By Andrew Warshaw
April 7 – A member of the FIFA body responsible for rooting out corruption has himself resigned after being placed under investigation over his offshore business dealings exposed in the Panama Papers tax haven leak, heaping damage on the accountability and credibility at the heart of football’s world governing just when it is trying to restore its battered reputation.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 6 – New FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who came into office just six weeks ago vowing to clean up the discredited organisation, has himself been drawn into the corruption scandal that has brought down a raft of high-profile powerbrokers.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 6 – Greece has been given a 10-day ultimatum by FIFA to stop government interference in its footballing affairs but the threat of a worldwide ban from international competition still hangs over the country.
By Paul Nicholson
April 5 – FIFA have said that 13 member associations from five confederations have expressed an interest in hosting the 2020 Futsal World Cup. The eighth edition of the championship takes place in Colombia, September 10 to October 1 this year.
April 5 – Banned UEFA President Michel Platini’s Panamanian bank account was declared to the authorities in Switzerland, where he lives, his lawyer insisted in an interview published by French newspaper Le Figaro.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 4 – FIFA is facing fresh crisis right at the heart of the body responsible for rooting out corruption after ethics committee member Juan Pedro Damiani was himself placed under investigation after being caught up in an explosive tax haven scandal dubbed the Panama Papers, one of the biggest leaks of a confidential database ever recorded.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 31 – Greek football’s potentially fatal collision course with FIFA and UEFA has seemingly moved a step closer after the parties failed to resolve their difference over what has been dubbed ‘Grexit’ by the Greek media.
March 30 – Gianni Infantino says his plan to expand the World Cup finals to 40 teams could begin in 2026.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 30 – FIFA have stepped up the battle against third-party ownership by sanctioning four clubs, including Europa League champions Sevilla, for breaching rules over players’ economic rights.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 28 – Gianni Infantino is quickly learning the importance as FIFA president of saying the right things at the right time depending on where he is. Currently on a trip to South America, Infantino gave tentative backing to a joint World Cup bid by Argentina and Uruguay to commemorate the centenary tournament in 2030.
March 29 – Like Jeffrey Webb before him, Rafael Callejas, former President of Honduras, has changed his plea to guilty over widespread corruption charges in the ongoing scandal centred around football in the US and Americas.
March 24 – Any Americans still smarting from the loss of the 2022 World Cup hosting to Qatar can take solace in the fact that they are still in the international football picture after having hosted the finals of the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) in New York.
The 2016 Grand Final, the twelfth edition of the tournament, was played out for the first time in New York City at the Apollo Theater .
By Andrew Warshaw
March 23 – He may have retired from the international arena as a prominent FIFA member and consistently distanced himself from all manner of allegations about behind-the-scenes wheeler-dealing but is the net finally closing in on the previously untouchable Franz Beckenbauer?
March 23 – And then there was one. Costas Takkas, close associate of disgraced ex-CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges that he participated in bribery schemes under the widespread the-US led football corruption investigation.
By Paul Nicholson
March 22 – Following on from the report by law firm Freshfields into the German 2006 World Cup bid process, FIFA has opened its own investigation into six individuals over potential vote buying and failure to report a breach of the FIFA ethics code.