By Samindra Kunti in Rio de Janeiro
August 19 – Sweden and Germany will dispute the Olympic women’s gold medal match at the Maracana, but the team that is only in Brazil because the Brits stunningly couldn’t agree to play together, has split opinion over their unadventurous style of play.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 19 – The manager of Scottish giants Celtic has urged UEFA not to bow to the demands of Europe’s traditional big-hitters to the detriment of other equally deserving clubs as European football’s governing body prepares to head off the threat of a breakaway Super League.
August 19 – The preliminary round of the UEFA Futsal Cup for clubs completes this weekend with 32 teams battling for 8 places in the Main round of 24. The 2016/17 championship has seen a record entry of 52 clubs including for the first time teams from Kosovo and San Marino,
August 19 – Inter Milan has signed a one-year partnership with HotelPlanner for the 2016/17 season, making the online booking service the club’s Official Hotel Reservations Partner.
By Paul Nicholson
August 17 – Celtic fans, a hard-core group of whom have never been shy to express political opinion at football matches, defied Scottish police and club requests with hundreds of them waving Palestinian flags at their first-leg Champions League play-off against Israeli champions Hapoel Be’er Sheva.
August 18 – From despair to jubilation. Neymar scored the fastest goal in Olympic football history after just 14 seconds to set up a 6-0 demolition of Honduras in the men’s semi-final of the Olympic tournament.
August 18 – Everton’s long-held ambitions for a new stadium away from their iconic but creaking Goodison Park are still very much on the club owner’s agenda with two sites in Liverpool being considered.
August 18 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has met with the 10-nation international police body ASEANPOL with a view to forging closer collaboration, particularly in the battle against match-fixing and organised betting crime in the region.
August 17 – A US study into how fans rank their experiences at big league sports in the US has found that Major League Soccer teams rank no lower than second in each of America’s four largest markets of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston against the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA teams in those markets.
August 18 – Online sportsbook Tempobet has increased its Premier League sponsorship portfolio with a deal to become a partner of newly-promoted Middlesbrough. The company is already a regional partner of Manchester City.
August 18 – FIFA has rolled out its ‘FIFA 11+ Kids’ programme into Brazil, partnering with the Brazilian Football Association (CBF) and its association of football doctors (CNMF) as part of the World Cup legacy programme, but handily timed with the Olympic football events in the country.
August 17 – While the Brazilian crowd booed French Olympic silver medal winning pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie at the presentation ceremony where Brazilian Thiago Braz da Silva collected gold, across town an almost full capacity crowd Maracana were stunned into silence when Sweden’s Lisa Dahlkvist slotted the final penalty in the semi-final shoot-out that sent the hosts to bronze medal play-off in Sao Paulo.
August 17 – FIFA Ethics investigators have recommended a six-year ban and CHF10,000 fine for Kirsten Nematandani, former president of the South African Football Association (SAFA), for alleged ethics violations related to the fixing of international friendlies in 2010, weeks before South Africa hosted the 2010 World Cup.
By Paul Nicholson
August 17 – What a difference a year makes in the Premier League Twitter world. Both Arsenal and Chelsea had more followers than Manchester United at start of last year but now the Manchester giants have taken a substantial lead.
By Paul Nicholson
August 17 – The UEFA Champions League and its associated Europa League club competition now looks certain to change its qualification format to head off the threat of a Super League breakaway by leading clubs.