[FC] Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu has threatened to take UEFA as far as the European Court of Human Rights after the club were fined for fans displaying flags supporting Catalan independence. European football's governing body fined Barca 40,000 euros ($44,000, £28,800) for the flags displayed during the European champions 2-1 win over Bayer Leverkusen last month.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday in Manchester that he hoped Britain and China would strengthen cooperation and exchanges in the area of sports, including football, according to a statement by the country's foreign ministry.

The "ping-pong diplomacy" was on display again - this time at Beijing's Poly Theater, where players and musicians from both countries gathered on Thursday to perform a show cheering Sino-U.S. exchanges of the early 1970s. 

[Sport] is a powerful tool for progress and for development," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2011. In post-genocide Rwanda, Felicite Rwemalika's work is an embodiment of this idea. She has forged opportunities which have brought increased wealth and skills to women and their families - all by getting women to play football.

In 1972, a young Geography professor named Christian Jung started the only U.S.-based research center for the study of Afghanistan at the university in Omaha. [...] A few years later, after graduate school in Indiana and a return to Afghanistan under a Fullbright fellowship, Gouttierre took up basketball coaching again for Kabul University. 

On Wednesday tiny FC Astana welcomes the world for the first ever Champions League match in Kazakhstan […] FC Astana is part of the state-owned Astana Presidential Sports club, created at the behest of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.