December 20 – The dates for the first Tackling Match-fixing conference has been released for March 9-10. To be held in Chelsea, London, at the Chelsea Harbour Hotel, the conference will be the first dedicated to addressing the challenges faced by governing bodies, clubs and sports lawyers in addressing what is the biggest threat to the integrity of football worldwide.
December 22 – Peru captain Paolo Guerrero says he is innocent and will fight to clear his name despite FIFA reducing his doping ban to six months, allowing him to play at next year’s World Cup.
December 19 – The jury in the FIFA-gate corruption trial of three former South American powerbrokers is set to resume deliberations today with a verdict imminent.
December 18 – Sudan’s leading club has been reprimanded after supporters taunted rival fans by erecting banners displaying an image of Adolf Hitler during a bitter championship decider.
December 18 – Talk about a faux pas. France’s much-touted Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann has apologised after initially telling his social media followers to “calm down” in response to an outpouring of protest about racism when he painted himself black.
December 15 – As the three former South American football powerbrokers who have been on trial in New York for their alleged roles in the FIFA-gate scandal nervously await the jury’s verdict, the lawyer for one of them, former Brazilian FA boss Jose Maria Marin, wound up his defence Thursday by claiming his client had little idea about the $200 million bribery and corruption scheme.
December 15 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been accused of turning a blind eye to match-fixing when he was UEFA’s general secretary during the 2010-11 scandal that rocked Turkish football.
December 14 – The three former South American football powerbrokers who have been on trial in New York for their alleged roles in the FIFA-gate scandal lined their pockets with millions of dollars of bribes for more than six years, prosecutors argued in their closing arguments yesterday.
December 13 – Closing statements are set to take place in the New York trial of three former South American bosses charged in the corruption scandal engulfing FIFA.
December 12 – The judge in the FIFAGate trial in New York has deepened the intrigue over why current Brazilian football boss Marco del Nero is still at large even though he is one of those indicted, suggesting he might have “friends in high places”.
December 12 – FIFA’s original governance guru has come out of the shadows to describe the organisation under Gianni Infantino as a laughing stock that has actually gone backwards from the days of Sepp Blatter when it comes to meaningful reform.
December 8 – Good try but not good enough. Real Madrid defender Dani Carvajal will miss the first leg of the Champions League last 16 after he was found by UEFA to have got himself deliberately booked for time-wasting in the last month’s 6-0 win at Apoel Nicosia.
December 7 – A Brazilian marketing executive has told the FifaGate trial in New York how he helped set up an enticing bribe to powerful South American football officials to secure the rights for a new tournament that never happened.
December 12 – Already reeling from the doping scandal that has reverberated through world sport, Russian football has been hit with its latest claim of racism, this time against Liverpool striker Rhian Brewster who has alleged he was abused by a Spartak Moscow player during a UEFA Youth League game on Wednesday.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 6 – The position of Russian World Cup supremo Vitaly Mutko has been catapulted back into the spotlight following the International Olympic Committee’s far-reaching decision to ban all Russian athletes from competing under their own flag at next year’s winter Olympics as punishment for a state-sponsored doping programme.