Claude LeRoy resigned as coach of Congo Brazzaville just hours after securing a place for the country in the final of qualifying for the World Cup. The 67-year-old Frenchman told officials directly after the Red Devils beat Ethiopia 2-1 in Brazzaville on Tuesday for a 6-4 overall victory. ” After two formidable years , I’ve decided to embark on another adventure,” he told local reporters. There is now speculation he could take over as Cameroon boss again. Volker Finke was sacked as coach of the Indomitable Lions before the recent World Cup qualifiers, when they beat Niger 3-0 on aggregate. Alexandre Belinga is currently the interim coach of Cameroon while the football association recruit a replacement. LeRoy has coached at a record eight African Nations Cup finals, including winning the tournament with Cameroon in 1988. He only once failed to reach the quarter-finals of the Nations Cup and took Congo to the last eight place at the tournament in Equatorial Guinea in January.

The Nigeria Football Federation has appealed passionately to kidnappers of the 72 –year old mother of U-23 National Team Head Coach, Samson Siasia, to release the old woman. On learning of the unfortunate incident on Tuesday morning, NFF President Amaju Pinnick was downcast. “This is quite disturbing. We are just preparing for a crucial 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying match, and the U-23 boys are already in The Gambia for a pre-Cup of Nations training camp. Why this? “All we can do is to appeal to the kidnappers to free Samson Siasia’s aged mother. Samson is on a critical national assignment presently and the last he needs is this kind of distraction.” The 72 –year old Mrs Ogere Siasia, according to Samson, was abducted in the village of Odoni, Bayelsa State by three men on motorbike. A distressed Siasia said his mother happened to be the only one at home in his village taking care of his father who is visually impaired.

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Swaziland’s hopes of reaching their first ever Fifa World Cup got dashed as they crashed 2-0 to Nigeria at the Adokiye Amesiamaka Stadium, Port Harcourt on Tuesday evening. A trade mark free-kick from Moses Simon and Efe Ambrose’s strike breezed aside Harris Bulunga’s side who had boasted about their chances of upstaging the Super Eagles before their home fans. The Super Eagles made their intent of winning known as early as the second minute when pressure on the visitor’s backline and got a corner kick unexploited by Simon. Nigeria pushed forward on their second attack of the game, patiently passing the ball around midway inside the Swaziland half of the pitch. They were unable to find a way through the sea of players camped in front of them, however, and Odion Ighalo ended up losing the ball on the right wing.

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The groups for 2016 African Nation Championships (CHAN) is out following the draw held in Kigali, Rwanda on Sunday. The home-based Super Eagles team will battle Tunisia, Guinea and Niger Republic in the group stages of the tournament to be held next year in Rwanda. CHAN is exclusively for home based players. Nigeria came second in the last event help in South Africa with Nigeria’s Ejike Uzoenyi winning the Golden Ball of the tournament as the best player.

The Full Draw:

Group A: Rwanda, Gabon, Morocco, Ivory Coast

Group B: DR Congo, Angola, Cameroon, Ethiopia

Group C: Tunisia, Nigeria, Niger, Guinea

Group D: Zimbabwe, Mali, Uganda, Zambia

The five candidates for the 2015 BBC African Footballer of the Year have been revealed during a special live launch broadcast in Johannesburg, South Africa. Algeria’s Yacine Brahimi, the 2014 winner, is on the shortlist along with Gabon’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Ghanaian Andre Ayew, Senegal’s Sadio Mane and Yaya Toure of Ivory Coast. The winner will be decided by African football fans, who have until 7pm Nigerian time on 30 November to vote for their choice. The winner will be announced on Friday, 11 December between 4:30 pm and 5pm during a special live broadcast on both BBC World News and BBC World Service, with the BBC Sport and BBC Africa websites also carrying the announcement.

Liberia’s Musa Bility has been ruled out as a candidate for the FIFA presidency following integrity checks. Football’s world governing body has approved five of the presidential candidates, with suspended Uefa boss Michel Platini also not included. The Frenchman could be added should his ban end before February’s election. Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa and Tokyo Sexwale have been approved. FIFA said it would not comment further on the reasons for Bility’s exclusion, which the 48-year-old president of the Liberian Football Association can challenge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The election is to find a successor to the suspended Sepp Blatter, who is under criminal investigation. The 79-year-old Swiss announced he would be stepping down in June, with world football’s governing body at the centre of a corruption scandal.

Players of the Super Eagles of Nigeria were captured on photos this morning as they departed Nigeria for Swaziland ahead of their World Cup qualifier match against Swaziland to be played tomorrow (Friday November 13th). They flew on Arik Air. The Super Eagles had been camping and training in Abuja ahead of the game. The return leg will be played in Port Harcourt, Nigeria on Tuesday 17th November, 2015. Goof luck to them.

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AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli may require surgery on a troublesome groin injury. The 25-year-old, who has made only four appearances since re-joining Milan on loan from Liverpool earlier this season, has been sidelined for over a month with the problem and travelled to Denmark on Monday for a consultation with a leading specialist. AC Milan said in a statement: “The medical staff of AC Milan and Liverpool FC will soon agree on which treatment the player will undergo.”

French triathlete Laurent Vidal has died of a heart attack, aged 31. Vidal competed at two Olympics, finishing fifth at London 2012. He retired suddenly in April last year after suffering a cardiopulmonary arrest during a swimming training session, but recovered after being placed in an induced coma. World Triathlon confirmed the news on Tuesday, tweeting:  “We are terribly saddened to hear of the passing of Laurent Vidal. He touched us all.”

The Moscow Antidoping Center has had its accreditation suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The move was one of the key suggestions of a WADA commission report examining allegations of doping, cover-ups, and extortion in Russian athletics. The ban, which takes immediate effect, prohibits the centre from carrying out any WADA-related anti-doping activity. The centre may appeal against the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days of receipt of notice. “The Moscow laboratory is provisionally suspended, and the status of the laboratory’s accreditation beyond that will be decided by a disciplinary committee which will be formed shortly to review the case,” WADA president Sir Craig Reedie said. In WADA’s independent commission report, which was published on Monday, officials from the Moscow laboratory were accused of intentionally and maliciously destroying more than 1,400 samples after receiving written notification from the anti-doping organisation to preserve target samples. The report also advocated the permanent removal of the laboratory’s director Grigory Rodchenkov, whom it accuses of asking for and accepting bribes and intentionally destroying samples he was told to keep. Following the closure of the laboratory, all samples will be transported to an alternative WADA-accredited facility.

The president of the German Football Association (DFB) has resigned over a FIFA payment that has resulted in a tax evasion investigation. Wolfgang Niersbach said he was taking “political responsibility” for a 6.7m euro (£4.9m) payment to FIFA. The sum was allegedly used to bribe officials of world football’s governing body to vote for Germany’s 2006 World Cup bid. Niersbach said he always worked “cleanly, confidently and correctly”. On 3 November police in Frankfurt raided the headquarters of the German Football Association over allegations of tax evasion linked to the 2006 World Cup. The DFB denied the claims last month. “I was involved in the bid for the 2006 World Cup from day one until the final documentation of the summer fairy tale was submitted,” Niersbach said.  “I would like to make it clear unmistakably once again that I had absolutely no knowledge of the background of the flow of payments that are being looked into.” The homes of Niersbach, his predecessor Theo Zwanziger, and former Secretary General Horst Schmid, were also searched. In a statement, the prosecutor’s office said it had opened a probe into claims of serious tax evasion linked to the awarding of the World Cup to Germany in 2006.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has proven to be the best player from Sweden. The Paris St-Germain striker has won a record 10th Guldbollen  (Golden Ball), the award given to the best male footballer in his home country. It is the ninth year in a row that Ibrahimovic has lifted the award. He won it for the first time in 2005, and has won it every year since former Arsenal midfielder Fredrik Ljungberg triumphed in 2006. No other player has won the award more than twice. This year Ibrahimovic won a historic French domestic treble, reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and became PSG’s all-time record scorer. 

David Moyes has been sacked as manager of Real Sociedad. Moyes’ assistant Billy McKinlay has also been dismissed. A statement on the website of the La Liga club reads: “We want to thank both David Moyes and Billy McKinlay for the entire contribution, professionalism and dedication they have shown during the course of their duties in the direction of the first team. “We wish them the best for their professional and personal future.” David Moyes’ Real Sociedad team are marooned near the bottom of La Liga. They are above the relegation zone on goal difference and a limp performance in Friday’s 2-0 defeat against lowly Las Palmas left the Scot;s future in serious doubt. Moyes’s potential departure has been a slow burning story for the last few weeks, but in the last couple of days it has started to accelerate quickly. Sociedad, known throughout Spain as ‘La Real’, made a poor start to the season, winning just twice (both away from home) and have nine points from their opening 11 games.

Russia’s sport minister, Vitaly Mutko, has denied all allegations, while the RusAthletics, the Russian track and field federation, has accused WADA of circumventing established protocols for dealing with doping. “Any suspension should be discussed at the meeting of the IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] in November,” the acting head of RusAthletics, Vadim Zelechenok, told R-Sport channel. “It should be proven that any violations were the fault of the federation and not individual sportspeople. We should be given a chance to clear our names.”

IAAF president Sebastian Coe is to seek approval for sanctions against Russia in the light of the doping allegations in the Wada Independent Commission report. “The information in Wada’s Independent Commissions Report is alarming. We need time to properly digest and understand the detailed findings included in the report. “However, I have urged the IAAF Council to start the process of considering sanctions against Araf (Russian Athletics Federation). This step has not been taken lightly. “Our athletes, partners and fans have my total assurance that where there are failures in our governance or our anti-doping programmes we will fix them. “We will do whatever it takes to protect the clean athletes and rebuild trust in our sport. The IAAF will continue to offer the police authorities our full co-operation into their ongoing investigation.”

Swansea City have parted company with Spanish forward Michu by mutual consent. Both parties have reached a financial agreement over the remainder of the 29-year-old’s contract, which ran until the end of this season, and he will now become a free agent. Michu, who joined from Rayo Vallecano in July 2012, scored 28 goals in 67 appearances for the Swans.

International police body Interpol has said it will coordinate a French-led global investigation into doping allegations in athletics. The body announced the news at the same time as a team of investigators for the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended disciplinary action against Russia. Last week, French prosecutors accused the sport’s governing body’s ex-president Lamine Diack of being involved. He is alleged to have taken bribes to cover up doping cases.

Patrick Vieira has signed a three-year contract at New York City and begins work in the Big Apple on 1 January. “I am delighted to take up the role of head coach,” said the Frenchman. “To work with this squad, with (sporting director) Claudio Reyna and Rob Vartughian and the fantastic support team that is in place, is an exciting prospect for any coach. “This established football set up, together with a passionate and loyal fan base – located in a special city which I know well – makes for an unparalleled opportunity that I am delighted to seize with both hands. I cannot wait to get started.”

The World Anti Doping Agency have said that Russia should be suspended from competition until improved measures are taken. They’ve also accused the Russian government of ‘direct intimidation’ over their Moscow doping lab, which they say should lose its accreditation. A further recommendation says that 5 athletes and 5 coaches should be given lifetime doping bans.

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The International Olympics Committee have recommended that former IAAF president Lamine Diack should be provisionally suspended as an honorary member. This is as a result of findings of an independent report into claims of doping, cover-ups, and extortion in Russian athletics. The  independent commission was set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The 82-year old from Senegal is accused of being complicit in a cover-up of doping by Russian athletes. French police confirmed that he is under investigation for allegedly receiving more than 1 million euros to cover up doping.  His son Papa Massata Diack, advisor Habib Cisse and the former IAAF anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle are also being investigated by French police.