October 24 – In a stunning escalation, football in Spain looks like it is on set for outright civil war after La Liga announced plans to take the Spanish players union (AFE) to court, claiming last weekend’s coordinated player protests amounted to an “illegal strike”.
October 24 – Major League Soccer’s 30th regular season is a wrap, and in an unprecedented move, MLS has released its official audience and attendance data, signalling that the league now feels confident enough in its trajectory to show the world just how far it’s come.
October 23 – Gary Neville, England’s self-appointed moral arbiter on football governance, has found himself in the middle of more controversy with a Sky Bet ad he features in falling foul of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
October 24 – In a landmark step for the game, the United States Consortium of State Associations (USCSA) and Women and Girls in Soccer (WAGS) have announced an all-female U.S. Soccer National B License course – one aimed squarely at giving more women the chance to climb the coaching ladder.
October 23 – Lionel Messi has signed a new multi-year deal with Inter Miami, extending his stay in South Florida until the end of the 2028 MLS season.
The financial terms remain under wraps, but Messi’s impact on MLS has been impossible to conceal. Since arriving in 2023, the Argentine has been the league’s highest-paid player by a wide margin, earning over $20 million a year and even securing equity in the club when his playing days end.
October 23 – Paris Saint-Germain’s Achraf Hakimi and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah head the shortlist for the 2025 CAF African Footballer of the Year award, as two of the award’s familiar faces go head-to-head once more.
October 23 – The Football Association have agreed a multi-year partnership with ClearScore, the UK’s leading credit score and report app, as an official partner of both the Emirates FA Cup and the Adobe Women’s FA Cup.
October 23 – Mitre have revealed the official match balls for the 2025/26 Emirates FA Cup and Adobe Women’s FA Cup, ahead of the First Round Proper in both competitions.
October 23 – According to the Guardian, FC Porto have taken action against ticket touts, and in the process discovered one of football’s largest ticket-scalping operations, a network that has allegedly created an industrial-scale resale of match tickets that preys on local loyalty and exploits tourists.
October 23 – DAZN’s next big play will surely light the blue touchpaper to the fiercest bidding war since BT and Sky Sports put on the gloves for the rights to the Premier League in 2023.
October 23 – The Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) has undertaken a vital initiative to enhance safety on football pitches across the country through a project supported by the UEFA HatTrick program.
October 23 – La Liga President Javier Tebas has always seen himself as a visionary, but in his overzealous pursuit to plant the Spanish flag on American soil, he may have misread the room.
October 21 – Spain’s LaLiga has officially cancelled its proposed Villareal-Barcelona regular season match in Miami on December 20 after “conversations” with its US promoter Relevent Sports, and citing “uncertainty that has arisen in Spain over the past few weeks”.
Opposition to playing the game in Miami had met with widespread condemnation from football’s stakeholders globally and in the last few days from the Spanish player’s union and individual players who said the match would have damaged the competitive integrity of the league in favour of Barcelona as Villareal is a tough away game for any team in the league.
October 22 – Inter Milan maintained their perfect record in the group stages of the Champions League with a convincing 4-0 win at Belgium’s Union St Gilloise.
October 22 – UEFA has become the first sports rights-holder to join the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) – the world’s largest coalition dedicated to tackling digital piracy.