendants in a Belgian match-fixing trial that started this week.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 6 – David Beckham’s dream of running his own club in the United States has become a reality after the global sporting superstar and former England captain announced that he has exercised his option to become the owner of a Major League Football team in Miami.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 5 – Cracovia Krakow has signed a new kit deal with Italian sportswear manufacturer Legea. The contract with Legea will come into force in July 2015, the Polish football club said. Legea will replace Nike which has been Cracovia’s kit supplier since 2012.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 6 – The state in Bulgaria has allocated 3 million leva (€1,5 million) for the reconstruction of the Ludogorets Arena Stadium in Razgrad. The project was approved by ministers yesterday, with the money being allocated from a fund for ‘Growth and sustainable development in the region’. The stadium is home of current league champions PFC Ludogorets.
By David Owen
February 5 – A party from Afghanistan is to pay a knowledge-sharing visit to England, as part of a programme to foster the development of football in the war-torn country and aid the nation-building process that the west is keen to see take root.
The idea that football can learn from the Olympics has often been articulated not least after the London Games. Then the idea was even endorsed by Sepp Blatter. However, the question that was being talked about during London 2012, at least as far as Blatter was concerned, was how could football deal with what Blatter and others in the game call simulation but what most of us term as cheating. In other words the question of a player who dives in the hope he will get a free kick or a penalty,
February 5 – Barcelona president Sandro Rosell may have departed but the club’s vice-president is continuing Rosell’s legacy of calling for changes to the structure of the game.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – The unpredictable and often precarious nature of foreign ownership in club football has been starkly illustrated by Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung resigning as a director of both the club and its parent company Birmingham International Holdings Ltd (BIHL) as he awaits the verdict of a money laundering trial.