By Mark Baber
April 19 – The announcement that Wolverhampton Wanderers have agreed a deal with US headquartered payday lender Dollar Financial for their Money Shop brand to be the club’s main sponsor has stirred up controversy, with two local MPs and the heads of two local councils writing to the club’s chief executive Jez Moxey asking him to reconsider the deal in the interests of supporters and constituents.
April 18 – Italy has been selected by football’s law-makers as the first major league to test technology for video replays.
By Mark Baber
April 15 – Southampton FC has agreed a 7-year partnership with US-based global sports brand Under Armour which will come into effect on July 1. No figure was announced for the deal.
April 14 – For the first time, Germany’s cartel office has approved a plan to stop any one single pay-TV broadcaster from buying up live television rights for top-flight games, mirroring the UK where Sky and BT Sport share Premier League live coverage.
April 14 – Premier League Swansea has commissioned digital agency Rippleffect to overhaul its official web platform with a re-launch planned for the start of the 2017/18 season.
April 12 – Man City players David Silva, Bacary Sagna, Fernando and Eliaquim Mangala warmed up for their Champions League second leg quarter final match-up with PSG with a few laps of the Etihad campus, in Nissan GT racing cars.
By Paul Nicholson
April 8 – Speculation is mounting over who will have the sponsor position on the front of Barcelona’s shirt – probably the most valuable football sponsor position in world football – once the Qatar Airways deal ends at the end of June.
April 8 – News from the Chinese football market is generally about big money acquisition of football assets outside the country, or the import of what look like very expensive international players. But there are signs that the domestic football marketing opportunity is not being lost with Super League clubs who are usually owned by one funding sponsor or business conglomerate.
April 7 – Manchester City has signed automotive component group Astra Otoparts as an Official Regional Partner of the Club.
April 7 – West Ham sponsor Betway has picked up title sponsorship for an England v Germany Legends match to be held in honour of the Boleyn Ground’s final season and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1966 World Cup final.
April 5 – Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda, which last month announced it had become the first Chinese company to sign up as a top-tier World Cup partner, has further cemented its European football sponsorship with a title sponsorship deal for Atlético Madrid’s training ground.
By Paul Nicholson
March 31 – The Daily Fantasy Sports market is growing rapidly with one of its newer entrants saying that there is a big demand in the south and central American markets, not just in the already recognised European and north American regions.
By Mark Baber
March 31 – The efforts of Vitaly Mutko, Russian Sports Minister and President of the Russian Football Union (RFU), to put the finances of Russian football on a solid foundation have received another boost as Russia’s second biggest mobile operator MegaFon has signed an agreement with the RFU to become a general sponsor of Russian football from 2016 until 2018.
March 31 – Milan’s Serie A giant, Internazionale, has today launched the Inter Channel on smart phones and tablets into the Indonesian market. Indosat is the second biggest mobile phone operator in Indonesia with 70 million customers.
March 30 – The world’s most famous footballer, Pelé, is suing Korean electronics giant Samsung in a Chicago federal court, claiming they improperly used his identity in The New York Times.