Liverpool has been fined £100,000 ($124,905) by the Premier League and "handed a two-year ban on signing academy players from other clubs for a rule breach." It relates to the club's "approach to a 12-year-old academy player at Stoke City in September last year." Liverpool will be "banned from signing any academy players who have been registered with a Premier League or EFL club in the previous 18 months." This second year of the ban "will be suspended for a three-year period" (BBC, 4/5).
National League side Aldershot Chair Shahid Azeem said that the decision to hand players full-year contracts is a "calculated risk" for the National League playoff hopefuls. Aldershot has "previously only been able to offer players deals from the start of July to the end of April." Azeem said, "What we're selling is emotion, the club getting the good feel-factor back. It's a calculated risk, but you've got to have some kind of optimism because if you're too careful you lose all these players and then you end up trying to rebuild the team" (BBC, 4/5).
A Berlin-based futsal club has been "forced to change its name from Arsenal Berlin after a legal intervention by the Premier League side that inspired their name." After seven years as Arsenal Berlin, the club was "ordered to change its name" by a Hamburg-based law firm acting on behalf of Arsenal, and will now be known as Berlin City Futsal. It means the 24-member club "also has to change its logos and website" (ESPN.com, 4/5).
