February 22 – Former Brazilian international Dani Alves, one of the most decorated footballers in history, has been sentenced to four and a half years in jail after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in an Barcelona nightclub on New Years Eve in 2022.
February 22 – The Canadian Soccer Players’ Association, which represents the national women’s team, has filed a $40 million lawsuit against 15 current and former board members of Canada Soccer alleging “negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.”
February 14 – Paris city hall is taking legal action after sections of Paris Saint-Germain fans targeted the local mayor Anne Hidalgo with sexist insults and homophobic chants during a French league match.
February 9 – Barcelona are taking Zenit St. Petersburg to sport’s highest court in pursuit of a €490,000 bonus payment it says it missed out on when the Russian club was banned from the Champions League following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
February 9 – Cardiff City have reached an out-of-court settlement with an agent over the release of documents and messages about the transfer of the late Emiliano Sala.
February 5 – The long-anticipated trial of former Brazilian star Dani Alves got under way today in Barcelona as he faced accusations of raping a woman in a local nightclub.
January 26 – A Spanish judge on Thursday proposed that disgraced former national federation chief Luis Rubiales be tried over the kiss he forced on Women’s World Cup star Jenni Hermoso without her consent.
January 17 – French football icon Karim Benzema has filed a defamation lawsuit against the country’s interior minister for accusing him last year of having “notorious” links with the Muslim Brotherhood.
January 16 – In a rare move, France’s main football union is launching legal action to protect professional players from the mental pressure their clubs put on them when they are cold-shouldered until they sign a new contract or agree to just leave.
January 15 – A Turkish-based Israeli player faces prosecution for showing solidarity during a goal celebration with the hostages taken in the October 7 Hamas attacks.
January 10 – The former president of Turkish top flight club Ankaragucu, Faruk Koca, told a court on Tuesday that he regretted attacking the referee at the end of a league game but denied threatening to kill him.
January 8 – Italy’s highest court has cleared the late Argentine legend Diego Maradona of tax evasion charges, ending a 30-year-long legal battle.
January 4 – Nice’s Algerian international Youcef Atal (pictured), already having served a seven-match ban dished out by French football authorities, has now been handed an eight-month suspended jail term for sharing an anti-Semitic message on social media relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
January 3 – Spanish World Cup-winning star Jenni Hermoso told a judge on Tuesday that the kiss forced on her by disgraced former Spanish football chief Luis Rubiales was “at no point consensual” and that she had come under pressure to defend his actions.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 21 – In a bombshell decision that could have significant ramifications, the European Court of Justice ruled today that UEFA and FIFA broke EU competition rules by attempting to block the seemingly doomed breakaway Super League.