By Ben Nicholson
October 27 – The MLS has broken its season long average attendance records, improving on last year’s mark by 12.7%. The league’s growing visibility overseas upon acquisition of ageing legends has had a positive domestic influence, as evidenced by the total 7,335,053 attendance for the year.
By Ben Nicholson
October 27 – Minnesota United FC has announced its intention to make St. Paul its home. After competing with Minneapolis to provide domicile to the MLS expansion franchise, the team owner, Bill McGuire, and St. Paul Mayor, Chris Coleman, announced that its 20,000-capacity soccer-specific stadium is destined for the Snelling-Midway redevelopment site in St. Paul.
By Paul Nicholson
October 27 – CONCACAF and CONMEBOL have moved swiftly to source new marketing partners for the Copa América Centenario 2016 following the announcement that agreement had been reached last week with the US federation to host in the US.
October 26 – Pressure is growing on ethics investigators to take action against German organisers of the 2006 World Cup after allegations that a €6.7 million euro slush fund was set up to buy votes ahead of the ballot.
October 26 – US Club Soccer has named Fit for 90 as its Official Player Monitoring System, integrating it into its Players First platform that is designed to give players an improved club experience.
By Paul Nicholson
October 26 – After a week of clearing out existing sports agencies, the 2016 Copa America Centenario will take place in the US with the US federation effectively taking central control of the tournament from marketing rights to ground selection.
October 23 – International players’ union FIFPro has published a checklist which it says all contenders for the job of FIFA president should meet, notably “social wellbeing, fairness, democratic values and human rights.”
By Mark Baber
October 23 – Dark hints that forces behind the scenes will ensure Real Madrid win this season’s La Liga were given a considerable boost on Thursday as a referee’s assistant, who wishes to remain anonymous, claimed he had been pressurised to favour Los Blancos if he was picked to officiate in the forthcoming El Clasico.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 23 – Despite attempts to distance himself from the FIFA corruption scandal, German football boss Wolfgang Niersbach’s standing as one of the game’s most respected voices and a prospective future UEFA president are being increasingly questioned as the alleged 2006 World Cup cash-for-votes saga refuses to die down.
By Paul Nicholson
October 23 – Domenico Scala, chairman of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee and ad hoc election committee, and the man behind the key set of reform recommendations that the February FIFA Congress will vote on, will be a speaker at the 17th edition of the International Football Arena (IFA) conference in Zurich, November 19.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
October 23 – As many as nine out of the 14 clubs which compete in Romania’s top tier Liga 1 risk relegation due to their desperate financial positions, according to Viorel Duru (pictured), the director of the department of licencing at the Romanian Football Federation (FRF).
By Samindra Kunti
October 22 – The Dutch FA KNVB have appointed Henk Ten Cate as a special advisor to consider the future of Dutch football after a disastrous EURO2016 qualifying campaign that saw them fail to qualify for UEFA’s continental flagship event in France. They secured neither a top two finish or a play-off spot in their qualifying group.
By Samindra Kunti
October 22 – The former president of Belgian club RAEC Mons, Domenico Leone, is facing criminal prosecution as justice suspect him of misappropriating subsidies from the local authorities of up €1.2 million.
By Paul Nicholson
October 22 – The day after CONCACAF announced their new Partner Code of Conduct to regulate and set protocols for working with outside partners, the confederation has revealed it is ending its relationship with Datisa, one of the sports marketing agencies at the centre of the bribery and money laundering scandals that have rocked football in the Americas.
By Paul Nicholson
October 22 – The National Womens’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US has awarded a new franchise to Orlando Pride, owned and operated by Orlando City, itself a new franchise this season in the MLS.