October 3 – After a succession of twists and turns, Peru captain Paolo Guerrero has lost his final attempt to get his 14-month ban for a doping offence permanently lifted.
Like UEFA president Alexander Ceferin or not, he has shown a steady hand running UEFA since he took over from – who was it again? Time flies, doesn’t it… The ‘man who came in from the nowhere’ and took charge of Europe’s football confederation has been accused of a lot of things since he took office. Most of them have had about as much basis as a Döner Kebab without lamb and onion.
October 3 – OTT streaming service Eleven Sports has challenged the English FA’s ban on the broadcast of live football matches on Saturdays between 2.45pm and 5.15pm by showing live coverage of Barcelona’s match against Athletic Bilbao last weekend.
October 3 – One of the best-known club names in US football, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, who boasted English legend Rodney Marsh and Brazil’s Mirandinha on their roster in the late 1970s, have been sold to the Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team.
October 3 – Police in Las Vegas have re-opened a rape investigation into Cristiano Ronaldo after his accuser claimed she was breaking a non-disclosure agreement.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 2 – With a sense of inevitability, Turkey’s media have reacted furiously to last week’s failure to land the 2024 European Championships, taking particular aim at UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
October 2 – The long and often controversial footballing dynasty of the Lowy family in Australia is effectively over following the endorsement of widespread governance reforms that ended a two-year power struggle and even threatened the country’s FIFA membership.
October 2 – Despite resisting the idea in the past over misplaced beliefs that they could lose their independence within FIFA, Britain’s four football associations have agreed to allow a combined women’s team to try to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
October 2 – Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian president and owner of AC Milan, is back in football club ownership having bought Serie C club Monza.
October 2 – FIFA has once again stepped into the internal power struggle in Sierra Leone by calling on the government to allow national FA president, Isha Johansen (pictured left), back into the organisation’s headquarters.
October 2 – The Danish Football Association and the country’s players’ union have reached a new collective pay agreement which means the country will no longer have to call on part-timers for international fixtures.
October 2 – The Canadian Premier League (CPL), which is scheduled to kick off its inaugural season in 2019, has signed a long-term deal with Italian apparel company Macron.
October 2 – German Bundesliga gaints FC Bayern Munich has signed a new regional partner for China.
By Paul Nicholson
October 1 – Saudi Arabia has been hit with a two-pronged billion dollar offensive from broadcaster beIN and the Qatar state over the on-going copyright theft of pirate broadcaster beoutQ. A consortium of rights holders including FIFA and the Premier League are expected to follow suit in the coming days as the Saudis rapidly turn themselves into the pariahs of the sports rights business.
By Paul Nicholson
The three biggest football presidencies in global football come up for election in 2019 with FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and UEFA all voting on new presidential terms. At present the only election of the three that will be contested will be in Asia – current president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa announced his intention to run again last week.