July 3 – Football DataCo has agreed a deal with Genius Sports to be the exclusive agency to supply and sub-license official match data and fixture lists for England and Scotland’s professional leagues to licensed betting operators in South Africa.
July 3 – With many European clubs back in training and looking towards pre-season marketing/training trips to foreign countries, Manchester City have announced that their two trophies – from their Premier League and Carabao Cup wins last season – will also be making a summer tour.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – The controversies continue to rage but FIFA’s refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina and his colleagues insist the introduction of video assistant referees (Vars) has been an unqualified success in Russia.
July 2 – Imprisoned former FC Barcelona president Sandro Rosell is to stand trial for alleged money laundering related to television rights and sponsorship of the Brazilian national football team.
July 2 – With yet another pre-tournament favourite dumped out of a World Cup of unprecedented surprises, Spanish Football Federation president Luis Rubiales insists he has no regrets over the decision to sack national coach Julen Lopetegui on the eve of the competition.
By Samindra Kunti in Moscow
July 2 – Football’s governing body FIFA reported that 2,178,894 fans attended the 48 matches of the World Cup group stages in Russia, averaging a stadium occupancy rate of 98%.
July 2 – Senegal’s football federation (FSF) has urged FIFA to reconsider its new fair play ruling which controversially resulted in the Africans’ World Cup exit.
July 2 – China’s Ministry of Education – which has been in charge of schools and university football development since 2014 – has updated the results of its national campus football project, revealing that there are now more than 20,200 specialist football academies across the country.
July 2 – Internazionale has unvelied Lvmama.com as the club’s Official China Travel Partner at a signing ceremony in the new Bellagio hotel in Shanghai, which was opened in June and is owned by the Suning Group which also owns the club.
July 2 – Swiss captain Stephan Lichtsteiner has opened up for the first time about being sanctioned for the controversial Albanian eagle salutes during his country’s group game against Serbia.
June 29 – After having all their various protests about the 2026 World Cup bid process rejected by FIFA, Morocco are crying foul again – this time over the way they were eliminated from the World Cup.
June 29 – Unibet has secured a SEK 1.2 billion (+ €100 million) title sponsorship of Sweden’s top two leagues that will at the start of 2020 and run for six years with the option of Unibet renewing for a further six years.
By David Owen
June 29 – Exactly half – 368 – of the players who started Russia 2018 have now had their World Cup dreams shattered. But where do these dearly departed play their club football? Who employs the most squad members eliminated from the competition in the group stages?
June 29 – FIFA’s strict rules on government interference in the affairs of its member federations has been called into question in Ghana where reports suggest only government representatives – and not footballing officials – were called to today’s meeting in Zurich to discuss the corruption crisis in the African country.
June 29 – Beach Soccer Worldwide (BSWW) has signed a four-year partnership with streaming platform mycujoo that will see more than 1,500 matches live-streamed between 2018 to 2021.