July 20 – US digital giant Amazon is inserting itself deeper and deeper into football’s economic foodchain with the launch by Serie A’s Napoli of its own store on the ecommerce platform.
July 20 – Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says the gruelling demands of international football are getting so serious that clubs will soon be “collecting the bones” of overworked players.
July 20 – Clubs from Russia and Qatar, World Cup hosts past and future, are among six fined by FIFA and warned they risk one-year transfer bans for failing to settle debts to players.
July 20 – Hannover 96 failed in its bid to get an exemption from Germany’s 50+1 ruling to allow the Bundlesliga club’s president Martin Kind (pictured) to take control, but has said it will appeal against the German Football League (DFL) ruling.
July 20 – An Israeli lawmaker close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has sent an open letter to FIFA urging it to strip Qatar of 2022 World Cup hosting rights because of its alleged support for Hezbollah and Hamas, regarded by Israel and others as terrorist organisations.
July 20 – Asian sponsors for Premier League clubs have generally been from the betting industry unless local sponsors. Crystal Palace have expanded away from the betting sponsor focus with a global partnership with Hong Kong logistics brand Royale International.
July 19 – France’s standout forward Kylian Mbappé is the most valuable under 21 player in the world, twice as valuable as England striker Marcus Rashford, according to a new report that values Mbappé at £170.2 million.
July 19 – The head of Ghana’s League Clubs Association (GHALCA), Kudjoe Fianoo (pictured), has urged the government not to attempt to impose its own preferred candidate on the national federation as talks continue to find a successor to disgraced former African powerbroker Kwesi Nyantakyi.
July 19 – France’s victory in the World Cup may have “given the country optimism”, according to President Emmanuel Macron, but elsewhere it has sparked an unsavoury and unnecessary atmosphere of racism.
July 19 – Former Chelsea and Italy striker Gianfranco Zola, who made 312 league and cup appearances for the club, has returned as assistant to new manager Maurizio Sarri.
July 19 – Nearly £450,000 of taxpayers’ money has been spent trying to find a sponsor for West Ham United’s London Stadium, formerly the capital’s Olympic stadium, according to reports.
July 19 – The USL has announced a seventh and final new club for the 2019 season. Loudoun United, based in Loudoun County, Virginia, will play in the USL’s Eastern Conference and will be a subsidiary of MLS’s D.C. United which has just signed Wayne Rooney on a three-year deal.
July 19 – Goals Soccer Centres has warned that the impact of extreme weather in the UK in first quarter of 2018 will leave full year financial results “materially below market expectations”.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 18 – With attention now switched to Qatar 2022 following the World Cup in Russia, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has again provided an indication of where his thinking lies with regard to future bids.
July 18 – The bitter in-fighting over who runs the game in Sierra Leone has burst back into the spotlight after several months of relative quiet with the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) saying it will be submitting a draft of its new statutes for FIFA’s approval in the coming days.