Good morning. A very quick Friday blog. Mikel Arteta meets the press this morning ahead of our game against Bournemouth tomorrow, with a number of fitness/injury issues on the minds of fans. Unquestionably he will be reticent to give too much information away, but on the agenda: Bukayo Saka – after his hamstring issue for England Gabriel Martinelli – calf …

In a surprising development, Bayer Leverkusen are reportedly more inclined to sell their talented midfielder, Florian Wirtz, to either Barcelona or Real Madrid rather than letting him join their Bundesliga rivals, Bayern Munich.  This information comes from SPORT, highlighting that the German club is keen on preventing Wirtz from strengthening a direct competitor. Recent reports from Germany suggest that Wirtz …

October 18 – Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia has signed a sleeve sponsorship deal with dairy producer Lacrima, one of the largest Bulgarian companies producing dairy products. In addition to the first team, Lacrima will also supply the club’s Academy, and all children’s and youth teams with dairy products. No value or length of the deal has been released. From the information …

October 18 – The AFC has drawn the groups for the 2025 Women’s Futsal Asian Cup 2025 with 19 teams to play in four centralised locations January 11-19, 2025. Previously called the Asian Woman’s Futsal Championship, the rebranded competiton has been held twice before – in 2015 in Malaysia and in 2018 in Thailand. The 2020 edition, that would have …

October 18 – Music and football have always been interconnected. Think the Beatles and Liverpool FC and more recently, Oasis and Manchester City. Now British super-group Coldplay and Barcelona FC are getting in tune with each other in time for the El Clasico on October 26. As part of the Catalan giants €70 million partnership with Spotify, Coldplay, who hold …

October 18 – The growth of non-domestic ownership of clubs in Europe’s Big 5 leagues is no longer a new phenomenon, but the skew towards US ownership in England’s Premier League and Italy’s Serie A has been a growing one. A report by Football Benchmark catalogues the number of US investors who now control 24 clubs in the Big 5 …

Cameron Carter-Vickers is set to return for Celtic as early as this weekend. Carter-Vickers returned to training ahead of Celtic’s top-two Scottish Premiership clash with Aberdeen on Saturday. The U.S. men’s national team defender missed out on international duty due to a toe injury, which also kept him out of each of several Celtic matches. However, after a break in …

October 18 – Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner, Don Garber in London speaking at The Summit, Leaders Week this week, hyped up the 10-year, $2.5 billion-plus agreement with Apple that is about to conclude its second season. Garber, who recently celebrated his silver anniversary (25 years) as the commissioner of the league, said the partnership could be “one of the …

It has been reported that Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois could meet in the ring again next year and with a rematch planned, former Olympic gold medalist Audley Harrison has offered to train ‘AJ’ for the bout.  Audley Harrison Looking To Train AJ Anthony Joshua was humbled by Daniel Dubois last time the British heavyweights clashed at Wembley Stadium, with …

October 17 – On Tuesday the NWSL (National Women’s Soccer League) unveiled the latest expansion team in downtown Boston as BOS Nation FC were officially launched.  Accompanying the announcement was a video campaign created by the aptly named ad agency, Colossus, because what followed could only be described as a colossal balls up. The negative reaction by the fans to …