Without fans football has at times been void of excitement during the coronavirus pandemic. Football is not just about the players and the ball but rather the atmosphere created by the game and the fans on the stands. There are countless situations in football history where fans have lit football matches with crazy reactions.
By David Owen
April 5 – Burnley, the English Premier League club recently taken over by Jersey-incorporated Velocity Sports, an entity controlled by new club chairman Alan Pace, has joined the select group of top-flight teams to have turned a profit in 2019-20 – albeit a tiny one.
April 3 – Manchester United have launched two Easter campaigns with compelling social action messages. Through its foundation and its co-operation with FareShare it will distribute 21,300 food hampers to families in Manchester. At the same time the club has continued its anti-discrimination campaign with the roll out of SEE RED.
By David Owen
April 2 – Championship-bound Sheffield United have become only the third Premier League club to date to post a pre-tax profit for the covid-affected 2019-20 financial year.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 1 – With a view to having as many fans as possible at this summer’s delayed European Championship finals, UEFA has scrapped its own ceiling on stadium capacity for fixtures that come under its jurisdiction.
April 1 – We all love a bit of football and there are some amazing movies out there to keep us engrossed. Full of emotion and passion, they can take us away from it all.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 1 – The Confederation of African Football has rescheduled the controversially postponed Sierra Leone-Benin AFCON qualifier until the next international window June, the latest illustration of the haphazard nature of the organisation’s decision making.
April 1 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino addressed the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group on the final day of its video conferencing summit outlining FIFA’s battle troops in the area and offering the co-operation of the organisation.
April 1 – FIFA has announced the nine host cities for the 2023 Women’s World Cup, with Sydney and Stadium Australia staging the final. Auckland in New Zealand will host the tournament’s curtain raiser.
By Paul Nicholson
April 1 – With fans locked out and club revenues locked down, social media has become increasingly important to the commercial infrastructure of clubs, according to KPMG Football Benchmark analysis.
By James Dostoyevsky
Football and leaks are a bit like cows and milk. One without the other appears to be quite impossible. That’s certainly true for cows. Without udders, there is no milk. And if the cow’s udder is not milked, the cow painfully dies. OK, that’s a worst-case scenario but does happen.
April 1 – North Macedonia stunned Germany and Joachim Low 2-1 with an 85th minute winner from Eljif Elmas to record their most famous international victory, leaving Die Mannschaft’s World Cup qualification campaign in disarray.
April 1 – Real Madrid’s German international Toni Kroos has become the latest high-profile player to criticise 2022 World Cup host nation Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers – but stopped short of calling for a boycott of the tournament.
April 1 – South Africa have sacked their coach Molefi Ntseki after Bafana Bafana failed to qualify for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.
April 1 – He might not be making the shortlists of the end of year awards these days but Lionel Messi is still the best player in Europe, according to a just released statistical analysis of performance data from the first third of 2021.