I know what you’re all thinking: it’s hard to imagine anything the world needs more right now than a new 32-team international club football competition. Believe it or not, however, there are two entities that need this innovation even more than you do: one is FIFA, the world football body; the other is Gianni Infantino, its bashful new President.
November 21 – Two late goals that relegated Swedish club Helsingborgs sparked a pitch invasion win which coach Henrik Larsson and his son, Jordan were abused and attacked by fans. Jordan Larsson, who had earlier scored to put Helsingborgs in fronts, had his shirt ripped off.
November 21 – FIFA has joined the International Olympic Committee in stepping up the pressure on Kuwait over the government’s interference in the country’s sport bodies.
November 21 – Gareth Southgate, England’s interim first-team coach who stepped into the job after the resignation of Sam Allardyce over a newspaper sting, looks ever closer to being given the role on a full-time basis as the country attempts to finally regain some kind of managerial stability.
November 21 – With the AFC Annual Awards Asian warming up for their December 1 unveiling in Abu Dhabi, the confederation has split out four awards that are being honoured at special occasions.
November 21 – A former top-flight Syrian goalkeeper now based in the UK has given a heartfelt and graphic description of how life was before fleeing his homeland.
By Andrew Warshaw and Paul Nicholson
November 18 – The full scale of the pressure on Jose Mourinho to succeed in his first season at Manchester United has been underlined by the revelation that the club will lose more than £20 million in sponsorship income from Adidas if they fail to qualify for next season’s Champions League. But the club says it is still on course to hit record revenue of between £530 million and £540 million for the full year.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 18 – The entrance to an insurance company headed by under-fire Cyprus Football Association (CFA) boss Costakis Koutsokoumnis has been bombed in the latest ugly protest against his leadership.
November 18 – Taking advantage of the burgeoning Chinese market, the English Premier League has sold its television rights in the country to streaming service PPTV for a staggering $700 million (£565 million), according to a number of reports in the UK and Asia.
By Samindra Kunti
November 18 – The Brazilian FA, the CBF, and Samsung have parted ways. Samsung is the fifth major sponsor the CBF has lost since the FIFA scandal engulfed the world game and shone the spotlight on decades of corruption in Brazilian football.
November 18 – FIFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against England and Scotland after both countries defied football’s world governing body by wearing poppy emblems on black armbands in last week’s World Cup qualifier to commemorate Armistice Day which ended World War One.
By Paul Nicholson
November 18 – With the US national team floundering at the bottom of their final World Cup qualifying group and looking increasingly uncomfortable with the ball at their feet with every game, they could do worse than send their players to one of the TOCA Soccer centres for some intensive ball work.
By Samindra Kunti
November 18 – Belgium’s oldest club Antwerp has dismissed sporting director John Bico after just one turbulent month as the club’s sporting director.
November 18 – The rise of Thailand as a footballing power in the region was recognised by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, who pledged further support for the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) during a visit by a Thai delegation to AFC House in Kuala Lumpur.
November 18 – So now we know. After delaying a ruling in a mysterious disciplinary case involving CSKA Moscow and Finland midfielder Roman Eremenko, UEFA have banned him for two years after he tested positive for cocaine.