By Samindra Kunti
February 5 – Saudi Arabia has announced it has entered the bidding to stage the 2027 Asian Cup. The blue riband Asian Football Confederation (AFC) event for national men’s teams was successfully expanded to 24 teams for the UAE hosting last year. In 2023 it will be hosted in China.
February 5 – The English Premier League has vowed to improve the standards of VAR after a plethora of baffling and inconsistent decisions throughout the season.
February 5 – The international players’ union FIFPro has issued a warning to its members about joining Turkish teams because of an increasing number of cases in which clubs are defaulting on salary payments.
February 5 –The Jacksonville Jaguars NFL team will play two of their home games at London’s Wembley Stadium over consecutive Sundays in 2020.
February 5 – Canada secured top a semi-final match-up with Costa Rica in the Concacaf women’s Olympic qualifiers, avoiding the all-powerful US women’s team who have yet to concede a goal and will face Mexico in the other semi-final.
February 5 – Former Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba is maintaining his pursuit of the presidency of his federation, according to local reports.
February 5 – For years fans all over Europe have fallen foul of UEFA rules banning letting off flares, with clubs sanctioned accordingly. But now, for the first time, the German FA has granted permission for ‘legal’ pyrotechnics in a domestic fixture.
February 5 – FIFA has banned four Kenyan-based players for their involvement in match-fixing in the latest case of rigging to rock African football.
February 5 – The world of eSports has attracted another high profile team entrant from the world of football, but this time it is a player rather than a club. Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale has launched a new eSports team called Ellevens Esports.
February 5 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has confirmed that Argentina’s River Plate are the 2018 Copa Libertadores champions after rejecting the appeal of cross-town rivals and losing finalists Boca Juniors.
February 4 – Having raised a number of eyebrows with comments many perceived as undermining African football, Gianni Infantino carried on where he left off when he addressed members of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) in Budapest on Monday.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
February 4 – Eight months have passed, since the 2019 CAF Champions League final, the most controversial in the history of African football, took place, as the pairings for the quarter-finals for this year’s edition are about to be made.
February 3 – Spanish giant FC Barcelona is revamping its digital platforms which it sees as an under-exploited revenue stream. A new digital plan will see the launch of an OTT service and wider integration of digital technologies from e-commerce to ticket sales and integration with its new global membership programme ‘Culers’.
February 4 – Parma’s Dejan Kulusevski (pictured on loan from Juventus) tops the table of most playing time for big-5 league players born in the 2000s. The young forward has played in 95% of Parma’s games and is followed in the table by another Italian club player, midfielder Sandro Tonali (Brescia).
February 4 – Turkish club Trabzonspor have filed a criminal complaint after former Nigerian international captain John Obi Mikel was the target of racist abuse from Fenerbahce supporters on Sunday.