November 20 – After months of twists and turns, Italy’s Serie A has finally agreed a deal to sell a 10% stake in a newly created media and commercial rights holding company to private equity firms CVC and Advent. They will pay a reported €1.7 billion for their position, delivering a much needed cash injection for the debt-laden clubs.
By Paul Nicholson
November 20 – FIFA has lifted the suspension of the Trinidad and Tobago FA (TTFA) and re-instated its three-person Normalisation Committee to run the local association.
November 20 – The boss of Haitian football, Yves Jean-Bart, was banned from the sport for life today following multiple accusations of systematic sexual abuse of female players.
November 20 – Patrice Motsepe (pictured) the only English mother tongue candidate for the most powerful position in African football, is reportedly being backed by Gianni Infantino in what would be a major coup for the South African billionaire businessman.
November 20 – Kerala Blasters and ATK Mohun Bagan will kick off the 7th edition of the Indian Super League tonight, the first major sporting event on Indian soil since the coronavirus pandemic, behind closed doors and with strict health protocols.
November 20 – The Football Association of Ireland has launched an internal investigation into a controversial video message shown to the Ireland squad before last week’s friendly against England at Wembley.
November 20 – FIFA are taking steps to ensure marginal offside calls are determined by automated technology rather than the controversial VAR system of dotted lines and a second pair of eyes.
November 20 – UEFA’s Foundation for Children has announced a raft of new projects on what is its fifth anniversary this year.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 19 – In a ground-breaking initiative that will be widely welcomed throughout the game, FIFA is to introduce radical new regulations covering maternity leave for female players – and could impose fines and transfer bans on clubs not meeting the new standards.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 18 – Senegal Football Federation president Augustin Senghor (pictured), the fifth and final candidate to enter the race for the presidency of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), says he is ready to accept the challenge and believes he has the backing of a number of countries without identifying them.
By Paul Nicholson
November 19 – Private equity money looking to make a play in the football business is not being discouraged by the pandemic with investors increasingly looking at opportunities outside the higher priced top tiers of the Big 5 league clubs.
November 19 – In a landmark move by UEFA that illustrates the increasingly thorny issue of Covid 19’s impact on international football, Romania have been handed a 3-0 win over Norway after their Nations League match was cancelled due to the Norwegian authorities banning the country’s national team from travelling to Bucharest.
November 19 – Belgium and Italy completed the line-up for the Nations League’s final four on Wednesday with wins against Denmark and Bosnia and Herzegovina respectively. They will meet Spain and France in October 2021 to decide the winner of the tournament’s second edition.
November 19 – The English Football League (EFL) has voted to re-instate the five-substitute rule across all its three divisions from this Friday, heaping pressure on the Premier League to follow suit.
November 19 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the US is to continue with its Challenge Cup format introduced for the first time as a back-to-play tournament in 2020, the first of the US leagues to return to competition during the pandemic. The full season schedule will be begin a month later.