By Paul Nicholson
June 10 – Former FIFA general secretary Michel Zen Ruffinen (right) who was caught in a newspaper sting in 2010 talking about rumours of vote collusion between the Spain/Portugal, Russia and Qatar world cup bids, now believes that the rumours circulating were fabricated, most probably by a rival bidding committee.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
June 10 – The Czech football association (FACR) is considering a plan to transfer oversight of the top tier to a new entity, according to Miroslav Pelta, chief executive of FACR.
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
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – The thorny issue of age limits and term mandates, the one FIFA reform measure that shows little sign of being resolved, is back on the agenda at world body’s annual congress starting Tuesday – but it won’t affect Sepp Blatter’s likely bid to go for a fifth term of office.
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.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter, riled by repeated criticism of his organisation from elements of the British media, today fired back one of his most vociferous salvos to date as what he dubbed ‘Qatargate’ threatened to overshadow the build-up to FIFA’s congress here.
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’.
By Mark Baber
June 9- Cameroon’s squad is departing for Brazil 12 hours later than scheduled, after settling a dispute over World Cup pay with their Federation which had to borrow money to be able to meet the players’ demands. Meanwhile, in Spain, there is uproar as the players are offered $720,000 each if they win the World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 9- World Cup sponsors have called on FIFA to deal thoroughly with corruption claims as a second swathe of allegations over Qatar’s conduct in securing the 2022 tournament was published by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, overshadowing this week’s big kick-off.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 9- FIFA President Sepp Blatter is to hold last-ditch talks with Palestinian and Israeli officials in the next 48 hours in an attempt to bring the two sides together to sign a symbolic memorandum of understanding at this week’s FIFA Congress.
By Alexander Krassimirov
June 9 – Turkey’s Sivasspor and Eskisehirspor have been added to UEFA’s banned list for next season, both being denied entry to the Europa League for involvement in a domestic match-fixing scandal.
By Mark Baber
June 9 – The Russian Football Union (RFU) has bowed to FIFA and UEFA requests, voting to put off a decision on allowing the Crimean clubs to play in the Russian football leagues. The decision means the Crimean clubs will be unable to start the beginning of next season.
June 9 – Chinese company Yingli, winner of the NetEase ‘Best Sports Marketing Award’ for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, will be bringing solar energy to the world stage again, powering the Arena Pernambuco and Maracanã Stadium in Brazil.
There was good news and bad news for European club football in the financial story of the 2012-13 season, as compiled by professional services firm Deloitte in its latest Annual Review of Football Finance.
The good news is that, whether as a consequence of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) initiative or for some other reason, top-tier clubs in the five big west European football markets of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, do seem to be managing their financial affairs more sustainably.
By Markus Hausmann
June 7 – The usually suave and always immaculately behaved German football legend, Franz Beckenbauer, had a few choice words on offer when asked about the present craze about Qatar’s alleged World Cup Bid irregularities this week in Munich.