By Paul Nicholson
October 30 – AFC president and FIFA presidential candidate Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has issued a stinging rebuke of the reports that he led a task force that identified and prosecuted footballers active in Bahrain’s democracy protests in 2011.
October 30 – The most powerful official in Asian sport says his continent and Europe should strike a deal to carve up support and avoid going head to head for the right to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 30 – FIFA’s reform guru Francois Carrard is being urged to address the question of gender imbalance as an immediate priority as part of the measures to lift football’s world governing body out of the dark ages.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 30 – The US Virgin Islands has been identified as the country that scuppered former Trinidad and Tobago international midfielder David Nakhid’s hopes of standing for FIFA president.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – Four of FIFA’s biggest sponsors have once again denounced the ongoing corruption scandal and say the current reform process being spearheaded by former Olympics guru Francois Carrard is too much of an inside job and needs far more independence.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – Michel d’Hooghe, Belgium’s long-serving FIFA executive committee member, has dismissed Sepp Blatter’s remarkable disclosure of a fixed agreement to hand the 2018 World Cup to Russia, insisting no pre-vote deal took place.
October 29 – England’s Football Association is to consult its lawyers after suspended FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s remarkable disclosure that there was a fixed agreement for the 2018 World Cup to go to Russia even before the vote took place.
By David Owen
October 29 – As the potential cast for next year’s FIFA Presidential election took shape this week, one of those with most influence over its outcome was preparing to welcome 1,000 heavy hitters from the Olympic world to the most powerful political town on the planet.
By Matt Scott
October 29 – Michel Platini has hit back at the suspension that risks ending his ambitions of becoming the next FIFA president.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – David Nakhid, the FIFA presidential outsider whose candidacy for the post has been rejected, says he is writing to the organisation to demand an explanation.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 28 – Despite being currently suspended, FIFA president Sepp Blatter is still making sure his voice is heard, this time assuring Russia that there is no danger of them being stripped of hosting rights for the 2018 World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 28 – Seven rather than eight contenders are in the running to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president, football’s world governing body officially announced today, the omission being former Trinidad and Tobago international David Nakhid who confirmed his intention to stand on Monday but appears to have failed to receive the required endorsement from five member associations.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – Within hours of officially putting his name forward as a FIFA presidential candidate, Asian football supremo Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa has given his first public reaction to the wave of accusations over his alleged involvement in human rights abuses in his native Bahrain, calling them “damaging” and “nasty lies”.
October 27 – Britain’s anti-fraud organisation is looking into possible money laundering on UK soil related to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process that is bedevelling FIFA, its director revealed today.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 27 – The 2006 World Cup slush fund saga has taken an intriguing twist with Franz Beckenbauer, who led Germany’s organising committee, accepting responsibility for the German Football Association’s “mistake” in making a payment of €6.7 million to FIFA towards securing a grant for staging costs – but again denied the money was used in any way to buy votes.