Congratulations to the leading figures in world football who will be celebrating their birthdays in March 2008:
FIFA Honorary Member Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder
will be 75 on 3 March
FIFA Honorary Member Charles J. Dempsey
will be 86 on 4 March
FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter
will be 72 on 10 March
FIFA Honorary Member Poul Hyldgaard
will be 79 on 19 March
FIFA Honorary Member
Dr Ferdinand Hidalgo Rojas
will be 79 on 27 March
Zoran Avramovic, the president of the Belgrade-based Football Friends foundation and director of Red Star Belgrade’s sports marketing agency, received a great honour at the 8:” Annual North-South Europe Economic Forum in the Montenegrin city of Budva on 25-26 October 2007 when his work in reconciling Serbs and Muslims in Srebenica was rewarded with a diploma. Avramovic was commended for his work with Football Friends to show that religious and ethnic differences can be overcome through the medium of spor: if people are committed, patient, visionary and determined. The award ceremony was also attended by Thomas Bach, president of the German Olympic Sports Federation and member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jurgen Gramke, chairman of the Institute for European Affairs (INEA), and Jerome Champagne, of international relations at FIFA.
If they qualify for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament (8-24 August 2008}, the USA will be without their most influential player as Kristine Lilly, who has the most international caps in the women’s game, is due to give birth in July and has therefore decided to hang up her boots, at least for the time being. “I’m not closing any doors as far as soccer is concerned. But for now, I’m focusing on becoming a mom for the first time,” explained Lilly in a recent interview with an American newspaper. Nobody has played more international games, in either men’s or women’s football, than Lilly, 36, who has scored 129 goals in 340 matches. She has also been a key figure in all eight USA teams to have played in a Women’s Olympic Football Tournament or a FIFA Women’s World Cup Back home, Lilly – a native of Wilton, Connecticut – enjoys heroine status having won the FIFA Women’s World Cup twice (1991 and 1999), two Olympic gold medals (1996 and 2004) as well as an Olympic silver medal (2000).