By Andrew Warshaw
June 8 – For years, amid constant claims of his involvement in widespread corruption and bribery stretching back to the Mohamed bin Hammam cash-for-votes affair and before, Jack Warner, FIFA’s notorious former vice-president, has never admitted he has done anything wrong.
By Paul Nicholson
June 8 – Alexei Sorokin, head of the organising committee for the Russia 2018 World Cup, has expressed frustration at having to repeat that the Russian bid was clean and transparent. Sorokin will speak again later this week at the World Football Forum in Moscow where he will outline progress in the preparations for 2018.
By David Owen
June 7 – Clubs in England’s second-tier Championship paid out more in wages than they generated in revenue for a second straight season in 2013-14, underlining the risks decision-makers are prepared to run to improve their chances of promotion to the promised land of the Premier League.
By David Owen
June 7 – Spain’s La Liga may overhaul the Bundesliga as the second-highest revenue-generating football league by the season after next, as the long-awaited switch to a collective sales model for TV rights provides a substantial boost to broadcasting income.
By Paul Nicholson
June 5 – In the last week of the Premier League the Insideworldfootball twitter stats showed Manchester United yet again leading the table of most new followers over the week. Liverpool, who had a desperate end to the season, came in second, followed by Arsenal and Chelsea who were close together.
June 5 – With so much focus on the corruption scandal engulfing FIFA, it is easy to forget that the women’s World Cup gets under way this weekend in Canada. Opening games are tomorrow with hosts Canada playing China, followed by New Zealand taking on the Netherlands. Both matches are being played in Edmonton.
June 5 – Premier League club West Ham, situated in east London and close to the City of London financial centre, has signed a three year sponsorship with on-line ‘social’ trading site eToro.
By Matt Scott
June 5 – English Football League clubs will today vote on a new insolvency policy that, if approved, will overhaul the way administrations are dealt with in the English lower leagues.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 5 – In what is becoming open season time for FIFA’s secrets to see the light of day, a new saga connected with federation money and sharp negotiation has suddenly hit the headlines, this time concerning one the World Cup’s most notorious injustices.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 6 – South Africa’s 2010 World Cup boss Danny Jordaan (pictured) is back in the firing line over the infamous $10 million which United States prosecutors allege was a bribe to secure the country the showpiece tournament and which South Africa’s government counters was a perfectly above board World Cup legacy payment.
Let’s distinguish between the highly unlikely and the reality; let’s separate the hyberbole from the facts. Sepp Blatter made the right decision to announce he would be stepping down no matter how upset his legions of supporters in Africa and elsewhere might be. Root and branch reform is now needed at FIFA more than ever to eradicate the stench of rampant corruption.
By Samindra Kunti
June 5 – CBF president Marco Polo Del Nero is expected to resign during an extraordinary general assembly next week as the crisis deepens in Brazilian football.
By Mark Baber
June 5 – Following the arrest of its former president Rafael Esquivel in Switzerland, military intelligence raided the headquarters of the Federación Venezolana de Fútbol (FVF).
June 5 – The battle against betting related match fixing is seeing a rapid uptake in stakeholders looking for ways to combine resource and intelligence to control what is probably the biggest threat to the sporting integrity of the game. The latest information sharing agreement is between the European Union’s law enforcement agency Europol, have linked up with Sportradar’s betting security division.
We all know how the US Justice Department has moved the tectonic plates of FIFA. Yet the next few months, until the elective Congress meets to decide a new President, could also see major changes in FIFA and if Blatter gets his way these changes will not be very palatable to the Europeans and, in particular, the British. Indeed this could prove to be the most important period in FIFA’s history, even more important than the immediate post war years when a nearly bankrupt FIFA,