By Paul Nicholson
January 19 – Cracks look to be appearing in FIFA’s suffocating dominance of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), divisions that could signal a weakening FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s powerbase within his core support.
January 18 – Less than two months after being snubbed for the Ballon d’Or, Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski beat Argentine superstar Lionel Messi and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah to pick up the FIFA best men’s player award for 2021.
January 17 – With friends in European football few and far between, and the authorities in his own country of Switzerland ramping up their criminal investigation into him with the appointment of two special prosecutors, FIFA president Gianni Infantino appears to have decamped to Doha, Qatar.
By Samindra Kunti
January 17 – Belgian authorities want FIFA technical director Steven Martens in court. He was named as one of 57 football administrators, coaches and referees that the federal prosecutor wants to charge as part of operation ‘Clean Hands’, the largest investigation into match-fixing and corruption in the history of the Belgian game.
January 17 – FIFA is reported to have slapped Marseille with a transfer ban in the ongoing dispute over the 2020 signing of midfielder Pape Gueye, according to local reports.
January 14 – Former FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke has been questioned by French authorities over the award to Qatar of the 2022 World Cup.
January 14 – The global transfer market is still reeling from the impact of Covid-19, shrinking to $4.86 billion in 2021, down 13.6% from the $5.63 billion spend in 2020, FIFA’s Global Transfer Report has found.
January 11 – Almost a year after launching an appeal, Swiss prosecutors have a second chance to win their case against beIN Sport supremo and Paris St Germain boss Nasser Al-Khelaifi over the allocation of World Cup TV rights.
January 10 – In keeping with tradition, Lionel Messi is once again nominated in the final three of The Best FIFA Men’s Player awards. FIFA will probably keep nominating him when he retires.
January 10 – Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel and Italy manager Roberto Mancini are on the shortlist for FIFA’s best men’s coach of the year with the winner to be announced on January 17.
January 7 – FIFA’s ticket sales process for the Club World Cup UAE 2021, has gone from an exclusive pre-sale window that ended today, to a last-minute ticket window opening today.
January 5 – Erik Lamela’s remarkable rabona for Tottenham Hotspur in last season’s north London derby against Arsenal, Patrik Schick’s long-distance screamer at the Euros and Mehdi Taremi’s overhead kick against Chelsea have been nominated for FIFA’s annual Puskas award for the best goal of 2021.
January 4 – Having spent months extolling the virtues of a biennial World Cup, met with fierce resistance by UEFA and sceptics everywhere, Gianni Infantino is now suggesting the Euros could go the same way.
January 4 – Tickets for the Club World Cup in the UAE that kicks off 3 February have gone on-sale in an exclusive pre-sale six-day window with prices starting as low as $5.
December 23 – Belgium will be top of the men’s FIFA rankings for a fourth successive Christmas and New Year, while the US women remain top of their rankings, a position they have held since 2017.