2010

boston.com has just published a set of beautiful pictures of football in South Africa during the Confederations Cup. Included in the set are recent photos of how the construction of the Soccer City stadium is coming along. This stadium will be hosting the Opening Ceremony and is the final destination of The Ball as it [...]

Special Olympics just posted a story on their website, the main gist of which I’ve quoted here:
I had resigned myself to the fact that my son would never prosper in anything but seeing him participating in the young athlete activities I realised that he had a talent in sports and now I have hope that [...]

Coca Cola and FIFA have announced details of their World Cup trophy tour:
[The trophy] will begin its journey from the FIFA Headquarters on September 21, 2009, will travel around the world before arriving in the host country of South Africa on May 4, 2010. The total distance the tour will travel is 134,017 kilometers [...]

This has been a great week for The Ball. The big news is that we’ve signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Special Olympics. Special Olympics are going to be organising Unified Football festivals for The Ball to visit as it makes its way to South Africa. The Ball, in turn, will be supporting the great [...]

Unfortunately you can’t — unless you already have a ticket:
The second phase of ticket sales for the opening match, semi-finals and the final of the 2010 Fifa World Cup has been sold out.
Fifa said on Thursday the second phase had seen 105 322 tickets confirmed and approved so far.
“Due to a high demand for certain [...]

The Kopanya ball on Flickr
From the Cape Argus:
The ball, manufactured by adidas, will be used exclusively in World Cup matches and is expected to be unveiled at Fifa’s final draw in Cape Town in December, Gavin Cowley, managing director of Adidas SA, has revealed.
Speaking during the bi-weekly 2010 lecture series in Green Point last night, [...]

A while back, I wrote a post about IFAB, commenting on the curious lack of transparency in that organisation. Well, it’s that time of year when they meet again. Today, FIFA published the agenda for the 2009 AGM of the IFAB. As ever, they’re going to be slumming it…

“Slieve Donard Hotel” by Vironevaeh on Flickr
Some [...]

We’re very proud to announce that The Ball for 2010 will be made by Alive & Kicking in South Africa. This amazing project makes cheap, tough, repairable footballs, netballs and volleyballs, using African skills and African leather. Each carries a message about HIV/AIDS and malaria.

The Ball 2010 will be “an African ball made for the [...]

Winners of the World Cup can now display a badge as well as stars on the national shirt.

The ‘FIFA World Champions Badge’ on the Italian shirt
In fact, it looks like the Italian FA has incorporated the stars into their badge design — previously the stars would circle the national FA’s badge, with a new one [...]

Keeping you up to date on official balls…

A soccer ball identical to the balls to be used in Olympic soccer competition is seen in an Adidas store in Beijing Tuesday July 29, 2008. The ball, called Adidas Magnus Moenia, or Great Wall Star, and featuring the Chinese characters for “China” was specially designed for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

via Yahoo