By Paul Nicholson
May 11 – At the end of a season of unprecedented turmoil and allegations of corruption that have pointed to matchfixing and match manipulation within the highest administrative levels of the Greek game, the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) have finally decided to fly in a non-Greek referee for the final match of its season.
May 11 – Outgoing Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says the introduction of a European super league, resisted for years by football’s authorities, is “inevitable” and says Premier League matches will ultimately be moved to midweek.
May 8 – Goodwill messages are continuing to pour in for Sir Alex Ferguson, one of world football’s most iconic managerial figures who is recovering in hospital after undergoing emergency surgery for a brain haemorrhage.
By David Owen
May 8 – All cup competitions produce shock results, but the century-old Coupe de France must be in a league of its own.
May 4 – In what must be virtually a unique scenario, Besiktas kept their word on Thursday and failed to turn up for the controversial resumption of their abandoned Turkish Cup semi-final second leg at Fenerbahce.
May 2 – Safe standing areas in the top two divisions in English football is to be debated in Parliament on June 25 after a petition to have the matter discussed reached 100,000 signatures last week.
By David Owen
May 1 – Nuri Şahin has struck a blow for footballer-intellectuals, gaining admittance to the uber-prestigious Harvard Business School in the United States.
April 27 – The Turkish Football Federation have announced that the remainder of the Turkish Cup semifinal, abandoned because of crowd trouble by Fenerbahce fans, will take place on May 3 behind closed doors – but Besiktas say they will refuse to turn up.
April 27 – UEFA, which has recently unbundled its women’s competition rights from its men’s competitions, has issued a tender for the supply of the Official Match Ball and Lifestyle Partner for the 2018-21 cycle of women’s competitions.
April 24 – They may have been second to the punch in terms of submitting their bid book to host the 2024 European Championship finals but Turkey hope they will be first when the vote takes place in September.
April 26 – A petition calling for English Premier League and Championship clubs to be allowed to have limited standing areas at their stadiums has been signed by 100,000 people, the threshold that means it will now be considered for debate by parliamentarians.
April 25 – Greek football, consistently in turmoil on and off the pitch, has been plunged into yet more ignominy with the country’s oldest and most revered club Panathinaikos banned from European competition for a year for failing to pay their debts, with the sanction covering the next three seasons.
April 25 – Violence before the Liverpool-Roma Champions League semi-final clash at Anfield has left a 53-year-old male Liverpool fan in critical condition in hospital.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 24 – With so much focus concentrated on the narrative over the 2026 World Cup vote, it may have been forgotten that there is another battle going on to stage the European Championship finals two years earlier.
April 24 – When Juventus and Napoli met in an all-important fixture at the top of Serie A last weekend, television viewers worldwide may have wondered why both sets of players had red stripes on their faces.