July 10 – Norway take on Iceland in their final Group A match, looking to clinch a 100% record at EURO 2025 so far.
Suddenly, strangely, it has all gone quiet. After days and weeks of eager anticipation about whether Gianni Infantino is being investigated for breaking ethics rules, Fifa continues to leave us all on tenterhooks.
By Paul Nicholson
July 29 – Chinese investors are reportedly circling around a third English Championship club. Leeds United, like Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers that are both under new Chinese ownership, are considered a ‘sleeping giant’ waiting to return to their glory years. Chinese money could provide the boost they need to achieve this.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 29 – FIFA’s new Senegalese secretary-general Fatma Samoura, whose appointment raised a number of eyebrows as she had no prior experience in football, believes the time she spent working in war zones for the United Nations has more than prepared her for the challenges that lie ahead.
July 29 – Bhutan has become the first of the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) member associations to embrace the new Live Streaming Platform with the AFC’s partner mycujoo.
By Paul Nicholson
July 29 – As if on cue, as Facebook’s millionaire founder Mark Zuckerburg (pictured) announced that the social media giant’s future would be ‘video’, so Liverpool launched their third kit via a Facebook Livestream directly from Facebook Headquarters in San Francisco.
July 28 – French defender Mamadou Sakho, who missed France’s Euro 2016 campaign after serving a 30-day suspension after a failed drugs test, is back in the news again for all the wrong reasons.
July 29 – UK based sports marketing agency CSM has announced a new partnership with US Club Soccer, a National Association member of the U.S. Soccer Federation to develop programmes for the organisation’s 500,000+ members.
July 28 – UEFA, midway through its five-year Football and Social Responsibility (FSR) strategic and budgetary cycle, has published its third FSR report reviewing the activities of the 2014/15 season.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 28 – Fresh speculation has emerged as to why long-serving African football chief Issa Hayatou stayed away from FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s recent visit to Nigeria, his first to an African nation since succeeding Sepp Blatter.
July 28 – Premier League champions Leicester City have made FairFX, a low cost multi currency payments service, their exclusive FX provider and an Official Partner of the club.
July 28 – The FA Cup, the world’s oldest and most prestigious domestic knockout competition, breaks new ground this coming season with the introduction of a fourth substitute in extra time for the quarterfinals, semi-finals and final.
July 28 – As anticipated, German football supremo Wolfgang Niersbach has decided to appeal his one-year ban over the scandal surrounding possible vote-buying during Germany’s 2006 World Cup bid.
July 28 – Kuwait’s supreme court has upheld the acquittal of Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Sabah – one of the most powerful men in world sport and a prominent Asian representative at FIFA’s top table – on charges of insulting the judiciary.
July 28 – Premier League club Southampton has added African sports betting platform SportPesa as its Official Betting Partner in what the club has described as a signed a “multi-million pound three-year deal”.
By James Dostoyevsky
July 27 – UEFA is finally moving to replace Michel Platini as its president. In mid-September, the European football’s governing body, which organises some of football’s financially most profitable competitions, will have to chose between three men from three different backgrounds.