Former Trinidad and Tobago national goalkeeper and 2006 World Cup star Shaka Hislop expressed relief at the judgment from the Sports Dispute Resolution Panel (SDRP), which, he felt, justified the players’ decision to seek legal action in their bonus dispute with the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF).

In a surprising press release, the president of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), Ruben Acosta, has declared that he plans to retire from his post at the FIVB Congress in Dubai in June. However, long-time critics of Acosta’s regime fear that the announcement is part of a power game and that Acosta has no real plans to give up his position in FIVB.

The Greenland Handball Federation has won its year-long dispute with the Pan-American Team Handball Federation over the continental handball federation’s decision to reduce Greenland’s membership status from full to associate.

The Indian Premier League, cricket’s new, all-action, TV-friendly tournament, is reshaping cricket. While cricket has been shaped by television more than most other sports, Twenty20, a new form of the game designed with television and stadium audiences in mind, looks set to determine the future of the game.

The Indian Hockey Federation has been suspended by the Indian Olympic Association after allegations surfaced that the federation’s general secretary, Kandaswamy Jothikumaran, accepted a bribe to select a certain player for the national team.

Sports journalists Muse Mohamed Osman and Shafici Mohyaddin Abokar, president and first vice president of the Somali Sports Press Association (SSPA) respectively, were detained by Mogadishu police officers last week and threatened with their lives.

Already, the forthcoming Olympic Games have become a media event without parallel, though probably not in the way the organisers had envisaged. Across the world, a discussion is now rolling on the relationship between sport and politics, between China and the West, and between gala ceremonies and human rights.

On Monday 7 April, Play the Game lost a close friend and collaborator, while sport for all lost one of its most important eyewitnesses. After a long struggle with cancer, Danish press photographer Niels Nyholm died at the age of 62.