By Paul Nicholson
July 5 – Premier League giants Liverpool have announced a pre-season schedule that will see them play in Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, Dublin and Norway – topped and tailed with an opener in nearby Preston and Steven Gerrard’s testimonial game at Anfield, a fixture that has extra special significance since it will also be the first live match aired on the new BT Sport TV channel.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 4 – The battle for brand supremacy in Asia has been stepped up with Manchester City announcing they have struck a two-year regional deal with Thailand’s fast-growing est Cola company which will become the Abu Dhabi-owned club’s official soft drinks partner in the country.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – Manchester United have announced yet another new sponsor – specifically to co-incide with their pre-season tour of Thailand. United, who won their 20th English league title in May, have struck a three-year deal with Thai telecommunications group True Corporation Plc though no figure has been made public on the agreement.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 1 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter insists the Confederations Cup, which concluded on Sunday with Brazil’s resounding 3-0 win over Spain, rose above the mass street protests that co-incided with the tournament.
By David Owen
June 29 – Further evidence of the Barclays Premier League’s remarkable international pulling power has emerged with a new shirt sponsorship deal announced by Swansea City. The South Wales club, whose rapid advance from the lower reaches of the professional game in Britain was underlined last season by victory in the Capital One Cup final at Wembley, has agreed a £2 million deal with a Hong Kong-based financial services provider called Goldenway.
By David Owen
June 24 – English Premier League clubs have racked up net profits on player sales of well over £1 billion during the last five seasons for which full figures are available. The figure suggests that club balance-sheets massively undervalue these assets – who also happen, in many cases, to be global stars.
By Mark Baber
June 20 – Following a complaint from BT, Ofcom, the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, is launching an investigation into BSkyB over the supply of its sports channels to rival broadcasters.
By David Owen
June 19 – BT Group has surprised investors by announcing that Ian Livingston is to quit as chief executive, as the traditional telephone company is gearing up to take on BSkyB in the market for live coverage of Barclays Premier League matches.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 20 – The Premier League may be the most popular football product in the world, watched by billions of armchair fans globally, but English supporters are losing patience over inflated ticket costs which price the majority of fans out of the market.
By Mark Baber
June 17 – Abu Dhabi-backed Manchester City fear their worldwide “secret scouting database” may have been “hacked” by an employee of a unnamed Premier League rival, according to unsourced reports in British Sunday tabloid newspapers.
By Tom Parsons
June 13 – Manchester United Megastore officials caused a stir when they announced that they would not print some of their ex-players’ names on the back of the club’s newly launched home kit.
By Mark Baber
June 11 – The saga over Chelsea’s search for a new stadium has taken a new turn, as Jose Mourinho returns, with the revelation that the club may be invited to bid on a 17-acre plot of land, owned by Transport for London (TfL) near Earls Court and just a mile north of current home Stamford Bridge.
By Mark Baber
June 9 – Senegalese striker Papiss Cisse’s representatives have informed Newcastle officials that his religious beliefs forbid him from representing or advertising a loans company, posing a dilemma for the club which has accepted sponsorship from pay-day loans company Wonga.
By David Owen
June 6 – Aggregate revenue at English Premier League clubs is projected to surge through the £3 billion barrier next season, on the back of the league’s new broadcast deals, according to the latest report by professional services firm Deloitte. The 22nd Annual Review of Football Finance compiled by Deloitte’s Sports Business Group says that Premier League clubs’ revenues nudged up 4% in 2011-12 to a record £2.36 billion.
June 5 – Andros Townsend, one of the most promising young wingers in English football, has been banned from the game for four months, three of them suspended, and fined £18,000 after breaching betting regulations.