By Mark Baber
May 30 – With Adidas an official sponsor of the World Cup and Nike topping the viral charts with its video marketing campaign, Puma have taken a different track to global domination – their World Cup marketing will get underway AFTER the tournament is over, and just prior to the start of the school year.
By Paul Nicholson
May 30 – Group 4 of the Women’s CFU Cup, the inaugural Caribbean Football Union event for senior women, kicks off today in Haiti. To date the tournament is being hailed a success despite the unforeseen withdrawals of Dominica, Guadeloupe and now Anguilla.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 30 – Zulte-Waregem has launched a construction project to modernise and expand its Regenboogs stadium in the Belgian city of Waregem. Zule-Waregem finished the Jupiler League in fourth place, beaten by RSC Anderlecht, Standard Liege and FC Bruges.
May 30 – Disagreements concerning over-age players is nothing new but to suggest a player is 25 years older than he actually is is surely unprecedented.
May 30 – ESPN may start offering coverage of Major League Soccer (MLS) games online, without a required subscription to ESPN.
By Mark Baber
May 29 – The Legal Affairs Commission of the lower house of the Swiss parliament has proposed a draft law which, if passed by the legislature, will impose stricter rules against money laundering.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 29 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter has given the clearest indication yet that he will not support Palestinian calls for sanctions against Israel at next month’s FIFA Congress in Brazil. Blatter has made finding a compromise between two political foes one of his main priorities and has just completed his latest mediation visit to the region.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 29 – In what is being flagged up as the end of an era, Italy is set to outlaw co-ownership of players from next season, falling into line with the rest of Europe. Italy is the last main footballing nation in Europe under which two teams can effectively share half a particular player’s contract and economic rights.
May 29 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the USA has struck a deal with ESPN to televise nine matches televised this year. Six regular season games are scheduled to be televised on either ESPN 2 or ESPN 3, whilst both playoff semifinals and the championship game will be shown on ESPN 2.
By Alexander Krassimirov
May 29 – The Bulgarian Football Union has signed a new multi-year contract with the Spanish sports appareil firm Joma. The company will kit out all of Bulgaria’s national teams and replaces Italian sportswear brand Kappa, whose contract was terminated terminated by mutual consent.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 29 – Almost two years after the original sanction, former Malta midfielder Kevin Sammut has had his life ban reduced to 10 years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but his career is still effectively over.
By Ben Nicholson
May 29 – International footballers’ association FIFPro and UEFA and Birkbeck, University of London, have combined to produce a ‘Good Practice Guide’ which will be presented at the closing conference of Don’t Fix it in Slovenia next week.
May 28 – UEFA’s relentless crackdown on match manipulation has seemingly gone one step too far after the organisation itself was sanctioned for wrongly accusing a Croatian referee. But whether Europe’s governing body rules the punishment binding and pays up is a different matter.
By Tom Parsons
May 28 – Adidas has launched its World Cup marketing and social media campaign, and in a breakaway from the traditional approach by brands to social media, the sportswear giant is allowing people to make the decision to be “all in” or “nothing” with Adidas during the world’s biggest football tournament.
May 28 – The Central American Football Union (UNCAF) which is playing its Central American Cup 2014 in the USA later this year, has announced that the final will be played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 13. This is the first time the regional championship has been played outside the Central American region and the 13th time the Cup has been played, as UNCAF prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary.