By Paul Nicholson in Edinburgh
September 6 – Coaching legend Fabio Cappello has slammed the power that player agents have within the game, and how that power is used to manipulate players, managers and clubs.
September 6 – The Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) has signed a co-operation agreements with the Portuguese Players’ Union to focus on the promotion of sport integrity and enhance the protection of minors in football.
September 3 – Inter Milan Striker Romelu Lukaku says “we are going backwards” on racism in football and has called for stronger action from the game’s governing bodies and social media platforms after he faced racial abuse by Cagliari fans on Sunday.
September 3 – While FIFA is busy lauding the biggest, best and most wealthy with their Best Awards, a significantly more humble set of awards and nominees were announced in Asia.
September 3 – Premier League Tottenham Hotspur have ended their relationship with betting partner 1xBet.
September 2 – Inter Milan striker and match winner Romelu Lukaku was racially abused by Cagliari fans during his club’s 2-1 victory in Serie A on Sunday. Milan coach Antonio Conte said that “more education is needed in Italy.”
August 30 – Glasgow Rangers appear to have still not learned their lesson when it comes to sectarian abuse after being found guilty of a second charge by UEFA.
August 29 – The top-flight derby between Nice and Marseille was suspended for 10 minutes on Wednesday following yet another instance of homophobic abuse in French football.
August 27 – Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said he was “lost for words” after yet another vitriolic case of racial abuse on social media towards a player missing a penalty, this time directed against Marcus Rashford who fluffed a second-half spotkick as United suffered a shock 2-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday.
August 21 – Former England international Phil Neville has called for the football community to “send a powerful message” and boycott social media for six months in response to the rise in racist abuse of players.
August 21 – Newly promoted Premier League club Aston Villa’s long-serving youth coach and head of football development Kevin MacDonald has been suspended following an investigation into allegations of bullying.
August 20 – Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba has become the third player in a week to be the subject of racist abuse on social media in England after missing a penalty.
August 19 – Chelsea fans are once again back in the spotlight all the wrong reasons after their own striker Tammy Abraham was racially abused online following last week’s Super Cup defeat to Liverpool when he missed the decisive penalty in the shootout.
August 16 – FIFA has banned for life a prominent official who served on its own audit and compliance committee that is supposed to weed out financial wrongdoing.
By Paul Nicholson
August 14 – When Jeff Webb was president of Concacaf he was always a pretty cool cat – approachable, friendly, always reasonable, nice guy to be around and pretty generous with it. Since his US Justice Department indictment in 2015 on corruption chrages he has needed all of a cat’s nine lives to stave off sentencing.