The opening of the stadium that will host this year’s World Cup Final in South Africa has been delayed.

At least nine Somali teenagers have been killed by mortar fires while they were playing football game at a village stadium in the Wardhigley district in Mogadishu Wednesday, Somali Football Federation confirmed.

During FIFA's World Cup in South Africa, football fans may get their drinks served on a coaster with the message: "Don't leave this bar without picking up a condom." At least that is one suggestion from a recent consultation process in South Africa on how to deal with the very real problem that close to half a million football fans will come looking for a good time in a country where 1 in 5 are estimated to be infected by HIV.

Jimmy Mohlala, member of the organising committee of the 2010 World Cup and ANC council speaker was shot and killed in front of his home this weekend. Last year Mohlala caused the suspension of senior officials within the ANC when he revealed manipulation of tenders regarding the construction of a 2010 World Cup Stadium.

Greedy agents, bungling with contracts, allegations of kidnapping and threats of life: all ingredients in a drama from real life, in the middle of which stands the now 21 year old Nigerian football player John Obi Mikel. He is the main character in one of the most intricate cases of transfer of players in International football history, and his travel from Nigeria to Chelsea is described in a new book, Den Forsvunne Diamanten (“The lost Diamond”) by Norwegian Journalists Lars Backe Madsen and Jens M. Johansson.

In 2010, FIFA’s football World Cup will take place in Africa for the first time ever. All African nations have their hearts set on sending a team to South Africa, but over the past two weeks Kenya has come perilously close to losing the chance to qualify for the event after a group of  former football officials has tried to overthrow the leadership of the Kenyan Football Federation (KFF).

Each new day seems to bring a new twist to the drama of Kenyan football. Within the space of one short week, the High Court in Kenya has overturned the sports minister’s attempts to dissolve Kenya’s Football Federation (KFF) and the re-instated KFF officials have immediately moved to suspend the KFF president and fire the secretary general. Meanwhile the Munro Probe Committee does not appear to have begun its work.

South African athlete Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee, has successfully appealed against a ban imposed upon him by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled that there was insufficient scientific evidence available to ban Pistorius’s ‘Cheetah blades’ as technical aids, meaning he is eligible to compete against able-bodied athletes. However, his admission has stoked debate in paralympic sport over the appropriateness of Pistorius’s participation at the Olympics.