By David Owen
February 4 – After a barren January transfer window, Aston Villa, the Premier League’s basement club, have completed a new signing. Step forward Lord King of Lothbury, former Governor of the Bank of England, who has joined the Birmingham club’s board of directors.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – Speculation that Tokyo Sexwale will pull out of the race to become FIFA president has been fuelled by his continuing inability to secure the unequivocal backing of his own South African federation, let alone the African Continent as whole.
By Paul Nicholson
February 4 – The expected entry of the giant US Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) operators into the so-far under exploited European markets has happened with a bang, with Boston-based DraftKings landing in the English market with deals with Arsenal, Liverpool and Watford.
February 4 – Proposed reforms to clean up football’s scandal-plagued world governing body will not in any way benefit the players, according to their union FIFPro.
February 4 – Brazilian star Neymar, already embroiled in a legal case over his move to Barcelona, is now facing separate allegations of tax evasion.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 4 – The five rivals running for FIFA president have agreed to hold a private summit in mid-February shortly before the February 26 election to succeed Sepp Blatter, according to FIFA’s Russian powerbroker Vitaly Mutko, one of the most influential figures in European football.
By Paul Nicholson
February 4 – With all the noise around FIFA presidential elections and reform you could be forgiven for forgetting that the Confederations Cup, the warm-up for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, is just 500 days away. That is unless you were in the GUM department store by Red Square in Moscow yesterday.
Even the slickest, best choreographed media events – and I have attended few slicker than this week’s descent on Wembley by FIFA Presidential candidate Gianni Infantino and his footballing legends – have revealing moments.
By Mark Baber
February 3 – A German court has ruled former president of the German soccer federation Theo Zwanziger was exercising his right to free speech in referring to Qatar as a “cancerous growth of world football” just as Germany’s most successful club, Bayern Munich, signed a partnership with Qatar’s Hamad International Airport.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – The growing influence of Domenico Scala as the prime mover in the drive to clean up FIFA has been further underlined by this week’s unprecedented ruling to block $20 million of payments to CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, the two confederations most seriously damaged by football’s ongoing corruption scandal.
February 3 – Dynamo Kiev will no longer have to face Manchester City in the Champions League behind closed doors after UEFA’s appeals committee controversially reduced a sanction imposed for racist behaviour and crowd disturbances.
By Mark Baber
February 3 – Sunderland AFC have become the latest Premier League club to launch a Mandarin version of their web site, building on the success of their Chinese social media platforms Sina Weibo and Tencent WeChat and working in association with the club’s principal partner Dafabet.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 3 – Just days after dismissing Gianni Infantino’s World Cup promises as pure electioneering, Russian football boss Vitaly Mutko says his federation will support him at the February 26 ballot to succeed Sepp Blatter.
February 3 – The vice-president of CONMEBOL’s disciplinary committee has resigned in protest at the governing body’s top brass reducing Boca Juniors’ stadium ban for crowd violence from eight games to two.
By Paul Nicholson
February 3 – Premier League Liverpool have unveiled a revised match day ticket pricing structure which includes a rock-bottom £9 ticket price as well as priority access to 20,000 tickets for local fans. The club will have an additional 8,500 tickets available for matches next season with the opening of its new Main Stand.