This season seems to be known more for the Champions League than any other domestic league played worldwide especially English premier league which is a new and welcoming trend. If we look at the headlines of last few days, almost every league side, who has qualified for the UEFA event, is showing its strong believe that they will perform well on the European tour while recently these sides have been known for their dire addition for the English topflight only. This is actually good for the betterment of the game where focus has shifted from EPL to the European tourney which makes CL league even more demanding among every European side including premier league clubs. After Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea it is time for the league champions Manchester City to claim European tourney, in fact, they are little more confident to do better in UEFA campaign than their English colleagues thanks to their last year show in the English season where they remained almost unbeatable till the end.

City captain Vincent Kompany believes it is the right time for them to compete with best European sides in UEFA platform as they have been qualifying for the event since last four seasons. The 28-year-old defender is way too optimistic to perform well in the tour opener with German giant Bayern Munich in Group E at the Allianz Arena. Recalling their dominance in the premier league where they won two of the last three titles, Kompany did not miss event a single moment to highlight his players and why they should be taken seriously by the European giants. He said in the news conference, “Every single time you come here is an opportunity to prove yourself. We now take it as a challenge against one of the top three clubs in the world. It is one of hardest places to come to. It’s time to start making these games close and making up the gap between ourselves and the other top clubs.”

“You start a season at Manchester City nowadays and it’s not acceptable not to put all the trophies on your ambitions list. It’s a case of me and all the players looking at all the trophies and thinking we have to go until the very end of the season. I mean, the club is asking us to win now, so that’s one thing. We have come so far in the last four years, we have been successful, but you always want to take it a step further.

“Let’s take it in context — we are not favourites by any means for this competition but we would like to compete and challenge.”

As everyone is freed off the pressing world cup, Qatar world cup is back again in the news for its known glitches. Nowadays, no one seems to be worrying about the temperature but about the construction sites where work is in progress round the clock and this is the area which is under the tight scrutiny of European watchdog who don’t expect the Arab nation to host their first mega soccer event. This is noteworthy that UEFA president has said over several occasions he does not want to take the world cup outside Europe, in fact, he has virtually warned the FIFA president to safeguard European interest if Blatter continues to be liberal for rest of the world. But this time, Qatar is in the news for something not done before, i.e., two British researchers who were here to investigate workers’ rights go missing. Krishna Upadhyaya and photographer Ghimire Gundev arrived in Qatar on 27 last month to dig the stories running across the media about conditions of migrated workers especially those who were brought in from Nepal, but they are since been missing and no one has any clue where they could be.

This could be another trouble maker for local organizers since if security agencies are brought in to initiate the missing probe, they could find more details about the insides which would be more devastating for the world cup, hence without missing a single moment, Qatar football association has asked local police head to expedite the investigation and track the British researchers who were the employees of Norway-based Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) who has now asked FIFA to intervene and help them find their reporters.

Chief executive of GNRD, Evgenia Kondrakhina, said over the issue, “GNRD holds the Qatari authorities responsible for their safety. In the event that its employees are subjected to any kind of physical or psychological harm, GNRD is prepared to take all necessary legal action.”

Boumedouha, the Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programm, also added, “The enforced disappearance of Krishna Upadhyaya and Ghimire Gundev is extremely worrying and the pattern of events reported by the men before they went missing indicates that they may have been detained in relation to their human rights work.”

“The Qatari authorities must urgently reveal the fate and whereabouts of these two men and dispel the growing fears that they are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. If the Qatari authorities have detained these men, they must reveal why, where and if any charges are being brought against them. Both must also have access to lawyers of their choice and be protected from torture and other ill-treatment while in custody.”

A soccer world cup has ever been the biggest gambling extravaganza for money rolling freaks, but it is also a fact that over seventy percent of all the bets are placed on unorganized betting stations rather the places officially designated for this job. The six weeks long soccer event in Brazil created another record by becoming the only world cup to carry the biggest amount bets on each of the matches. Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, which had been entrusted for the job to crack down these illegal betting zones across the world, did commendable job by raiding almost one thousand places across Europe and more dominantly Asia. Since, the most of the betting syndicates apparently operate from Asian zones, Interpol conducted more detailed search on various suspected places in China, Honk Kong, and Singapore along with Malaysia and many small betting dens. As a result, the agency informed to have recovered some twelve millions and arrested more than one thousand peoples involved in the racket.

For many, this is just a tip of the whole iceberg, hence a recovery of that tune is not more than ten percent of what had actual been wagered by the betting freaks on these unauthorized betting destinations, but information agency is hopeful they would unearth more secretes as they interrogate the arrested peoples in the case. Actually, betting has ever been a diplomatic subject across every kind of sports coz of the land laws which are different in different parts of the world, like in US, sports betting is allowed until it is being organized by a licensee; the same law is different in other parts where only one-to-one bets are allowed without intervention of any organizer, so it is a complicated subject when it comes to prove the crime against arrested peoples.

Jean-Michel Louboutin, the Executive Director of Interpol said over the findings, “The results of this latest Operation SOGA are significant in relation to the volume of bets being handled by these illegal gambling dens, as well as the number of arrests.

“Illegal gambling generates massive profits for organized crime networks which are often linked to corruption, human trafficking and money laundering, which is why a coordinated international response is required to tackle this type of crime.”

There are other elements Interpol is interrogating along with the betting like human trafficking, drugs, and illegal transport of weapons during sporting season which is a bigger security threat for the international policing agency. Anyways, let’s see how they curb the growing demon of soccer.

It’s time to refresh the rankings of all the teams playing soccer hence FIFA announced its latest list of top sides ruling the soccer world today. Many significant changes have been taken place in top teams who used to rule the top twenty positions and England is the prominent name among them who was ousted from the world cup in the group stage itself. They are now at twentieth place – their lowest till date. No prize for guessing who is on the top – Germany, of course, with a impressive 118 points lead from the world cup finalist Argentina. Brazil, after losing the world cup battle with a miserable show in the semifinal, is now at number seven with a seven points fall from previous tally while Columbia, whom they ousted in the quarterfinal, is much above to them – Columbia is at fourth place with a close difference to third positioned Holland. Likewise, Belgium and Uruguay – the other quarterfinals – are at fifth and sixth positions respectively. Looking at the top ranking teams, one thing is sure that Europe is certainly the ruling region in soccer with nineteen of twenty teams belong to it along with few Americans.

Germans are leading the ranking for the first time in last two decades which shows how impressively they have come back in the field after miserable ousted from the Euro championship. Significant new entrants to the top-ten gang are Netherland, Belgium, and France while Portugal, Italy, and England had to be debarred off the top-ten list for their recent shows in the world cup. The difference between last rankings and current one is more than 100 games with Argentina and Brazil playing the most nine games each, hence each of the teams got enough opportunity to surge its position but only few, who reached into the second and third stages of the FIFA event, could actually do so.

As far points difference is concerned, Cape Verde Islands is biggest loser with some 272 points loss to their last tally while Netherland is the biggest gainer who could add some 515 points to its last total.

Since these rakings are being released just after the world cup, they show who most accurate position for each team in world arena otherwise most the low residing teams always complaint of not playing enough games to raise their position. Anyways, at last, congratulation to Coast Rica, Netherland, and Venezuela for heading to the top faster than others!

After days of yes and no, Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari finally resigned off his national duty amid continuous building pressure from every corner. Earlier, after losing to the Germans in the semifinal of FIFA world cup, he refused to resign off his post citing he is ready to discuss the matter with the bosses but would not leave for that reason, but after lots of criticisms for his public statement over the matter especially considering the fact that he led the hosts, club bosses apparently asked him to leave else they would have to dismiss him. Notably, Germans devastatingly crushed the hosts by 7-1 in the semis which is the first home loss for the South Americans in last 39 years and first ever with this margin. In fact, this is the same team that defeated Nationalelf in the 2002 world cup final by 2-0 in Yokohama, Japan under the mentorship of Scolari. Actually, this time, he had lost the charm of being a charismatic manager who was called back to repeat the 2002 magic and fans were seen booing him whenever he appeared in the playground or on the big screen during the last world cup game where they were defeated by the Netherlands – their second loss in five days!

Nobody had imagined them to be lasted on fourth position, perhaps, those who were calling the semifinal loss as the one bad day, surprised to see almost a repeat in the third place game with the Holland where again their defensive line failed miserably. This match also missed Neymar for back fracture but that is not an excuse in any way. CBF informed about Scolari leaving via a statement that reads as, “Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and his fellow coaching staff surrendered their positions to the board of the Brazilian Football Confederation.

“The resignation was accepted by president Marin, who was keen to thank all the coaches and players and, by extension, the Brazilian fans for their support throughout the World Cup campaign. Scolari and his entire coaching staff deserve our respect and gratitude. They were responsible for returning to the Brazilian people your love for the team, despite not having achieved our greatest goal.”

Scolari also accepted his failure and added, “I will be remembered as the coach to lose 7-1, but I knew that risk when I took the job. The person who decided the line-up, the tactics, was me. It was my choice.”