Football authorities, from Fifa to the FA, are keen to argue that the sport is a benign force, an agent of positive social transformation even. They portray football as the universal game for a global world, an instrument of soft power and peaceful diplomacy and a device for overcoming social divisions.

The English outcry at FIFA's decision to award the World Cup to Russia and Qatar has obscured what might be a brilliant gesture of goodwill.

This week, we're profiling the Young Global Leaders attending the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Food, water, medicine, shelter. For most international children's advocates, these items are high on the list of urgent post-conflict aid. For Johann Koss, Founder of Right To Play International, sneakers and soccer balls top the list.

Brazil's World Cup football stars are among players from the five-time world champion nation that have been approached and shown interest in visiting Kenya in March to launch a trade and cultural exchange between the two countries. Cafu, Brazil's most-capped player and a double World Cup winner, and Junior Baiano could be guests at the March 22-26 First Brazil in Eastern Africa Expo that will highlight several aspects of Brazilian trade, commerce, culture and sport.

Afghan air force airmen and NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan advisers delivered more than 3,600 pounds of humanitarian aid to Bamyan province Dec. 23.

Few may know that the game known to some as football and to others as soccer was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. The nomination letter by Swedish politician Lars Gustafsson observed that sports - of which football was "the greatest sport of all" - play a valuable role in international relations by enhancing "the understanding between people of different races and religions in different countries."

For most Qataris, the world's most watched sporting event represents a chance to offer a new image of their homeland and the wider Middle East. "This is not just for Qatar, but for the whole region," Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, wife of the country's ruler, told Reuters in an interview.

Every town in every country in Africa is home to at least one makeshift soccer field, the game is more than just a sport, it is part of daily life. In the lead up to the World Cup, photographers traveled from Egypt to Kenya, Nigeria to Ghana, capturing soccer lovers around the continent.