By Mark Baber
February 1 – As much as $1 million in funds from soccer’s global governing body FIFA may have gone missing from Guatemala’s soccer federation last year, according to reports of an internal audit carried out by the federation.
February 1 – The spectre of racism, largely eliminated in English football, raised its ugly head again at the weekend as police revealed they are investigating reports of abusive chanting during an FA Cup tie in the north-western city of Carlisle.
February 1 – Footballers in Greece have staged a sit-down protest as a tribute to hundreds of migrants who have lost their lives trying to reach the Aegean islands.
By Samindra Kunti
January 29 – Last wednesday a new club competition the ‘Primeira Liga’ got underway in Brazil. The tournament doesn’t represent Brazil’s very own 1992 breakaway Premier League moment, but could be an important milestone in the development of the domestic game.
January 29 – FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne had a public spat with the head of the French federation over who to back at the election next month, according to local reports.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 29 – Gianni Infantino appears to have stolen a march on his rival candidates for the FIFA presidency by gaining the support of South American federations who comprise 10 of the 209 voting countries.
January 29 – English football’s outspoken chairman Greg Dyke will not seek re-election when his current term ends in June because of a battle over proposed reforms.
January 28 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has beefed up its agreement with betting fraud prevention and detection specialists Sportradar, singing a two-year deal that will increase the number of games monitored to more than 4,500, a huge increase on the 300 games in the previous deal.
By Mark Baber
January 28 – Vitaly Mutko, the Russian Sports Minister and Russian Football Union (RFU) President, has said a new $2.5-3.8 million sponsorship contract is about to be signed for the cash-strapped RFU, and that the union is now getting its finances in order.
January 28 – Italian police have seized assets from 58 players, agents and club executives worth more than €12 million as part of huge crackdown into alleged systematic tax evasion in the country’s top two divisions.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 28 – European parliamentarians have accused FIFA’s presidential candidates of scoring a spectacular own goal after four of them declined to take part in Wednesday’s planned televised debate in Brussels which ultimately collapsed.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 27 – In what can only be described as a state of utter confusion, a planned debate on the future of FIFA, which had already descended into farce, was watered down still further today just hours before it was due to take place.
By Mark Baber
January 27 – Alejandro Dominguez of Paraguay was elected unopposed as president of CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American football, after Wilmar Valdez of Uruguay withdrew his candidacy.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 27 – In an unusual case that once again highlights the sensitivity surrounding Qatar winning the right to stage the 2022 World Cup, officials of the Gulf state are suing former FIFA executive committee member Theo Zwanziger for referring to them as a “cancerous growth on world football” .
January 27 – Doyen Sports, one of the main companies cited as practising Third Party Ownership (TPO), which is banned by FIFA and UEFA, has attempted to justify its conduct by rejecting that it in any way owns players and insisting it uses an alternative model of TPI (third party investment) that ensures financial transparency.