By Andrew Warshaw
February 22 – Big-spending Chelsea, in the headlines for much of the season for all the wrong reasons, have been slapped with a two-window transfer ban by FIFA and fined CHF600,000 after being found guilty of illegally signing no fewer than 29 under-age foreign players.
February 22 – Football’s rule-making body will clarify rules on handball next week by bringing in new wording to reduce “grey areas”, the body’s technical director David Elleray has confirmed.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 20 – FIFA are reverting to the old behind-closed-doors rules to decide on the hosts of the Women’s World Cup in 2023.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 19 – European football stakeholders have aimed their strongest broadside to date at Gianni Infantino’s contentious $25 billion blueprint to change the landscape of global competitions.
February 18 – Gianni Infantino is repeating the same rhetoric ahead of next month’s decision-making FIFA Council session in Miami saying he is “optimistic” about expanding the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to 48 teams but warned that it would “not be easy”.
February 13 – Its own president may be subject to continual criticism over the autonomous way he allegedly runs the continent but there is no doubting the growing bond between Confederation of African Football (CAF) boss Ahmad Ahmad and Gianni Infantino
By Andrew Warshaw
February 12 – After years of fighting FIFA’s ethics apparatus, former executive committee member and Thai strongman Worawi Makudi has succeeded in clearing his name and winning his fight against a five-year ban.
February 8 – In a seven-hour testimony former CBF president Marco Polo Del Nero has pleaded his innocence to FIFA’s Appeals Committee in a bid to avoid an enforced exit from Brazil’s supreme football body. Del Nero was banned for life from football by FIFA in April 2017 for taking bribes.
February 7 – The Asian Cup win for Qatar last Friday in the UAE has pushed the hosts of the 2022 World Cup 38 places up the FIFA Rankings, released today, to 55th position, the highest spot the country has achieved since 1993.
By Andrew Warshaw
February 6 – Gianni Infantino will rule FIFA for at least four more years after it was confirmed, as anticipated, that he will stand unopposed in June’s presidential election.
By David Owen
February 6 – FIFA has moved to assert control over the Qatar 2022 World Cup delivery process. The governing body has announced establishment of a joint venture with the Qatar 2022 Local Organising Committee (LOC) that will take responsibility for the planning and delivery of operations and services for the tournament, scheduled for the first time for a northern-hemisphere winter.
By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
February 5 – Ramon Vega has landed in Rome in advance of the UEFA Congress to carry out some last minute lobbying in advance of the deadline for nominations for the FIFA presidential elections that will be held in June in Paris.
February 4 – FIFA President Gianni Infantino is under investigation in Switzerland for suspicion of bribery and potential corruption of the Swiss judiciary.
By Paul Nicholson
February 1 – It is harder to get five nominations for the FIFA presidency than it is to get 100 votes in the election, said Ramon Vega, who is putting together a challenge for the top job at the world governing body.
February 1 – Concacaf are the latest confederation to come out and formally support Gianni Infantino for re-election as FIFA president in Paris on June 5.