Andrew Warshaw: The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

When Sepp Blatter took to the stage during the gala opening of FIFA’s Congress in Sao Paolo and strutted his stuff with one of Brazil’s most glamourous models, it rounded off an eventful day for the 78-year-old FIFA president.

But not one that went entirely his way.

After a tub-thumping round of self-promotional speeches to his loyal followers among five of FIFA’s six regional confederations, and hearing gushing messages of support come flying back,

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Osasu Obayiuwana: Cash, Bin Hammam and Africa

So, the world is surprised and shocked by what informed followers of the African game and its politics have known, through the grapevine, for ages – that Mohamed bin Hammam, the former president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), spent significant sums of money to create a sphere of political influence amongst the continent’s federation presidents.

The spread sheet and emails published by the Sunday Times of London, revealing the sums spent on lavish Qatari and Malaysian vacations for several FA chiefs,

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‘It was a fabrication’

June 11 – “Today, I am certain that the information I received from a European source [football official] was a fabrication,” says Michel Zen-Ruffinen in an exclusive interview with INSIDEWorldFootball.com, referring to the rumours of vote collusion in the race for the 2018 and 2020 World Cup hosting rights

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Shaikh Salman flexes his political muscle to brush aside Prince Ali

Shaikh Salman and Prince Ali

By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – The youngest and most reformist member of FIFA’s inner sanctum, Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan (pictured right), was dramatically shunted out of office as Asia’s FIFA vice-president today when the region took what could prove a totally misguided decision to merge his position with that of AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (pictured left) in 2015, thereby giving the Bahraini total control of an organisation he only inherited a year ago.

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FIFA steps up fight against match manipulation

FIFA signage

By David Owen
June 10 – FIFA has urged member associations to designate one individual to be responsible for all matters related to manipulation, as world football’s governing body looks to step up the battle against match-fixing. In the run-up to this week’s Congress, FIFA has distributed a 23-page booklet of guidelines to member associations entitled, ‘Specific Recommendations to Combat Match Manipulation’.

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