By Mark Baber
February 18 – Australia national team forward Tim Cahill was released by Chinese Super League’s Shanghai Greenland Shenhua FC on Wednesday as “surplus to requirements,” with Obafemi Martins confirmed he was joining the Shanghai club whilst Paris St-Germain forward Ezequiel Lavezzi has joined Chinese Super League club Hebei China Fortune.
By Mark Baber
February 17 – Milan’s Internationale and Pirelli are on the verge of signing a new three-year deal to extend their 20 year partnership, according to Italian reports.
February 17 – Brazilian authorities have frozen assets worth almost $50 million belonging to their Barcelona star Neymar over alleged tax evasion according to local media.
By Paul Nicholson
February 17 – A fourth candidate has announced that he will run for the vacant presidency of the regional governing body for the north and central Americas and Caribbean, CONCACAF. Gordon Derrick, president of the Caribbean Football Union since 2012, has thrown his hat into the ring.
February 16 – Paris St-Germain’s preparations for tonight’s Champions League clash with Chelsea have been rocked by an internal spat between coach Laurent Blanc and one of his own players.
February 16 – Allegations of widespread drug-taking have rocked Algerian football with one international Youcef Belaili (pictured) reportedly suspended by the Confederation of African Football along with three others players.
February 16 – Owners and chairman are notoriously impatient with coaches when things go wrong. But Palermo surely take the biscuit having made no fewer than seven managerial changes this season.
February 16 – The Champions League restarts tonight with Round of 16 matches. Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich are reckoned to be nailed on qualifiers for the last eight, while Chelsea, Manchester City and Barcelona will join them, according to analysis of data from the CIES Football Observatory.
By Mark Baber
February 15 – As Chinese New Year is celebrated across the globe, it is increasingly clear that the 2015-16 transfer window, closed in Europe but still open in China, marks the emergence onto the world stage of a major new football superpower and the beginning of the concrete realisation of the aims expressed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2011: for the People’s Republic to qualify for, host and finally win the World Cup.
By Samindra Kunti
February 15 – The Dutch FA, the KNVB, have confirmed that the 2009 Eredivisie match Utrecht vs Willlem II was subject to match-fixing after a year-long probe. A charity match between Willem II and the Sierra Leone national team may also have been manipulated.
February 15 – Thirteen more European federations have pledged unanimous support to Gianni Infantino in his bid to become FIFA president, according to the Serbian FA (FSS).
By Mark Baber
February 12 – A new era has dawned for the Football Kenya Federation as Nick Mwendwa has been voted in as the new president of the Football Kenya Federation, finally bringing to an end the controversial reign of incumbent Sam Nyamweya.
February 12 – Germany will officially bid to be among the first countries to experiment with video replays if lawmakers approve live trials next month.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 12 – FIFA’s decision to freeze funding to CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, the two confederations most affected by the ongoing corruption scandal with a spate of officials charged and arrested, has drawn a carefully worded response from CONCACAF who insist they are putting their house in order and clearly want the payments resumed.
By Mark Baber
February 11 – As Third Division club Amedspor, from Turkey’s largest Kurdish-populated city Diyarbakir, enjoys a run to the Turkish cup quarter-finals, it finds itself under attack from the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) – with player and fan bans imposed and police raids for alleged ‘ideological propaganda’.