By David Owen
September 11 – The International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) has played down the significance of a ruling by the Brussels Court of Appeal that has been reported as calling into question the ability of football bodies, and potentially counterparts in other sports, to insist that disputes go to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
By David Owen
September 10 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)’s uncontested jurisdiction over sporting disputes appears to have been put in question by a ruling handed down by a Brussels Court of Appeal.
September 4 – A lifelong Swansea City fan who gave a Nazi salute to Tottenham Hotspur supporters has been branded a “racist oaf” by a judge and been banned from matches for three years.
August 31 – One of Belgium’s leading football TV presenters has been charged with being an accomplice to an armed robbery, according to prosecutors.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 30 – Six months after being found guilty, Juan Angel Napout (pictured), one of the biggest scalps in the sprawling FifaGate corruption scandal that brought the organisation to its knees, has been jailed for nine years in the latest get-tough sentence handed down by US justice authorities.
August 23 – In a landmark verdict six months after he was convicted for his role in the FifaGate scandal, Jose Maria Marin, the former president of Brazil’s football federation who to the last insisted he had done nothing wrong, has been sentenced to four years in jail.
August 23 – The international players’ union FIFPro has taken UEFA to task over a two-year ban imposed for matchfixing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Maltese under-21 international Samir Arab.
August 23 – Coming just a day after the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service announced that it would not be prosecuting Hillsborough police chief Norman Bettison for his part and lies in the cover-up of the disaster, Sussex police have been found to be in breach of the Freedom of Information (FoI) act.
August 22 – A former British police chief who was charged with lying over his role in the 1989 Hillsborough stadium disaster that killed 96 fans will no longer face trial after a review of evidence, according to prosecutors.
August 20 – The long-awaited sentencing of former Brazilian supremo Jose Maria Marin (pictured right) is scheduled for Wednesday (August 22) in Brooklyn, New York, with federal prosecutors reportedly pushing for a 10-year jail term for the 85-year-old.
August 10 – Mexican broadcaster Televisa is failing to shake off allegations that it bribed its way to the broadcast rights to the 2018, 2022, 2026 and 2030 World Cups, with an amendment to a March complaint in the NY Federal court being filed this week.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 27 – Jerome Valcke, for years Fifa’s charismatic go-to troubleshooter before being snared by ethics prosecutors and falling spectacularly from grace, has lost his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport after seeking to overturn his 10-year ban from football.
July 23 – With broadcast piracy issues increasingly concerning sports rights owners anxious to maintain their TV deals and value in an increasingly disrupted marketplace, the Premier League has won a further blocking order in the UK High Court forcing pirate streams to shut down.
July 11 – As the World Cup reaches its climax in Russia, the FifaGate scandal has reared its head again with The Imagina Group, parent of Spanish broadcaster MediaPro, agreeing to pay $24 million after its US-based affiliate US Imagina pleaded guilty to charges of corruption.
By Paul Nicholson
July 5 – Spain’s LaLiga is the latest football rights holder to condemn the on-going copyright theft by pirate satellite broadcaster BeoutQ that is transmitting sports content it does not own. Separately world tennis’s various governing bodies and major tournaments have combined to issue the strongest demands yet, calling for the “immediate closure” of the channel.