October 4 – Premier League Liverpool have added insurer AXA as the club’s first Global Insurance Partner in what it describes as a multi-year deal. No value was given for the sponsorship.
October 4 – Club squad sizes are irrelevant when it comes to the Big 5 leagues, according to new research data that found that for the last 13 seasons big-5 league clubs fielded on average 27.5 players per season.
October 4 – A KPMG Football Benchmark study into the possibility of re-introducing standing-only for areas in stadia in the top divisions of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain concludes that with the new safety measures available, the commercial and fan engagement opportunity for clubs merits a hard re-visitation of regulations in countries that still have a standing ban.
October 5 – FIFA’s competitions committee has proposed an increase in prize money for the upcoming Women’s World Cup in France next year. The amount of the increase has not been disclosed but the proposal has now been sent to the finance committee for review before it presented to the FIFA Council for approval.
October 3 – Kashima Antlers and Iranian giants Persepolis moved one step closer to an AFC Champions League title showdown after both sides earned narrow victories in the first leg of their respective semi-finals.
By Paul Nicholson
September 3 – Saudi Arabia’s ambition to hold the presidency of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has seen a second Saudi declare he will run in the presidential election next year.
October 3 – Africa’s football chief Ahmad Ahmad is reported to have promised Cameroon’s president Paul Biya that CAF has “never thought about” stripping the country of hosting rights for next year’s African Cup of Nations.
October 3 – Former Romanian striker Adrian Mutu has been ordered to pay Chelsea £15.2 million after losing an appeal at the European Court of Human Rights, a landmark sum as the highest compensation figure ever set by FIFA in such cases. It is also an important judgement for the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), endorsing its position as sport’s independent judicial process.
October 3 – After a succession of twists and turns, Peru captain Paolo Guerrero has lost his final attempt to get his 14-month ban for a doping offence permanently lifted.
Like UEFA president Alexander Ceferin or not, he has shown a steady hand running UEFA since he took over from – who was it again? Time flies, doesn’t it… The ‘man who came in from the nowhere’ and took charge of Europe’s football confederation has been accused of a lot of things since he took office. Most of them have had about as much basis as a Döner Kebab without lamb and onion.
October 3 – OTT streaming service Eleven Sports has challenged the English FA’s ban on the broadcast of live football matches on Saturdays between 2.45pm and 5.15pm by showing live coverage of Barcelona’s match against Athletic Bilbao last weekend.
October 3 – One of the best-known club names in US football, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, who boasted English legend Rodney Marsh and Brazil’s Mirandinha on their roster in the late 1970s, have been sold to the Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team.
October 3 – Police in Las Vegas have re-opened a rape investigation into Cristiano Ronaldo after his accuser claimed she was breaking a non-disclosure agreement.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 2 – With a sense of inevitability, Turkey’s media have reacted furiously to last week’s failure to land the 2024 European Championships, taking particular aim at UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
October 2 – The long and often controversial footballing dynasty of the Lowy family in Australia is effectively over following the endorsement of widespread governance reforms that ended a two-year power struggle and even threatened the country’s FIFA membership.