By Paul Nicholson
April 20 – Liverpool’s controversial sponsorship partnership with Tibet Water is refusing to stay out the headlines with a group of 25 English MPs having written to the club asking them to end their deal.
April 19 – In the latest crackdown on third party ownership of players, FIFA have handed out a raft of sanctions to clubs for transfer deals.
By Paul Nicholson
April 18 – Police in Congo have swooped to arrest DR Congo Football Association (Fecofa) president Constant Omari along with two Fecofa vice presidents, Roger Bondembe (finance director) and Theobad Binamungu (national team manager), Their detention comes as part of a corruption investigation looking at embezzlement of government and football funds.
April 18 – Swiss club FC Sion, which has a history of controversy on and off the field, have been a handed a two-season ban from European competition by UEFA over a transfer debt.
April 17 – They can protest all they like about being unfairly singled out, but FIFA has charged World Cup hosts Russia with fan racism less than two months before the tournament begins.
April 13 – Peru captain Paolo Guerrero’s dreams of leading his country into the World Cup in June could be shattered if the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) appeal to increase his ban for a positive doping test is successful.
By David Owen
April 13 – In a move that will be greeted with much relief in the anti-doping sector, Berlinger has decided to continue producing sample bottles for at least the next 12 months.
April 12 – The Beautiful Game. A matter more serious than life or death, if you believe Mr Shankley. However, far from complementing the beauty of the game, off-field misdemeanours within the business of football are increasingly stealing the headlines. This time the scandal hitting the headlines concerns Derby County FC and Sam Rush, its former President and CEO. The Rams dismissed Mr Rush for gross misconduct and breach of fiduciary duty in May 2017.
April 11 – Greek football, plagued by a raft of controversial incidents on and off the pitch in recent months, has been plunged into yet more turmoil after Panathinaikos players went on a brief strike in protest over unpaid wages from last year.
April 11 – Barcelona forward Munir El Haddadi has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in his bid to switch national allegiance from Spain to Morocco ahead of the World Cup.
April 11 – Scores of English professional footballers are facing huge fines for investing in a tax avoidance scheme, according to the country’s Daily Mirror newspaper.
April 10 – Genius Sports has added the Football Association of Serbia (FSS) to its roster becoming the federation’s official data and integrity partner.
By David Owen
April 6 – FIFA has secured adequate supplies of anti-doping sample collection kits for this summer’s World Cup in Russia, in spite of the company which makes them announcing plans to exit the business.
April 4 – Zenit St Petersburg have been cautioned by UEFA after one of their players failed to attend a routine doping test following Celtic’s 1-0 Europa League win over the Russian side in February.
March 22 – Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into last year’s sale of AC Milan by Silvio Berlusconi’s holding company to a Chinese consortium, according to Reuters quoting a judicial source.