September 4 – African nations kick off their long road to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar today with the continent’s 28 lowest-ranked sides playing for a place in the second round group phase qualifying that begins next March.
September 3 – Simon Thomas is to replace Philippe Le Floc’h as FIFA’s new commercial chief.
September 2 – You would be forgiven for thinking that we have already done this once. FIFA has announced the finalists for its men’s player of the year who are the same three players – Ronnie and Lionel of course, plus Virgil van Dyke – who just headlined UEFA’s awards.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 29 – Nicolás Leoz, the one-time Paraguayan powerbroker alleged to have been one of the masterminds of the corruption scandal that brought FIFA to its knees but who managed to escape the clutches of US prosecutors, has died at the age of 90.
By Samindra Kunti in Brussels
August 28 – FIFA will launch a new proposal to revive the creation of a Women’s World League within the next year, according to the organisation’s head of women’s development and governance Emily Shaw. In 2018 the FIFA Council failed to approve the introduction of the new competition.
August 27 – With opinions over VAR increasingly diverging and yet more controversial cases in the English Premier League at the weekend, FIFA are reportedly probing the possibility of replacing linesmen with – wait for it – robots.
By Paul Nicholson
August 16 – Musa Bility, the former Liberian FA president and Confederation of African Football (CAF) executive committee member, is not slowing down in his mission to hold FIFA and CAF to account over their co-operation initiative that has seen control of African football fall under the dominating wing of the world governing body.
August 16 – FIFA has banned for life a prominent official who served on its own audit and compliance committee that is supposed to weed out financial wrongdoing.
August 16 – The United States will plan to bid for the 2027 Women’s World Cup, according to the president of US Soccer Carlos Cordeiro.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
August 15 – Miguel Maduro, the immediate past chairman of FIFA’s Governance Committee, has questioned the legitimacy of the appointment of Fatma Samoura as FIFA’s General Delegate for Africa, while the Senegalese still functions as the Secretary-General of football’s world governing body.
By Paul Nicholson
August 14 – Musa Bility, the CAF executive committee member who has been banned by FIFA, has criticised the mandate issued by FIFA for the collection of African FA World Cup qualification TV rights to be controlled and sold directly by FIFA.
By Paul Nicholson
August 14 – When Jeff Webb was president of Concacaf he was always a pretty cool cat – approachable, friendly, always reasonable, nice guy to be around and pretty generous with it. Since his US Justice Department indictment in 2015 on corruption chrages he has needed all of a cat’s nine lives to stave off sentencing.
By Paul Nicholson
August 13 – She has only been in the job two weeks but already Fatma Samoura, FIFA Secretary-General and General Delegate for Africa, has landed herself in a governance and conflict of interest crisis over the move to consolidate all African national federation World Cup broadcast rights under a FIFA sales arm.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
August 13 – In a highly unusual move, FIFA has asked the 54 member associations of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to sign a one-page media rights “mandate” that gives the world governing body “an irrevocable mandate to implement a central marketing plan to market and commercialise the media rights for the FIFA African Qualifiers 2022 & 2026.”
August 12 – Nigeria is in the running to host the 2020 U-20 Women’s World Cup. A FIFA inspection team visited facilities in the proposed host cities of Lagos, Benin City, Asaba and Uyo.