By Paul Nicholson
December 10 – Benchmark Sport’s latest report looks at the UEFA Champions league and the spread of representation of nations and clubs. The findings are that the competition has been increasingly – and perhaps worryingly – centralised around the big leagues and the big clubs.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 10 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport will announce its verdict into Michel Platini’s appeal against his provisional suspension at 10am tomorrow local time, giving the UEFA president just enough time to speed his way to chair the last session this year of his executive committee – provided he is cleared.
December 10 – The World Football Forum conference will hold its 2016 event on July 7-8 in Paris, France. The past two years the event has been held in Moscow, Russia, with strong Russian themes.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 10 – Former FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb, the official who swept to prominence promising to clean up the organisation but fooled all those who viewed him as the new white knight of transparency and tolerance, has been formally ousted from running football in his native Cayman Islands.
By Paul Nicholson
December 10 – Christmas is coming early for the Premier League clubs in terms of attendances. With more than 400,000 tickets available for the last weekend of Premier League fixtures, just 14,190 seats were left unfilled.
December 10 – Loretta Lynch, the US attorney general whose stunning raft of corruption-linked indictments has plunged world football into disgrace, has indicated her organisation will show no let-up in its pursuit of FIFA and its six confederations.
December 10 – El Salvador’s Supreme Court has approved the extradition of the country’s former football federation president Reynaldo Vasquez (pictured), one of those wanted in the United States in connection with the widespread racketeering and bribery scandal.
By Paul Nicholson
December 9 – The battle over who controls world football and the looming spectre of continued and deeper intervention into the business of FIFA by the US justice authorities will become a question in the Swiss parliament on Monday.
By David Owen
December 9 – Jack Ma, the Chinese internet entrepreneur behind the Alibaba Group, has come to FIFA’s aid at this time of crisis for world football’s governing body. An Alibaba Group brand – Alibaba E-auto – has agreed an eight-year sponsorship deal for FIFA’s Club World Cup.
By Mark Baber
December 9 – The latest monthly report produced by the CIES looks at the issue of birth date bias finding that “players born in the first months of the year are strongly over-represented” in 30 top divisions in Europe – the exception being England where the bias is towards the period September- December as the age classes are based on September 1 rather than January 1.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 9 – Having lost three presidents in quick succession as a result of the FIFA corruption scandal, CONCACAF is not taking the same risk again and has decided against putting someone else in place until its next congress in May.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 9 – The final verdicts into alleged ethics violations by Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will almost certainly be handed down on December 21 or 22, potentially handing them the worst possible Christmas present.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 8 – The imminent judgement by the Court of Arbitration for Sport into Michel Platini’s suspension will determine whether or not the UEFA president can take centre stage at Saturday’s Euro 2016 draw in Paris.
By Ben Nicholson
December 8 – The MLS Board of Governors made multiple announcements over the weekend looking forward to the 2016 season, in addition to signalling intent to expand to 28 teams and rubber stamping David Beckham’s location of choice for his expansion franchise’s stadium.
By Samindra Kunti
December 9 – The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) wants Brazilian football to become a laboratory for the use of new technologies in the game. Fernando Sarney, who has filled Marco Polo del Nero’s position on FIFA’s executive committee, will seek support from FIFA in the next months to implement CBF’s vision.