‘Instead of kicking balls, FIFA is now sucking them’
By James Dostoyevsky
December 10 – I’ve been following FIFA and its shenanigans for more than two decades from up close, and there have been many.
Columnists
Sketch: World Cup draw gets the ball rolling
December 7 – It didn’t rain on FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s World Cup Draw parade last Friday, but it did snow, and it provided a sub-zero chill for the media who waited outside for 90 minutes-plus until they could no longer feel their toes.
Alexander-Arnold mural defaced prior to Liverpool’s UCL clash with Real Madrid
November 6 – Many believe that Trent Alexander-Arnold should be remembered as one of Liverpool’s best-ever players, and surely in the top three fullbacks to ever don the famous red shirt. After all, here was a local lad who lived the dream and helped deliver the glory days back to Anfield.
The past is like my arse, but is it really behind us? FIFA needs the guillotine
By James Dostoyevsky
Although Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin did not specifically invent his famous decapitation machine for the feudal masters alone but he launched it as a means of putting a “humane” end to anybody who faced execution: the ruling class was usually put to death by the sword, while the common people often faced a horrific end.
All that glitters is not football gold
The final of the Club World Cup was bizarre, surreal and supremely ugly in its beauty. The Club World Cup has been a month of lies and PR overkill from FIFA, a massive over-hyping of what, for 90% of the competition, was like watching walking football. But then this was never really about football as a sport.
Class enemy Wenger’s comments highlight FIFA-UEFA disconnect
By Andrew Warshaw
When Tottenham Hotspur lifted the Europa League trophy in Bilbao on Wednesday to end the club’s 41-year quest for European silverware, penny for the thoughts of a certain Arsene Wenger.
Tango of the malignant narcissists
By James Dostoyevsky
Sometimes, when you set out to debone a Branzino, it fools you and turns out to be a Fugu in disguise.
That’s a bit like a football administrator who turns out to be a narcissistic megalomaniac, completely mistaking himself for a global statesman, when he’s no more than a mediocre village idiot.
Better late than never, or better never than late? Infantino’s tour de force
May 16 – He may have turned up four hours late, and have key members of his ‘football family’ walk out on him at the interval in protest, but FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino barely missed a beat as he rattled through all the talking points that in his ivory tower make him a global powerbroker and now seemingly bigger than the sport he was elected to administer.
Should the axe fall on Ange?
February 11 – Take between 10 and 12 injured players out of any team in the English Premier League (or any other division in any country for that matter), ask them to play game after game, week after week, without rotation – and see where it gets you.
How to become a winner, engrave your name on the trophy
November 18 – Sometimes you come across a person who appears to have become bigger than the organisation or institution they represent. FIFA seems to have found one – and it isn’t Lionel Messi.
FIFA sambas the 2027 World Cup all the way to Brazil
Brazil’s success in winning the vote to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup at the FIFA Congress in Bangkok last Friday will undoubtedly provide a stimulus to, until now, a generally unloved women’s game in the country.
A True Story. Really?
Sepp Blatter, the decorated former President of FIFA, who has more honorary degrees, noble titles and other high awards than almost anyone else who springs to mind, has published yet another ‘book’.
The worm turns: new 2023 financials point to long-delayed sponsorship uplift for Infantino’s FIFA
It is not every day that one surveys the annual performance of a venerable 120-year-old organisation, notes a near $400 million loss, and concludes that business is ticking along very nicely. Then again, the organisation is FIFA and the business is football – a realm which, you might often be forgiven for thinking, operates in keeping with a commercial logic that is entirely its own.
James Dostoyevsky: The King says he’s going soon. Let the run for his clothes begin
The 48th UEFA Congress in Paris on February 8 turned truly interesting after it was over.
The Burleanu Burlesque
By James Dostoyevsky
As if football didn’t have other problems – between a Turkish club president assaulting a referee on the pitch and VAR turning into the most hated new tech distorting football results – a novel and stupefying proclamation emanated from Vlad the Impaler’s homeland, Romania this week.