West Ham chase missing cash in Masuaku transfer from Olympiakos
By Matt Scott
September 20 – West Ham are hunting for what they believe are missing millions in the £6.8 million (€8 million) transfer of Arthur Masuaku from Olympiacos.
Liverpool top table of Europe’s transfer-earning clubs, Man City are worst traders
September 20 – Clubs from the Big 5 clubs are not only the biggest buyers of players (by value) but they are also the biggest sellers. Only nine clubs outside the big-5 league countries are in the top 50 positions for transfer incomes, according to data from the CIES Football Observatory.
AIK rolls back the years honouring their senior fans with mascot duties
September 20 – When professional football teams emerge from the tunnel, usually the mascots are young kids who dream of being on the same pitch as their heroes. But 11-time Swedish champions AIK went for the opposite age group before last weekend’s home game against against Gefle IF, handing the honour to 12 senior citizens aged between 81 and 96.
Inter Milan drive new one-season car deal with Infiniti
September 20 – Serie A club Internazionale have named Hong Kong luxury car maker Infiniti as its Official Car for the 2016/17 season.
SEE put energy into Scottish Women’s Football sponsorship
September 20 – Women’s football in Scotland has been given a boost with the addition of energy provider SSE as the first major sponsor of Scottish Women’s Football (SWF) in the country.
Eckert calls for more criminal prosecution of sports’ money thieves
By Andrew Warshaw
September 19 – Hans-Joachim Eckert, FIFA’s chief ethics judge whose sanctions have ended the careers of a spate of high-ranking powerbrokers including Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, says he never realised how many cases he would have to handle when he first took on the job.
Carrard says money is the root of sport evil and one country one vote doesn’t work
September 19 – Francois Carrard (pictured), the former Olympic supremo who led the team that drafted FIFA’s much-trumpeted governance proposals, says international sport is now “in crisis and must reform itself.”
Brazil and Ukraine take Paralympic football honours
September 19 – Brazil kept up their Olympic momentum with Gold and Bronze medals in the Rio Paralympic football tournaments. Their success in the five-a-side final at the Olympic Tennis Centre was their fourth successive win.
Chelsea top fan table as Premier League attendances slip
September 19 – Premier League attendances for Round 5 slipped across the league with the overall percentage of stadia filled dropping to 93.93%, the lowest for the season so far.
EPFL demands better governance and plans Zurich seminar for October
September 19 – The European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), furious at the lack of consultancy by UEFA over recent changes in the qualification rules for European club competitions, has called for global standards on good governance.
Jose spends then passes the buck as Man Utd slump at Watford
September 19 – Here we go again. Jose Mourinho blaming everyone but himself when things don’t go according to plan.
Barca twice as exciting as Man City, and 14 times more watchable than Juve
September 19 – Real Madrid vs Sporting was the most exciting match of last week’s Champions League fixtures, almost twice as exciting as the second placed match – Legia Warsaw vs Dortmund – where the fans perhaps became a little overheated as Dortmund (with a strong Polish support in Germany), hammered the Polish champions 6-0.
PwC moves into FIFA audit hot-seat
By David Owen
September 17 – PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have stepped into the hot-seat vacated by KPMG as statutory auditors of FIFA. The world football body announced that the Bureau of the FIFA Council had appointed PwC Switzerland to the role.
Infantino denies any UEFA lobbying and condemns ‘undermining’ of Russia and Mutko
By Andrew Warshaw
September 16 – Gianni Infantino, back in the comfort of his own patch after attending the UEFA presidential election in Athens where Aleksander Ceferin was elected in succession to Michel Platini, has dismissed as “imagination and lies” any idea that he lobbied behind the scenes in favour of the previously little-known Slovenian who critics claim Infantino was keen to control.
Barcelona chiefs drop into FIFA House to visit with President Infantino
By Paul Nicholson
September 16 – While UEFA’s executive committee were yesterday finding out that it was too late to change the new structure agreed for Champions League qualification that favours Europe’s big four leagues and their biggest clubs, a high level delegation from one of the biggest of those clubs, FC Barcelona, was meeting FIFA president Gianni Infantino at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.