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.
By David Owen
March 22 – FIFA appears to have suffered a substantial fall in the revenue it receives from the Club World Cup. Notes contained in the governing body’s recently-published financial and governance report for 2015 state that revenue received from the competition last year reached only $20.45 million, a near halving from the $40 million recorded in both 2013 and 2014.
By Mark Baber
March 22 – As China’s Wanda steps in as one of FIFA’s top-level sponsors, its chairman Wang Jianlin says two more Chinese companies will sign up as FIFA partners this year.
March 22 – FIFA has extended four-year bans to apply worldwide for two Algerian players who tested positive for cocaine. And a third player who was found to have taken the stimulant methylhexaneamine has also had his four-year ban extended globally.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – With symbolic timing in order to send out a clear message of intent, FIFA announced its first major sponsor in the post-Sepp Blatter era today as the Wanda Group became the first Chinese company to sign up as a top-tier World Cup partner.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 18 – A month after being handed a 12-year ban from football, former FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has now joined his former boss Sepp Blatter under criminal investigation in Switzerland.