By Mark Baber
May 21 – Paris Saint-Germain has, for the first time, come out top in Sporting Intelligence’s global sports salaries survey (GSSS) of average player wages in teams across the world’s richest sporting leagues.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 21 – Visa has expressed its “grave concern” over the plight of migrant workers in Qatar in the strongest reaction to date by any of FIFA’s commercial partners over an issue that continues to plague organisers of the 2022 World Cup.
May 21 – Russia’s build for the 2018 World Cup is having a knock-on effect for other sports with Samara being the latest to announce that as well as the new Kosmos Arena, the region is proposing a number of other new sports facilities.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 21 – Michael van Praag has withdrawn from next week’s FIFA presidential election campaign and has joined forces with Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein in a strategic bid to oust Sepp Blatter.
May 21 – Italy’s Juventus has agreed a regional beer sponsorship with Cervezas Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma S.A. DE C.V. – Heineken Mexico, with its Tecate brand becoming the new Juventus Official Regional Beer.
By Alexander Krassimirov
May 21 – CSKA Sofia’s Portuguese winger Toni Silva has again been the victim of racially motivated vandalism. His car was marked with a nail as vandals scratched a swastika on it. Silva published a photo of his car on his Twitter account and wrote “Oh and again and again”.
Andrew Warshaw
May 21 – Sepp Blatter has completed his Middle East “peace mission” and can now only wait nervously to see whether his shuttle diplomacy has had the desired effect of persuading Palestine to drop its formal proposal to have Israel thrown out of FIFA.
By Alexander Krassimirov
May 21- Bulgaria’s CSKA Sofia have failed to get licenses for European club competitions and for the domestic championship in Bulgaria. Alongside CSKA, three other clubs – Lokomotiv Sofia, Marek Dupnitsa and Haskovo – alson failed to get licenses, according to the Bulgarian Football Union.
“Bayern can only win,” I wrote after the draw of the Champions League semi-finals a month ago. In retrospect, I have to admit I was wrong – at least partially.
By David Owen
May 21 – Paris Saint-Germain have made a new move to exploit the presence of Swedish superstar Zlatan Ibrahimović in their squad, agreeing a one-year regional sponsorship deal with Billys, a Swedish-produced pizza snack.
May 20 – Italy’s women’s cup final has been cancelled as a result of the alleged description of female players as a “bunch of lesbians” by the president of the Italian Amateur Football Association (LND), Felice Belloli (pictured).
May 20 – More than 50 people including coaches, directors and players, have been arrested as part of a massive match-fixing crackdown in Italy.
By Mark Baber
May 20 – Under a year since Emirates became the official airline of Sport Lisboa e Benfica, a three-year shirt sponsorship deal has been agreed between the two parties, whereby Fly Emirates will be displayed on the team jersey until the end of the 2017/18 season.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 20 – Michael van Praag and Luis Figo are reportedly set to withdraw from the FIFA presidential race, leaving Asia’s outgoing FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan to go head-to-head with Sepp Blatter next week.
May 20 – Sprint has renewed its CONCACAF Gold Cup sponsorship as official US wireless provider. This is Sprint’s fifth consecutive Gold Cup, the first being in 2007.