By Andrew Warshaw
October 7 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino seems unlikely to face an ethics prosecution over his role in a loan to the Slovenian Football Association while he was UEFA general secretary.
Who would have thought that a group of Norwegian bloggers could shatter the glass walls of FIFA, UEFA, etc. What they delivered in terms of conspiracy theories about UEFA’s new boss, and FIFA’s new Audit and Compliance chief is pretty cool – time will prove how correct their suppositions are but questions have been asked.
There is a very important fact worth bearing in mind when seeking to make sense of Gianni Infantino’s FIFA: the 46-year-old Swiss-Italian new boy faces re-election in less than three years’ time.
October 7 – If they’re good enough, they’re old enough goes one of football’s well-known sayings.
October 7 – Sadly the result did not match the anticipation. Kosovo’s first competitive home fixture since being admitted by FIFA and UEFA ended in a 6-0 defeat by Croatia that leaves them bottom of their World Cup qualifying group.
By Paul Nicholson
October 7 – As a marketing tool football delivers though sponsorship sales are now more often referred to as ‘partnerships’ with exclusive ‘content’ options part of the package. The days of selling board signage, shirt positions and brand exposure as standalone package may not be entirely over, but they almost are.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – The Norwegian publication that has run a series of investigative reports into whether Gianni Infantino is fit for FIFA president has thrown up yet more questions about his credentials, this time involving his relationship with new UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – The boss of one of Italy’s major top-flight clubs has issued a scathing attack on the role of agents in the wake of the English newspaper sting that saw Sam Allardyce lose the national manager’s job after just 67 days and which quoted agents boasting about how many managers had been paid off in transfer deals.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – When the great and the good of FIFA’s new ruling Council converge on Zurich for next week’s eagerly awaited first full meeting, there will be no point in reporters seeking titbits of news by doorstepping the exclusive Baur au Lac hotel, for years the regular haunt of FIFA powerbrokers.
By Paul Nicholson
October 6 – Social media is the fastest growing segment of most clubs’ activities but can the followers be monetised directly or are they part of the larger media/sponsor sale metrics? It is an issue that is increasingly flexing club thinking as they look to maximise and get a return on their investments in the social arena.
October 6 – Malta-based Daily Fantasy Football (DFS) company Oulala is expanding in to Latin America, initially targeting Argentinean clubs with a white label version of its platform.
October 6 – Two players with Czech side Sparta Prague who caused outrage with their sexist comments have been told to train with the women’s team.
By Paul Nicholson
October 4 – A boardroom bust-up has taken place at Highlight Communications that could see the company’s sports media assets come under the control of Dieter Hahn, the former Kirch executive who is deeply implicated in the alleged German cash-for-votes scandal around the award of the 2006 World Cup to Germany, and the secret slush fund used to buy broadcast rights to Bayern matches.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 5 – Top leagues from across European football today moved closer to all-out war with UEFA over plans to revamp the Champions League. Urgent talks between the head of the umbrella body for Europe’s leagues and new UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin are due to take place in the next 48 hours with the genuine threat of a free-for-all if the controversial deal favouring Europe’s elite clubs is not modified or scrapped.
By Paul Nicholson
October 5 – One of the leaders of football’s brave new world, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, has suggested that Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups could be the best thing to have happened to football in that it provided an accelerant for the clean-up of the game globally, and particularly in his region.