Inside World Football - Page 1797 of 2159 - For the Business of Football

Rugby man upbeat about giving Hearts an investor lifeline

Hearts

By Andrew Warshaw
June 24 – Former Scottish Rugby Union chief executive Gordon McKie is emerging as a possible saviour for Heart of Midlothian, the stricken Scottish Premier League club that has been plunged into administration with debts of £25m. McKie, who was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to take over Rangers last summer, has met with Hearts administrators with a view to a consortium of five or six investors buying the Edinburgh club.

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Bulgarian giants CSKA Sofia fold as Stoichkov handed full control

Hristo Stoichkov

By Andrew Warshaw
June 24 – Bulgaria’s most successful club, CSKA Sofia, has declared itself bankrupt and will try to merge with another club to carry on competing in a different guise next season – or end up in the amateur ranks. The 31-time national champions have been struggling financially in recent years, along with many Bulgarian clubs, and were barred from the Champions League in 2008-09 after failing to meet UEFA’s licensing criteria.

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Thais face FIFA suspension unless club withdraws court action

makudi

By Andrew Warshaw
June 24 – Thailand are facing a ban from all FIFA competitions over an election row that could plunge lucrative pre-season tours by Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea into jeopardy. FIFA has warned the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) – headed by controversial FIFA executive committee member Worawi Makudi – that it must resolve the dispute by the end of today (Monday) or face suspension.

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U-20 World Cup refs draw the line at free kick encroachment

free kick line

By Andrew Warshaw
June 24 – For the first time in FIFA competitions, vanishing spray to prevent players encroaching at free kicks is being used at the under-20 World Cup in Turkey, the latest move to aid referees following the introduction of goalline technology at the Confederations Cup.

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TV audiences build for Confederations Cup early rounds

June 24 – Worldwide television audiences for the Confederations Cup continue to grow despite the adverse publicity generated by the widespread protests in Brazil. In the second round of matches, markets including Japan, Spain, Germany and the UK – the last two of which don’t have a team in the competition – all witnessed increases in viewing figures.

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Exclusive: Premier League clubs cash in with £1bn net profit from player sales

player values

By David Owen
June 24 – English Premier League clubs have racked up net profits on player sales of well over £1 billion during the last five seasons for which full figures are available. The figure suggests that club balance-sheets massively undervalue these assets – who also happen, in many cases, to be global stars.

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Confederations Cup show will go on, says FIFA and LOC

Brazil protests 2

By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
June 21 – FIFA and Confederations Cup organisers have said the tournament will still continue as protests across Brazil intensified yesterday. World football’s governing body has said in a statement that neither “FIFA nor the LOC (local organizing committee) have ever discussed any such possibility” of cancelling the tournament.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: More humiliation for Toon Army

Do any supporters anywhere openly suffer as much as those of Newcastle United Football Club?

No club moves from stability to disruption, from good stock to laughing stock, from hope to despair, like Newcastle. They are world champions at humiliation, and they could probably do with any silverware this brings.

Their latest drama has fallen snugly into the ‘you are joking?’ category they occupy so frequently.

The appointment of Joe Kinnear as ‘Director of Football’,

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beIN SPORT debuts with three channels in Indonesia

Nasser Al Khelaifi

By Paul Nicholson
June 21 – Sports broadcaster, beIN SPORT, which has been rapidly growing its global footprint, has announced the launch of three high-definition sports channels in Indonesia in partnership with TV sports rights specialists MP & Silva from Italy. The channels will launch July 1.

Africa

Cameroon FA president Iya re-elected as he is transferred to prison

Mohammed Iya

By Mark Baber
June 21 – On Wednesday, Mohammed Iya, was re-elected as president of the Cameroon Football Federation by a landslide, on the same day he was transferred to the notorious Kondengui central prison in Yaounde, after appearing before a Special Criminal Court on charges of misappropriation of public funds.

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David Owen: Protests show it’s time for Big Sport to shake off complacency

Demonstrations in Istanbul; a protest over high ticket prices by football fans in London; demonstrations in Brazil.

Decidedly, the world has changed, but the question is, ‘Have the grandees who run Big Sport taken notice?’

Yes, it is simplistic to bracket these three manifestations of frustration and rage together.

The Istanbul protesters seemed indifferent to, or even mildly positive about, their city’s prospects of hosting the 2020 Olympics – although they have thrown a spanner in that particular works.

John Yan

John Yan: 倒霉的不该只有卡马乔 Sack Camacho or sack football in China

解雇主教练是一种经济省钱的危机公关手段，职业足球环境下绝对如此。

因为当一支球队成绩一塌糊涂的时候，作为管理者，无法解雇一支球队、无法解雇一代球员，于是解雇一名主教练，既能平息民怒，又能转移视线，还能节约人力资源投入成本，不论从管理学角度，还是经济学角度，这都是最容易的解决方案。

哪怕这未必是最正确的解决方案。

Andrew Warshaw: Cup traditions, old and new, play the dating game

Tradition has increasingly taken a back seat in the modern age of football. Sometimes, it has to be said, for the right reasons but not when it comes to the English FA Cup, the game’s oldest domestic knockout competition.

For the last few years, the cup final, watched by billions of armchair fans worldwide despite many of them getting out of bed at some ungodly hour, has been shunted into unfamiliar territory, given whatever end-of-season slot can be found for it –

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adidas forecasts record €2 billion in football sales in 2014

Herbert Hainer

By Mark Baber
June 21 – Adidas expects to hit record sales of €2 billion from its football product in 2014 as it benefits from it position as official sponsor, supplier and licensee of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The forecast was made at a football media day in Herzogenaurach, Germany, by Herbert Hainer (pictured), CEO of the adidas Group.

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Inside Insight: Brazil unplugged

Brazil is rocked by (justified) demonstrations. While numbers vary, it is safe to assume that hundreds of thousands have and are taking to the streets to voice anger, frustration and dissatisfaction. With what, exactly, that remains a question to some. But it is a question that seems to get a wide spectrum of answers, depending on where the writer stands and from where the “independent” observer hails.

It is clear that Brazil’s economy,