By Andrew Warshaw
May 4 – Two months after football’s lawmakers gave the green light to experiment with a new tennis-style penalty shootout system, UEFA are employing it at the European under-17 championship, which began in Croatia today.
May 5 – The English Football Association has agreed to trial rugby-style ‘sin bins’ in lower part-time leagues from next season.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 3 – How short-sighted can you get? Pescara’s former Ghanaian midfielder Sulley Muntari has been banned for one game by the Italian FA for walking off the pitch complaining of racist abuse despite being praised by the United Nations’ top human rights official.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 2 – Turkey’s chances of ending years of disappointment by finally landing the European Championship finals in 2024 could be scuppered by a new human rights provision in UEFA’s hosting guidelines.
By Samindra Kunti
May 1 – OGC Nice have all but ended Paris Saint-Germain’s title aspirations in Ligue 1, winning an ill-tempered game 3-1. Thiago Motta and Angel Di Maria were both send off. PSG trail Monaco by three points with three match days left. PSG have been Ligue 1 champions for the past four seasons.
By Samindra Kunti
May 1 – Vitesse Arnhem won their first ever major trophy with a 2-0 win in the Dutch Cup final against AZ Alkmaar. Ricky van Wolfswinkel scored both goals.
April 28 – FIFA’s former general secretary Jérôme Valcke, number two to Sepp Blatter before spectacularly falling from grace, has suddenly re-surfaced in Spain where he has set up an events business.
April 28 – The Belgian FA (KBVB) has offered eight referees a two-year semi-professional contract in a move to modernise and upgrade refereeing in Belgium.
By Paul Nicholson
April 26 – French league president Nathalie Boy de la Tour and general secretary Didier Quillot have unveiled a new strategic plan for the French Football League (LFP) that will take them through to 2022 and close the gap on the English, Spanish, German and Italian leagues.
April 26 – Dutch giants Ajax Amsterdam will rename their stadium in honor of their greatest player Johan Cruyff, who died in 2016. Cruyff passed away on March 24 last year following a battle with lung cancer, he would have turned 70 yesterday.
April 25 – Olympiacos have had their Greek league title win, the club’s 44th, confirmed after a hearing into reported fan trouble after a Greek Cup semi-final first leg match against AEK Athens resulted in a four game sanction for both clubs to play behind closed doors.
April 25 – In an unusual move, Bayern Munich have approached the office of German chancellor Angela Merkel to officially request an official explanation from the Spanish authorities for the behaviour of their police during last week’s Champions League quarter-final in Madrid.
April 25 – Portuguese authorities have opened an investigation into the death of an Italian supporter caught up in last weekend’s Lisbon derby between Sporting and Benfica.
April 24 – The international players’ union FIFpro has warned its members against signing for Romanian clubs because of the risk they will not get paid.
April 21- Police in Germany have charged a man suspected of being behind Tuesday’s bomb attack on the Borussia Dortmund team bus but have ruled out terrorism.