By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 2 – Poland’s Ekstraklasa is planning to host the country’s next Super Cup match abroad. The top tier of Poland’s professional football league wants to move its showpiece match to a location in Western Europe, primarily to increase its advertising revenues from the high-profile event.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 2 – The international players’ union FIFPro has again urged Qatar’s World Cup organisers to abolish the kafala employment system for footballers in the wake of the Zahir Belounis case that made worldwide headlines following meetings with Qatar 2022 officials at the weekend with players’ contracts and rights at the top of the agenda.
December 2 – FIFA has extended its media platform with the launch of its first app in five languages – English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. The world’s governing body predicts the app will download over 70 million copies in the first few months, making it the world’s most downloaded sports application.
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Neil Young
Or is it? I remember a time when all rock stars, Young included, were, well, young. And then the music industry discovered irony, and we realised it was no more ridiculous for Jagger to perform Satisfaction at 55 than 25.
I don’t know if the deft through-ball with which Ryan Giggs, then aged 39 years and 363 days,
Andre Villa-Boas may or may not get the sack soon. Certainly the media pressure on him is huge and with the Tottenham board keeping the shutters down in the way the old Soviet-style Kremlin would have envied there is no way of knowing what will happen to Spurs’ Portuguese head coach. Observe I use the words head coach to describe his job, not manager.
The reason is that what is really interesting about this saga is the light it throws on the concept of director of football,
November 29 – Scottish Premier league club Heart of Midlothian looks set to exit administration after creditors today voted in favour of a company voluntary arrangement (CVA). Fan group Foundation of Hearts (the preferred bidders of the administrators BDO) offered £2.5 million towards debts of £30 million.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – Oceania, by far the weakest confederation in world football and predominantly made up of tiny island nations, wants to give itself a better chance of World Cup qualification by combining its playoff pathway with that of the Asian Football Confederation. The AFC is currently allocated four automatic qualifying slots, with the fifth-placed Asian team going into an intercontinental playoff. Oceania, by contrast, has no direct route to the finals,
November 29 – Tunisia are the latest African country to have their attempt to reach the World Cup finals through the back door quashed by FIFA. Invoking the ineligible player argument has become almost de rigueur in Africa, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Tunisia claimed Cameroon fielded two in their recent World Cup qualifying playoff won by the Indomitable Lions on a 4-1 aggregate.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – The match-fixing scandal in Austria is escalating with the news that 20 current or former players are now being treated as suspects amid reports that at least 17 first and second division matches could have been manipulated over the last seven years.
By Paul Nicholson
November 29 – UEFA have opened disciplinary proceedings against Celtic after fans unveiled banners depicting IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and Scottish warrior William Wallace at their Champions League game against Milan. But the Green Brigade fan group who were responsible for the banners have now escalated the issue raising questions about their rights to the freedom of political expression.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – Two men have now been charged as part of the investigation into alleged match-fixing in English football as fresh details emerged amid claims that even World Cup games may have been rigged. Chann Sankaran, a 33-year-old Singapore national, and Krishna Sanjey Ganeshan, a 43-year-old with dual UK and Singapore nationality, have been remanded in custody and will appear in a Birmingham magistrates court.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 29 – Zahir Belounis, the French-Algerian footballer who has returned home after finally securing his exit permit to leave Qatar courtesy of a wave of international support, says he has nothing against the country itself but everything against the club that hired him.
Who actually owns a football club?
“Legally it’s the owner, emotionally it’s the fans.”
A fan of Premier League club Hull City gave me this assessment while discussing his opposition to the owner’s plan. That plan is to change the name to Hull Tigers.
Who’s right and who’s wrong? Can there be any definitive right or wrong? Both have their reasons, both have their wishes and needs and ambitions.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
November 28 – Zahir Belounis, the French-Algerian footballer finally granted his exit visa from Qatar, would not have been allowed to leave without huge international pressure on the Qatari authorities, according to his brother. But, claims Mahdi Belounis, hundreds of thousands of Euros owed to Zahir – who had claimed 18 months of unpaid wages – remained unpaid right up until his departure from the Gulf state today.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 28 – Brazil’s World Cup preparations, dogged by the probability that many of its 12 stadia will not be completed before FIFA’s end-of-year deadline, have been further rocked by the deaths of two workers at the Sao Paulo venue due to host the symbolic opening game next year.