The sports minister in the African country of Togo has refused a request from the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) to exclude a vice president of Togo's volleyball federation after he had taken part in the founding congress of the new international World Volleyball and Beach Volleyball Federation (WVBF).

Imagine a country where football clubs have not legally registered their players, where the national football federation has ordered thousands of jerseys and shorts with false PUMA trade marks and the top official in the federation has obtained his job with a false university degree. If media reports are to believed this country is Macedonia.

Football has become the first target in an anti-corruption drive in Poland. A few weeks ago the Polish sports minister suspended the entire board of the Polish Football Association (PZPN) after one member was arrested on suspicion of corruption and match fixing. The price for this action may be high but the goverment is willing to pay.

In Finland drugs for sports doping are increasingly arriving by couriers rather than by mail or air freight. Last year customs officers at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport uncovered 72 cases of doping substance crimes, and in some cases the smugglers had more than 10,000 hormone ampules or tablets in their checked luggage.

The National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark (DIF) has decided to withdraw from Play the Game from 2008. DIF is one of the founder members of Play the Game but withdraws because Play the Game has not yet succeeded in attracting permanent funding from the other Nordic countries such as it was envisioned at the beginning.

Rafael Serra, a reporter from Radio Gaucha in Brazil, was beaten up by fans from the Gremio football club when he went to cover the arrival of the team's new goalkeeper in the airport of Porto Alegre.

Whilst the wider football community in Europe may think of Ukraine mainly in terms of its joint bid with Poland for the European Championships in 2012, Ukrainian Ultras Against Racism now urges the very same football community to speak out against the attempts by Ukrainian neo-nazi groups to increase their influence amongst football fans.

The behaviour of violent fans at a match in Nancy last November, has cost the Dutch club Feyenoord its place in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup after UEFA's Appeals Body decided to exclude the Rotterdam team from all UEFA competitons this season. The club feels let down by the police that was warned that banned supporters were on their way to France.