April 22 – Liverpool may have under-achieved on the field this season after finishing runner-up in the Premier League last term but their brand shows little sign of being adversely affected. The club has signed a three-year extension to their main sponsorship deal with Standard Chartered.
April 22 – West Ham United have become the first English top-flight club to announce they will reduce season ticket prices as a result of the Premier League’s eye-watering new bumper television deal.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 22 – A coalition of non-governmental organisations has written to FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the three candidates bidding for his job urging them to make tackling human rights a priority as soon as the May 29 election is over – especially when it comes to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
By David Owen at the SportAccord Convention World Sport & Business Summit in Sochi
April 21 – Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s Sports Minister, has hinted at an impending clampdown on the number of foreign players permitted to be fielded by Russian clubs, while indicating that the country’s President harbours doubts over how the national team will perform at the 2018 World Cup.
April 21 – Argentina is losing the battle against football hooliganism , according to the president of one of its top clubs. Fans of first division Huracan clashed with police last weekend and an officer was hit in the face by a stone, the latest in a series of violent incidents.
By Mark Baber
April 21 – The Israeli Equal Employment Opportunities Commission has demanded that Beitar Jerusalem retract statements the team’s coach made against Arab players joining the team in a move which highlights the failure of the Israeli Football Federation (IFA) to eliminate racist and apartheid practices within its own leagues, just five weeks before FIFA’s annual conference and the debate on the motion to suspend the IFA over its racist policies towards Palestinians.
April 21 – Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich have agreed a new media partnership with MSN for the broadcasting and publication of the club’s content in the USA.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 21 – Sepp Blatter has a habit of deliberately saying the appropriate thing depending on his hosts at the time. So it was no surprise that the FIFA president sweet-talked Russian president Vladimir Putin when he visited Sochi for SportAccord.
By Alexander Krassimirov
April 21 – CSKA Sofia Ultras have taken extreme measures after the team suffered loss. Yesterday CSKA lost to Lokomotiv Sofia and after the game the fans summoned the players to one of the stands of Bulgarska armia stadium.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 21 – UEFA president Michel Platini has promised Israel he will do everything he can to stave off a Palestinian bid to suspend them from FIFA, according to Israeli media reports.
By David Owen at the SportAccord Convention in Sochi
April 21 – A highly cultured venue has been chosen for the FIFA banquet coinciding with the Preliminary Draw for the 2018 World Cup. Russia 2018 chief executive Alexey Sorokin has told Insideworldfootball that the banquet is to be held at the Russian museum of fine arts in St Petersburg. The draw itself – the first official event of the World Cup – has been scheduled for this coming July 25 at the restored 17th century Konstantinovsky Palace.
By David Owen at the SportAccord Convention World Sport & Business Summit in Sochi
April 21 – FIFA President Joseph Blatter has sided firmly with Thomas Bach, his International Olympic Committee (IOC) counterpart, as the IOC boss came under withering attack from SportAccord’s Marius Vizer in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Monday.
By Paul Nicholson
April 20 – Real Madrid and Barcelona are not just giants on the pitch, they are social media monsters off it. The two Spanish clubs head Insideworldfootball’s European club ranking in terms of followers, with the English Premier League’s Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea in 3rd, 4th and 5th place respectively.
April 20 – Iconic English club Leeds United, back in the news for all the wrong reasons, insist that six players who suddenly withdrew ahead of Saturday’s defeat at Charlton were injured.
April 20 – Russian authorities are to build two new sports centres in Crimea in the latest move to cement their influence in the annexed peninsula where UEFA have already barred Russian-administered teams from competing in their competitions or the Russian domestic league.