November 28 – Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers has approved plans to privatise its football clubs after consultancy firm Deloitte conducted a year-long feasibility study.
November 28 – Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho, the self-styled Special One, prides himself on setting records. But his latest “achievement” will hardly go down as one of his most admirable.
November 28 – The English Football Association has confirmed it is investigating allegations of sexual abuse in youth football after more ex-professionals came forward with stories of their suffering.
By David Owen
November 28 – Patrons wishing to hire a private suite for next year’s Confederations Cup final in Saint Petersburg face prices of up to almost $50,000 under packages being advertised by Match Hospitality, exclusive rights-holder of FIFA’s hospitality programme at the eight-team competition.
By Paul Nicholson
November 25 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Competitions Committee is proposing a revamp of the AFC Cup, the confederations cup competition for clubs that come from the AFC’s lower ranked member nations. On what was a packed meeting agenda, changes to ranking criteria and a hard look at foreign player quotas were put forward.
It’s the ultimate catch-22 question for ambitious club owners and coaches. How do you fund an expensive new stadium while at the same time build a competitive title-contending team?
November 25 – The growth of new Instagram followers to Premier League clubs in the week to November 20 has remained steady with another 276,000 plus sign-ons matching the previous week. What is emerging is a pattern of the biggest clubs putting on huge numbers of followers, in contrast to the 12 lowest ranked clubs adding less than 2,000 followers each.
November 25 – Inter Milan, one of the world’s most iconic clubs but currently struggling in Serie A despite being taken over by Chinese investors, have suffered the ultimate humiliation after being knocked out of the Europa League – baby brother of the Champions League – with a game to spare.
November 25 – English football has been rocked by revelations of sexual abuse inflicted on a raft of ex-professionals who have come forward to provide details of their suffering when they were children at the hands of youth coaches.
November 25 – FIFA is facing a lawsuit in a Zurich court over its ban on transferring players under the age of 18, one of its most contentious rules that has already led to severe sanctions imposed on Spain’s three largest clubs.
November 25 – English football authorities do not appear to be too strong on their African geography.
November 25 – Former Peruvian FA chief Manuel Burga is to be extradited to the United States to face criminal conspiracy charges for his alleged role in football’s far-reaching global corruption investigation.
November 24 – Gianni Infantino says the majority of FIFA members are in favour of his plans to expand the World Cup finals to either 40 or 48 teams.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 24 – An increasingly frustrated Tokyo Sexwale, FIFA’s top mediator in the Middle East, has called on the relevant parties to show some movement on the “headache” of the six Israeli clubs based in settlements in the occupied West Bank who play in Israel’s lower leagues.
November 24 – Will CONCACAF have to fight off an African bid to stage the 2026 World Cup? Although the confederation of north and central America is widely considered a shoo-in to stage the event – whether in the United States, Mexico or Canada, or a combination of all three – the head of African football says his body will support Morocco, which has tried and failed four times, should it launch a counter-bid.