By Mark Baber
June 19 – The International Football Association Board (IFAB) and FIFA have formally launched the new play fair! Initiative as part of “a strategy focussing on improving fairness and the image of the game.”
By Paul Nicholson
June 18 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has dismissed talk of 2017 being the last staging of the Confederations Cup, saying that the time now is to focus on the game.
June 18 – The on-going confusion and controversy around Bulgaria CSKA-Sofia shows little sign of ending as the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) rejected an urgent request to suspend UEFA from, potentially, ruling the club cannot compete in the upcoming Europa Cup.
June 18 – Premier League Swansea City have unveiled their 2017-18 Joma kits with new main shirt sponsor LeTou, an online betting site, taking the premium sponsor slot on the front of the jersey and Barracuda Networks as one of the league’s first sleeve sponsors.
By Samindra Kunti in St Petersburg, Russia
June 16 – With the Confederations Cup set to kick off tomorrow with hosts Russia facing New Zealand in the newly completed Kreztovsky stadium in St Petersburg, CEO of the Local Organising Committee Alexei Sorokin said they could not find corroboration of the “alarming” allegations made in the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report into construction workers’ conditions at World Cup stadium sites. Meanwhile, stadia are slowing filling though there are still 7,000 tickets for the opening game.
June 16 – Newly promoted Scottish Premier League side Hibernian have unveiled Eden Mill as a new back-of-shirt sponsor in a one-year deal.
By Mark Baber
June 16 – Despite optimistic noises from sections of the Kenyan press and Football Federation of Kenya officials and with a African football confederation (CAF) inspection team currently in the country to examine preparations, Kenya’s hosting of CHAN 2018 is in peril due to delays in preparing adequate host stadiums.
June 16 – Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium has upgraded to next-generation LED lighting using the Philips ArenaVision LED pitch lighting system. It is the first French stradium to implement the solution which is being hailed as a breakthough for stadium entertainment and provides a greater flexibility for mix-used stadium events.
By Paul Nicholson
June 15 – FIFA has re-inforced a three-stage process that will ultimately give referees at the Confederations Cup in Russia the power to abandon games if discriminatory behaviour by fans gets out of control. This follows a procedure first encouraged by UEFA in 2009 and re-iterated in 2013 following incidents in Italy and the comments of then FIFA president Sepp Blatter that fines were not sufficient to combat the issues.
By Samindra Kunti
June 15 – The French Football Federation (FFF) has announced the nine cities that will host the matches of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup after due consultation with FIFA. Lyon will host both the opening match and the final.
June 15 – The Video Assistant Referee system (VAR) will be in use at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia as the trail of the system continues.
June 15 – Visa is rolling out 1,600 point-of-sale terminals and more than 120 mobile concessionaires throughout stadium concourses at the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia that kicks off this week.
June 15 – The English Football League (EFL) is expanding its broadcast platform for its three professional from next season with the launch of the iFollow service for overseas markets. Matches already being broadcast outside the UK and Irelands will not be available on iFollow. More than 1,500 games will be streamed digitally.
By Paul Nicholson
June 14 – The Palestine Football Association (PFA) is taking FIFA to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) claiming FIFA broke its own statutory rules and denied the PFA its rights over the decision taken by the FIFA Congress not to go to a vote on whether six Israeli teams playing league matches on occupied territory in Palestine should be allowed to continue.
June 14 – Long time Czech league sponsor Grambinus is to pull out of its deals with the Czech football Association (FAČR), including its title sponsorship of the country’s top league, saying that the corruption scandals that have hit the presidency of the federation are now impacting on their brand image.