Football Notes: Polish Club Legia Warsaw Sacks Official Over Clerical Error

Polish club Legia Warsaw has "dismissed the administrator considered responsible for the clerical error" which allowed Scottish Premiership side Celtic back into the Champions League. Marta Ostrowska was "identified as the official who failed to acknowledge that Bartosz Bereszynski was still suspended." It was an oversight which has cost Legia up to £20M ($33M) of Champions League money (HERALD SCOTLAND, 8/21). ... A fan of Brasileiro side Palmeiras who "was violently attacked on Sunday" by fans of league rival Corinthians died on Thursday at a Sao Paulo hospital. Gilberto Torres Pereira, 31, had been "in critical condition for four days" (EFE, 8/21). ... The start of Israel's Premier League season scheduled for this weekend was "postponed on Thursday as a result of the ongoing security situation." The '14-15 season was to begin on Saturday. However, following the "resumption of the rocket fire on Wednesday, the IDF’s Home Front Command updated its guidelines and announced that in locations" within a range of 40-80km of the Gaza border, "gatherings of 1,000 people or more are not to take place in open areas" (JERUSALEM POST, 8/21).

ON-FIELD ACTION: England Manager Roy Hodgson believes his country's young players would "benefit from playing regular first-team football abroad." He said that "more than half" of the players he selects are "not guaranteed a starting place at their English clubs." Hodgson added that he would prefer English players to "appear for good teams abroad rather than 'warming the bench' in the Premier League" (BBC, 8/21). ... Arsenal football schools, already launched in Delhi and Mumbai, will "soon kick off" in Kerala, India.

Sportico Ventures, a Kochi-based grassroots football development start-up, has "teamed up" with Arsenal partner India On Track to bring the schools to the state (PTI, 8/20).