By Samindra Kunti, Moscow
June 20 – FIFA has defended the use of video assistant referees (VARs) in the Confederations Cup in Russia, with president Gianni Infantino satisfied with the system’s progress.
June 20 – The French football revolution being engineered at Lille looks to have lost focus. New coach Marcelo Bielsa didn’t up show up for his first training session at the club as it seeks to rebuild after struggling in previous seasons in Ligue 1.
June 20 – Sunderland’s relegation from the Premier League also saw the resignation of manager David Moyes over lack of transfer funds, and has accelerated the desire of American owner Ellis Short to sell the club. The club announced it is prioritising its sale over the search for a new manager.
June 19 – With the Gulf diplomatic crisis continuing, reports suggest Saudi Arabia plans to set up new TV channels to challenge the regional dominance of Qatar’s BeIN Sports which is banned in the country, but is the dominant regional player in the sports rights market holding most of the key international league and national team properties.
June 20 – The merger of daily fantasy sports DraftKings and FanDuel has been temporarily shelved after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) stepped in to block the deal.
June 20 – FIFA has embraced the new Augmented Reality (AR) technology opportunity on the Facebook platform to give fans a new way of showing their support for their teams.
By David Owen
June 19 – An organisation headed by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, the Kuwaiti sports power-broker, has sought to intervene in the diplomatic crisis surrounding 2022 World Cup host Qatar, with a plea for sport to be kept separate from politics.
By Samindra Kunti in Moscow
June 18- Under the watchful eye of president Vladimir Putin, Russia kicked off the Confederations Cup with a comfortable 2-0 win against New Zealand, but the tournament’s opening weekend was dominated by controversy over VAR.
By Mark Baber
June 18 – After a week of inspections of stadia CAF have given Kenya more time to make progress, whilst assuring that a Plan B is in place for hosting of the CHAN tournament in January 2018, in case “there are some problems.”
By Mark Baber
June 19 – The International Football Association Board (IFAB) and FIFA have formally launched the new play fair! Initiative as part of “a strategy focussing on improving fairness and the image of the game.”
By Paul Nicholson
June 18 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has dismissed talk of 2017 being the last staging of the Confederations Cup, saying that the time now is to focus on the game.
June 18 – The on-going confusion and controversy around Bulgaria CSKA-Sofia shows little sign of ending as the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) rejected an urgent request to suspend UEFA from, potentially, ruling the club cannot compete in the upcoming Europa Cup.
June 18 – The US Justice Department has confirmed that Brazilian football federation (CBF) president Marco Polo Del Nero is still under investigation for bribery in 2014, but Del Nero has not yet been formally charged.
June 18 – Premier League Swansea City have unveiled their 2017-18 Joma kits with new main shirt sponsor LeTou, an online betting site, taking the premium sponsor slot on the front of the jersey and Barracuda Networks as one of the league’s first sleeve sponsors.
June 18 – Liverpool’s bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games utilises both its Premier League club stadiums as venues, with Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock being the proposed centrepiece for the Games.