By Mark Baber
April 4 – Barcelona have ignored Neymar’s preference to play in both the Olympics and Copa America Centenario this summer and announced they will refuse to release the player twice – and would be “enchanted” if he played in the Olympics, whilst also trying to dampen speculation the player might move to another club.
April 4 – Eden Arena, the shared home ground of leading Czech club Slavia Prague, looks set to be bought by the club’s owners CEFC China Energy Company.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 1 – Five senior members of the World Cup-winning US national women’s team have filed a legal challenge over wage discrimination having consistently outstripped the achievements of their male counterparts.
April 1 – Broadcast preparations for the 2016 Copa America Centenario in the US are progressing with France-based Host Broadcast Services (HBS) being appointed to deliver the pictures and logistics for tv stations worldwide.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 1 – One of the first reported cases of racism within the senior European women’s game has led UEFA to open disciplinary proceedings after claims that Frankfurt fans abused Rosengard players during their Women’s Champions League quarter-final.
By Mark Baber
April 1 – As the blame game for Nigeria’s disastrous qualification campaign for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations begins, the Nigerian Football Federation says its legal team is looking to take the African Football Confederation (CAF) to court over their exit, claiming it was unfair.
April 1 – Last season’s beaten Europa League finalists Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk of Ukraine have been banned from European competition for one season by UEFA for breaching financial regulations.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 31 – The man poised to take over the running of German football has pledged to clean up his corruption-tainted federation after Franz Beckenbauer, the country’s most iconic sporting figurehead, found himself embroiled in an official FIFA inquiry into the hosting of the 2006 World Cup.
By Samindra Kunti
March 30 – Arsenal legend Gilberto Silva and the player movement Bom Senso are seeking a modernisation of the Brazilian domestic game, but Silva says much remains to be done for Brazilian football to remerge as a powerhouse.
By Mark Baber
March 30 – Tuesday’s raft of qualifiers for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations saw Morocco become the competition’s first qualifiers, whilst Nigeria plagued by in-fighting in its Federation was knocked out of the running by Egypt in Alexandria.
March 30 – If the best players play in the biggest leagues for the most amount of time and win the most matches, then the winner of the 2016 European Championships will likely be France, Italy or Spain. England and Germany are in contention but probably lagging just behind, depending on how you interpret the stats from the CIES Football Observatory.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 29 – On the eve of a potentially pivotal visit by a joint FIFA/UEFA delegation, Greek authorities have stepped up the rhetoric in an attempt to avoid being thrown of international football.
By Mark Baber
Chad has pulled its team out of the 2017 African Cup of Nations qualifiers, meaning all their games in Group G have been annulled. As a consequence, Nigeria will be eliminated from the tournament if they lose to Group leaders Egypt this evening in Alexandria.
March 29 – Following Sierra Leone’s recent symbolic friendly with Malawi, the first on home soil since the west African country was officially declared free of Ebola, regional competition returned on Monday with a 1-0 win over Gabon in the capital Freetown.
March 28 – Sonia Bien-Aime has been appointed to head a Women’s Football Leadership Group in the CONCACAF region, aimed at promoting the game to women and stimulating growth of the women’s game.