February 20 – The International Football Arena (IFA) have set September 10 as the date for their second Berlin conference, following on from the success of last year’s inaugural trip to Berlin for the Zurich-based talk shop.
By Jamie Styles
February 20 – Last week Jay Beatty, a young Celtic super-fan with Down’s Syndrome, was nominated in Scotland’s SPL Goal of the Month competition. Today the league announced that Jay had won the award with a landslide victory, receiving a massive 97% of the votes.
February 20 – One of Europe’s leading anti-racism chiefs believes the episode involving Chelsea supporters blocking a black man from boarding a Paris Metro train is part of a wider problem of racism in football despite stringent efforts to cut it out.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 20 – Sofia City Court (SCC) cleared the chairman of the supervisory board of CSKA Sofia, Alexander Tomov, of charges of misappropriation of funds from metallurgical plant Kremikovtsi and the football club. On Monday, prosecutors requested 10 years in prison for Tomov, but Sofia City Court dropped all the charges.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 18 – With one Bulgarian club owner facing a possible prison sentence for fraud, another, Levski Sofia Todor Batkov (pictured) has said he has had enough and has announced he is ready to sell his shares in the club.
February 18 – The parent company that owns second-tier English side Birmingham City has gone into voluntary receivership because of internal strife, another stark example of the struggles that can afflict clubs below the top flight.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 18 – Spanish football has been rocked by yet another case of match-fixing, this time involving a crucial relegation battle last season between Espanyol and Osasuna.
By Paul Nicholson
February 18 – Financial fair play, low interest rates and football’s ability to secure big money broadcast and sponsor contracts looks likely to attract debt investors back into the football business.
February 18 – Chelsea fans have brought shame on their high-flying English Premier League club after video footage appeared to show a group of them chanting racist slogans as they prevented a black man from boarding a train ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League fixture against Paris St Germain.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 17 – The Czech Football Association (FACR) has unveiled plans to implement a number of measures to enhance the legal protection of footballers whose clubs encounter financial difficulties and leave players unpaid but tied to their clubs.
February 17 – Barcelona, slapped with a transfer ban by FIFA for bringing in under-age players, appear to have found a way to get round the sanction by targeting players but not registering them before January 2016.
By Samindra Kunti
February 17 – Belgian second division club RAEC Mons has filed for bankruptcy at the local commercial court after prolonged financial difficulty.
February 17 – Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaliy Mutko has again been critical of the Russian Football Union (RFU) for its proposal of limiting foreign players in club squads to ’10+15′, saying “what kind of celebration will we have (at the World Cup in 2018) if our own team is completely useless”.
By Alexander Krassimirov
February 17 – Alexander Tomov (pictured), the largest shareholder in Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia, one of the country’s top four clubs, faces 10 years in prison if convicted of fraud charges brought against him by Bulgarian prosecutors.
February 16 – Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has pointed the finger for alleged tax evasion over the 2013 signing of Brazilian forward Neymar at his predecessor Sandro Rosell.