By Samindra Kunti
February 3 – This weekend Lanus and River Plate will play in the Argentine Super Cup, but the start of the domestic season has been overshadowed by financial turmoil in the country that is ranked number one in the world by FIFA.
February 3 – Media group A+E Networks has bought a stake in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US which will see its women’s entertainment brand Lifetime become a sponsor of the league in a three-year deal beginning in April. A+E will will also launch a joint venture company – NWSL Media – to market commercial rights.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 2 – With his country under global scrutiny because of the ongoing doping scandal, Alexei Sorokin, the public face of the 2018 World Cup, has come out fighting and taken a swipe at Russia’s mounting number of critics.
February 2 – Sepp Blatter has not always talked favourably about his successor but has surprisingly come out in partial support of Gianni Infantino’s decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams.
By Paul Nicholson
February 1 – Hillaren Frederick, president of the U.S. Virgin Islands Soccer Federation, has hit back at the four members of his executive committee who tried to suspend him and two other exco members, saying that the allegations of financial negligence are untrue and that it is “merely an attempted coup”.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 1 – Football’s lawmakers are to consider introducing sin-bins in place of yellow cards in what would constitute the most radical step for years to the way the game is played.
February 1 – Major League Soccer has announced that 12 new ownership groups submitted official applications by Tuesday’s deadline to land one of the four franchises that will see North America’s elite league expand to 28 clubs.
February 1 – Dutch brewer Heineken has renewed its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League for another three years that will take it to the end of the 2021 competition. The deal also includes the UEFA Super Cup 2018, 2019 and 2020.
February 1 – Manchester United broke the 10 million Twitter follower barrier, while Arsenal moved past 9 million last week. In contrast, at the other end of the table Middlesbrough crept past 200,000 followers and Bournemouth hit 250,000.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 31 – Four and a half months into his UEFA presidency, Aleksander Čeferin says he’s having to work far longer hours than he imagined and has denounced those who doubted his ability – even within his own circles.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 31 – The head of the European Club Association, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, is back on the attack over FIFA’s decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams, describing the move as “nonsense” and warning that the balance of power was shifting back towards his members.
January 31 – City Football Group, the holding company that owns Manchester City and New York City football clubs, has unveiled a new sponsor partnership with insurance group Hyperion that will cover both clubs, but not CFG’s other two clubs in Japan and Australia.
January 31 – All five of London’s Premier League clubs have been caught up in English football’s historical child sex abuse scandal according to police.
By Paul Nicholson
January 31 – U.S. Virgin Islands FA president Hillaren Frederick is fighting for survival as head of his federation after rejecting a suspension by his own executive committee, saying that they did not have the authority to suspend him. A delegation from FIFA and CONCACAF is expected in the islands this week to investigate the situation.
By Samindra Kunti
January 31 – Liverpool’s Sadio Mane missed the decisive spot kick as Cameroon beat Senegal 5-4 on penalties to reach the Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals. Seven-times winners Egypt also progressed to the last four with a narrow 1-0 win against rivals Morocco.