By Andrew Warshaw
April 12 – Whilst the process for hosting the 2026 World Cup is perhaps the standout item on the agenda for next month’s FIFA Congress (see separate article), the future of FIFA’s ethics committee and the crisis involving Palestine and Israel are also up for potentially contentious discussion in Bahrain.
April 12 – The new president of African football, Ahmad Ahmad, has hinted that he is open to the idea of changing the dates of the African Cup of Nations, the confederation’s flagship event.
April 12 – After struggling to find fresh commercial sponsors in the wake of the corruption probe that brought the organisation to its knees, Fifa is set to seal a major partnership with Qatar Airways within weeks, agency reports have quoted unnamed sources as saying.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 11 – An expanded tournament to 48 teams, Gianni Infantino’s encouragement for a return to co-hosting and the re-establishment of rotation. It has all played very nicely into the hands of CONCACAF whose three biggest members have, as expected, now officially announced their intention to bid for the 2026 World Cup.
April 11 – Manchester United broke their own impressive Twitter record this week putting on a massive 95,700 new followers, a weekly record for this season. It was also another good week for Chelsea who continued their weekly twitter dominance of Arsenal with their own season record 67.200 new followers.
April 11 – Iraq’s Radhi Shenaishil has become the third coaching casualty of Asian World Cup qualifying Group B after being sacked late on Monday.
April 11 – The issue of competitive balance in European competition was brought into political focus recently with UEFA’s new Champions League qualification criteria which sees four teams from the top four nations automatically qualify for the group stages. Not only does this reduce the opportunity of other teams from smaller leagues to challenge but it will likely concentrate more of the revenue towards the biggest teams.
April 11 – Just days after being given the dreaded vote of confidence, Edgardo Bauza has been sacked as Argentina coach, with the team outside the automatic qualifying places for next year’s World Cup.
April 11 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) have finally released a statement upholding FIFA’s recruitment ban on Belgian club RFC Seraing for breaching third-party ownership rules – but has confirmed is has reduced the sanction from four transfer windows to three.
April 11 – Claudio Ranieri has finally broken his silence over his controversial sacking at Leicester City by hinting he had been betrayed by an unidentified party – but denied his players contrived to force him out.
April 11 – Brazil’s Santa Catarina state league has signed up with Sportradar’s match-fixing security service to monitor league matches. It is the second of the state leagues, after Sao Paulo, to bring in the company’s Fraud Detection System to monitor betting patterns.
It isn’t every day that a ban by FIFA’s ethics watchdogs is overturned on appeal. Many have tried and failed to clear their names, not least Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 10 – It’s been an open secret for months but now the United States, Mexico and Canada look set to formally announce a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup later today.
By Paul Nicholson
April 10 – Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Ahmad has said he believes the 12-year deal signed with Lagardère Sports for $1 billion was for too long a term, might have been too cheap and that he is going to revisit this agreement.
April 10 – Russian World Cup chief and deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko, barred from being a member of FIFA’s ruling Council because of a conflict of his sporting and political interest, has accused the world governing body of overcharging his country for TV rights for next year’s finals.