February 18 – Former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, now FIFA’s head of global development, is pushing for the offside rule to be tweaked in time for this summer’s Euro 2020 finals in response to a spate of VAR controversies this season.
February 19 – Morocco has become the first African country to use VAR in a top-flight league game.
February 19 – Tottenham Hotspur’s South Korean international forward Son Heung-min has fractured his arm and could miss the rest of the season, a crushing blow to last season’s Champions League finalists who are already without long-term injury victim Harry Kane.
February 18 – Another Premier League fixture, another headline-making VAR controversy, this time in favour of Manchester United after not one, but two Chelsea ‘goals’ were ruled out in Monday’s high-profile clash in the race for the top four.
February 12 – In what is surely one of the shortest high-profile managerial stints on record, former German national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann has stepped down as Hertha Berlin’s interim head coach after just 10 weeks in charge citing a lack of support and trust.
February 10 – The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system is not being used properly in some countries according to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
February 7 – The names of neither Barcelona nor Real Madrid will be on the Copa del Rey this season after both were sensationally knocked out of the Spanish cup at the quarterfinal stage.
February 6 – The English Football Association is to introduce new guidelines limiting the amount of heading children will be allowed to do in training.
February 6 – Lionel Messi has criticised Barcelona sporting director Eric Abidal over an interview in which the Frenchman criticised Barcelona players for not working hard.
February 5 – The English Premier League has vowed to improve the standards of VAR after a plethora of baffling and inconsistent decisions throughout the season.
February 4 – Parma’s Dejan Kulusevski (pictured on loan from Juventus) tops the table of most playing time for big-5 league players born in the 2000s. The young forward has played in 95% of Parma’s games and is followed in the table by another Italian club player, midfielder Sandro Tonali (Brescia).
January 30 – Forget the US women superstars, it is Canada’s Christine Sinclair’s name will now be etched into the record books. On Wednesday, the Canadian striker scored twice in a 11-0 win over Saint Kitts and Nevis in Olympic qualifying to become the all-time top scorer in international football, surpassing previous record holder Abby Wambach of the United States.
January 29 – ‘Clinical’ is a word often used by commentators about teams that make the most of their goal chances to win games. The CIES Football Observatory have translated that basic observation into a data model that measures team efficiency.
January 21 – A ranking of teams by the number of fouls committed per game see Liverpool leading the way as the team with the least fouls per match so far this season (8.1).
January 17 – England and Tottenham Hotspur have been dealt a potentially massive blow after a leading orthopaedic surgeon predicted Harry Kane will miss not just the rest of the season but also Euro 2020 in the summer.