February 5 – Fans of high-flying Italian club Atalanta have expressed their frustration and anger after it was revealed the club had terminated Iraq defender Ali Adnan’s contract following the Asian Cup.
February 5 – The Asian Cup may only have just finished, but there is little respite for Asia’s players as the qualifiers for this year’s AFC Asian Champions League, the continent’s premier club competition, get underway today.
February 5 – The British government is to hold an “urgent” meeting with football administrators to try to tackle the worrying resurgence of discrimination in the sport.
February 5 – Concacaf has agreed an exclusive master licensee contract for consumer products with US firm OEG Sports. OEG will also act as the confederation’s licensing agent in a global deal.
February 5 – At last year’s World Cup in Russia FIFA president Gianni Infantino said that it would be “difficult to think about the World Cup without VAR”, but it remained unclear if he was also referring to the women’s game.
February 5 – A body has been seen in the underwater wreckage of the light aircraft which was carrying former Nantes forward Emiliano Sala and his pilot to his new club Cardiff City and which tragically disappeared over the English Channel, according to air accident investigators.
By Abdelaziz Abuhamar
February 1 – Almost no one was expecting the Qatar national team to drive their way through to become the continental champions in the AFC 2019 Asian Cup that completed in the United Arab Emirates Firday night.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The increasingly fractious leadership of the Confederation of African Football under Ahmad Ahmad has been dealt yet another internal blow with former Liberian FA chief Musa Bility resigning from two senior positions within CAF.
February 4 – FIFA President Gianni Infantino is under investigation in Switzerland for suspicion of bribery and potential corruption of the Swiss judiciary.
February 4 – The man behind a string of incriminating leaks that shook the footballing world over the past few weeks claims he would not get a fair trial if he is returned to his native Portugal because “the mafia is everywhere”.
February 4 – A Thai court has denied bail to part-time footballer Hakeem al-Araibi and given him until April 5 to file a written defence against Bahrain’s attempt to extradite him from Thailand before the next scheduled hearing on April 22.
February 4 – Air accident investigators have discovered the wreckage of the light aircraft carrying Argentine-born Emiliano Sala and his pilot which disappeared over the English Channel last month en route to Cardiff where Sala was due to make his debut for the Premier league club.
February 4 – A 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup referees workshop is being held in the Aspire Zone in Qatar for the next 12 days.
February 4 – Iran’s outgoing coach Carlos Queiroz claims the team’s participation at the just-completed Asian Cup was only possible due to the financial aid provided by Qatar
Japan 1 Qatar 3
By Paul Nicholson
February 1 – The Qatar football project is bearing fruit. Ably supported by an army of Omanis who once again had driven across the border, this time in their thousands, to support them, Qatar lifted their first-ever Asian Cup in Abu Dhabi with a 3-1 win over a Japanese team that started as favourites.