Messi and Ronaldo dance endures as clubs fluff their semi-final lines May 4, 2025 During the peak of the white-hot rivalry between Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, they exercised a near-monopoly on club football’s biggest prizes. In a golden spell from 2005 to 2018, when both seemed to be engaged in a game of one-upmanship to decide who was the world’s best player, either Messi or Ronaldo won the [...]
Chelsea move to digital tickets after banning 2,000 fans for touting May 1, 2025 Chelsea have revealed further details of their switch to digital tickets next season, which the football club says it hopes will stamp out touting. The Premier League outfit have cancelled 2,000 memberships linked to touting this season and believe that the new digital system will provide greater security. It comes a year before the top [...]
FA issues blanket ban on transgender women playing in female football May 1, 2025 The FA has followed other major sports and banned transgender women from playing in women’s football from next month. Just weeks ago it was still resisting calls to implement a blanket ban but has now updated its policy following last month’s landmark Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act, which decreed that the lawful exclusion [...]
Nottingham Forest owner Marinakis gives up control of club April 30, 2025 Nottingham Forest and Olympiacos owner Evangelos Marinakis has relinquished control of the Premier League club in order to avoid scuppering their Champions League qualification. Marinakis has placed his Forest shares in a blind trust to ensure that he does not fall foul of Uefa rules preventing control of two teams in the same European competition. [...]
Who is David Kogan, the future football regulator facing the ‘piranha club’? April 27, 2025 David Kogan once claimed to have helped introduce bingo to Daily Star readers but his forthcoming job as chair of the independent football regulator represents an altogether different kind of gamble – and some much bigger numbers. Subject to a pre-appointment grilling by the Culture, Media and Sport select committee early next month, the seasoned [...]
Bukayo Saka: Arsenal star’s image rights company doubles earnings April 25, 2025 A company set up to manage Arsenal and England forward Bukayo Saka’s image rights more than doubled in value last year. Income at BS7 Rights Limited, which is run by his parents Adenike Saka and Hamed Saka, increased from £2.30m to £4.64m in 2024. The sharp rise came after Saka signed a new contract at [...]
Leeds United owners go into business with New Zealand Cricket April 24, 2025 New Zealand Cricket is going into business with the owners of Leeds United, 49ers Enterprises, to launch an expansion team in Major League Cricket. The franchise is set to join the US-based T20 competition in 2027 and will benefit from expertise and personnel – which could include coaches, staff and players – from New Zealand [...]
Aston Villa to boost Villa Park capacity beyond 50,000 by 2027 April 24, 2025 Aston Villa have revealed plans to increase the capacity of Villa Park to more than 50,000 by more than doubling the number of seats in its North Stand. The Premier League club aim to complete the work by late 2027, in time for being one of the host venues for Euro 2028, which is being [...]
Channel 5 to show Club World Cup in UK after deal with Dazn April 23, 2025 Channel 5 will broadcast live more than a third of the matches including the final at this summer’s Club World Cup after striking a sublicensing deal with Dazn. The broadcaster, which is owned by US media giant Paramount, has agreed to take 23 of the 63 matches at the first 32-team edition of Fifa’s ambitious [...]
Christopher Sarofim: NFL minority owner joins Everton board April 23, 2025 US fund manager Christopher Sarofim, a minority owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans, has joined the board of Everton FC after buying into the club’s ownership group. Sarofim, 63, is chairman of Fayez Sarofim & Co, a fund set up by his father which manages $30bn in assets, and a friend of new Everton owner [...]