February 14 – German giant Bayern Munich has formed a player development alliance with MLS side FC Dallas to provide a pathway for players in their professional academies inot the game in Germany and the US.
February 13 – Inter Milan have expanded their academy programme into Indonesia with the launch of Inter Academy Indonesia that will see Italian coaches working in partnership with PERSIB Bandung and its elite academy.
February 13 – Who says sport and politics don’t mix? With Ukrainian journalists having already been refused accreditation by their national fa and having to approach FIFA directly, Ukraine’s public broadcaster has now decided not to show any of the games in Russia.
February 2 – As controversial refereeing decisions go, few are as worthy of condemnation as the booking meted out over the weekend to Nice’s former Italian international striker Mario Balotelli after he reportedly claimed he was the victim of racist chanting during a top-flight French game.
February 13 – Just days after a FIFA delegation led by secretary general Fatma Samoura, met with Spanish officials to discuss concerns about government interference in the aftermath of veteran powerbroker Angel Villar’s demise, the Spanish football federation (RFEF) announced it is finally holding elections in April to select Villar’s replacement.
February 13 – La Liga and Serie A are in battle for the services of Javier Tebas, the longstanding and mercurial Spanish league president. The Italian league has made an approach to lure him away from Spain.
February 13 – In a rare intervention, UEFA have stepped in to order referees to provide greater protection to Europe’s top players during the knockout stages of the Champions League.
February 13 – FIFA is facing calls from human rights organisations to scrap Chechnya as a World Cup base for Egypt this summer.
February 13 – Champions League sponsor Mastercard, who last week extended its 24-year partnership for another three-year cycle to 2021, has called up Pele to activate the brand sponsorship in advance of the last 16 knockout rounds.
February 13 – No other club in history has spent as much as Manchester City to assemble a playing squad. At €878 million Man City have spent €73 million more than Paris St Germain and €131 million more than neighbours Man Utd, though they are having a Red Devil of a time under big spender Jose Mourinho to close that gap.
February 12 – Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros does not mince his worlds when it comes to issues of sports integrity. More needs to be done, it needs to be done now and these are non-negotiable conditions. For de Medeiros, tackling matchfixing is very firmly in the middle of that mix of integrity issues globally that have to be addressed.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 12 – The way FIFA did business in order to secure a top Chinese sponsor for the World Cup has been seriously called into question by the man who claims he brokered the deal but was cut out from receiving commission in return.
February 12 – Portugal claimed their maiden UEFA Futsal Championship title by defeating Spain 3-2 in extra time in Slovenia. In Asia, Iran took the highest honours, beating Japan 4-0.
By Paul Nicholson
February 12 – It took three rounds of voting before Carlos Cordeiro emerged triumphant in the ballot for the US Soccer Federation presidency. Cordeiro, who has been the US federation’s vice president for the last two years and an independent board member for nine years, fought off eight challengers for the post in what proved to be a canny campaign that appealed to the broader base of US soccer’s community.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 12 – Former FIFA vice president Chung Mong-joon, for years one of world football’s most powerful administrators, has been cleared to work again after partially winning his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport against his five-year ban for failing to cooperate with ethics investigators.