21 January 2012: The 2012 Africa Cup of Nations brings together 16 of the continents national teams in a combined countries festival of football in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Egypt, the most successful team in the tournament have won the Cup seven times in its 55 years history and are the current holders of the Cup but are missing from this year's tournament having been knocked out by lowly Niger!

Four teams make up each of the four groups. Group A consists of Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Senegal and Zambia. Group B draws together Angola, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Sudan. Group C is made up of Gabon, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia. And Group D has Botswana, Ghana, Guinea and Mali national teams.

Three of the 16 teams stand out among the rest. Ghana's Black Stars had a tremendous World Cup in 2010 and should have progressed to the semi-finals. They have the mecurial Asamoah Gyan up front and will certainly have an opportunity to show who is the best in Africa. Ivory Coast, the top ranked FIFA team in Africa have some of the top Premier League players in their team including Africa's Player of the Year, Yaya Toure. If The Elephants perform as well as they did in the qualifiers, winning all six games, they could run away with the trophy. However Senegal with its impressive forward line of Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse could cause havoc in the oppositions goal-mouths.

The Africa Cup of Nations takes place from the 21^st. January until February 12^th. 2012.

9 November 2011: So we've had 25 years of Football Management from Sir Alex Ferguson, and the Premier League club Manchester United have benefited hugely from that. Twelve League titles, five FA Cups, four League Cups, two Champions League titles, one Cup Winner's Cup and one Club World Cup – that's 25 trophies in 25 years! Of course one man cannot produce those results on his own. It has to be the result of team work in more senses than one – players, assistant managers, coaches, administration and ground staff, directors and chairmen of the Board – all playing their part.

Since 1986 when Ferguson took over managing the club 20 of the past players have become club managers and 19 coaches elsewhere in their own right. Manchester United is known as 'a club of youth and flair.' Man management has been a Ferguson strength over the years and best displayed with the class of 1992 consisting of David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes. Sir Alex has put into practice the philosophy of growing your own team as much as possible. Take note of the youth that are being incorporated this season – Phil Jones, Tom Cleverley, Danny Welbeck. And then others are following in past footsteps as they show their faces in the Carling Cup matches. This may be one of the seasons where the team miss out on the League title but woe betide if you think that buying the title will be the norm of the day. The Manchester United youth will be knocking at the door of further titles in years to come.

11 June 2011: Will the fuss over Sepp Blatter’s election as FIFA President and the need to investigate the charge of corruption in FIFA take the energies of the grey-beards of FIFA from dealing with goal-side technology?  Since last year’s World Cup in South Africa the cry of fans for some positive action has got louder and yet world football authority’s President Sepp Blatter continues to drag his feet on the issue. In support of Blatter we find the Union of European  Football Associations, (UEFA) President, Michel Platini saying that if we go for goal-mouth technology, the next thing we’ll will be 18 yard line and then off-side technology and so on – so Platini is dead against any goal-line technology.

However the case now rests with the International Football Association Board (IFAB) who have tested 17 different systems of goal-line technology and out of these three or four will go before this Board and the technical committee will then make a recommendation. No deadlines are given for the recommendation and even when this has been made there is no guarantee it will be accepted. Blatter has said that goal-line technology will be in use in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. So eventually, one day,  we will get goal-line technology but it will need to be accurate and simple and above all quick in operation.