By Mark Baber
February 6 – The General Sports Authority (GSA), Saudi Football Federation and the Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding by which STC will have the sole rights for transmission of local football matches and the matches of Saudi national team.
February 6 – Crystal Palace’s resurgence from bottom of the league to mid-table competitiveness may have slowed in recent weeks, but the clubs’ fans still manage to find more seats to fill at Selhurst Park than the ground’s official capacity. Roy Hodgson is clearly working some kind of magic with fans in south-east London that deserted him in his last job with England.
February 6 – Brazil’s top division has rejected implementing video technology both because of cost and uncertainty over the system’s consistency.
By Samindra Kunti in Casablanca, Morocco
February 5 – Edouard Ngaissona from the Central African Republic (CAR) has sparked more controversy and suspicion over football governance in Africa after being elected to the Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the top table of football decision making in the region.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – FIFA’s strict (some might argue over-the-top) directive to its member federations not to break any rules during the current lobbying campaign for the 2026 World Cup has led to understandable irritation at the head of African football’s leadership.
February 5 – The bitter in-fighting over who runs the game in Sierra Leone has burst back into the spotlight after FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura (pictured right with Isha Johansen) with wrote to the country’s sports minister, Ahmed Khanou, warning him not to interfere.
By Samindra Kunti in Casablanca, Morocco
February 5 – In the pouring rain Morocco waltzed to a superb maiden African Nations Championship title, crushing ten-men Nigeria 4-0. Morocco’s Ayoub El Kaabi, CHAN’s top scorer with nine goals, was named player of the tournament.
February 5 – The move by clubs into general entertainment television programming via reality style behind-the scenes shows has now been taken a step further with Barcelona reportedly in preliminary talks with Disney-owned Pixar over the making of an animated feature film.
February 5 – Once one of the most influential figures in European football, playing a prominent role in the European Club Association and representing that body on various UEFA and FIFA committees, former Barcelona president Sandro Rosell continues to have his assets frozen in Spain.
February 5 – Manchester City have become the first of Europe’s big clubs to confirm they will be playing in the International Champions Cup (ICC) tournament this summer in the US.
February 5 – Serie A champions Juventus have continued their marketing push in China with the addition of Shandong-based Linglong Tire as the Italian club’s Official Global Tire Partner.
By David Owen
February 2 – For the second World Cup running, FIFA is planning to test anti-doping samples at a laboratory outside the host country.
February 2 – Revenue for the esports industry hit $1.5 billion in 2017 and is predicted to grow by 26% in 2023 to more than $2.3 billion.
February 2 – The ESSA, the 26-member bookmaker betting integrity group, has announced 266 cases of suspicious betting being reported to relevant authorities in 2017, with 114 of them in the last quarter. Football made up 45 of the reported alerts.
February 2 – Sepp Blatter may be yesterday’s man but says he is not yet resigned with being for ever tarnished with having broken ethics rules.