By Paul Nicholson
March 5 – Controversial Swiss attorney general, Michael Lauber (pictured), who led the Swiss investigations into FIFA but mysteriously failed to remember or document meetings he held with FIFA president Gianni Infantino, has been sanctioned for disloyalty, lying and breaching his office’s code of conduct.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 5 – Former UEFA president Michel Platini, who has been free to work again in football from last October, has nevertheless suffered another blow to his reputation after losing his appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against his four-year ban from the game.
March 4 – UEFA are considering tweaking their financial fair play regulations after Manchester City announced they were taking their fight to overturn a two-year ban for breaching the rules to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
March 3 – Former England striker Daniel Sturridge has been banned from football for four months and fined £150,000 for breaching betting rules.
March 2 – Bayern Munich, flying high both domestically and in Europe, have had to issue an apology after their fans shamed the club by displaying an insulting banner at Hoffenheim that led to a protest by players on both sides taking matters into their own hands by refusing to play on and simply swapped passes with each other for the last 13 minutes.
March 2 – UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin, and Concacaf president Victor Montagliani will headline the 6th SIGA Sport Integrity Forum in New York on March 24.
February 26 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has confirmed it has received Manchester City’s appeal against UEFA’s two-season European ban and €30 million fine.
February 24 – The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) has retained Juninho Paulista as national team coordinator after a conflict of interest arose over Paulista’s ties with Sao Paulo club Ituano.
February 24 – Mastercard has sent a clear integrity message to the sports industry that it expects its sponsor partners to meet the highest standards of governance.
February 20 – In a week where financial cheating and corruption have again dominated sports headlines with the UEFA ban on Manchester City and the Swiss indictments surrounding FIFA’s media rights, SIGA’s conference in Rome which focussed on Anti-Corruption in Sport had an almost eerie-like timing.
By Paul Nicholson
February 20 – The Swiss Attorney General has issued an indictment against the former FIFA secretary general Jerôme Valcke, the chairman of the BeIN Media Group, Nasser Al-Khelaifi (who is also president of PSG and a UEFA executive committee member), and an unnamed businessman.
By Paul Nicholson
February 20 – Sport must be given more power to protect its rights and commercial income from criminal piracy in any form, was the overriding demand from a panel at the World Congress on Global Leadership and Anti-corruption in Sport hoisted by SIGA in Rome.
February 20 – Spain’s women footballers have signed a historic first collective agreement over pay and conditions, after a battle for rights that led to an unprecedented strike in November.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 19 – Five days after the club were sensationally banned from Europe for two seasons by UEFA, Manchester City’s chief executive has denounced allegations of financial fair play “serious breaches” as totally untrue and politically motivated.
By Paul Nicholson
February 19 – If sport, and football in particular, wants to get rid of the increased presence of organised crime both within their ranks and profiting from their activity, then sport must allocate some of its revenue to tackle criminals head-on.