By Matt Scott
September 23 – The strength of the Chinese sports industry has been underlined with an investment valuing the largest foreign-owned sports-marketing agency at $45 million.
September 23 – The 72 clubs immediately below the English Premier League have ended prospect of Premier League B teams joining them and have also ruled out Scottish giants Rangers and Celtic being included as part of a widespread revamp.
September 23 – A new social network designed to help players connect with clubs, scouts, agents and coaches has launched. Playerhunter aims of simplify the process of trawling for players, checking them out and speeding the time to contract, while at the same time opening up the number of opportunities to find the clubs that would work for them.
September 23 – UEFA have opened disciplinary proceedings against the Scottish Football Association after the country’s under-19s women’s team pulled out of a European Championship qualifier against Serbia, with nine players and eight members of the backroom staff reportedly being hit by a sickness bug in what the federation described as an “exceptional situation.”
September 22 – Italian champions Juventus have reported a second year of operating profits, and that doesn’t include the bumper bonus of the €120 million sale of Paul Pogba to Manchester United which will be included in next year’s figures.
By Samindra Kunti
September 22 – Iran knocked out defending world champions Brazil after a penalty shoot-out in the second round of the 2016 Futsal World Cup in Colombia. The surprise elimination brought to an end the international career of Falcao, arguably the greatest futsal player of all-time.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 22 – New UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin, in the job for a matter of days, has unwittingly been dragged into a dispute over whether his predecessor Michel Platini is to receive a special financial handout despite his presidential term being cut short by his FIFA ban.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 22 – Isha Johansen, the female head of Sierra Leone’s football association who was detained for 24 hours for alleged misappropriation of FIFA funds, has won the backing of the world governing body which says no such misuse took place.
September 22 – Turkish club Antalyaspor have dropped former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o from their squad until further notice in a row over controversial comments made on social media which could have been interpreted as implying the club’s chairman was guilty of racism.
September 22 – The Dutch FA, the KNVB, have completed their first official ‘live’ test of the Video Assistant Referees (VAR) during the Dutch Cup game between Ajax Amsterdam and Willem II. The Tilburg midfielder Anouar Kali became the first player to get sent off via a ruling from the ‘video assistant referee’ (VAR).
By Andrew Warshaw
September 22 – A tiny provincial German club has won a landmark ruling that could have far-reaching consequences for the game as a whole following a nine-year-old legal dispute with FIFA.
September 22 – Manchester City have announced a regional partnership with newly launched mobile fan engagement technology company Ballr. The Ballr Live Fantasy Sport App will become an official partner of Manchester City in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.
By Andrew Warshaw in London
September 21 – The English may have voted for his only rival but in his first overseas assignment since taking over from Michel Platini as UEFA president last week, protocol was duly observed when Alexsander Ceferin today attended the ceremonial unveiling of the official logo for the semifinals and finals of Euro 2020 being staged at Wembley.
By Paul Nicholson
September 21 – Scottish giants Celtic announced a £500,000 pre-tax profit for the year to end June, reversing a loss of almost £4 million for the previous 12 months and prompting one stockmarket analysis to predict the AIM-listed shares could rise by 400% over the next five years.
September 21 – There was a big increase in twitter activity this week with Premier League clubs making nearly 1,400 more tweets taking the weekly total up from 3,650 last week to 5,090 this week. This produced more new followers for the week, up 17,000 from 217,000 to 234,000.