By Mark Baber
May 7 – Real Madrid tops the annual Forbes list of the world’s most valuable clubs, for the third year in a row, with Barcelona and Manchester United still in second and third place respectively.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 7 – The crisis in Greek football that led to a threat by UEFA and FIFA to throw them out appears to have been resolved after the country’s controversial new sports law, designed to crack down on fan violence, was submitted to parliament with the requisite adjustments.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 7 – Spanish football has burst into outright warfare over plans to introduce the sale of centralized tv rights from 2016. The Spanish football federation has indefinitely suspended competition from May 16 in a dispute with the government over a new law on collective bargaining, effectively halting the final two rounds of La Liga and the rest of domestic football.
May 7 – Newly promoted club Union Saint-Gilloise has written an open letter to UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino asking the support of Europe’s football governing body in protest against the structural reform of Belgian domestic football from the 2016/17 season onwards.
By Paul Nicholson
May 6 – Spain’s Malaga are in talks to sell up to 95% of the club to a consortium of Chinese investors, according to media reports from China. Chinese money has also been linked with takeovers of Aston Villa in the English Premier League and AC Milan in Italy’s Serie A.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 6 – One of the world’s leading sports security experts has warned that cyber attacks are the biggest growing threat to major football tournaments as well as other key sporting events.
By Mark Baber
May 6 – The Football League on Tuesday announced the signing of broadcasting agreements with Channel 5 and ITN Productions which will see Football League highlights package being broadcast in the Saturday evening prime time slot, and ITN Productions replacing IMG as the League’s production partner.
May 6 – With corporate social responsibility playing an increasingly powerful role in football to highlight humanitarian issues, UEFA has set up a new body designed to use the sport as a tool for social change.
By Paul Nicholson
May 6 – US sports data specialists STATS LLC has continued on the acquisition trail with the addition of UK-based Prozone, specialists in game and player performance tracking. Last September STATS acquired Bloomberg Sports. The enhanced capabilities of the group will lead to new product, and potentially real time stats for football clubs, ‘moneyball’ style.
May 5 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) have signed a partnership agreement to strengthen safety and security in Asian football.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 5 – Widzew Lodz, former Polish champions who were relegated to the country’s second-tier following the 2013/2014 season and are now struggling to stay in that division, have put the club badge up for a sale in desperate bid to raise cash.
By Andrew Warshaw at the Dead Sea in Jordan
May 5 – The new centralised collective tv deal entering Spanish football in 2016 will ease the financial burden on smaller clubs and make Real Madrid and Barcelona work harder to maintain their dominance, according to the Spanish League’s marketing expert.
May 5 – New Balance are wasting no time getting their new club sponsorships to work. At the end of last week the appareil brand unveiled the new kit design for English Premier League club Stoke City. Yesterday it was the turn of Scottish Premier League champions Celtic.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 4 – The high-ranking Asian official at the centre of the latest cover-up allegations to rock the region has not only re-iterated that he is innocent of any wrongdoing but that the dark days of his organisation’s corruption-tainted past are over.
By Andrew Warshaw at the Dead Sea, Jordan
May 4 – Back in his comfort zone after being made to feel more than a little marginalised by his own confederation which clearly views his bid for the FIFA presidency as a unwanted distraction, Jordan’s Prince Ali bin al-Hussein pulled no punches about the need for greater democracy among his colleagues when he opened the Soccerex Asian forum here today.