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Playing for your country is the peak for most footballers but, as Steve Menary points out, it can come at a cost for lower-league players
For players in the lower leagues, pursuing an international career is a real gamble. The latest international calendar allows for 19 matches over a two-year period ending in 2012. With no automatic suspension of games in the lower divisions, players going on international duty risk losing their place at their clubs.
A man with new ideas and a “clean” reputation could have a major football future, writes Steve Menary
On October 21, FIFA president Sepp Blatter unveiled a series of plans to combat the seemingly endemic problem of corruption in international football. Blatter proposed to reopen an investigation into the collapse of former marketing partner ISL, raising the possibility that senior FIFA figures could be shown to have taken bribes. Last year, FIFA paid CHF 5.5 million (£3.9m) to settle the case, but Blatter has now said: “We will give this file to an independent organisation outside of FIFA so they can delve into this file and extract its conclusions and present them to us.”
Paul Giess worries that due to administrative failure vast amounts of football merchandise will shortly be out of date
Unlike many competitions around the world South Africa’s Premier Soccer League welcomed February’s midweek FIFA international schedule with open arms. March sees a crucial Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against current holders Egypt, who are regarded as the best side on the continent, despite not making it to last year’s World Cup. At the request of Bafana Bafana coach Pitso Mosimane, a whole raft of scheduled games was moved to accommodate a friendly and give him time to work with his team. The response from the South Africa Football Association (SAFA) made a mockery of the praise that the country earned with its organisation of the 2010 World Cup.
Qatar’s World Cup win was a surprise to many, but Steve Wilson argues that maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a shock
When pictures of public gatherings in Doha and London were beamed across rolling news channels on the evening of December 2, it wasn’t just the palm trees in the background, or lack of them, that helped the viewer with their geography.