By Andrew Warshaw
November 23 – FIFA’s youngest Executive Committee member, Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan, has been mandated by his Confederation to press for women footballers being allowed to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 23 – Danny Jordaan, organiser of last year’s World Cup in South Africa, is targeting the Presidency of the Council of Southern African Football Associations (COSAFA) as he bids to re-enter football administration after a year out of the limelight.
By David Gold
November 23 – Malaysia will host the final stage of the Asian men’s football qualifying tournament for the Olympic Games in March next year, following a decision made at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee.
By David Gold
November 22 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter (pictured) believes that the American Major League Soccer (MLS) calendar should be aligned with the main European leagues, so that the domestic season is played from autumn to spring.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 23 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter today attempted to close the book on the recent racism in football row, insisting he was not a racist and was determined to move forward with his oft-stated policy of zero tolerance.
By David Gold
November 22 – Former Ajax legends Johan Cruyff (pictured) and Edgar Davids, now both members of the club’s Supervisory Board, have played down a race row which emerged this week, but doubts persist over the former’s future at the Dutch champions.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 22 – Mohamed Bin Hammam’s appeal to the highest sports authority against his lifetime ban is now official, with the former Asian football chief determined to clear his name.
By David Gold
November 18 – Lille midfielder Joe Cole has said that he would “love to play in the Olympics” if selected by Team GB manager Stuart Pearce.
By David Gold
November 22 – French President Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured left) held a secret meeting with Qatar’s Crown Prince Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani (right) in which he encouraged the gulf state to invest in French football and purchase the then financially troubled Paris St Germain, it has been claimed.
David Beckham’s American adventure had the fitting end it was meant to have, as LA Galaxy beat Houston Dynamo 1-0 in the MLS Cup final on Sunday – but then in showbiz, things always seem to go to plan.
So where next for Posh and Becks? So far Beckham’s career has gone from Manchester to Madrid, to Los Angeles to Milan and back (twice), and so Paris would seem a logical next step.
By David Gold
November 21 – Zhang Jilong (pictured), the acting President of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), has claimed that Indian football is making progress, at a meeting of an Ad Hoc Committee created to improve the state of the game in the country.
By David Gold
November 21 – Ukraine will focus on introducing high speed travel links between host cities of the 2012 European Championships in the months remaining before the tournament begins, the country’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure Borys Kolesnikov (pictured) has said.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 21 – Britain’s FIFA vice-president insisted today that Sepp Blatter (pictured right) is not a racist and said he was “pleased” with Blatter’s attempt to rectify the situation following the outrage that accompanied his statement that racist incidents on the field should be settled with a handshake.
By David Gold
November 21 – The Scottish Premier League (SPL) has signed a five year extension to their current television deal with Sky Sports and ESPN to show live games, on what SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster (pictured) claims are “substantially improved terms”.
Now that the outrage over Sepp Blatter’s unfortunate remarks about racism is receding somewhat, let’s take stock of the entire episode.
Blatter’s comments, as we all know, made headline news across the UK but the fact is they were hardly reported anywhere else; at least not with the same ferocity. Why was that?