Barca top youth player rankings but ‘home-grown’ numbers drop again

Barca youth

October 28 – Barcelona, who fell foul of FIFA’s regulations on the transfer of youth players and were forced to clean up their act, have proof that their system does in fact work following figures from the CIES Football Observatory that show the club leads the way in Europe’s big-5 leagues in numbers of youth players making it through to their first team, as well as providing more players from their system to other big-5 league clubs.

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UEFA to contribute €20 million more to Euro 2016 host-cities

Euro 2106 logo

By David Owen
October 28 – UEFA has agreed to chip in an extra €20 million for the 10 Euro 2016 host cities. The financial package will be released in two instalments, the first at once and the second after the competition finishes. The tournament, to be played in France, will be the 15th European Championship and the first to be contested by 24 teams.

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Leeds lunacy continues with latest manager sacked

Darko Milanic

By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – Here today, gone virtually tomorrow. In less than seven months since taking over the club, Italian entrepreneur Massimo Cellino has turned Leeds United – not so long ago the proudest and most successful club in English football – into a laughing stock by sacking yet another manager almost as soon as he has walked through the door.

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