By Paul Nicholson
July 3 – The Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) has been hit by further scandal with the arrest of First Vice-President Bruce Blake (pictured) by the Cayman Islands Anti-Corruption Commission. A second Cayman Island football official is believed to have been arrested but no names have been released.
By Paul Nicholson
June 22 – A storm is brewing in the Caribbean between the St.Kitts and Nevis Football Association (SKNFA) and its member clubs. Elections take place later this month with president Anthony Johnson standing for re-election.
June 9 – Four years after starting proceedings, a consortium headed by David Beckham has cleared a crucial hurdle in bringing a Major League Soccer franchise back to Miami.
June 7 – Jamaican Football Federation (JFF) president and CONCACAF senior vice president Captain Horace Burrell has died, aged 67, following a battle against cancer.
May 23 – The United Soccer League (USL), the recently re-categorised and rapidly expanding Division II professional league in the US, is reporting record attendances for the first nine week of its season.
May 15 – Spain’s FC Barcelona will launch a team in the US National Women’s Soccer League for the 2018 season. The club, which is targeting brand growth in the US, says the team will strengthen its women’s programme.
By Andrew Warshaw in Manama, Bahrain
July 10 – Organisers of the three-country north American 2026 World Cup bid insist the bid will be clean and not be faced with any allegations of wrongdoing.
By Samindra Kunti
May 9 – Canada’s Soccer Association has sanctioned the establishment of a Canadian Premier League, allowing the country to operate its own professional league. At the top of the Canadian football administration pyramid Steve Reed will succeed CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani as the Canadian president.
April 28 – As expected, China’s Guangzhou Evergrande have been charged by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) after the club’s fans unfurled a provocative banner in an Asian Champions League match describing Hong Kong’s independence movement as ‘poison’ and carrying the words: ‘Annihilate British Dogs’.
By Paul Nicholson
April 26 – Five days after CONCACAF filed a lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, claiming $20 million in damages against former executives Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer, Warner has responded by saying he will file a suit against CONCACAF for $40 million claiming “persistent defamation” of character. He also says he is suing US Soccer Federation president and FIFA Council member Sunil Gulati personally.
By Paul Nicholson
April 21 – Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Gordon Derrick has expressed disappointment at the resignation of two of his executive committee members who demanded he should resign after he lost an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over his exclusion from the CONCACAF presidential elections last year.
April 18 – Panama international Amilcar Henriquez has been shot and killed outside his home in the country’s Colón province, authorities there have confirmed.
April 13 – Former Ivory Coast, Chelsea and most recently Montreal Impact forward Didier Drogba has become the biggest name to join US challenger league the USL, the second tier of professional football in the US.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 11 – An expanded tournament to 48 teams, Gianni Infantino’s encouragement for a return to co-hosting and the re-establishment of rotation. It has all played very nicely into the hands of CONCACAF whose three biggest members have, as expected, now officially announced their intention to bid for the 2026 World Cup.
April 10 – CONCACAF, whose corrupt US officials and marketing representatives wrought one half of the storm that has decimated FIFA, held their 32nd Congress on the relative calm of the Caribbean island of Aruba at the weekend. Top of their agenda was the election of representatives to their own Council as well as to the FIFA Council.