By Andrew Warshaw
January 15 – English influence will remain absent from the top table of FIFA for at least two years as a result of the fallout over Greg Clarke’s resignation as FA chairman back in November.
January 15 – Having already moved its delayed Club World Cup from December to February because of the impact of Covid-19, FIFA has suffered another blow to its little-loved event after it was reduced from seven to six clubs by the sudden withdrawal of Auckland City.
January 15 – Bayern Munich boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says UEFA are considering making changes to the Champions League’s structure to make it more compelling to fans and sponsors.
January 15 – Italy’s Inter Milan may have new owners in a matter of months. Suning Holdings has reportedly opened talks with venture capital partners over selling its stake.
January 15 – The English Football Association has failed in an attempt to revise the dates of international defender Kieran Trippier’s ban for breaching betting rules.
January 15 – Yet another Aston Villa fixture has been called off in the English Premier League because of a COVID-19 outbreak at the club, this time hitting their fixture against Everton this Sunday.
January 15 – Guadalajara in Mexico will host the Concacaf men’s qualifiers for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games. The eight U-23 teams will play March 18-30 to qualify two teams for Japan.
January 15 – Paris St-Germain top a table of big 5 league clubs with a dribble attempted every 3’58’’. In contrast Burnley reinforce the longer-ball perception of the English game, coming at the bottom of the rankings with a dribble attempt every 8’46’’.
January 15 – Premier League match data controllers have been ordered to pay legal costs of £215,000 to another data group in the latest twist of a long-running dispute over access to matches to collect live data.
January 15 – Another trip to the Gulf by British-based players, another Covid controversy. Following an apology by Scottish champions Celtic for having undertaken a warm-weather trip to Dubai that led to a spate of positive cases, the manager of the Arsenal Women’s team, Joe Montemurro , says the club will not tolerate coronavirus protocol breaches after confirming three players went to the United Arab Emirates during the Women’s Super League winter break.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 14 – Having already been postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, doubts are beginning to set in as to whether Euro 2020 can be played under its current 12-venue, pan-Continental format next summer.
January 14 – The shocking scale of the sexual abuse carried out by the former boss of Haitian football, Yves Jean-Bart, has been laid bare by the full report of his transgressions released by FIFA.
January 14 – Sao Paulo giants Palmeiras and Santos will decide the 2020 Copa Libertadores after eliminating River Plate and Boca Juniors in the last four, making the showpiece match an all-Brazilian affair for the first time since 2006.
January 14 – Nine candidates will stand for eight seats in the UEFA executive committee, with Russia relinquishing their spot in the FIFA Council, the European governing body announced on Thursday.
January 14 – The long-tailed but failed £300 million Newcastle United takeover bid led by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIP) that ended in floods of tears last July, might not be dead in the water. Certainly there is renewed pressure on the Premier League to further explain why it failed to approve the new ownership.