June 20 – The United World Cup 2026 bid might not be quite as united as its principals claim as US authorities pursue Mexican football legend and national team captain Rafael Márquez, 39, who in the past week has become only the third player ever to appear at five World Cups.
June 15 – On the day Portugal opened their World Cup campaign in Russia against Spain, their superstar player Cristiano Ronaldo has accepted a suspended prison sentence to settle his tax fraud case, and agreed to pay £16.4 million to the Spanish tax authorities.
By Paul Nicholson
June 11 – UEFA and FIFA’s failure to get any kind of control or governance over Greek football is reaching unprecedented levels even by their own woeful standards. The integrity of the game in Greece was hammered again with news that champion club AEK’s owner Dimitris Melissanidis is under investigation for accounting fraud.
June 7 – A Croatian court has sentenced the former boss of Dinamo Zagreb, Zdravko Mamic (pictured right with brother Zoran), to six-and-a-half years in prison for tax evasion and siphoning off profits from player transfers, allegedly including that of Luka Modric to Tottenham Hotspur and Mateo Kovacic to Inter.
June 6 – FIFA has filed a criminal complaint in Switzerland against the ticket website Viagogo on the eve of the World Cup as part of a crackdown on unauthorised sales.
June 4 – Eighteen months after the Swiss criminal investigation into corruption allegations over the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany was broadened to include former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi (pictured), he is now reported to be among four former leading administrators charged by German prosecutors with serious tax evasion.
By Mark Baber
May 24 – German prosecutors in Frankfurt have filed charges of tax evasion against former DFB Presidents Wolfgang Niersbach (pictured left) and Theo Zwanziger and the DFB Secretary General Horst R. Schmidt.
May 21 – Chelsea’s billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich, whose club won a distinctly unexciting FA Cup on Saturday to save their season, faced delays in renewing his UK visa and did not attend the game, according to reports.
May 9 – More than six months after a judge in Paraguay authorised the extradition to the United States of former Conmebol boss Nicolás Leoz, alleged to have been one of the masterminds in the FIFAGate corruption scandal but who has so far managed to escape the clutches of US prosecutors, now appears to be closer than ever to finally being brought to justice.
April 27 – In an important case that could potentially have implications for player image rights, a European court has ruled that Argentina and Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi, can trademark his own name for use on sports and clothing equipment.
April 12 – The Beautiful Game. A matter more serious than life or death, if you believe Mr Shankley. However, far from complementing the beauty of the game, off-field misdemeanours within the business of football are increasingly stealing the headlines. This time the scandal hitting the headlines concerns Derby County FC and Sam Rush, its former President and CEO. The Rams dismissed Mr Rush for gross misconduct and breach of fiduciary duty in May 2017.
April 11 – Barcelona forward Munir El Haddadi has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in his bid to switch national allegiance from Spain to Morocco ahead of the World Cup.
April 11 – Scores of English professional footballers are facing huge fines for investing in a tax avoidance scheme, according to the country’s Daily Mirror newspaper.
March 22 – Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation into last year’s sale of AC Milan by Silvio Berlusconi’s holding company to a Chinese consortium, according to Reuters quoting a judicial source.
March 22 – The crackdown by Spanish authorities to prevent elite footballers getting even richer by beating the tax system has struck again, with former Liverpool and Real Madrid star Xabi Alonso facing a possible five-year jail term after being accused of fraud.