By Andrew Warshaw
April 25 – Fresh suspicions that FIFA president Gianni Infantino may be behind an alleged plot to exclude Morocco from the 2026 World Cup vote have provoked a furious response from the North African underdogs as tensions escalate ahead of the ballot in June.
By Paul Nicholson
April 25 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has summoned the FIFA Bureau to Zurich at short notice to discuss issues arising from the Bogota, Colombia, FIFA Council meeting where he infamously tabled the $25 billion offer for the Club World Cup and Nations League competitions.
By Paul Nicholson
April 24 – Detail is starting to emerge on FIFA’s proposed $25 billion revamp of its global competitions structure. With FIFA Bureau members heading for Zurich for emergency meetings and FIFA saying it will call an unscheduled FIFA Council meeting before its Congress in June, FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s cards, or at least some of them, are slowly being laid out on the table.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 19 – Amid widespread concern about supporters being left in the dark, FIFA have confirmed that giant screens will be used at World Cup matches for replays of incidents decided by the video assistant referee – accompanied by written explanations.
April 19 – In a move that is viewed in many league and confederation circles as a money-motivated assault on confederation club competition revenues by the FIFA administration, plans are reportedly afoot to ditch the Confederations Cup, the traditional World Cup warm-up tournament, and expand the Club World Cup.
April 19 – In the latest crackdown on third party ownership of players, FIFA have handed out a raft of sanctions to clubs for transfer deals.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 18 – The inevitable backlash over possible plans to turn the 2022 World Cup into a 48-team event has kicked into gear with the body that represents Europe’s top leagues saying it will vehemently oppose such a concept.
April 13 – He is remaining tight-lipped about details of the $25 billion buyout offer for the Club World Cup and a global Nations League, but FIFA president Gianni Infantino was keen to expand on his plans for the Club World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw
April 13 – Ever since Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, the Gulf state has consistently played down the possibility that matches might be shared with its neighbours.
By Paul Nicholson
April 12 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino was reluctant to divulge detail of the $25 billion buyout bid for the Club World Cup and a Nations League competition to his own stakeholders at FIFA Council and to European clubs, but it appears the guys with the money have fewer qualms over releasing more of the detail of their proposal.
By Tim Röhn
April 10 – UEFA has refused to comment on a proposal by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to seek approval for a secret $25 billion donor to buy the new UEFA Nations League and the Club World Cup.
April 10 – The Women’s World Cup France 2019 has opened its sponsorship account with French chemicals company Arkema becoming the first national sponsor for the tournament.
April 3 – FIFA’s first ever female general secretary Fatma Samoura takes top position in Forbes’ latest ranking of the most important women in sport.
By Paul Nicholson
March 29 – FIFA’s Greek monitoring committee has had enough. The committee set up in July 2017 to monitor the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) is now calling for its suspension with immediate effect.
By Andrew Warshaw in Marrakesh
March 26 – On the day FIFA released the bid books of the two contenders to stage the 2026 World Cup, African supporters of Morocco are crying foul over what they perceive as too much power being handed to the all-important panel that will determine whether the underdogs meet the necessary criteria to take on the heavyweight favourites from North America.