By Paul Nicholson
October 10 – Finding ways to monetise digital engagement and turn digital eyeballs into value-holding data is a holy grail for clubs as their digital teams increase in size alongside their digital followers.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 7 – Leading leagues across Europe say they have won vital concessions from UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin over plans to revamp the Champions League.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 7 – In an extraordinary move given the significance of the occasion and the media interest worldwide, FIFA have scrapped staging a press conference following next week’s eagerly awaited first full meeting of its new 36-member ruling Council.
Who would have thought that a group of Norwegian bloggers could shatter the glass walls of FIFA, UEFA, etc. What they delivered in terms of conspiracy theories about UEFA’s new boss, and FIFA’s new Audit and Compliance chief is pretty cool – time will prove how correct their suppositions are but questions have been asked.
There is a very important fact worth bearing in mind when seeking to make sense of Gianni Infantino’s FIFA: the 46-year-old Swiss-Italian new boy faces re-election in less than three years’ time.
October 7 – Sadly the result did not match the anticipation. Kosovo’s first competitive home fixture since being admitted by FIFA and UEFA ended in a 6-0 defeat by Croatia that leaves them bottom of their World Cup qualifying group.
By Paul Nicholson
October 7 – As a marketing tool football delivers though sponsorship sales are now more often referred to as ‘partnerships’ with exclusive ‘content’ options part of the package. The days of selling board signage, shirt positions and brand exposure as standalone package may not be entirely over, but they almost are.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – The boss of one of Italy’s major top-flight clubs has issued a scathing attack on the role of agents in the wake of the English newspaper sting that saw Sam Allardyce lose the national manager’s job after just 67 days and which quoted agents boasting about how many managers had been paid off in transfer deals.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – When the great and the good of FIFA’s new ruling Council converge on Zurich for next week’s eagerly awaited first full meeting, there will be no point in reporters seeking titbits of news by doorstepping the exclusive Baur au Lac hotel, for years the regular haunt of FIFA powerbrokers.
October 6 – Malta-based Daily Fantasy Football (DFS) company Oulala is expanding in to Latin America, initially targeting Argentinean clubs with a white label version of its platform.
October 6 – Two players with Czech side Sparta Prague who caused outrage with their sexist comments have been told to train with the women’s team.
By Paul Nicholson
October 5 – One of the leaders of football’s brave new world, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, has suggested that Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups could be the best thing to have happened to football in that it provided an accelerant for the clean-up of the game globally, and particularly in his region.
October 5 – FIFA has punished no fewer 11 national associations for “the discriminatory and unsporting conduct of fans” during recent World Cup qualifiers.
October 10 – Former US national team coach Bob Bradley has become the first American to manage a top-flight European team after being appointed by Swansea City in succession to sacked Italian Francesco Guidolin.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 4 – As John McEnroe famously said, you cannot be serious. Or maybe a line from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ might be equally apt: “He’s making it up as he goes along.” Not content with proposing a 40-team World Cup as part of his election manifesto, FIFA president Gianni Infantino now says he wants to go even further and expand the finals to 48 nations.