By Andrew Warshaw
December 5 – The “unwarranted criminal compliant” brought by Brazilian authorities during the latter stages of the 2014 World Cup against British ticket and hospitality consultant Ray Whelan has “officially closed in its entirety” according to his employers.
December 2 – British football’s child abuse scandal has taken another unsavoury twist with reports that a former Chelsea player was paid £50,000 by the Premier League club not to go public with allegations that he was sexually abused by the club’s former chief scout Eddie Heath.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 1 – The Swiss criminal investigation into corruption allegations over the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany has been broadened to include former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi (pictured) who served under Sepp Blatter.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 30 – The chairman of the English Football has labelled the on-going child sex abuse scandal as one of the biggest crises in the history of the governing body.
November 28 – The English Football Association has confirmed it is investigating allegations of sexual abuse in youth football after more ex-professionals came forward with stories of their suffering.
By Samindra Kunti
November 23 – Spanish prosecutors have demanded a two-year prison sentence for FC Barcelona and Brazil forward Neymar for his part in a corruption case over his transfer from Brazilian club Santos in 2013.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 24 – Just how petty can you get? In what must surely rank as one of its most nonsensical decisions, verging on the autocratic, FIFA have opened disciplinary proceedings against Wales and Northern Ireland after fans were spotted wearing poppy symbols in the recent World Cup qualifying campaign.
November 23 – The former president of the Ecuadorean FA has been convicted of money laundering in his own country and handed a 10-year sentence in the latest blow to CONEMBOL linked to the US-led case.
November 23 – Two referees and one linesman have been suspended for three months and publicly criticised by African football’s ruling body while another has been warned following their performances in recent World Cup qualifiers.
November 22 – The Belgian FA, the KBVB, is set to punish Olivier Deschacht (Anderlecht), Knowledge Musona (Ostende), Tuur Dierckx (Antwerp) and Laurent Henkinet (Beveren), for betting on Belgian club matches.
“Far from being willing to execute his enemies, a real king must be willing to execute his friends.” T.H. White
Walt Disney’s rendering of TH White’s novel The Sword in the Stone glossed over it but the author always tackled themes of justice and proper governance persuasively. Indeed, White’s lessons are apt for football to learn after so many years of Sepp Blatter running FIFA like a feudal fief.
By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
November 16 – Saoud Al-Mohannadi, the Qatari official who FIFA disqualified at the last moment from standing as an Asian member of its ruling Council, has now been banned by FIFA’s ethics committee for one year for failing to cooperate as a witness with a FIFA investigation.
November 17 – The ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) has renewed its deal with Sportradar to provide match-fixing detection and prevention services for its AFF Suzuki Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 15 – The debate over whether Europe’s minnows should have their own pre-qualifying competition for major tournaments is nothing new but Germany’s Thomas Muller has stoked an unsavoury spat with officials of San Marino following his team’s 8-0 demolition of the 201st-ranked FIFA nation.
On May 27, 2015, in Brooklyn, New York, Loretta Lynch, Attorney-General of the United States, made a media-savvy appearance. Accompanied by her subordinate (“I am honored to be joined today by Director James Comey of the FBI […])” she highlighted a series of charges that put a number of mainly non-US football officials into serious trouble: “[The individuals indicted today] were expected to uphold the rules that keep soccer honest, and to protect the integrity of the game.