By David Owen
September 20 – Tottenham Hotspur, nowadays the top football club in North London, has closed its refinancing of the £637 million bank loan put in place to support the construction of its gleaming new stadium.
September 20 – Days after the lawyer representing Rui Pinto, whose string of incriminating leaks shook the footballing world before he was controversially extradited from Hungary to his native Portugal, denounced the Portuguese authorities for holding his client without charge, over 100 charges have been brought against the hacker-cum-whistleblower.
By Samindra Kunti
September 20 – Former Anderlecht general manager Herman Van Holsbeeck has been charged with money laundering, forgery and criminal conspiracy for his alleged role in transfer fraud.
September 20 – Incidents of hate crime at football matches in England and Wales rose by 47% last season, according to new government figures.
September 20 – Guus Hiddink and the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have parted ways, with Hao Wei now appointed to succeed the Dutchman at the helm of the U-23 team.
September 20 – Sports law association Rex Sport has opened its Master in International Sports Law programme for applications for the 2020 academic year. The one-year course is run in conjunction with the CEU IAM Business School in Spain.
September 19 – The new Saudi owner of English Premier League club Sheffield United says he would happily do business with the family of Osama Bin Laden to bring fresh investment into the club.
September 20 – The rapid rise of the women’s game and the profile of the Women’s World Cup has prompted the UK government to call for a number of top tier women’s events to be added to the country’s ‘listed’ sports events that must be broadcast in free-to-air television.
September 20 – Former Premier League and Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry is set to be appointed as the English Football League’s new chairman.
September 20 – On Tuesday the UEFA Champions League kicked off in a fluorescent blaze of orange and yellows with a new adidas ball. Last night it was the turn of Japanese manufacturer Molten to launch its 2019/20 ball into the Europe League competition.
By Paul Nicholson
September 19 – Doubts have been raised over the integrity of the Nigerian government investigation into Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president Amaju Pinnick that has seen property reportedly seized, including his home in Park View Estate, in the Ikoyi suburb of Lagos.
Mr Justice Fancourt’s 138-page judgment in the recent High Court battle over Sheffield United offers a fascinating insight into the business affairs of a venerable but otherwise fairly ordinary English professional club over a six-year period in the early part of the 21st century. I would recommend any serious student of the football industry taking an hour or two to skim through it.
September 19 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has finally been pressured into personally reacting to Iran’s ban on women attending men’s football following the grotesque tragedy of a female fan dying after setting fire to herself.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 18 – French authorities are scrapping the country’s League Cup after this season, leaving England as the only major European footballing nation with two domestic knockout competitions.
September 19 – New research conducted by Amnesty International suggests migrant workers in Qatar continue to be mistreated despite promises to improve their rights ahead of the 2022 World Cup.