By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – Amidst the flurry of high-profile international friendlies played across the globe on Wednesday night, the most symbolic fixture took place in front of 17,000 fans in the divided Balkan city of Mitrovica.
March 6 – Announcing quarterly results, Adidas said its income for the quarter was €42 million. This is higher than the average €37.1 million analyst estimated – for the same quarter last year Adidas made a loss of €7 million. But end year figures look likely to be below analyst expectations.
By Alexander Krassimirov
March 5 – Bulgarian champions Ludogorets will donate 20% of its ticket revenue to charity from the upcoming home quarter final match in the Europa League against Valencia in Sofia next week. The club has established a foundation ‘Ludogorets for Bulgaria’, which will carry our charity work in all spheres of Bulgarian society.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 5 – Romania’s league association LPF is currently negotiating a new broadcasting rights deal for the Liga 1 which is expected to total €100 million for the next three years. The negotiations are expected to be completed this March, with several major media players set to bid for the contract, reported local daily Jurnalul National.
March 5 – Another ‘quenelle’ controversy has hit European football with UEFA suspending Belgian player Omar Rahou for performing the so-called inverted Nazi salute during the European futsal championships in Antwerp.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent, in Barcelona
March 5 – Hundreds of clubs responsible for developing players before they hit the big time in Europe are being unwittingly cheated out of their rightful compensation. New international transfer figures show that Europe’s clubs are all but ignoring their responsibilities to Continents like Africa and South America by paying out little more than one-fifth of required “solidarity” payments to clubs who train players during their formative years –
By Andrew Warshaw in Barcelona
March 4 – European clubs paid agents a staggering $254 million in international transfer fees over the past two years, representing 14.6% of all deals involving contracted players. That was by far the most eye-catching finding of a wide-ranging independent analysis commissioned by the European Club Association and presented at their annual assembly today.
By Alexander Krassimirov
March 4 – Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia has officially been authorised to sell shares in the club to the public, the first club in the former communist East European Bloc to do so. The decision to allow the Initial Public Offering (IPO) was taken at a meeting of the Bulgarian Financial Supervision Commission (FSC).
By Andrew Warshaw
March 4 – UEFA are reportedly set to discuss the idea of a new so-called ‘Nations League’ competition, dividing its 54 members into a number of divisions offering club-style promotion and relegation.
March 4 – The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) has acted swiftly to open an investigation into the racist abuse that 17-year-old East Stirlingshire suffered in a Division 2 match away to Peterhead last weekend. Tapping was visibly distressed and substituted to prevent having to endure any further taunts.
March 4 – Poland’s Ekstraklasa has said that its disciplinary committee will meet this week following fan violence last Sunday at the match between Legia Warsaw and Jagiellonia Bialystok. The match was abandoned after 45 minutes.
March 3 – The Poland vs Scotland international friendly this Wednesday is being streamed live on the internet rather than broadcasting via more conventional TV channels outside of host country Poland. The webcast will be free of charge on the Daily Record and Daily Mirror websites (www.dailyrecord.co.uk and www.mirror.co.uk).
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
March 3 – Budapest Honved has announced plans to build a new stadium in the Little Pest district of Hungary’s capital. The football club will receive funds for the investment under a 40 billion forint (€128.6 million) government programme to modernise and expand 27 football stadiums by 2016.
March 3 – Northern Irish officials have confirmed that this week’s friendly in Cyprus will go ahead despite the bombing of local referee Leontios Trattou’s (pictured) car on the island last Friday. Trattou is scheduled to referee the Ukraine vs US friendly on the island. All first division matches were suspended at the weekend.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 3 – After months trying to clear his name, Carson Yeung, the Hong Kong businessman who bought English club Birmingham City, faces a lengthy jail term after being found guilty of five counts of money laundering by a court in Hong Kong. Last month Yeung resigned as a director of both the club and its parent company Birmingham International Holdings Ltd (BIHL) as he awaited the verdict of a trial that had lasted 50 days having already lost two appeals to get it thrown out.