Today has been a busy day in the office for Chelsea Football Club. On the one hand, Rafael Benitez has been confirmed as the new interim manager of the club after the sudden (yet completely unsurprising) departure of Roberto Di Matteo, whose luck ran out following Tuesday nights thrashing at the hands of Juventus in Turin, but the bigger headlines in tomorrow mornings newspapers are likely to be made by the Football Associations announcement that no further action will be taken over the incident involving referee Mark Clattenburg after the clubs Premier League match against Manchester United last month.
Editor's note: This is the first piece for The Shin Guardian from Joshua Wells. Joshua
is an attorney and was editor of his law review. He'll be broadly looking at the administrative
side of soccer from legality through business practices.
The weekend's events have caused the English and Scottish Football Associations to call for a
postponement of Wednesday's scheduled FIFA presidential election.
FIFA executive committee members Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner were suspended after an
ethics hearing on Sunday, and Bin Hammam withdrew his candidacy for FIFA president, leaving current
president Sepp Blatter as the lone candidate in the race.
Like many football fans I love a good hoot. Especially when it involves football associations, the
people charged with running the game. The Malaysian Football Association have always been good fun,
perhaps reaching their peak while they were hosting the Asia Cup back in 2007. Instead of having
the football world focus on the Asian nations, Malaysia wanted to have a friendly against
Manchester United!
The World Cup, the Euros, the African Cup of Nations, the Copa América...the Olympics.�
Finishing in a disappointing fifth, the world's oldest sporting competition neither wants, nor
tries to compete with the greatest names in tournament football.
There hasn't been much that has been "united" about the United Kingdom's Olympic football team
effort. The football associations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been vociferously
against the idea of a squad uniting the four home nations...
An early morning scramble for tickets for London's 2012 Olympic jamboree this morning.
Not that I'll actually be going to London. I was one of the many unlucky customers who missed out
in the first round of ticketing.
Today I had to make do with a couple of football tickets. When the eyes of the world are on London
I will be in Glasgow and Newcastle, my fix of faster, higher, stronger coming at Hampden and St
James' Park.
When Ivan Gazidis met fans from a variety of supporters' groups at the Emirates Stadium last
week, his message regarding UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations was unequivocal. It will happen
and the clubs are all in favour of it, not least because the alternative – football's bubble
bursting if it continues to expand in the current form – does not bear thinking about.
FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner, whom allegations of corruption were made, has resigned from his
post at football's world governing body. Any chance that this move could be seen as a positive
development within the upper echelons of the game have been completely overridden by the words
expressed by FIFA itself in the aftermath of his resignation.
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."
Lewis Carroll, 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' from ' Through The Looking-Glass and What
Alice Found There'
In the run up to Blatter's coronation we've had all kinds of lurid tales including some
concerning our unsuccessful World Cup bid: principally the suggestion that the FA Cup could be
re-named after Dr.
It would be difficult to call Mohammed Bin Hammam of Qatar an outsider as the FIFA incumbent's
sole challenger in the race to lead the world's largest sport's governing body. A member of the
FIFA Executive Committee since 1996, he's been the Asian Football Confederation president for the
past nine years.
Every month more football clubs are taken over by multi-millionaires, and billionaires. The
reasons why they do it are varied and later in this series of articles on the ownership of clubs
I'll examine that point. But first I want to examine the way national and international Football
Associations are [.
By Tony Attwood There is very little that the football associations of various countries can do
about Fifa since they have been playing the Fifa game for years.� Indeed all the English FA have
done is made themselves look stupid.� They kow-tow to the Fifa organisation, will not have a word
said against it, sign [.
Late last night a solemn Michel Platini made the shock� announcement� that Euro 2012 has been
cancelled. The UEFA President has yet to officially state why the Championships have stalled.
Complaints about Ukraine's human rights record appear to be the likely answer, although Platini a
closet Norwich fan was overheard weeping upon the discovery of [.
The London Olympics will be the first time in 52 years that Great Britain has fielded a football
team in the games.� Team GB plans to enter both male and female teams to play on home turf next
year.� While this will be an exciting and historical moment in British sport, it has caused a
great deal of controversy among the organisers, fans and players.
Not a headline you're ever gonna read in England.
There was widespread disappointment in Malaysia when it was announced ticket prices for today's
Malaysia Cup Final between Negeri Sembilan and Terengganu were set at 50 RM, compared to 30 RM for
last year's showpiece.
Fans protested on line and off and there were threats the game would be boycotted.
Better candidates than Beckam for Olympic captaincy - originally posted on Soccerlens.com
Understandably, European nations often decline to participate in Olympic football competition.
The alignment of their respective four year rotations means that UEFA's European Championships
coincide with the Olympic Games.
It's a simple question, but not necessarily simple to answer.
Most critics would consider the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League
winner to be the best team in the world on account of what the tourney represents regarding skill
level.
Turkish champions Fenerbahçe have been thrown out of the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League
following their involvement in match-fixing allegations.
Developments over the last 24 hours have been contentious to say the least with the Turkish
Football Federation (TFF) forced by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to withdraw
Fenerbahçe's place in the competition or face further action in the event that they fail to
decline their place.
Gianfranco Zola has been part of the FA CUP Trophy tour in Asia this year and has spoken to the
Football Associations very own TV channel about the importance of the competition and what it means
to him.
Speaking openly he admits he never realised just how important the FA Cup is in this country and
what it means to fans all over the world.
And the match officials missed it! This is the best video we have seen for a while. All the work
that is done by FIFA, UEFA, football associations, clubs, sponsors and charities the world over to
promote the women's game and try to put it on level pegging with the men's game... and it's all
[...]
At one hundred and fifteen pages and a little over forty-four thousand words getting on, for the
purposes of comparison, for two and a half times the size of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto at
least no-one can argue that the Football Associations independent commission into the allegations
of racist language levied against Luis Suarez wasn't thorough.
The Thai Premier League 2011, which kicked off in February will now end on 7th January. The fixture
list has been changed so many times it's hardly been worthy of mention. What would be worthy of a
mention would be a fixture list in the region not being changed on a whim and a prayer or, whisper
it, at the behest of certain clubs.
Uganda se consagró campeona de la 35ta edición del CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup, el torneo de
fútbol internacional más antiguo de África, que se realizó en Tanzania. Lo organiza el
Council of East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA), e incluyó a doce
selecciones de la zona central y oriental del continente.
La Unión de las Comoras, o simplemente las Comoras, Comores o Comoros, es un país formado por
tres islas en el sureste de África, en el océano Índico, entre el norte de Madagascar y el norte
de Mozambique.
Estas islas son Gran Comora (Ngazidja), Mohéli (Mwali) y Anjouan (Nzwani), mientras que la vecina
isla de Mayotte (Mahore), reclamada por Comoras, sigue perteneciendo a Francia.
KATHMANDU, May 24: An inspection team of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is arriving
on Nepal on Tuesday to study infrastructure and feasibility for organizing AFC Challenge Cup 2012
finals in Kathmandu after Nepal expressed interest to host the tournaments.
KATHMANDU, May 24: An inspection team of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is arriving
on Nepal on Tuesday to study infrastructure and feasibility for organizing AFC Challenge Cup 2012
finals in Kathmandu after Nepal expressed interest to host the tournaments.
Quietly and without comment from the club concerned, a message appeared on the Football
Associations website earlier today which confirmed a most curious piece of news. George Rolls, the
acting chairman of Kettering Town FC and the phrase "acting chairman" is one that we use with
caution has been charged by the Football Association with regard to their rules regarding
Misconduct and Betting.
Malaysia are currently going through their most successful time in a bloody long time. ASEAN Cup
winners, two time SEA Games winners, got further than any other regional side in the Olympic
Qualifiers, Malaysia at the moment are too big for ASEAN yet too small for the wider Asia.
With its weak domestic infrastructure, constant doubts about the fairness of the games and strong
state Football Associations Malaysia is nowhere near ready to take on Asia on a level playing
field, no matter how good the players and the coach are.
The English Ramblers were an early challenger and loser to the entity known as "Fifa."
Editor's note: This is the 2nd piece for The Shin Guardian from Joshua Wells. Josh is
broadly looking at the administrative side of soccer from legality through business practice here
at TSG
Over the course of history, repressive governments tend to have common characteristics that
define their operations and their impact on the world.
Slowly, we're taking over the football world. Image: AP Photo.
With misbehaviour by fans in Europe plummeting to new depths of depravity, football associations
are becoming increasingly innovative in their sanctions.
So congratulations to the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), whose latest punishment is in
honour of the firecracker wielding, pitch invading supporters who've been troubling their fixtures
as of late.
Should football associations and federations call for tenders and financially support the one or
two clubs in a region who can provide the best development model.
Gets the Federation out of Rep and player development - something they have struggled to really
develop over the years - consistently.
Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.
The FIFA Women's World Cup 2011 is currently taking place in Germany and so in this post we
feature a reading from 2002 on the history of women's football. The pdf worksheet contains
exercises on skimming, note taking, vocabulary building and summary writing complete with
answers.
WINONA, Minn. — When the Saint Mary's University women's soccer team traveled to Northfield,
Minn., for their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference game against Carleton, Neil Cassidy
had a hand in the game plan that lifted the Knights to a 2-0 victory over the Cardinals.
Of the 203 football associations who voted, only 17 found this absurd.
186 dutifully put a tick in the appropriate box.King Blatter is back on his throne.
Grant Wahl is the best-selling author of "The Beckham Experiment" and the head soccer writer for
Sport Illustrated. Earlier this year he unsuccessfully ran to be nominated for the FIFA
Presidency.
In part two of our conversation with Wahl he talks about that run for FIFA's top job, Sport
Illustrated's growing soccer coverage in print and online, beer in Qatar, this summer's Gold Cup,
early impact players for Brazil 2014, and the soccer's growth in the United States.
