September 4 – Hundreds of paramilitary and riot police were deployed in and around the stadium in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Thursday as China and Hong Kong squared off for a politically sensitive World Cup qualifier.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – The Asian Football Confederation has been quick to respond to accusations by FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon that it is guilty of “electoral fraud” in the race to succeed Sepp Blatter.
By Paul Nicholson at the FITS Forum in Geneva
September 4 – There is an urgent need for regulation to make football clubs identify who their owners are, including beneficial owners – the real owners hiding behind shell companies or nominees, said Nicola Bonucci, director legal of the OECD.
By Paul Nicholson in Geneva
September 4 – Has sport, and football in particular, lost its self-proclaimed special status right of self-governance, free from government influence and prevailing national laws? Three political grandees speaking at the FITS Forum in Geneva were of the consensus that autonomy for sport was a principal that needs to respected. But within their accepted perameters.
By Tom Parsons
September 3 – Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich are to set up a camp for refugees coming into Germany and will donate €1 million towards refugee projects in the country.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
September 3 – The municipal authorities of Paks, a city in Hungary’s south-west, have added HUF 600 million (€1.9 million) to the HUF 800 million (€2.6 million) earmarked by the Hungarian government to finance the upgrade and expansion the Paksi FC stadium.
By Mark Baber
September 3 – Football in Israel, already suffering from problems relating to the state’s relationship with Palestinine and racism at top clubs is facing a major crisis as the Israeli Football Association says it will cancel all league matches if a recent ban on playing on the Sabbath is not lifted.
By Paul Nicholson in Geneva
September 3 – Mohammed Hanzab, president of the ICSS, and Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, CEO of ICSS Europe & Latin America, issued a powerful call to action at the opening of the FITS Forum in Geneva, saying that now is not the time to be standing on the sidelines and that a global alliance is required to fight corruption and create a blueprint for sports’ commercial and political governance.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 3 – Another prospective candidate has entered the race to become the first African president of Fifa as Nigeria’s Segun Odegbami – a former national team captain – said he wanted to join the party.
September 3 – Russian sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has regained the leadership of his county’s national federation warning of virtual bankruptcy, hardly the most positive message as the country builds towards the 2018 World Cup.
September 3 – The next few days are being touted as the defining moment in Welsh football history and it’s easy to see why.
Not since the 1958 World Cup have Wales reached a major tournament finals but qualifying victories away to Cyprus tonight followed by a home win over Israel on Sunday and Chris Coleman’s team will be in the hat for next summer’s Euro finals in France.
By Paul Nicholson
September 3 – Football Benchmark, the sports research arm of accountancy and consultancy firm KPMG, has produced a new report looking at the relationship between total staff costs incurred by clubs from the ‘big five’ leagues playing in the Champions League (CL) and the cash received from UEFA’s CL distribution system in the 2011/12-2013/14 period.
By Ben Nicholson
September 3 – The North American Soccer League (NASL) is challenging the legality of the United States Soccer Federation’s (USSF) criteria change to Division 1 sanctioning. The new requirements allegedly serve as a “bait and switch” that gives preferential treatment to Major League Soccer (MLS) in violation of antitrust laws, which are laws that regulate the conduct and organisation of business corporations that seek to promote fair competition.
By Mark Baber
September 2 – With the Football Federation Australia (FFA) and Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) having failed to come to a new Collective Bargaining Arrangement (CBA) after the expiry of the previous agreement on June 30 and the FFA’s decision to terminate the Memorandum of Understanding between the FFA and PFA on August 14, 2015, the Socceroos have decided to show solidarity with their comrades by declining all commercial appearances on behalf of the FFA.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 2 – The summer transfer window may have slammed shut with the English market forking out a record £870 million as it again dominated the spending landscape but it was the moves which didn’t go through that raised eyebrows – with clubs and players alike indulging in an unsavoury blame game.