January 29 – The local organising committee for the 2022 World Cup has been formally activated following a shake-up of the board of the directors that, until now, had been known as the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee.
“Is any of the opposition around?” “Not in any condition to be worried about.” Donald ‘Red’ Grant in conversation with James Bond, From Russia With Love
When Roman Abramovich pitched up at Stamford Bridge with his whirlwind takeover in 2003, few people outside Siberia or the oil-and-gas sector of industry and banking had ever heard of him. But in the decade since his unlikely transformation from governor of Chukotka to guv’nor at Chelsea,
January 28 – UEFA boss Michel Platini has taken another opportunity to promote his preferred system of additional assistant referees (AARs) to help with contentious calls.
January 28 – Russia and Georgia have agreed to end their footballing stand-off and play each other if paired together in next month’s draw for the Euro 2016 qualifying tournament.
By Paul Nicholson
January 28 – Darlington FC, one of England’s oldest football clubs, is staging a financial comeback, allbeit on a small scale. The club has introduced a ‘crowdfunding’ initiative to raise an initial £50,000 with further targets of £150,000 as the next steps.
By Alexander Krassimirov
January 28 – Dissatisfied with the management of Levski Sofia fans decided to create a supporters’ trust. The association will be named Blue Bulgaria, and its purpose will be to raise funds that will be invested in the club, but only under certain conditions.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 28 – Brazil’s assistant coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has added his voice to growing concerns over delays in World Cup preparations, saying it’s “a joke” that it took so long to start work on some of the infrastructure projects and blasting the authorities for “total neglect”.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 28 – Former French international striker Nicolas Anelka has pledged to stand his ground and not quit despite being charged by the English Football Association over his allegedly racist ‘quenelle’ gesture that continues to rumble on in both Britain and his homeland.
By Paul Nicholson
January 28 – Just as Arsenal were announcing a record new £150 million kit deal with Puma, Liverpool, one of their rivals for the Premier League title, were announcing airline Garuda Indonesia as their first Official Training Kit Partner.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 28 – In a financial deal described as the biggest in the club’s history, English Premier League leaders Arsenal have received a potentially game-changing boost by switching its kit supplier to Puma from Nike as of next season after two decades with the US sportswear giant.
In rugby much is being made about how England’s head coach Stuart Lancaster has brought back Englishness to the oval ball game. Yet look at the round ball game and you see that foreign culture is not only accepted but cherished. A glimpse of this was provided when there was much surprise that Tim Sherwood, as English as they come, would take over when Andre Villas-Boas, who could not be less English, was sacked. Yes there was surprise that Sherwood had no experience of first team coaching at this level but in many ways the greatest surprise was that he was English.
In the tumultuous period that has followed the toppling of two presidents, Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi, over the past three years, with the country remaining in a state of political flux, the huge damage done to Egyptian football cannot be exaggerated.
Its clubs are yet to recover from the severe hit to their finances, as a result of the abandonment of the 2011/2012 national championship, following the death of 74 fans, after a match in Port Said between Ahly and Masry.
January 27 – Sir Alex Ferguson, appointed last week as UEFA’s new coaching ambassador to “teach the teachers”, has denounced the culture of sacking managers at the first sign of crisis.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
January 27 – Czech and Slovak football associations are holding talks on creating a joint league and a cup designed to pit clubs from the two countries against each other. “The issue of a Czech-Slovak league is on the table. By mid-February, we have to sit down and say whether this makes sense or not,” Jan Kovacik, president of the Slovak football association, was reported saying.
January 27 – In a major boost for the region, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has announced plans to expand the Asian Cup, its flagship tournament, from 16 to 24 teams as part of a raft of changes designed to increase the number of international matches for member nations.