The EU Commission now invites everyone to fill in a survey about the kind of involvement EU should have with sport in the future. The commission stresses that the survey is open to all individuals and not just sports organisations.

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.

Athletes in former communist Czechoslovakia were subjected to a secret state-controlled doping programme with grave consequences for their health. In contrast to the situation in the former East Germany, however, the Czechoslovakian programme has not been described in any detail yet but a report is expected in 2007.

Iran did not do very well at the recent World Cup in football, so Iran’s government promptly decided to fire the football federation’s president and the entire board and install another president. Now FIFA has responded by banning Iran from international competitions.

Ministers of sport from 49 European countries want to set up a new body under the auspices of the Council of Europe to strengthen European policymaking in the area of sport. As something new, the new body will also be open to international sports federations and sports NGOs.

The International Associations of Athletics Federation (IAAF) uses powerful weapons in an attempt to stop political interference. IAAF has barred Algerian track and field athletes from all international competitions after Algeria’s athletic federation was dissolved by the country’s Minister of sport, Yahia Guidoum, in September.

Affairs in Kenyan football went from grotesque to tragic today when Kenyan minister of sport, Maina Kamanda, made the decision to dissolve Kenya’s Football Federation and at the same time deport one of the federation’s strongest and most enterprising critics, the Canadian born sports entrepreneur Bob Munro.

Nearly 17 years after the collapse of the communist regime in Romania, the files of Romania’s dreaded secret police, Securitate, are being opened. A commission will examine the files of politicians, journalists and the clergy but Romanian president Traian Basescu also wants the files of athletes to be declassified and opened to public scrutiny.