July 18 – Switzerland boss Pia Sundhage has called the quarterfinal against Spain the biggest managerial challenge of her career yet.
February 23 – Italian Serie A club Parma, twice former winners of the old UEFA Cup, took the dramatic step of calling off Sunday’s league game against Udinese on safety grounds as the division’s bottom club edged closer towards the financial abyss.
In October 2013, the Daily Telegraph wrote this headline and leader:
“Madcap proposals by Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini to increase World Cup finalists to 40 just do not add up – Sport’s top men claim that world Cup finals should be open to more nations but it is just another political football being kicked about by the hierarchy”
The paper continued to say:
“Under the madcap World Cup expansion plans dreamed up by Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini,
February 20 – A private family business standing in the way of Tottenham Hotspur’s plans to build a new £400 million state-of-the-art stadium has lost its court challenge against a compulsory purchase order to force it out.
He can certainly talk a good game – in three languages in fact. And if prizes were given for glossy manifestos he would already have the keys to Sepp Blatter’s private office in Zurich.
February 20 – The Tunisian Football Federation (FTF) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the sanctions imposed by African Football Confederation (CAF) after their dramatic and emotional exit from the Africa Cup of Nations last month. The country faces exclusion from the 2017 championships unless it complies to CAF’s demands.
February 20 – The International Football Arena (IFA) have set September 10 as the date for their second Berlin conference, following on from the success of last year’s inaugural trip to Berlin for the Zurich-based talk shop.
By Mark Baber
February 20 – The failure of Kenya’s Premier League (KPL) and Football Federation (FKF) to come to an agreement has left football in the country in, with rival leagues set to kick off this weekend. One league is backed by the KPL and the other by the FKF, although no one is quite sure which clubs will be in which league and whether or not the Kenyan government and/or FIFA will intervene to try and restore order –
By Jamie Styles
February 20 – Last week Jay Beatty, a young Celtic super-fan with Down’s Syndrome, was nominated in Scotland’s SPL Goal of the Month competition. Today the league announced that Jay had won the award with a landslide victory, receiving a massive 97% of the votes.
By Samindra Kunti
February 20 – Brazilian club Vasco Da Gama will renew its major sponsorship deals with Guaracamp and Caixa. The news is a boost for the Rio club ahead of its return to the Brazilian top-flight.
February 20 – One of Europe’s leading anti-racism chiefs believes the episode involving Chelsea supporters blocking a black man from boarding a Paris Metro train is part of a wider problem of racism in football despite stringent efforts to cut it out.
February 20 – The 33-year-old victim of the highly publicised racist incident involving Chelsea fans on the Paris metro earlier this week says the perpetrators should be jailed for picking on him because is black – and is considering lodging an official complaint with police.
By Paul Nicholson
February 20 – Manchester United are chasing down London rivals Arsenal and Chelsea in the Insideworldfootball Premier League Twitter rankings chart, topping the table of weekly gains in followers, but still lieing some distance behind in third place in the overall Twitter Followers table.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 20 – Sofia City Court (SCC) cleared the chairman of the supervisory board of CSKA Sofia, Alexander Tomov, of charges of misappropriation of funds from metallurgical plant Kremikovtsi and the football club. On Monday, prosecutors requested 10 years in prison for Tomov, but Sofia City Court dropped all the charges.
“I don’t want to be a thief of my own wallet.” Johan Cruyff
It is hard to imagine the nation that produced Johan Cruyff, Marco van Basten and Dennis Bergkamp ever giving its name to something negative in football. But then Dutch Disease is an economic concept.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
February 19 – Promising to prioritise grass-roots football and a fairer distribution of funds as well as increase the number of World Cup finalists, Portuguese icon Luis Figo today became the first candidate for FIFA president to launch an official manifesto as distinct from simply mission statements.