Soccernews.com reports that the head of South African 2010 World Cup, Danny Jordaan, said he wants to "transform people's world view of Africa through the staging of a successful tournament."

Africa has never staged a tournament, and will be jumping at the opportunity to put the "whole continent in general on the map"

Jordaan is looking to press for democracy, increase employment, tourism and infrastructure while increasing it's stature in the world of sports.

The Norwegian soccer team Rosenborg may not be doing great at playing soccer in Europe but they are making big push for more energy savings, and less emissions of greenhouse gasses, err, I mean Co2, err, I mean plant food.

It's nice to see people trying to save money, even under the guise of global warming hype and rhetoric. They're reducing heating and other niceties at the practice field, and one could argue that it's having an adverse effect on their ability to score. They've got high goals...

The club has invested about $40,000 in measures to save energy, and will earn that back in less than half a year, said Arne Melan, technical expert at the club. "We're trying to change people's attitudes," he said.

Great. Just what we need: The sports teams we watch for entertainment are now trying to politically motivate us. Try just playing soccer instead, ok?

Most people believe that Jose Mourinho will move on to Spain or become the manager of Portugal following his spell at Inter. Now Mourinho has told Sky Sports that he actually wants to come back to the Premier League.

The former Chelsea coach has only been at Inter since the Summer and the club have made a pretty decent start. Defeat to City rivals Milan was a bitter pill to swallow, but not much else has gone wrong. Mourinho's comments came just after they had demolished Roma 4-0 on their own ground.

"I'm in love with the English league and I'll definitely return one day. I think that's what I want to do after Inter. Everyone says that I want to go to Spain, that I want to be the coach of my national team. It's not true. I want to return to England after Inter."

Mourinho did quickly point out that he is happy where he is at the moment. "I have a contract with Inter. I'm happy with Inter."

I'm not sure whether he was trying to convince us, or himself!

After the great decision with ridiculous timing to ban Atletico Madrid from playing home games at their stadium, Uefa has temporarily overturned the ban for the Champions League match against Liverpool on 22nd October.

European football's governing body had ordered Atletico to play their next two matches away from the Vicente Calderon Stadium after crowd trouble. That was a good, sound decision, but to announce it less than two weeks before such a big game was absolute madness.

Uefa's initial decision led to criticism from thousands of Liverpool fans who had already booked their travel and accommodation for the game.

Uefa says it wants to make the welfare of the English club's supporters its number one priority and has put the ban on hold so that the match goes ahead at the Vicente Calderon stadium.

The ban followed the treatment of Marseille fans during and after Atletico's 2-1 victory on 1 October.

Monkey chants were allegedly aimed at the French club's players. There were accusations from Marseille officials and players that they had been racially abused by Atletico fans.

Atletico has been fined a record 150,000 euros by Uefa.

Coach Javier Aguirre has been punished for abusing a Marseille player and has been banned from the sidelines, the tunnel, and the dressing room, and is forbidden from communicating with his team, during the matches against Liverpool on 22nd October and at Anfield on 4th November.

Atletico deny nearly all of the allegations.

The Football Association has warned Newcastle boss Joe Kinnear he could face disciplinary action if he repeats the type of outburst he made at a press conference earlier in the month.

During the now infamous five minute meeting with the press, Kinnear swore fifty-two times.

An FA statement said: "Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear has been reminded of his responsibilities by The FA. The FA has borne into consideration the specific context in which the comments were made and the fact that the comments were made in a closed forum."

The FA said they had received an apology from Kinnear "for any offence that his comments may have caused".

Kinnear had been upset at his treatment in the media after taking the interim manager's position at St james' Park and hit out at newspaper journalists he believes had ridiculed him and tried to undermine his position.

I don't know if there is any truth in the rumour that when Kinnear heard the judgement he said, "f**k that and f**k them. They're a bunch of f*****g b******s.

England under 21s scraped through to the European Championship finals with a battling and spirited, if largely unimpressive, aggregate win over Wales.

A 2-2 draw at Aston Villa following on from the 3-2 win in Cardiff was enough to see Stuart Pearce's young men looking forward to spending next Summer in Sweden.

It all looked easy enough when Tom Huddlestone put England ahead but Wales replied with a great strike from Aaron Ramsey and a cool finish from Simon Church, to make the tie level.

An unfortunate own goal by Wolves' teenage striker Sam Vokes gave England the advantage again and they managed to hang on to it despite having Huddlestone sent off twenty-five minutes from the end.

All the goals came in a frantic first half that England dominated early on, but somehow allowed Wales to get back in the game.

The second half was a calmer affair and England looked reasonably comfortable until Huddlestone's moment of madness after which it was 'all hands to the pump'.

Stuart Pearce will be very relieved to have got this one out of the way and to be able to start planning for next Summer.

A blow for England today as it is announced that they will be without captain John Terry and booed left back Ashley Cole for Wednesday's World Cup qualifying game in Belarus.

Skipper Terry missed the 5-1 win over Kazakhstan at Wembley on Saturday with a back injury, and will not recover in time to take his place on Wednesday. Rio Ferdinand will keep the captains armband and presumably, Matthew Upson will continue to stand-in.

Ashley Cole, booed for giving away a goal on Saturday, has now been ruled out of Wednesday's game with a hamstring injury. Wayne Bridge and Jolean Lescott will both be hopeful of getting a starting place.

At an Under-19 tournament in Slovenia at the moment, Uefa are running the first of three trials where two extra assistants help the referee. They stand behind each goalline and give the referee four assistants rather than two.

"The goal is to have one referee with more eyes," Uefa president Michel Platini told the Uefa website.

"We do not want to change the philosophy of the game - we do not want to have two or three referees."

Referees taking part in the tournament all seem to be giving a thumbs up to the new system.

Mark Courtney, who took charge of the Slovakia and Armenia game using the new system, welcomed the experiment; "The important thing for the match officials is to always make the correct decision. With this system, we can quickly receive additional information from the additional referees, which we can consider as part of the thought process to make the final decision."

Nicola Rizzoli, who officiated the Norway and Slovenia game, was also impressed; "We had three pairs of eyes on the penalty box, which is very important."

Why go for two people who can make genuine human mistakes? Why give the referee possibly conflicting information on what to make his decision? Why not use technology? Aren't we struggling to get enough referees? Where exactly are these two extra officials per game going to come from?

The expected transfer of Xabi Alonso from Liverpool to Juventus in the Summer, as we all know, didn't take place. It was thought that the failure of the move to go through was as a result of the Gareth Barry transfer from Aston Villa not materialising.

Now, Juventus coach Claudio Ranieri has revealed that he turned down the chance to sign him because he was "too slow".

Ranieri said: "He left me perplexed by the slowness of his movement. He would have found it hard to support our midfield line seeing as our wingers don't give support like at Liverpool. He is a player who, in the midfield of Rafa's Liverpool, where all of them are little soldiers, finds himself in a fantastic position."

However, with Alonso enjoying a return to form at Liverpool and Juventus currently sitting 11th place in Serie A with two wins from their first six matches, it may well be Alonso who has the last laugh.

The turmoil at Newcastle took another twist today when they announced that Tony Jimenez has left the club. The vice-president (player recruitment) was appointed by Mike Ashley back in January and was part of the set-up including Dennis Wise, that so upset Kevin Keegan and most of the Newcastle fans.

Of course, as we all know, Keegan left the club in a dispute over his lack of input on transfers and Ashley has since decided to sell the club.

A Newcastle statement said that Jimenez would "pursue other interests".

It continued: "Newcastle United thanks Tony for all of his hard work and efforts and wishes him every success in the future."

Whether he goes with the good wishes of the Toon Army is less certain.

The whole situation at St James' is farcical at the moment and the sooner a buyer is found, the better it will be for all concerned.

Isn't Dennis Wise remaining very quiet at the moment?