By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, who heads the European Club Association representing the interests of more than 200 clubs across the Continent, has urged UEFA to crack down on any big spenders who breach financial fair play regulations.
February 4 – The Football Conference, which organises the fifth and sixth tiers of English football across three divisions, is looking for a title sponsor following the decision by current sponsor Skrill, to finish its relationship with the league at the end of the year.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
February 3 – Arpad Paszkany (pictured), owner of CFR Cluj, has confirmed plans to find a new investor for the Romanian club which currently plays in Liga 1, the top tier of the country’s professional football league.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – Pep Guardiola’s biographer Daniel Martinez reckons that the Bayern coach sees Philipp Lahm as his most important player. And if Bayern retain the Champions League and Germany win the World Cup then the aging defender turned midfield general would be nailed-on for the next FIFA player of the year.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Mental strength has long been regarded as one of German football’s greatest qualities but Franz Beckenbauer, the country’s most revered footballing icon, believes it may have been lost.
February 3 – French football stars Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema have been cleared on all charges in their underage sex trial in Paris. The prosecution had been tasked with proving they had illegally slept with a teenage prostitute – a crime which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
February 3 – Tributes have poured in from around the world for Luis Aragones, the man who ended Spain’s 44-year wait for a major international trophy by winning Euro 2008.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – First he was the manager, then he wasn’t, then he was again: all within 24 hours. The mayhem surrounding the prospective Italian takeover of iconic English club Leeds United took several farcical twists over the weekend when Brian McDermott was re-instated by the club’s directors after seemingly being sacked.
February 3 – The Genoa derby, one of the most passionate in Italian football, will take place tonight after its original lunchtime kick-off on Sunday was called off when fans threatened to boycott the game in protest of a switch from the traditional afternoon start to accommodate television schedules.
By David Owen
January 31 – The market continues to applaud BT’s high-profile push into sports broadcasting, in spite of the impact its strategy is having on costs both in its retail division and at rival Premier League broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting.
By Paul Nicholson
January 31 – A new app using crowdsourced insights into betting patterns has been launched for iPads. BETFUZE, a London-based technology driven business, has developed the app as a tool for sports betting.
January 31 – The management-led buyout of English Chamoionship club Leeds United has fallen apart with the incoming consortium Sport Capital, headed by Leeds managing director David Haigh, failing to conclude a deal to buy 75% of the club from Bahrain-based investment bank GFH Capital.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
January 31 – Former Barcelona president Sandro Rosell has been forced to relinquish all his roles within the European Club Association following his decision to quit the Catalan giants. Rosell, who played a key role in promoting the interests of more than 200 clubs, is no longer taking part in any decision making at the ECA and has left a huge gap in ongoing club-versus-country negotiations with FIFA and UEFA.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 31 – In one of the starkest examples of the financial crisis enveloping Spanish football below elite level, the Copa del Rey quarterfinal between Racing Santander and Real Sociedad was abandoned when the Santander players went on strike because of unpaid wages.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
January 30 – In a bid to increase the club’s following in various parts of Poland, Legia Warsaw has launched a countrywide advertising campaign employing billboards, press and the internet. But the campaign may have backfired after fans of other clubs took insult at the ads appearing in the their cities.