By David Owen
September 6 – Infront Sports & Media, the Chinese-owned international sports marketing company, has announced a major expansion of its Italian football activities. The company has acquired Gsport, a leader in marketing rights management in Italian club football, as well as Sport09, an Italian sports media agency.
September 6 – Real Madrid, the world’s richest club, has become the latest side to join the drive to aid Europe-bound refugees after announcing it will donate €1 million to help those arriving in Spain.
September 6 – FIFA presidential candidate Zico, regarded very much as an outsider, has issued a 10-point manifesto saying he wants to rebuild the organisation based around “democratisation, transparency, governance and the permanent evolution of world football”.
By Tom Parsons
September 4 – Ronaldo or Messi, one of the big questions of our time, is being voted on in London by commuters using their cigarette butts.
By Mark Baber
September 4 – Chelsea has unveiled Wipro, the Bangalore, India-based multi-national global information technology company, as the club’s new official digital and IT partner. Last week Manchester United announced a similar digital partnership with another Indian technology company, HCL Technologies.
September 4 – Hundreds of paramilitary and riot police were deployed in and around the stadium in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Thursday as China and Hong Kong squared off for a politically sensitive World Cup qualifier.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – Anyone who thought the eagerly anticipated first meeting of FIFA’s much-trumpeted Reform body would result in ground-breaking advances will be disappointed but its leader insists “important steps” have been taken in the way world football’s governing body is run.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – The Asian Football Confederation has been quick to respond to accusations by FIFA presidential candidate Chung Mong-joon that it is guilty of “electoral fraud” in the race to succeed Sepp Blatter.
September 4 – The last week has seen another boost in Twitter followers to Premier League clubs with a growth of 210,392 across all clubs compared to 196,493 the week before.
By Samindra Kunti
September 4 – The Brazilian Football Confederation CBF want to open up new markets and have targeted Russia, Iran, Nigeria and Morocco, notwithstanding an institutional crisis at home.
By Paul Nicholson at the FITS Forum in Geneva
September 4 – There is an urgent need for regulation to make football clubs identify who their owners are, including beneficial owners – the real owners hiding behind shell companies or nominees, said Nicola Bonucci, director legal of the OECD.
By Paul Nicholson in Geneva
September 4 – Has sport, and football in particular, lost its self-proclaimed special status right of self-governance, free from government influence and prevailing national laws? Three political grandees speaking at the FITS Forum in Geneva were of the consensus that autonomy for sport was a principal that needs to respected. But within their accepted perameters.
By Tom Parsons
September 3 – Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich are to set up a camp for refugees coming into Germany and will donate €1 million towards refugee projects in the country.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
September 3 – The municipal authorities of Paks, a city in Hungary’s south-west, have added HUF 600 million (€1.9 million) to the HUF 800 million (€2.6 million) earmarked by the Hungarian government to finance the upgrade and expansion the Paksi FC stadium.
By Mark Baber
September 3 – Football in Israel, already suffering from problems relating to the state’s relationship with Palestinine and racism at top clubs is facing a major crisis as the Israeli Football Association says it will cancel all league matches if a recent ban on playing on the Sabbath is not lifted.