By David Owen
February 19 – Watford, the Premier League club based in London’s commuter-belt and controlled by Gino Pozzo, has fallen into loss due to higher costs and a markedly smaller gain on player sales.
February 19 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is drafting in a team of experts to fight against Intellectual Property (IP) theft in the wake of the row over pirate channel beoutQ which illegally broadcast last month’s Asian Cup played in the United Arab Emirates.
February 19 – City Football Group (CFG), the multi-club holding company that owns Manchester City, New York City FC and Girona, among others, looks set to add to its club portfolio with a third tier team in China.
February 19 – Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is not planning a £3.8bn takeover of Manchester United according to his media minister.
February 19 – Betting on esports is estimated to grow to a massive $12.9 billion by the end of this year. That is more than double the figure of $5.5 billion in 2016 and puts the esports business firmly in competition with other forms of online betting.
February 19 – The US looks set to get a second third tier professional league after the United States Soccer Federation provisionally sanctioned the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) as a Professional Soccer League.
February 19 – An Italian third division club which cobbled together a seven-man team in order to avoid being thrown out of the league and promptly lost 20-0 has been booted out anyway despite fulfilling their promise to fulfil the fixture.
February 19 – English second tier front-runners Leeds United have been fined £200,000 by the English Football League and given a formal reprimand over the so-called ‘spygate’ affair in January.
February 19 – The English Football League (EFL) has extended its partnership with Thai Airways of the EFL’s five finals, the first of which – the Carabao Cup – will be played between Chelsea and Manchester City next weekend at Wembley.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 18 – Under-fire Confederation of African Football president Ahmad has broken his silence over the fierce criticism levelled at him by former Liberian FA boss Musa Bility.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 18 – In a potentially significant ruling in terms of UEFA’s determination to make sure clubs balance their books, Galatasaray have won a landmark appeal to block a further investigation of their compliance with financial fair play.
February 18 – Gianni Infantino is repeating the same rhetoric ahead of next month’s decision-making FIFA Council session in Miami saying he is “optimistic” about expanding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to 48 teams but warned that it would “not be easy”.
February 18 – UEFA has registered a logo and a trademark related to the Nations League in its ongoing feud with FIFA over new competitions that would reshape the football landscape.
February 18 – Real Madrid have taken a step closer to redeveloping the Santiago Bernabeu stadium after Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan agreed loans of €575 million ($650 million) for the project.
February 18 – Players who have developed through the Barcelona or Real Madrid academies are far more likely to have careers in Europe’s Big 5 leagues than players developed anywhere else in Europe.