Swapping the lush green soccer fields of Australia for the arid dusty plains of Kenya, Adelaide United star Awer Mabil will make the long journey back to his birthplace at the Kakuma refugee camp to deliver hundreds of pairs of soccer boots and sports gear to children. Mabil said he was prompted to contribute in some way to the lives of the 180,000 refugees living in Kakuma after returning to visit last year and seeing scores of children playing soccer barefoot in the dirt.

“It will blow over” tends to be Qatar’s unofficial response to criticism of its World Cup bid, but with a FIFA corruption scandal exploding onto the world’s front pages, the Gulf state has glumly realised it may have a real fight on its hands.

Super-rich Qatar would suffer no economic pain if it lost the right to host the world’s top soccer event. At stake is influence, including its use of sport as a platform to operate on the global stage, opening doors to finance, media, diplomacy, property and tourism.

When a Palestinian motion to expel Israel from international soccer was scrapped last week at the 11th hour by the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials hailed the results as a victory for Israeli public diplomacy. “Our international effort proved itself and brought about the failure of the effort of the Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu said of the push headed by former Palestinian Gen.

Havana (AFP) - A new era in sporting ties between the United States and Cuba gets under way here Tuesday when the New York Cosmos become the first professional American sports team to play in the Communist-ruled nation for 16 years.

In pure sporting terms, the match between the Cosmos, who play in American soccer's fledgling second tier, and the inexperienced Cuban squad, ranked 109th in the world by FIFA, carries next to no value.

These are not the Chinese athletes you’ve seen on TV, those scarily synchronized divers or the gymnasts plucked from preschools for their bone structure. The Ultimate Frisbee players running and diving all over these fields are too scrappy, too goofy and having way too much fun. Ultimate Frisbee (often called just Ultimate as “Frisbee” is a trademarked brand) is growing in China, and 17 teams gathered here in Beijing for the national championship in late May.

In March 2003, Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the Prime Minister of Turkey, replacing Abdullah Gul; the latter took the post of the Foreign Minister. Meanwhile, Ahmet Davutoglu was invited to become the Prime Minister’s chief foreign policy adviser. This triumvirate would shape Turkish foreign policy for the next decade. The “Armenian opening” was one of the most challenging tasks for these foreign policy makers of Ankara.