Catching a political bullet from unfriendly fire

It may now be old news rather than fake news and have been somewhat overshadowed by subsequent events in Bahrain but was the invisible hand of the biggest figure in Asian sport behind the surprise election of a relatively unknown candidate to become Asia’s female representative on the FIFA Council last Monday?

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Borbely and Eckert accuse FIFA of politicising Ethics as hundreds of cases left open

By Andrew Warshaw in Manama, Bahrain

May 10 – Whatever spin Gianni Infantino puts on it – and he has promised to give his side of the story at the end of tomorrow’s full Congress – FIFA’s ousted ethics chiefs insist they were given no notice whatsoever of the decision to remove them from office and that the lack of a transition period will set FIFA’s much-touted reform process back several years.

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Going to war on the Russian front: Smertin puts discrimination top of the agenda

By Paul Nicholson

May 10 – Issues of racism and discrimination have been thrust into the spotlight again with the Sulley Muntari case sadly showing that football has a lot more work to do on the issue. FIFA’s response has been depressingly ambivalent; of the “it’s not nice but what do you expect us to do” variety. So what about Russia, the World Cup and the widely documented issues facing that country as it prepares to welcome the world in 2018. 

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