Barclays Premier League side Liverpool Football Club from England will establish an international academy and soccer schools in Indonesia this June to aid the country’s sports development, claiming it would not only groom young Indonesian players but also give them a shot at the world stage.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and U.S. Soccer announced today that former U.S. Women’s National Team players Briana Scurry and Amanda Cromwell will serve as sports diplomats May 1-7 in the first wave of soccer exchanges slated for this year.

Football authorities, from Fifa to the FA, are keen to argue that the sport is a benign force, an agent of positive social transformation even. They portray football as the universal game for a global world, an instrument of soft power and peaceful diplomacy and a device for overcoming social divisions.

The English outcry at FIFA's decision to award the World Cup to Russia and Qatar has obscured what might be a brilliant gesture of goodwill.

This week, we're profiling the Young Global Leaders attending the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Food, water, medicine, shelter. For most international children's advocates, these items are high on the list of urgent post-conflict aid. For Johann Koss, Founder of Right To Play International, sneakers and soccer balls top the list.

Brazil's World Cup football stars are among players from the five-time world champion nation that have been approached and shown interest in visiting Kenya in March to launch a trade and cultural exchange between the two countries. Cafu, Brazil's most-capped player and a double World Cup winner, and Junior Baiano could be guests at the March 22-26 First Brazil in Eastern Africa Expo that will highlight several aspects of Brazilian trade, commerce, culture and sport.

Afghan air force airmen and NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan advisers delivered more than 3,600 pounds of humanitarian aid to Bamyan province Dec. 23.

Few may know that the game known to some as football and to others as soccer was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. The nomination letter by Swedish politician Lars Gustafsson observed that sports - of which football was "the greatest sport of all" - play a valuable role in international relations by enhancing "the understanding between people of different races and religions in different countries."