Inside Insight Archives - Inside World Football

So what do we really know about Qatar that isn’t fake?

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July 20 – The G20 demonstrations in Hamburg against Qatar last Saturday were paid for by an Egyptian businessman, according to German reports. The fake event that in turn spawned ‘fake’ news reports is one of an increasingly distorting series of stories and revelations that make the real situation in Qatar hard to understand, especially when trying to put into context any impact the blockade will have on the 2022 World Cup preparations and hosting.

Obituary: Death of a Jamaican

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On Tuesday afternoon, June 6, Captain Horace Burrell, 67, passed away at the John Hopkins Cancer Centre in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He had been battling cancer for more than a year and succumbed to it while undergoing additional treatment.

Zul lost. Abu Rida won. But what was really won and lost in this African carve up?

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He never had a chance but just getting on to the ballot was enough. Zelkifili Ngoufonja (the candidate known as Zul) was beaten 54 votes to 4 by Egypt FA president Hany Abu Rida for the last position on FIFA’s Council. But if there ever was a victory that showed up the deep flaws of FIFA’s easily corruptible and barely governed election system (and the Confederation of African Football’s in particular) then this was it.

Piracy in the Caribbean

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The battle for political control of the Caribbean is entering a crucial phase, and it has nothing to do with football and everything to do with controlling the votes, the agenda and the money. At the centre of the power play is the CONCACAF-driven attempts to remove Caribbean Football Union (CFU) president Gordon Derrick from office and split the CFU membership.

Editorial: Islands in the sun that aren’t afraid of the dark

Within an hour of our story being published about the discussion of a CFU breakaway from CONCACAF there was talk on Twitter of how many places the Caribbean could have for the World Cup – anything from 1.5 to 3.5, and why not?

Inside Editorial: Kattner falls foul of FIFA’s new deal

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Are we really to believe that the indiscretions of FIFA’s finance director Markus Kattner have only been discovered in the past few days? Do they really think that their member federations, the watching press and the rest of the football world are that stupid and will lap it up unquestioningly?

Inside Editorial: Has the solution become the problem at FIFA?

The Panama Papers will very likely change the world of offshore finance forever. That football, its rights holders and its marketing agents have been using the same corporate and financial tools to avoid tax (sometimes legally) is no surprise. But what should be a surprise is that FIFA’s shiny new president has been so quickly dragged into the scandal.

Inside editorial: Did soccer just have its WMD moment?

Reflecting on the way FIFA history is being rewritten with its new reform championing president, one wonders if two weeks ago football (we’ll soon be calling it soccer) had its WMD moment.

Inside insight: Caribbean twists and turns. Secession next?

CONCACAF has had its three past presidents banned, indicted, charged or convicted.

Inside Editorial: The Thinker

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Auguste Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’, also displayed in this week’s cartoon (or, at least a variation of it), best qualifies the goings-on in FIFA, where the top floor stays lit up, even late at night these days.

Inside Insight: That Chung Thing

Ever since the Korean Grandee, Chung Mong-joon (lovingly called MJ by his friends) announced his candidacy for the post of FIFA President, he has been doing what he has done best in the past: throw stuff at people. Whilst “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” was his motto in May of 2009 when he supported Sheikh Salman of Bahrain against Mohamed Bin Hammam, his target, this time, have been broadsides against his former ally and ExCo candidate of 2009 whom he then fervently supported.

Inside Editorial: Food for thought. Warner and the sub judice rule

For those who like to think before they foam at their keyboard, the editorial reprinted here from the Trinidad Daily Express raises some important, generally forgotten, issues. Jack Warner may be a crook, he may be a bad man but this editorial points out where much of the media have been going wrong. It suggests a lot of physicians in and around the world of football need to start with healing themselves, or at least a health check.

Inside Editorial: Swiss left wondering who is wearing the lederhosen

While FIFA continue to battle with snitches that cut deals to save their own backsides (literally yet metastatically, one hears), and after the movie-style orchestrated group-arrests have slowly lost their Zurich lustre, a New FIFA future is nowhere to be detected – as yet.

Inside Editorial: All lawyered up with no place to go

News that FIFA president Sepp ‘despot’ Blatter and Jerome ‘not me’ Valcke have lawyered up in the US with a couple of the most aggressive rottweilers available comes as no real surprise. Or does it? And does the fact that this is actually news tell us a bit more than perhaps the news leaker had intended.

Inside editorial: Respect and the rule of lawlessness

If only the crooked bankers, as the criminal individuals they are, had caused so much excitement in the corridors of the EU.