January 20 – AFC Champions League holders Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors from South Korea have been banned from all Asian Football Confederation competition in 2017, preventing them from being able to defend their title. The sanction carries out the hard stance taken by AFC that it will have a zero tolerance attitude towards any form of match-fixing.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 20 – East Timor has been kicked out of the 2023 Asian Cup and fined $76,000 for fielding several Brazilian-born footballers with fake documents, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced today.
January 20 – A British worker has lost his life working on Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar which will host the group matches and a quarter final at the 2022 World Cup.
January 2 – Germany’s Bundesliga will become the first major league to use video assistant referees next season for game-changing decisions.
January 20 – An American consortium looking to secure a deal to takeover former European champions Nottingham Forest say a revised bid has been rejected.
January 20 – Long-time Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, one of the most knowledgeable coaches of global footballing trends, says top-flight players should opt for playing a better standard rather than automatically take the money by moving to China.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 19 – UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin sees no “rational or legal grounds” to strip Russia of the 2018 World Cup despite the recent doping scandal combined with persistent instances of racism and the ongoing probe by Swiss authorities into the bid process.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 19 – Not to be outdone by the innovations of his boss Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s new technical director Marco van Basten has come up with arguably the most ground-breaking blueprint ever for the future of football including scrapping offside and introducing sin-bins in place of yellow cards.
By Paul Nicholson
January 19 – Manchester United have emphatically beaten Barcelona and Real Madrid to the top of the Deloitte Football Money League, beating second place Barca by almost €69 million. Eight Premier League clubs were in the top 20 that collectively generated a record €7.4 billion in the 2015/16 period – more than FIFA generates in its four-year cycle.
January 19 – Third time lucky. After twice being voted second in the CONCACAF Player of the Year, Bryan Ruiz has at last take the top honour of 2016. In the women’s vote Alex Morgan claimed her second title having won in 2014 and coming second in 2015.
By Samindra Kunti
January 19 – Brussels MP Arnaud Verstraete from the Green party has subpoenaed the region of Brussels over Belgium’s proposed stadium for EURO2020. The process is the latest hitch in the construction of the venue.
January 19 – One of the most revered footballers in Egypt’s history has been placed on the country’s terrorism list over claims that he was directly involved in funding the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
January 19 – Sporting Lisbon players were confronted by angry fans and had to be protected twice by riot police after the club’s Portuguese Cup defeat by Chaves.
January 19 – More than 1,000 cases relating to child sexual abuse within football in the United Kingdom have now been reported to police with 248 clubs caught up in the scandal according to latest figures.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 18 – Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure has resisted the temptation to become the latest big-name international to be lured by China’s riches amid a mixed response to the country’s decision to tighten the rules over the number of overseas players permitted per club.