May 23 – Alexey Sorokin, the public face of next year’s World Cup in Russia, seems almost certain to be nominated for a place on the FIFA Council in place of the barred Vitaly Mutko in order to ensure his country retains a powerful voice at FIFA’s top table.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 21 – Morocco has not ruled out bidding for the 2026 World Cup with a fellow African nation – or two – now that it has been made clear that Europe will not be allowed to bid.
By Samindra Kunti
May 21 – Venezuela won the opening match at the FIFA U20 World Cup in South Korea with a 2-0 victory over Germany. England got their campaign underway with a 3-0 win against Argentina.
By Paul Nicholson
May 19 – David Chung, president of the Oceania Football Confederation as well as the Papua New Guinea FA, is facing a revolution in his home country where a rival faction has established its own federation, is playing its own matches and has more members than the FIFA-recognised federation Chung leads.
May 19 – Zhang Jian, China’s newly elected FIFA council member, says a World Cup bid from his country will come “sooner or later” but has declined to specify when.
By Samindra Kunti
May 19 – This Saturday the FIFA U20 World Cup kicks off with Germany and Venezuela playing the opening match in Daejeon, South Korea, thought the tournament favourites are a two other teams from Europe and South America – France and Uruguay.
May 19 – The Under-20 World Cup, which runs from this Saturday to June 11 in six South Korean cities, will be the first FIFA youth tournament to employ video assistant referees but the world governing body’s head of refereeing has cautioned against its over-use.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 18 – Two more highly respected members of FIFA’s governance committee have resigned in protest at the removal the body’s chairman, Miguel Maduro, axed in last week’s purge of senior ethics watchdogs.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 15 – Germany’s jettisoned FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert has spoken of his personal hurt at being targeted in Gianni Infantino’s purge of senior judicial personnel.
By Paul Nicholson
May 15 – Timing is everything in football and there would have been a few ironic smiles at the weekend when it was announced in the US that Judge Michael J. Garcia of the New York Court of Appeals was one of four candidates being interviewed for the role of FBI Director to replace the ousted James Comey.
By Paul Nicholson
May 13 – FIFA secretary general, Fatma Samoura, in the job for barely a year, has been caught paying over CHF28,000 to a cleaning company for the servicing of her own private living quarters.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 12 – Frustrated and angered by FIFA’s constant delaying tactics, the Palestine Football Association (PFA) is taking their case for a resolution to football’s Middle East crisis to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
May 12 – Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, two-time losing FIFA presidential candidate, has emerged from his relative silence over recent months to denounce the regime of Gianni Infantino in the wake of events at this week’s FIFA Congress in Bahrain.
By Andrew Warshaw in Manama, Bahrain
May 11 – After a 48-hour assault on his leadership, Gianni Infantino finally explained the overhaul of FIFA’s top watchdogs today but did little to enhance his desire to be regarded as the standard bearer of democracy and fair play.
By Andrew Warshaw in Manama, Bahrain
May 11 – Fifteen months after being elected, under-fire FIFA president Gianni Infantino, supposedly the new voice of transparency and accountability, took aim at the media today for indulging in “fake news” in its criticism of his leadership.