It appears that Sepp Blatter will have an easier time in his campaigns and elections for the FIFA presidential election which is set to be held in May the 20^th. Luis Figo joined Michael Praag in stepping down as candidates and potential opponents to Sepp who has been on the position for quite some time now.

The former Portugal midfielder pulled out the very day Van Praag 67 years of age. This now leaves Blatter with one opponent, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan. Blatter will be on the seat for his fifth term if he wins and Figo said that the election is just like any other. He however said that he declined the race on his personal terms as the process entitles absolute power to one man something that he was not comfortable with.

The election process involves the president of the federation being voted by 209 Fifa association members and after his withdrawal from the race Van Praag declared his support for Prince Ali. Van Praag holds the presidential position in the Dutch Football Association. Ali is seemingly having support from the English Football Association and this would therefore mean the Scottish F.A would have his back as well as they had declared support for Van Praag.

Van Praag assured his support for Prince Ali in a joint news conference that was held in Amsterdam on Thursday. He urged his supporters to back Prince Ali saying that Prince Ali had proved beyond doubt that he was the right man to take the seat and challenge Blatter who has been the President since 1998.

In his withdrawal statement Figo said it was important to embrace change in the presidency of the federation. He added that through his vast travelling and experience he had seen how the federation had done a lot but it was important for the leadership to change to clear the federation of all the corruption allegation linked to it by changing the presidential candidate.

Figo went ahead to question to Blatter’s candidacy saying that he had not yet presented his manifesto so as for the members to know what type of leadership they were voting in. He added that Blatter had not participated in any public debate and neither has any other candidate.

This withdrawals comes among others this year including Jerome Champagne from France who pulled out in February, David Ginola who also pulled out two weeks after he announced that he was ready to challenge Blatter.

After the cruelty in greyhound racing was exposed, one Australian lawmaker has stepped in to push for a ban of this game in New South Wales (NSW).

At the beginning of this year, there was a show on Australian Broadcasting Corporation that showed cruelty in the greyhound racing industry. It exposed the use of live animals as bait while training the greyhounds. This was an undercover task that was carried out by the Animals Australia and Animal Queensland.

The process involved in training the greyhounds entailed the use of live possums, piglets and rabbits that were tied on lures that would spin round the track as the greyhounds chased them. The dogs were provoked and bring them to lead ups in the race. There were pretty many saddening images of these animals being tortured, as well as kittens being used in the training of the greyhounds.

This investigation triggered a lot of public outrage and action is to be taken on people who are involved in the training. Many of these people involved are prominent people in the industry despite the fact that officials said that they do not tolerate such actions in the industry.

Among those implicated with the charges include a high ranking professional trainer, greyhound racing club president, a former steward who is the president of a peak body and a prolific trainer of greyhounds Australia.

What topped this investigation is the unearthing of a mass grave that has about 55 bodies of greyhounds in Queensland that are believed to have been killed before the investigation was aired. Greens MP John Kaye has come forward on behalf of the greyhounds and animals that were used in legislation to bring down the industry on concerns that there will be no regulations that will make this kind of inhumane acts to stop. He said that the greyhound racing industry will always bring animal cruelty as long as it involves gambling and profits.

This new Greyhound Racing Prohibition Bill 2015 will cease greyhound racing in New South Wales (NSW) by January 2016. It will also dissolve its regulatory body and offer all its assets to the Minister for racing in a venture to rehabilitate and re-home all dogs that were affected.

Owners of the NFL teams just summed up a spring meeting that could be termed as hectic. Los Angeles was the main agenda; other agenda was future super bowls, altered extra points, deflated footballs and international games.

From the meeting discussions, looks like NFL will be heading to LA as soon as 2016. The question that lies is which teams will make it there and which of the two stadiums will be used. This plans seem to be far from now but one thing that the members in the meeting are sure about would be that there will be an NFL team in LA in a couple of years.

According to the NFL Vice President, team owners will approve of a franchise to Los Angeles before the year comes to an end of the year. For a chance to be the franchise owner applications are open from Jan 1^st but it might be moved to late in the upcoming season. The 32 owners from the meeting will later vote on the relocating team. The VP also added that discussions are underway on moving one or two team if there are no acceptable projects that will come together in the present markets. Currently, in Carson, California, Oakland and Diego are on a project while Rams’ have their project in Inglewood.

For the team that ends up in LA, they will use one of the two already existing stadiums before a new one is built. The NFL pointed out that if a stadium in Los Angeles is built by 2018, they would potential candidates in being hosts of the super bowl. New contenders of the 2019 and 2020 games are South Florida, New Orleans, Atlanta and Tampa.

On the balls deflation saga, Goodell said that he looks forward to hearing on Tom Brady’s appeal which is expected to take place next week. Brady faces a four game suspension. Goodell pointed out that it’s his duty to see that the game’s integrity is protected, the game’s policies, as well as, the procedures.

Brady was suspended by the executive vice president to NFL citing that his lack of cooperation in sharing his phone records was rude thus the harsh punishment. Goodell says it would be a pleasure to see the records during the appeal and that they would play role in lowering the suspension for Brady.

The Eurovision contest of 2015 is here with us. The contest started yesterday on BBC Three. The first semi-final of Eurovision started with 16 acts which performed live from the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria. The second Semi-final will be on Thursday, 21^st May and will feature 17 acts while the final will be held on Saturday 23^rd May, 2015.

This Eurovision content will trigger a lot of exciting predictions, wild guesses and estimations. Experts and online betting sites are doing their best to give bettors accurate odds on who the will walk home with the crown.

Betting on Eurovision

In the past years, Eurovision has emerged as one of the biggest events in online betting. Bettors from all over the world are placing their bets on a range of betting markets. A good bookie you can place your bets on would be William Hill Sports where you will be in a position to place bets on top 10 finishing acts, top UK points, semi-finals, other region resolutions and Who’ll get the Nul Points.

This year, there are 5 top favourites who are believed to have the highest chances of finishing as winners. These countries are Australia, Sweden, Italy, Russia and Estonia. This conclusion is made from the odds presented at the Eurovision specials on William Hill sports.

Read an article about how to win money in the Eurovision song contest by the telegraph.

Favourites

Outright to the winner market, Sweden took the lead in the charts with 7/4 for Mans Zelmerlow “Heroes” and Italy represented by Grande Amore was close with 3/1 with the pop opera act II Volo. Australia has 6/1 with Tonight Again, following suit was Russia with 7/1 with A million Voices and Estonis had odds of 8/1 with Goodbye to Yesterday.

Russia still stood strong with the show on 18^th May with 5/6, Estonia had 3/1 and Finland was in third place with 10/1 with an act that was composed for people with disability. The question would be whether Russia will have a smooth sail to the finals or they will be challenged by Finland.

Get to your favourite bookie, keep track of the event and study the odds wisely for a smart bet.

On 18^th May, 2015, police in Italy made arrests of dozens of lower league footballers and officials of the clubs after a probe into being suspects of betting on matches that were linked to a crime group known as Ndrangheta. Mafia network’s prosecutors of Calabria gave out arrest warrants for the arrests of 50 people from different parts of Italy. 30 more are under investigation in an inquiry labelled Dirty Soccer.

This investigation is focused on matches in this season and has involved clubs in Lega Pro and Serie D; which are the third and fourth tiers of Italian football. This emerges as the latest in a series of betting and other scandals that have been used to demean the reputation of football in Italy. The worst thing is that it involves Italy’s biggest clubs and footballers.

The investigators also brought to light evidence of attempts or actual match fixing which was related to betting in 1980 and 1986. These two incidences are known to have been the main reasons for Paolo Rossi’s ban for three years. This ban was later lowered to two years after an appeal where Rossi resumed playing and he played a major role in taking Italy to the World Cup in 1982.

Another major investigation was carried out in 2006 and it saw Juventus relegated after the investigation revealed the corruption of referees. There was also a new scandal that was performed which focused on betting on minor details in matches and not on the results. This was an investigation done in 2011.

Let’s wait and see what these new investigations on dirty soccer will lead to.

Proper football betting tips

To avoid such incidences in about dirty soccer, you could use safe and legal betting strategies to earn you good returns.

• Have a bet target prior to placing the bet to know how much you will be expecting back
• Learn that betting is not a get rich quick venture
• Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed (SMART) bets
• Define your budget and do not go over what you have allocated to your betting
• Learn the different types of bets available in soccer betting and analyze the matches to bet on the one you find fit