By Andrew Warshaw
May 10 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has expressed his sadness at Michel Platini failing to overturn his ban for breaching FIFA’s ethics code – hardly surprising given the process by which Infantino landed the top job in world football instead of his former boss.
By Mark Baber
May 10 – Schalke 04 and Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom have agreed to an extension of their shirt sponsorship deal, which had been due to expire in 2017, until 30 June 2022 in a deal reported to be worth at least €120 million.
May 10 – Romania’s interior ministry has suspended the licence of a private ambulance company that transported Dinamo Bucharest and Cameroon midfielder Patrick Ekeng to hospital after he collapsed during a match last Friday and died shortly afterwards.
May 10 – The last of the football officials still held in Zurich after the May 2015 raids by Swiss police and US Department of Justice officials, has finally had his extradition to the US finalised.
By Mark Baber
May 10 – The Chris Giwa faction of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), acting in accordance with a widely held interpretation of a recent court ruling, attempted a take-over of the NFF Glass House HQ on Friday, before being asked to help police with their enquiries and then pledging to return on Monday.
By Samindra Kunti
May 10 – Qatar’s Belgian investment at Eupen has come good with the club’s ascendency to Belgium’s top flight, but only after a farcical kerfuffle of Belgian bureaucracy.
May 9 – Tottenham Hotspur’s Moussa Dembélé and Dele Alli come top and fourth in the CIES Football Observatory ranking of ‘box-to-box’ midfielders in Europe’s Big 5 league. The Bayern double act of Arturo Vidal and Xabi Alonso topped the rankings defensive midfielders.
By Matt Scott
May 9 – The Greek Football Cup final scheduled for Saturday was postponed by the government amid safety fears for the match.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 9 – Representatives of Kuwaiti clubs are planning to be in Mexico City later this week to drum up support against FIFA’s decision to ban the Gulf state over government interference in sport.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 9 – Football’s world players’ union FIFPro has raised concern about the level of first-aid treatment for footballers in Romania following the tragic death of Dinamo Bucharest and Cameroon midfielder Patrick Ekeng on Friday.
May 9 – Manchester City, who have recently taken on board a $400 million investment from Chinese investors in their City Football Group ownership group, have added two new Chinese partners in advance of their July pre-season trip to the country where they will play Borussia Dortmund and local rivals Manchester United.
May 9 – When Pep Guardiola agreed terms with Manchester City to take over from Manuel Pellegrini next season, he surely did so with the prospect of having another crack at the Champions League as well as turning his many talents to taking City back to the top of the pack domestically.
By Paul Nicholson
May 9 – Champions League sponsor Nissan has developed an Excitement Index with Loughborough University that found that the average heart rate reached a peak 122 bpm during exciting moments in the match, which is comparable to the peak heart rates found in scientific studies of couples having sex.
By David Owen
May 9 – Contaminated meat is continuing to pose a challenge for FIFA dope testers. Data published recently by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on anti-doping rule violations in 2014 – World Cup year – disclosed that of just over 2,000 samples taken by FIFA, 18 produced adverse analytical findings, identifying the presence in the sample of a prohibited substance.
By Mark Baber
May 6 – Money laundering prosecutors in Paraguay have handed over 10,000 documents seized from CONMEBOL’s headquarters in Asuncion to US prosecutors investigating corruption within football.