By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – Veteran African football chief Issa Hayatou, who briefly ran FIFA after Sepp Blatter was forced out of office but who is no stranger himself to controversy, is back in the firing line for allegedly abusing his position.
December 6 – Social media reports this week trumpeted the power and popularity of Facebook over other social media platforms – seven times more popular than Twitter and Instagram. But looking at the weekly growth rates in the Premier League, it is clear that the main social action is currently happening on Instagram.
January 4 – Premier League clubs amassed a total 605,000 new Twitter followers over the two-week Christmas and New Year period. A massive 25% of those followers were for Manchester United.
January 3 – Manchester City have announced dates for a second ‘hackathon’, this time in conjunction with Google. The event will take place February 10-12 at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
December 30 – The English Football league (EFL) has reported record Christmas attendances with more than half a million football fans going to the Boxing Day round of fixtures boosting average attendances to higher than some of Europe’s biggest leagues.
December 22 – West Ham United have added global payments company TransferMate as the club’s Official Payments partner. TransferMate will be the Club’s exclusive foreign currency provider for foreign exchange payments, including player transfer transactions.
December 21 – The influence, importance and ambition of Internazionale’s new owners Suning Sports Group to the club’s development was reinforced yesterday with the announcement of a multi-year sponsorship agreement for a package of naming rights by Suning Group affiliates.
December 21 – Twitter week-on-week growth rates increased again this week for Premier League clubs, up to 253,000 across the league from 228,000. This was a week that saw Premier League fixtures on five days as three rounds were crammed in before Christmas.
December 21 – Manchester City have pushed the digital and social media boundaries further with the introduction of a matchday Snapchat host.
December 19 – Chinese brewer Tsingtao has renewed its sponsorship of the fast developing and increasingly commercial AFC Champions League for another four years, no figure was announced for the deal.
December 19 – Confédération Africaine de Football (CAF) has renewed telecoms giant Orange as a major sponsor of its competitions for another eight years. The deal has been finalised just a couple of weeks before the start of the Total Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Gabon in January.
December 16 – Instagram continues to be the social media growth engine for Premier League clubs with new followers up by 376,700 over the past week, a 40% increase on the 273,100 rise the previous week. In contrast week-on-week growth of Twitter followers and Facebook like were down across the league.
December 16 – Music streaming platform Deezer is hoovering up the world’s biggest club football brands. Hard on the deals of the announcement of a deal to become Manchester United’s official music partner earlier this week, it has now unveiled FC Barcelona as a partner.
By Samindra Kunti
December 15 – US sportswear brand Nike has strengthened their European foothold extending their partnership with the French Football Federation until 2026. Nike this week also confirmed a £400 million 12 year renewal of their deal with England.
December 15 – The International Champions Cup (ICC) – the growing pre-season tournament that sees many of Europe’s elite clubs compete in a semi-formal club competition around the world in showcase matches – has signed tourism marketing body Visit Orlando in a multi-year partnership.