By Alexander Krassimirov
June 9 – Bulgaria has started the reconstruction of its national stadium, Vasil Levski. The renovation will pass through three stages, said Bulgarian sports minister Krassen Kralev, who spoke yesterday after an inspection of the stadium.
By Mark Baber
June 9 – The annual study by Brand Finance ranking the world’s biggest football clubs by their “brand value” sees Manchester United, whose brand is said to be worth $1.2 bn, displace Bayern Munich from top spot. The list remains dominated by Premier League sides with six English clubs in the top ten.
By Paul Nicholson
June 9 – The CIES Football Observatory has released its top 100 ranking of the highest transfer values for big-5 league footballers. Not surprisingly Lionel Messi heads the table with an estimated value of between €255 and €281 million – more than it would cost to buy half the teams in the English Premier League, Aston Villa is reckoned to be on sale for £100 million.
By Alexander Krassimirov
June 9 – Embattled Bulgarian club CSKA Sofia, which has so far been refused a license to play next season, was struck another blow when former player Youness Bengelloun was awarded €407,296 (BGN 803 000) in compensation for unpaid salary. The decision was taken by a FIFA tribunal with judges from England, Croatia, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
June 8 – Termalica Bruk-Bet Nieciecza, one of the two promoted teams to Poland’s top tier Ekstraklasa for the 2015/16 season, has unveiled plans to double the capacity of its stadium from the current 2,262 to at least 4,500 seats.
By Matt Scott
June 8 – Insolvent Football League clubs will face an immediate 12-point deduction following new rules introduced at the competition’s annual summer conference in Portugal on Friday.
June 8 – With the international spotlight focused on corruption and money-laundering at FIFA and doping claims in athletics, the Qatar-based International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) is laying on a specialist session in Geneva in September to explore how sport, governments and the wider stakeholder community can tackle the issues and come up with ideas for robust reform.
By David Owen
June 7 – Clubs in England’s second-tier Championship paid out more in wages than they generated in revenue for a second straight season in 2013-14, underlining the risks decision-makers are prepared to run to improve their chances of promotion to the promised land of the Premier League.
By Matt Scott
June 5 – English Football League clubs will today vote on a new insolvency policy that, if approved, will overhaul the way administrations are dealt with in the English lower leagues.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 6 – South Africa’s 2010 World Cup boss Danny Jordaan (pictured) is back in the firing line over the infamous $10 million which United States prosecutors allege was a bribe to secure the country the showpiece tournament and which South Africa’s government counters was a perfectly above board World Cup legacy payment.
By Samindra Kunti
June 5 – CBF president Marco Polo Del Nero is expected to resign during an extraordinary general assembly next week as the crisis deepens in Brazilian football.
By Mark Baber
June 5 – Following the arrest of its former president Rafael Esquivel in Switzerland, military intelligence raided the headquarters of the Federación Venezolana de Fútbol (FVF).
June 5 – The battle against betting related match fixing is seeing a rapid uptake in stakeholders looking for ways to combine resource and intelligence to control what is probably the biggest threat to the sporting integrity of the game. The latest information sharing agreement is between the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol, have linked up with Sportradar’s betting security division.
By Mark Baber
June 4 – The worldwide focus on football corruption, and especially the nexus between sports marketing companies and corrupt football federation officials, has created an atmosphere in which Kenya Football Federation (FKF) president Sam Nyamweya’s position looks increasingly precarious.
By Mark Baber
June 3 – The new partnership was agreed in Zurich with President of the AIFF Praful Patel signing on behalf of the Indian side, with Kushal Das the AIFF’s General Secretary also present.