By Paul Nicholson
February 1 – Premier League clubs may have dominated their lower league opponents in the FA Cup knockout this weekend, but their presence in the fourth round did deliver some much needed cash through the gates for their challengers.
By Paul Nicholson
January 29 – FIFA presidential candidate Shaikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa has delivered a hard hitting rebuke to the financial proposals of some of his rivals saying that their campaign promises could never be delivered out of current FIFA funds and that if they tried to, they would bankrupt the world governing body over the next four-year cycle.
By Samindra Kunti
January 29 – Last wednesday a new club competition the ‘Primeira Liga’ got underway in Brazil. The tournament doesn’t represent Brazil’s very own 1992 breakaway Premier League moment, but could be an important milestone in the development of the domestic game.
When candidates of opposition political parties in US and British elections, and in many other countries for that matter, want to convince the voting public that they are best person for the job, they frequently go head-to-head on television as an important way of their getting their messages across. So what’s so precious about football?
By Mark Baber
January 29 – Nike is believed to be reviewing its partnership with the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), although details of why this is happening is unclear, with Nigerian media widely blaming review on the bad run of results by the men’s national team.
January 29 – FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne had a public spat with the head of the French federation over who to back at the election next month, according to local reports.
January 29 – With Europe’s giant clubs generally focusing on expansion opportunities in developing football markets like Asia and the US, Premier League Liverpool has turned their attention closer to home with the launch of club websites and online stores in French and Spanish.
By David Owen
January 29 – Italy’s Internazionale has agreed a deal for Le Sports, the former LeTV, to become the exclusive broadcast partner for the club’s TV channel in mainland China.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 29 – Four of the five candidates for the FIFA presidency are heading to Qatar for weekend meetings, with one of them, South African Tokyo Sexwale, suggesting the horse-trading and unofficial election pacts are in full swing ahead of the February 26 ballot even though all of the contenders are keeping any election deals firmly under wraps.
January 29 – Start-up Dutch firm SciSports has raised €1.35 million to develop its BallJames three-dimensional pixel technology that is used to enhance football data analysis.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 29 – Gianni Infantino appears to have stolen a march on his rival candidates for the FIFA presidency by gaining the support of South American federations who comprise 10 of the 209 voting countries.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 29 – Swiss prosecutors say they have been given crucial information by a whisteblower in the criminal investigation of suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter – and into FIFA itself.
January 29 – English football’s outspoken chairman Greg Dyke will not seek re-election when his current term ends in June because of a battle over proposed reforms.
January 28 – Premier League commercial giant Manchester United has announced a new partnerhip in drinks brank YOU.C1000, which becomes the club’s Official Isotonic Drinks Partner in Indonesia.
January 28 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has beefed up its agreement with betting fraud prevention and detection specialists Sportradar, singing a two-year deal that will increase the number of games monitored to more than 4,500, a huge increase on the 300 games in the previous deal.