By Paul Nicholson
April 24 – Swiss based sports data group Sportradar has widened the base of its business with the acquisition of German rights agency sportsman media holding. The German business stretches from media rights representation and sports marketing, to production services, digital platforms, digital services, as well as providing services for betting platforms, and takes Sportradar into new areas.
February 8 – One of English football’s best known boardroom faces, Keith Harris (pictured), looks set to get back into the game with a bid for Portsmouth, the former Premier League club currently stuggling in League One.
December 13 – Highlight Event & Entertainment AG group of companies, which owns TEAM Marketing, the exclusive agency of the UEFA’s club competitions, has extended another major agreement, this time with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) through its Highlight Event subsidiary.
By Tom Degun
December 13 – Former Spain and Real Madrid striker Raúl says he wants to make a real contribution to football in Qatar ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which is why he chose to move to Doha-based club Al Sadd, who play in the Qatar Stars League.
By Tom Degun
December 13 – Brazilian icon Pelé (pictured left), who is widely considered the greatest football player ever, has been unveiled as a new ambassador for P&G by no less than Switzerland’s Roger Federer (pictured right), arguably the greatest tennis player ever.
By Tom Degun
December 7 – Londoners must not be asked to pay any more money for the transformation of the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, especially now West Ham United have been named the preferred bidders, a report from the London Assembly said today.
By Andrew Warshaw at St. George’s Park at Burton-on-Trent
November 21 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter held out a hand of peace to English football today as both sides acclaimed a new spirit of conciliation and cooperation after a fractious period of disharmony and mistrust.
By Tom Degun
November 19 – Madrid’s local Government has approved the proposed redevelopment of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, which is the home of La Liga champions Real Madrid.
By Andrew Warshaw at the International Football Arena in Zurich
November 13 – Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay has launched a staunch defence of the club’s image insisting the vilification the European champions have suffered in recent weeks over the racism-fuelled John Terry and Mark Clattenburg cases has unfairly overshadowed what they have achieved on the field and in supporting local communities across the world.
By Andrew Warshaw at the International Football Arena conference in Zurich
November 13 – Football can learn several lessons from how the NFL operates in the United States, not least giving more black coaches the opportunity to be interviewed for senior positions, the NFL’s United Kingdom managing director, Alistair Kirkwood, declared today.
By Andrew Warshaw at the International Football Arena conference in Zurich
November 12 – Sepp Blatter admitted today that he had made mistakes during his 14-year FIFA Presidency but said he would not have got where he is without taking risks.
By Andrew Warshaw at the International Football Arena conference in Zurich
November 12 – A groundbreaking new sponsorship deal will be announced in the next two months between Chelsea and the Sauber Formula One team, the club’s chief executive Ron Gourlay revealed today.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 7 – Given recent sensitive and unsavoury episodes in English football, Alistair Kirkwood’s address to the forthcoming International Football Arena (IFA) in Zurich on how the round-ball game can learn from American football could not have been better planned.
Last Sunday Marcel Schmid was at Wembley to watch the New England Patriots play the St Louis Rams. Nothing remarkable in that you may think, some 84,000 others were also there as NFL made its annual foray outside its homeland in an effort to reach a worldwide audience.
But for Schmid, chairman of the International Football Arena (IFA), it provided renewed focus for one of the themes that will dominate this year’s conference in Zurich on November 12-13.
By Andrew Warshaw at the Leaders in Football conference at Stamford Bridge in London
October 12 – The head of FIFA’s Referees Committee says he is completely against goal-line technology – in direct opposition to FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s stance.