By Paul Nicholson
April 18 – Wonderful as the Premier League Leicester City story is, are we seeing an English return to long ball football? Could we soon be crying out for more of the same and a demand for the likes of the old Wimbledon to return to the top flight? Could Sam Allardyce be right after all?
April 18 – Lionel Messi chalked up his 500th career goal on Sunday, his 319th in La Liga, in Barcelona’s 2-1 home defeat to Valencia.
April 18 – Italy has been selected by football’s law-makers as the first major league to test technology for video replays.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 18 – Reinhard Grindel, the only candidate for a job that has become something of a poisoned chalice, has officially taken over as head of the German football association (DFB), the sport’s biggest single federation.
By Paul Nicholson
April 18 – Both Milan clubs could come under Chinese ownership if reports are correct that AC Milan could be sold within eight weeks and if Suning Commerce Group complete on a proposed acquisition of a stake in Internazionale.
The great gift the London Legacy Development Corporation, chaired by Boris Johnson, has given West Ham football club is the sort of gift that makes the money that David Cameron’s mother gave him to help avoid inheritance tax look like chicken feed. It also exposes the fact that when it comes to the national game not only are our political masters grossly unfair, favouring some clubs while penalising the vast majority, but there is also a huge question of whether football has lost its moral compass.
April 15 – Will Pep Guardiola’s final game in charge of Bayern Munich be against the team he is leaving them for at the end of the season?
By David Owen
April 14 – A sharp cut in payroll costs was at the heart of Newcastle United’s impressive financial performance in 2014-15, with the wages and salaries bill tumbling below £57 million from £69.3 million the previous year.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 15 – FIFA must in future make human rights a priority when awarding countries the World Cup according to an independent report produced by a senior United Nations official commissioned four months ago by football’s world governing body as part of its reform programme.
By David Owen
April 14 – Neymar and his team-mates have been drawn against South Africa, Iraq and Denmark in this year’s Olympic men’s football tournament, while the Brazilian women have been bracketed with South Africa (again), Sweden and China, the global game’s new hot-bed at least in terms of business interest.
By Mark Baber
April 15 – Southampton FC has agreed a 7-year partnership with US-based global sports brand Under Armour which will come into effect on July 1. No figure was announced for the deal.
By Samindra Kunti
April 15 – The tug of war between FC Barcelona and the Brazilian FA (CBF) over where Neymar plays this summer is continuing with the CBF insisting on Neymar playing both the centenary Copa America in the US and the Olympic Games in Rio.
April 15 – Newcastle United, battling for their top-flight survival on the pitch, have suffered a serious blow to their image off it after an employment tribunal ruled that their former Argentina midfielder Jonas Gutierrez had been dropped from the team because he had been diagnosed with testicular cancer.
April 15 – Manchester City have been charged by UEFA after fireworks were set off during their 1-0 Champions League quarter-final, second-leg win over Paris St Germain on Tuesday night.
By Paul Nicholson
April 14 – Caribbean Football Union president Gordon Derrick, barred yesterday from participating in the CONCACAF presidential election in May by FIFA’s ethics supremo Domenico Scala, could take his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).