By Andrew Warshaw
August 8 – UEFA presidential candidate Aleksander Ceferin has issued his manifesto focussing on the need for Europe’s lesser-known clubs and countries to be given proper opportunities in major competitions.
August 8 – After 30 years in charge, Silvio Berlusconi has agreed to sell Serie A giant AC Milan to a group of Chinese investors for €740 million, a price that includes about €220 million of debt.
August 8 – Nineteen members of La Familia, the rightwing faction of Beitar Jerusalem, whose fans are regarded as the most hostile in Israel, have been charged with attempted murder, aggravated sabotage, racist offenses and illegal possession of weapons.
August 7 – More detail on one of the MLS expansion franchises looks to be announced in Minnesota later this month. Fans leaving the NASL game between Minnesota United and Miami FC were handed a save-the-date card for August 19 with ‘#NextStopMLS’ printed on it.
By Paul Nicholson
August 5 –David Beckham’s Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise option of $25 million looks very cheap with league officials indicating earlier this week that they were preparing to double franchise fees to $200 million.
August 5 – Two days after the mass resignations of Turkey’s leading football executives, ostensibly to assist the government investigation into US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen who the authorities accuse of being behind the coup that left more than 200 people dead, almost 100 other staff, many of them referees, have now been suspended, boosting the autocratic regime of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
August 5 – UEFA have unveiled their final three nominations for the Gareth Bale, Antoine Griezmann and Cristiano Ronaldo – all three play for Madrid clubs and had outstanding European Championship performances for their countries this summer.
August 4 – With the European season set to start over the next three weeks across the Big Five markets, a raft of new managers will be looking to bring early success to their new clubs and avoid the mid-season managerial change threat.
August 4 – He’s managed several Belgian internationals at club level and now he’s in charge of the entire national team.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 3 – UEFA presidential candidate Michael van Praag insists he is the right man to ensure unity in European football and offset what he describes as the “forces that want to drive us apart.”
August 3 – Hibernian manager Neil Lennon has been slapped with a five-match European touchline ban by UEFA after he was sent to the stands in the club’s recent Europa League loss to Brondby.
August 2 – Argentina’s new national coach Edgardo Bauza has made it a priority to try and persuade Lionel Messi to come out of international retirement as he starts to think about next month’s 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
August 2 – He claimed he was forced to work 14 hours a day, often with no meal breaks, fined thousands of Euros if he was late for training by even 30 seconds and spend hours on end standing in the city centre selling newspapers.
August 2 – The fast expanding United Soccer League (USL), part of the professional tier of US football below the MLS, will play a longer season in 2017. The league that starts matches at the end of March will now run for 30 weeks with teams playing 32 games.
August 2 – With the first round of Scotiabank Champions League fixtures kicking off the 2016-17 season tonight with Trinidad’s Central at home to Canada’s Vancouver Whitecaps and Mexico’s Pachuca at home to Honduras’ Olympia, CONCACAF has announced a significantly expanded Spanish-language TV deal in the US with Univision.