By David Owen
December 11 – Not that there is any connection, but Manchester United’s latest Premier League woes have coincided with the installation of new display boards – “the largest, brightest and clearest pitch-side electronic boards in football,” the club says – at its Old Trafford base.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 3 – English football is clamping down on the use of flares and smoke bombs, widely used by supporters across much of Europe but, until recently, all but absent from the English game. According to new statistics, in the first three months of this season alone, there were 96 pyrotechnic incidents across the Premier League, Football League, non-league games and domestic cup competitions – compared to just eight throughout the entire campaign in 2010-11.
By Paul Nicholson
December 2 – Manchester United are missing out on an estimated £16.93 million a year for stadium naming rights, according to analysis by American Appraisal, a specialist valuation firm and consultancy. The English Premier League champions, who have said they will never rebrand Old Trafford, come second in a list of Premier League stadium rights valuations – to near neighbour Manchester City who are valued at £18.23 million.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 2 – The acrimonius dispute over the name of English Premier League club Hull City has turned even uglier with owner Assem Allam telling his critics they “can die as soon as they want” and describing some of them as “hooligans”, in response to the Hull fans chant ‘City till we die’.
By Tom Parsons
November 19 – West Ham forward Carlton Cole has become involved in an unusual twitter rant… against his own club!
By Paul Nicholson
November 19 – Hull City AFC supporters are not giving up their fight to retain their name in the face insistent owner Assem Allam’s (pictured) repeated statements that he will change the club’s name to Hull Tigers.
By Mihir Bose
November 15 – The decision to lease the Olympic stadium to West Ham still generates huge controversy with Barry Hearn owner of Leyton Orient vowing to fight it all the way to Europe. Hearn is awaiting a report on Olympic Legacy by a select committee of the House of Lord’s due on Monday.
November 14 – Manchester United’s latest major sponsor partner, Russian airline Aeroflot, have released a series of new aerial images of Old Trafford. The sponsor, who recently signed a 5-year deal taking them up to the World Cup in Russia in 2018, is gathering aerial film and photography content of fans and the stadium as part of its sponsorship activation.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 13 – What’s in a name? Quite a lot, it seems, when it comes to the history of football clubs. Not for the first time, fans of an English top-flight club are up in arms over plans by ambitious owners to do away with deep-rooted traditions for commercial reasons.
By Jamie Styles
November 12 – Not all footballers on Twitter cause a storm of controversy. Sunderland striker Connor Wickham used his Twitter following over the weekend to help raise money for charity.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 5 – Far too risky or a calculated move that paid off? Very much the former according to both FIFA and the international players’ union FIFpro who have criticised English club Tottenham Hotspur for allowing their French international goalkeeper Hugo Lloris to play on last weekend after he briefly lost consciousness before recovering.
By Tom Parsons
November 5 – Arsenal celebrated their top of the league status on the field as well as enhancing it off the field after becoming the first sports team in the UK to reach 3 million Twitter followers. The landmark was achieved during the Arsenal v Liverpool game, a game where Arsenal went 5 points clear at the top of the table.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 4 – Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson claims in a new autobiography that he was lined up to replace Alex Ferguson at Manchester United 11 years ago when Ferguson first announced his intention to retire from the game.
By David Owen
November 1 – Stock market investors seem to have given a thumbs-up to BT’s strategy of acquiring highly compelling sports content, such as live rights to Barclays Premier League football matches, after yesterday’s publication of the telephone company’s first quarterly financial results since the launch of BT Sport on August 1.
October 9 – Hull City AFC fans have formed a new community group and are campaigning to protect the club’s historic identity from a name change to Hull Tigers by owner Aseem Allam.