August 29 – The top-flight derby between Nice and Marseille was suspended for 10 minutes on Wednesday following yet another instance of homophobic abuse in French football.
August 27 – Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said he was “lost for words” after yet another vitriolic case of racial abuse on social media towards a player missing a penalty, this time directed against Marcus Rashford who fluffed a second-half spotkick as United suffered a shock 2-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
August 21 – Former England international Phil Neville has called for the football community to “send a powerful message” and boycott social media for six months in response to the rise in racist abuse of players.
August 21 – Newly promoted Premier League club Aston Villa’s long-serving youth coach and head of football development Kevin MacDonald has been suspended following an investigation into allegations of bullying.
August 20 – Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba has become the third player in a week to be the subject of racist abuse on social media in England after missing a penalty.
August 19 – Chelsea fans are once again back in the spotlight all the wrong reasons after their own striker Tammy Abraham was racially abused online following last week’s Super Cup defeat to Liverpool when he missed the decisive penalty in the shootout.
August 16 – FIFA has banned for life a prominent official who served on its own audit and compliance committee that is supposed to weed out financial wrongdoing.
By Paul Nicholson
August 14 – When Jeff Webb was president of Concacaf he was always a pretty cool cat – approachable, friendly, always reasonable, nice guy to be around and pretty generous with it. Since his US Justice Department indictment in 2015 on corruption chrages he has needed all of a cat’s nine lives to stave off sentencing.
August 14 – The head coach of an MLS team has been sacked for using profane homophobic language.
August 14 – The Liberia Football Association (LFA) has banned referee Josephus Torjilar for two years for accepting a bribe.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 12 – The bitter dispute between La Liga and the Spanish FA (RFEF) over which days are eligible for league matches has been resolved with a judge ruling that Fridays are fine but imposing a blanket ban on games being played on Monday nights.
August 12 – Betting giant SportPesa has pulled the plug on all its sports sponsorships in Kenya after a prolonged tax dispute with local authorities.
August 12 – A Major League Soccer derby between northwest rivals Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders has burst into controversy ahead of a potentially politically-motivated clash between right-wing and left-wing activists on August 17.
August 9 – A Gambian-born midfielder is reported to be playing in Germany with a falsified name and age.
August 8 – Two of the leading figures behind the campaign to expose sexual abuse by Afghan officials have gone back on the offensive accusing FIFA of not doing nearly enough and calling for far more concrete action.
