Inter Milan coach Jose Mourinho’s appeal against a three-match Serie A touchline ban for a controversial handcuffs gesture has been rejected, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) said on Friday.
The system for selling World Cup tickets in South Africa has been too complicated and inaccessible to attract poor black soccer fans, who are the biggest potential audience, a former top player said on Friday. John “Shoes” Moshoeu, who played in the national team that won the 1996 African Nations Cup, said poor South Africans did not have the means or knowledge to use the Internet-based ticketing system for advance bookings.
World Cup organizers on Thursday agreed to increase the number of cheaper seats offered to South Africans to 29 percent of total tickets for this year’s tournament.
Local Organizing Committee CEO Danny Jordaan told reporters the LOC board of directors had decided to raise the allocation from 11 percent to give poorer South Africans more chance of seeing games.
The United States needed two late goals, including a stoppage time winner, to beat El Salvador 2-1 in a friendly international on Wednesday.
More Chinese clubs are being investigated for match-fixing and will be harshly punished if found guilty, according to the new head of the Chinese Football Association (CFA).
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) will next week decide on the punishment for two Algerian footballers sent off at the African Nations Cup in Angola, which could affect their chances of playing at the World Cup finals, officials said on Tuesday.
South Africa’s showpiece venue for the World Cup will be ready for its first test events in April or May but the pitch at another of the new stadiums is being relaid again, local organizers said on Tuesday.
The 95,000-capacity Soccer City near Soweto, where both the opening match and the final of the World Cup will be played, will host one or two events before the tournament starts on June 11, chief organizer Danny Jordaan told a news conference.
World football’s governing body FIFA went on the offensive on Tuesday in a growing row with English tabloid newspapers over the readiness of England’s base camp for the World Cup finals.
A visibly irritated general secretary Jerome Valcke and his South African local organizing committee counterpart Danny Jordaan used a news conference to refute allegations that the hotel where the squad are likely to stay during the tournament was only half completed.
FIFA have denied reports that they will cut World Cup ticket prices or give away free seats to ensure capacity stadiums at the finals in South Africa later this year.
“There is no question of bringing down any prices,” FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke told a news conference on Tuesday in the wake of weekend media reports saying FIFA would reduce ticket prices to increase sluggish sales.
South Africa is working with international agencies like Interpol and the FBI to minimize the threat of terror attacks during the World Cup, the country’s top policeman said on Monday.
“Nothing informs us that we would be a terrorism risk but in the same vein it would be foolish to say we can’t look at that, that we can’t work hard so it doesn’t happen,” Police Commissioner Bheki Cele told Reuters in an interview.