December 12 – The president of French Ligue 1 side Bastia, Pierre-Marie Geronimi (pictured), has been arrested and placed in police custody as part of an investigation into the club’s finances.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 10 – UEFA president Michel Platini has given another strong hint that moves are going on behind the scenes to find a suitable challenger for Europe to back at next year’s FIFA presidential election.
By Samindra Kunti
December 10 – European football’s governing body UEFA has announced that it will continue to investigate Monaco under the Financial Fair Play Regulations, while Olympique Lyon has been asked to submit additional information.
December 9 – Romania’s most famous club Steaua Bucharest, founded in 1947, have been stripped of their name, colours and emblem after losing a long legal battle with the country’s defence ministry over their trademark.
December 9 – One of the world’s great footballing rivalries has turned ugly after Real Madrid banned 17 of their own supporters for abusive chants about Lionel Messi and Barcelona.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
December 5 – In a bid to boost its position in the European football market, French sports apparel maker Le Coq Sportif is reportedly planning to become the kit supplier of French club AS Saint-Etienne and Italy’s ACF Fiorentina.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 5 – UEFA has formally outlined how its new Nations League competition – being brought in to replace meaningless friendlies and featuring promotion and relegation – will work.
December 5 – Having backed away from goal-line technology because of the costs involved, Germany’s Bundesliga has decided the time is right to implement its introduction to settle contentious decisions over whether the ball has crossed the line.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 5 – Clearly exasperated that months of talks failed to achieve the hoped-for breakthrough, UEFA have taken the ultimate step of banning clubs in the annexed Crimea region of Ukraine from playing in any Russian-organised football competitions.
December 5 – With the European transfer window opening January 1, the CIES Football Observatory has updated its online calculator that gives a transfer value to players in the ‘Big-5’ European leagues; England’s Premier League, France’s Ligue 1, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s Primera.
By Samindra Kunti
December 4 – Belgian top clubs are fearing an exodus of their homegrown talent after FIFA reduced the international training compensation from €75,000 to €10,000 a year for players aged 12 to 15 in the summer.
December 4 – Scottish champions Celtic are prepared to go all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in their appeal against Bulgarian Aleksandar Tonev’s racism charge.
December 4 – A Bulgarian player who tried to strike a referee with a bottle after being sent off has been banned for 10 games by his country’s football association.
December 4 – Valencia have promised to ban for life the fan who threw a plastic bottle that struck Lionel Messi on the head – if the club can ever discover who the culprit was.
December 4 – FC Bayern Munich is the world’s biggest club if you take into account membership numbers only. Portugal’s Benfica comes second, followed by FC Barcelona, Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund.