By Andrew Warshaw
November 5 – Far too risky or a calculated move that paid off? Very much the former according to both FIFA and the international players’ union FIFpro who have criticised English club Tottenham Hotspur for allowing their French international goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to play on last weekend after he briefly lost consciousness before recovering.
By Tom Parsons
November 5 – Arsenal celebrated their top of the league status on the field as well as enhancing it off the field after becoming the first sports team in the UK to reach 3 million Twitter followers. The landmark was achieved during the Arsenal v Liverpool game, a game where Arsenal went 5 points clear at the top of the table.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 5 – Serbia should follow English football’s lead in tackling hooliganism after yet another Belgrade derby was marred by fan violence, according to a senior government sports official. Nenad Borovcanin made his comments after fans ran riot before and during last weekend’s clash between bitter rivals Red Star and Partizan.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 5 – Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has ruled out any chance of the country winning the World Cup next summer. The multi-travelled 65-year-old Swede, currently coach of Chinese Super League team Guangzhou R&F, led England to the quarter-finals in both 2022 and 2006 but doubts they can improve on that in Brazil.
By Alexander Krassimirov
November 5 – Levski Sofia ultras have embroiled the club in a new scandal that could bring serious sanctions. At the home game against Pirin Gotse Delchev at the Georgi Asparuhov stadium in Sofia, supporters of Levski displayed two slogans aimed at the refugees who have flooded into the Bulgarian capital in recent months.
By Paul Nicholson
November 5 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter should take note, nice hair could be a contributing factor in the race to top the Twitter charts. Stats from Twittercounter of the 100 most followed accounts show just 5 football clubs or football players making the list.
By David Owen
November 5 – Pressure on FIFA over the timing of the 2022 World Cup has ratcheted up another notch, with news that the international skiing and snowboarding governing body is looking to forge a common front with other federations against holding the tournament in the winter sports season.
By Paul Nicholson
November 4 – The prospect of a professional Caribbean Football League took a significant step forward at the weekend with FIFA Vice President and CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb announcing that the confederation will be naming a new task force “to examine the feasibility and sustainability of the Caribbean Professional League initiative.”
By Andrew Warshaw
November 4 – Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister who is leading his country’s 2018 World Cup preparations, says Moscow police should never have used water cannons to disperse rioting fans at a recent domestic cup match and admits it did little to enhance Russia’s image overseas.
By Paul Nicholson
November 4 – German football legend and Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness will face trial in Munich in March next year on charges of tax evasion. Hoeness admitted publicly in April that he had millions of euros in a Swiss bank account that he had not declared to the German tax authorities, but that he had now voluntarily declared this account.
November 4 – Former England captain David Beckham is reported to have lined up fellow internationals Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard to play for him once his new Major League Soccer franchise has been completed.
“‘Go West, young man, go West…’ ‘That is medicine easier given than taken.’”
Reported conversation between Horace Greeley and Josiah B Grinnell, 1833
Just as the new frontiers of a developing United States were synonymous with new riches in the early 19th Century, in the early 21st Century European football has developed a fascination with lenders registered in exotic locations thousands of miles to the west.
International breaks have made this a stuttering start to the English Premier League season. With more than a quarter of matches now completed though, the balance of forces is starting to come into clearer focus.
Of the six clubs with genuine, if in some cases remote, title aspirations, Manchester United – with three defeats already and only 50% of matches won – are in the lowest position in the table.
For me,
By Andrew Warshaw
November 4 – The dispute over whether Kosovo should be given full international playing rights shows little or no sign of being resolved. FIFA President Sepp Blatter recently hosted the latest in a series of talks with Football Federation of Kosovo President Fadil Vokrri and his Serbian counterpart Tomislav Karadzic.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 4 – Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson claims in a new autobiography that he was lined up to replace Alex Ferguson at Manchester United 11 years ago when Ferguson first announced his intention to retire from the game.