By Andrew Warshaw
January 3 – Players are frequently seen to verbally abuse officials on the pitch but rarely does it happen the other way – not publicly at least. English Premier League team Southampton have made an official complaint, however, after accusing referee Mark Clattenburg of insulting their captain Adam Lallana in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Everton.
January 34 – Former Norwegian international striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, known in his playing days as the “baby-faced assassin”, has taken on the challenge of trying to manage Premier League newcomers Cardiff City following the controversial sacking of Malky Mackay by the club’s Malaysian owner Vincent Tan.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – UEFA’s financial fair play rules have been brought into sharp focus with the news that Chelsea, one of the world’s most affluent foreign-owned clubs, made a loss of £49.4 million for the year ended 30 June 2013.
By Paul Nicholson
January 2 – Attendance for the three fixtures of the holiday period for the Premier League in England averaged over 95% of stadium capacity for the matches December 26, December 28-29 and 1 January 2014. Of a total of 1,147,696 available seats in stadia, just 30,802 seats were unfilled.
By Paul Nicholson
December 27 – Proof that the English love their Christmas football was shown on Boxing Day in the Premier League with eight out of 10 clubs filling their stadiums to more than 97% of capacity, two stadiums being more than 99% full and only one stadium being below 90% in occupancy.
By Paul Nicholson
December 13 – English Championship club Queens Park Rangers have announced plans to move to a new 40,000 seater stadium as part of the £10 billion regeneration of the Old Oak area in West London.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 12 – The acrimonius dispute over the name of English Premier League club Hull City has been further fuelled by a formal application to the Football Association to call the club Hull Tigers from next season.
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.