February 18 – Olympique de Marseille president Jacques-Henri Eyraud (pictured) has said Ligue 1 is “no longer sustainable” and should shrink to confront a post-coronavirus reality.
February 18 – Serie A’s €1.7 billion private equity deal for a 10% stake in the league’s newly created media business looks to have been scuppered.
February 18 – Barcelona presidential candidate Joan Laporta has vowed to do all he can to keep Lionel Messi at the club despite another humiliating night in the Champions League.
February 18 – The 2020-21 edition of the UEFA Youth League – a youth version of the Champions League – has been cancelled due to the difficulties in staging the competition caused by Covid-19 travel restrictions.
February 18 – Ligue 1’s AS Monaco will become the first French club to launch on Japan’s Line social media platform when the club face Paris Saint-Germain this Sunday.
February 17 – With politicking in the election of a new president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) in full flow, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has begun a tour of African nations with Mauritania his first stop.
February 17 – Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola fears next month’s international break could reap Covid chaos on elite clubs but says he will not stop his players from travelling abroad.
February 17 – Swiss prosecutors are appealing the acquittal of Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi (pictured) on accusations of aggravated criminal mismanagement regarding the allocation of World Cup TV rights.
February 17 – Ukraine’s appeal against UEFA’s decision to award Switzerland a 3-0 Nations League walkover win in November as a result of positive Covid-19 tests in the Ukrainian camp has been heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). But there is no update on any verdict.
February 17 – A new statistical model calculating the number of points clubs will have at the end of the season is predicting that the domestic long reigns of Juventus, PSG and Barca/Real Madrid will be over this season.
February 17 – Paris Saint-Germain stormed past FC Barcelona with a brilliant Kylian Mbappé hat-trick in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at the Nou Camp to knock the Catalans all but out of the competition.
February 17 – Barcelona and Beko have extended their partnership by a year, but the parties have dropped the sleeve sponsorship rights in a re-worked sponsorship agreement.
February 17 – Players squaring up angrily and just stopping short of a headbutt is nothing new in football but it rarely centres on the referee.
By Paul Nicholson
February 16 – In what could be a game-changing move in the battle against match-fixing, Sportradar is to make its Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) available free of charge to sport organisations.
February 16 – UEFA’s Champions League whirs back into life tonight with the heavyweight round-of-sixteen clash between FC Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain and RB Leipzig hosting Liverpool in Budapest in one of a few fixtures where the home club had to relinquish the home advantage because of Covid-19 travel restrictions.
