FIFA picks its jury for first Diversity Award
May 18 – The last jury members have been named for the first FIFA Diversity Award, which will be presented in July 2016. US World Cup winner Abby Wambach, former captain of the German national team Thomas Hitzlsperger, and former Dutch international Clarence Seedorf are the big name players to join the 11-person jury.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 17 – FIFA’s first ever female secretary general, Fatma Samoura, has vowed “to help football restore its tarnished image” and says she should be given time to make her mark despite having negligible footballing experience.
By Paul Nicholson
May 17 – Seemingly at the centre of everything FIFA president Gianni Infantino did during the FIFA Congress in Mexico City last week were his band of legends. Whether it was accompanying him on his whistle stop visits to confederations, being introduced one-by one and embraced at the opening ceremony, sitting in the front row of the Congress itself, or Infantino sitting on the bench while the icons played 9-a-side knockabout matches in the iconic Azteca Stadium,
By Andrew Warshaw
May 16 – FIFA have gone into overdrive in an attempt to play the victim following the rift between Gianni Infantino and his independent financial watchdog Domenico Scala that led to Scala’s dramatic resignation less than 24 hours after the FIFA Congress in Mexico.
May 16 – Indonesia’s suspension from international football over government interference in the country’s national federation has ended after almost a year.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 16 – Kosovo and Gibraltar seem certain to be fast-tracked into the 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign starting in September after being accepted as the 210th and 211th members of FIFA even though Serbia says it will fight Kosovo’s entry by legal means.
May 16 – A suspicious package that led to the evacuation of Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium on Sunday and the postponement of the club’s final Premier League game of the game ended up being a fake device accidentally left behind by a private firm after a training exercise.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 14 – Domenico Scala, head of FIFA’s audit and compliance committee and one of the organisation’s most important independent watchdogs, dramatically resigned today after his position was rendered untenable by Gianni Infantino, prompting the first major crisis of Infantino’s three-month-old presidency.
By Andrew Warshaw and Paul Nicholson in Mexico City
May 13 – Just when he promised the world he would be leading FIFA into a new era of transparency and good governance, Gianni Infantino faces new accusations of undermining the corruption-plagued organisation’s entire reform process after less than three months as president.
By Paul Nicholson in Mexico City
May 13 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino took the unexpected step of unveiling the first key appointment of his regime today, naming Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura (pictured) of Senegal as his Secretary General, the first woman in its history to be handed FIFA’s most senior management position.
When delegates from FIFA’s 209 member federations convene for their annual congress in Mexico later today, the man who wanted so much to be king will be conspicuous by his absence. Had the cards fallen differently, it would almost certainly have been Michel Platini and not Gianni Infantino taking centre stage in Mexico City at the start of the post-Sepp Blatter era.
By Paul Nicholson in Mexico City
May 12 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s first act in his new job was to host a Legends match at his new office in Zurich. He seems to have liked the idea so much he has repurposed it for his first Congress as president, but this time bringing in the legends (a reported 200) to sprinkle stardust around Mexico City.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 11 – The 2026 World Cup hosts will not be chosen until May 2020, three years later than originally scheduled, as FIFA beefs up eligibility rules.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 10 – A group of anti-Israeli activists is urging FIFA not to just bury the plight of Palestinian footballers in the occupied territories when it holds its annual congress in Mexico on Friday.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 10 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has expressed his sadness at Michel Platini failing to overturn his ban for breaching FIFA’s ethics code – hardly surprising given the process by which Infantino landed the top job in world football instead of his former boss.