By Paul Nicholson
May 24 – Liverpool will play FC Barcelona at London’s Wembley Stadium the weekend before the start of the 2016/17 season on August 6, as part of the International Champions Cup (ICC) that is being played mainly in the US but also in four European cities – Dublin, Glasgow, London and Stockholm.
May 25 – Authorities in Lens have slapped a 24-hour town centre alcohol ban on fans attending Euro 2016 games in the city, including the England-Wales showdown, amid concerns of possible misconduct.
May 25 – Liverpool and Manchester United have both been fined by UEFA for offensive chanting during their Europa League last-16 tie.
May 25 – Euro 2016 sponsor Turkish Airlines has launched a fan activation campaign titled ‘Meet Europe’s Best’ that will showcase fans and their cultures encouraging them to load social media content to a microsite around the hashtag #EuropesBest.
May 23 – Paris Saint-German have signed a three-year global sponsor partnership with Indonesian tyre brand Multistrada.
May 25 – Italians are noted for their fashion style, so you would expect Italian football club retail outlets to have a certain amount of good taste and panache.
May 25 – UEFA has joined with recruitment specialists GlobalSportsJobs with the aim of generating interest in working at major events and identifying talent for future events up to Euro 2020 which will be hosted in 13 venues across the continent.
By James Dostoyevsky
UEFA is in a quagmire of its own making and one that is much welcomed by Gianni Infantino, the ‘little child’, who ascended to the FIFA Emperor’s Throne, only to stumble from blunder to blunder, with no end in sight.
Are we really to believe that the indiscretions of FIFA’s finance director Markus Kattner have only been discovered in the past few days? Do they really think that their member federations, the watching press and the rest of the football world are that stupid and will lap it up unquestioningly?
May 24 – With one Champions League closing this weekend in Europe with the final between Real and Atletico Madrid in Milan, another one opens on Monday in the Americas with the draw for the 2016/17 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League in Miami.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 24 – And another one bites the dust. Markus Kattner, FIFA’s interim secretary-general and long-time director of finance, has become the latest high-profile figure linked with the organisation’s corruption-tainted past to be thrown out.
May 24 – Security failures at the French cup final last weekend will be sorted out before the start of Euro 2016, the government insists.
May 24 – The Toulon U23 tournament became a goal fiesta last night as England’s Under 21s hammered seven past Guinea to top their group above Paraguay on goal difference.
May 24 – Efforts to crack down on match-fixing in Italy have been stepped up with the arrest in Naples of 10 people who, according to the authorities, conspired to alter the results of two matches in Serie B in 2014.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 24 – Manchester United have finally confirmed what the world has been reporting for 48 hours by announcing that Louis van Gaal has been sacked as manager, a sorry end to a saga that has left a sour taste in the mouth despite a massively under-achieving league season.