France 1 Wales 1
July 9 – A rampant France booked their ticket to the quarter-finals with a commanding 4-1 win over Wales in St. Gallen on Wednesday night. Despite heavy rotation, the French side pulled no punches against the Euro debutants, delivering a dominant performance that sends a clear message to whoever awaits them next week.
By Mark Baber
September 28 – Arsenal have announced a new partnership with the Ethiopian Dashen Brewery in a deal described by Dashen’s CEO as a win for Arsenal, for the brewery and for Ethiopia.
By Samindra Kunti
September 28 – France’s Professional Football League (LFP) has extended its partnership with production company HBS (Host Broadcast Services) for a further four years.
By Paul Nicholson
September 28 – The struggle that Barcelona’s star players have with paying their taxes has continued with Neymar being the latest to fall foul of the authorities with a Brazilian judge freezing 188.8m reais ($47.6 million) of his assets in a tax evasion case.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 28 – Michel Platini’s dreams of taking over at FIFA face being dealt a hammer blow as a result of the already-infamous 2 million Swiss franc payment he received for unexplained work undertaken on behalf of Sepp Blatter.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 28 – Disgraced former CONCACAF president Jack Warner has won more time in his bid to avoid being extradited to the United States on corruption charges.
Friday’s shenanigans at FIFA prompted a number of sporting sages to prophesy the demise of Sepp Blatter well before the February 26 Congress that is supposed to elect a new FIFA President. I wonder though if the big loser might not turn out to be Michel Platini.
By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
September 25 – Almost lost in the stunning news that the Swiss attorney general was opening a criminal investigation into FIFA president Sepp Blatter, was the release of information following the two-day FIFA executive committee meeting that “deliberated on a number of forward-looking measures to improve governance as part of the reform process.”
By Andrew Warshaw
September 25 – In the most dramatic development to date in the entire FIFA corruption scandal, Swiss investigators today announced that they had opened criminal proceedings against Sepp Blatter on “suspicion of criminal mismanagement and misappropriation”.
By Mark Baber
September 25 – The extent of the fall-out for football from the Volkswagen emissions scandal has been the subject of speculation with analysis focusing on the extent of VW’s involvement in football, the depth of the crisis facing the company, the identities of the company’s top management and the role of football sponsorship in VW’s marketing mix.
By Paul Nicholson
September 25 – The weekly Twitter growth table saw a number of changes in ranking this week as Chelsea dropped to fourth behind Liverpool who took third slot. Manchester United continue to dominate weekly growth with one tweet this week being retweeted 14,000 times- that is 1,500 more retweets than Manchester City – in fifth place in the table – gained in new followers.
Simply writing that Antonio Conte, coach of Italian national team, risks a process, it could have a wrong meaning. It would be easy to blame this on a wrong formation, or a federation not happy with the results, or public opinion not satisfied with the way the team is playing its football. However, it is none of these. We are talking about a real legal process, as the coach of Italy in early July was indicted by prosecutors in Cremona,
By Andrew Warshaw
September 25 – Away from UEFA territory where he could have been accused of opportunism, Michel Platini has given his first thoughts on running for FIFA president.
By Samindra Kunti
September 25 – Deep into the second half of Saudi Arabia’s World Cup qualifier away to Malaysia in September, the Ultras Malaya, a group of hot-headed home supporters, threw flares and fireworks on to the pitch of the Shah Alam Stadium in Selangor, a province on Malaysia’s east coast. Smoke rapidly began to fill the ground and left referee Liu Kwak Man from Hong Kong with little choice but to abandon the game.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 25 – FIFA has agreed to give Swiss investigators access to the email accounts of the organisation’s suspended general secretary Jerome Valcke.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 25 – As FIFA moved into the second of its two-day executive committee meeting, embattled outgoing president Sepp Blatter, desperate to leave a positive legacy when he steps down in February, has urged his members to approve the reform process that would kick in after his 18-year tenure ends.