January 4 – Premier League clubs amassed a total 605,000 new Twitter followers over the two-week Christmas and New Year period. A massive 25% of those followers were for Manchester United.
January 4 – The Indian Super League has unveiled record TV viewing figures for its third season with over 216 million watching the league throughout the season and the viewing audience for the Atletico de Kolkata and Kerala Blasters final drawing 41 million.
January 4 – Hull City became the fourth Premier League club to sack their manager this season and the first in 2017. Mike Phelan, appointed only 12 weeks ago, follows the departures of Francesco Guidolin and Bob Bradley from Swansea City and Alan Pardew from Crystal Palace.
January 4 – The Somali Football Federation has inaugurated its first ever regional football league in the port city of Kismayo, about 500 kilometers south of the capital Mogadishu.
January 4 – Korea has announced the opening of general tickets sales for the upcoming U-20 World Cup finals to be held in the country in May and June 2017.
January 3 – After the famine came a feast. With Premier League fans made to wait for seven days before festive football came to their stadia, they are now engulfed in a jam-packed schedule that saw Round 19 fixtures on December 31, roll straight into Round 20 fixtures on January 2.
By Paul Nicholson
January 3 – The postponed elections for the presidency of the Spanish football federation (RFEF) now look set to take place in April after reports that controversial current president Angel Maria Villar has found common ground in disputes with the Spanish sports ministry and its new Secretary of State for Sports, Jose Ramon Lete.
By Samindra Kunti
January 3 – The Brazilian Football Confederation, the CBF, wants to rekindle their relationship with FIFA, because the governing body still owe the confederation $100 million from the 2014 World Cup legacy fund, but the presence of CBF president Marco Polo Del Nero is proving to be an obstacle.
January 3 – Manchester City have announced dates for a second ‘hackathon’, this time in conjunction with Google. The event will take place February 10-12 at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
January 3 – Kuwait’s exile from the international football wilderness, including 2018 World Cup qualifying, looks set to continue after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to temporarily lift its suspension on the Gulf state that has now been in place for 14 months.
January 3 – A tiny Welsh team have won a glorious place in the global footballing record books after beating the longest winning streak in top-flight football set by Johan Cruyff’s Ajax 44 years ago.
January 3 – New England manager Gareth Southgate says he would love to be the man to end the country’s record as the great under-achievers despite having a squad full of Premier League millionaire footballers.
By Paul Nicholson
December 30 – Gianni Infantino’s triumphant pre-Christmas claim that FIFA was now close to being an integrity-credible organisation was met with thinly veiled amusement in many quarters – not least the press worldwide who dutifully re-reported the FIFA president’s latest musings. There is of course a far more credible integrity viewpoint. “It has been an awful year of integrity in sports,” says Michael Hershman.
By Lefteris Charalampopoulos
December 29 – They claim to be extremely wealthy. They are owners of football clubs and controversial businessmen. Dimitris Melissanidis, owner of AEK Athens, and Giannis Alafouzos (pictured) of Panathinaikos, have money but they have failed to meet their payment obligations to their players and coaches.
December 30 – The United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements has heaped pressure on FIFA to resolve the issue of Israeli lower-league clubs based in the occupied West Bank, according to Human Rights Watch.