Mourinho plays the Covid card as Spurs open with loss to Everton
September 14 – Tottenham Hotspur boss Jose Mourinho has revealed that a number of the club’s players caught Covid-19 during the summer.
Everton renews deal with Fratelli Beretta
September 14 – Everton, riding high from their weekend opening season win over Spurs, have more cause to be positive having extended their partnership with Italian food giant Fratelli Beretta.
Online gambler picks up Leicester City deal as it readies a UK site launch
September 14 – Premier League Leicester City have agreed online betting firm Parimatch to become the club’s First Team Training Wear Partner and Betting Partner.
Liverpool open new EPL season but Manchester and London big guns have them in their sights
By Andrew Warshaw
September 11 – Having won their first English league title for 30 long and painful years, Liverpool kick off the defence of their crown this weekend as they attempt to disprove the old adage that it’s harder to win it second time round.
AFC hangs on to 2020 Champions League but cancels AFC Cup, Futsal and youth comps
September 11 – The AFC Cup, Asia’s second-tier club competition, has been cancelled for 2020. The AFC Solidarity Cup and the AFC Futsal Club Championship will also not take place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
FIFA’s TV rights deals back in the dock: Valcke and Al-Khelaïfi hearing next week
September 11 – First Bern, now Bellinzona. Following the recent court appearances in Switzerland of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini over that infamous CHF 2 million “disloyal payment”, it’s the turn of two other high-profile footballing figures on Monday to have their cases heard.
One league Barca are winning easily
September 11 – Barcelona have become the first football club to break the 10 million YouTube subscriber mark. The NBA (14.7million) is the only sports channel that has more followers.
UEFA report highlights Premier League clubs top academy spends with €6.1m a year
September 11 – European top-flight clubs have invested €870 million for youth development in 2020, according to a study by UEFA. With an average of €6.1 million per club, the Premier League clubs top the list.
Coronavirus: CAF pushes Champions League final rounds back into November
September 11 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has pushed back the final of the African Champions League, the Continent’s showpiece fixture, by three weeks to November 6.
Covid leveller: Depleted PSG start season with a loss to Lens
September 11 – A depleted Paris St-Germain, rocked by an outbreak of Covid-19 that ripped through the heart of the squad, kicked off their season in the worst possible fashion on Thursday as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at newly-promoted Lens.
Red for danger. Report finds a nation’s homicide rates statistically correlate to card-happy refs
September 11 – Referees in South America are more card-happy than anywhere else in the world, handing out on average 5.83 cards per match. In Asia the refs average 4 cards a match, according to a survey of 87 divisions worldwide.
Milka-ing it: Mondelēz agrees Bundesliga partnership to start 2021
September 11 – US confectionary giant Mondelēz International has continued to spend its European marketing dollars on football with the announcement that it will become an official partner of Germany’s Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
Coronavirus spike: English club fears grow as government reviews fan return dates
September 10 – News of tough new coronavirus measures that make it illegal to socialise in groups of more than six in England, have sent financial shockwaves through the country’s professional clubs who fear that the return of fans to stadiums could be delayed beyond the planned October 1 date.
Saudi Arabia raises the bar with launch of bid for 2027 AFC Asian Cup
By Paul Nicholson
September 10 – Saudi Arabia officially launched their bid to host the 2027 Asian Cup last night at 20.27 with a digital roll out that saw projections of the bid logo and slogan around the country and in international media.
Flamengo cover-up: emails show club knew of dangers that killed 10 youth players
By Samindra Kunti
September 10 – Flamengo must bear responsibility for the fire that killed ten youth players at their training complex last year, according to Rio de Janeiro’s public prosecutor following the emergence of a series of damning e-mails that showed the club were aware of the safety issues.