By Samindra Kunti
September 22 – Iran knocked out defending world champions Brazil after a penalty shoot-out in the second round of the 2016 Futsal World Cup in Colombia. The surprise elimination brought to an end the international career of Falcao, arguably the greatest futsal player of all-time.
September 22 – The Dutch FA, the KNVB, have completed their first official ‘live’ test of the Video Assistant Referees (VAR) during the Dutch Cup game between Ajax Amsterdam and Willem II. The Tilburg midfielder Anouar Kali became the first player to get sent off via a ruling from the ‘video assistant referee’ (VAR).
By Andrew Warshaw
September 20 – Gianni Infantino’s regime has come under renewed criticism over the already infamous ruling allowing members of FIFA’s new-look Council, supposedly a key element of FIFA’s reform process, to hire and fire independent governance officials.
By David Owen
September 17 – PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have stepped into the hot-seat vacated by KPMG as statutory auditors of FIFA. The world football body announced that the Bureau of the FIFA Council had appointed PwC Switzerland to the role.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 16 – Gianni Infantino, back in the comfort of his own patch after attending the UEFA presidential election in Athens where Aleksander Ceferin was elected in succession to Michel Platini, has dismissed as “imagination and lies” any idea that he lobbied behind the scenes in favour of the previously little-known Slovenian who critics claim Infantino was keen to control.
By Paul Nicholson
September 16 – While UEFA’s executive committee were yesterday finding out that it was too late to change the new structure agreed for Champions League qualification that favours Europe’s big four leagues and their biggest clubs, a high level delegation from one of the biggest of those clubs, FC Barcelona, was meeting FIFA president Gianni Infantino at FIFA headquarters in Zurich.
By Andrew Warshaw in Athens
September 15 – Europe’s newly elected female representative on FIFA’s ruling council says she hopes to change opinions about women’s football – not least false perceptions about the sexuality of some of the players.
September 15 – The latest FIFA national team rankings shows some significant changes after an international fixture schedule that saw 61 qualifiers played for World Cup Russia 2018, and a further 26 matches in continental qualifying competitions.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 12 – In a staggering ruling that will only serve to undermine its credibility and fuel accusations of double standards, FIFA’s ethics committee today gave Michel Platini permission to make a farewell speech at Wednesday’s election to replace him as UEFA president.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 9 – It will hardly come as a surprise since he was not planning on making a comeback. The question is, why did it take so long? The life ban imposed last week on former FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF boss Jeffrey Webb, the toughest possible FIFA sanction, was the final damaging blow to the Cayman Islands banker who was once held up a bastion of fair play and touted as a possible president of world football’s governing body.
By Paul Nicholson and Andrew Warshaw
August 9 – FIFA’s ethics investigators have opened a formal investigation into the $80 million in pay rises and bonuses that former FIFA top brass Sepp Blatter, Jérôme Valcke and Markus Kattner awarded themselves over a five year period until they were suspended or fired by the governing body.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 8 – The deepening probe into Germany’s 2006 World Cup bid has taken yet another twist with the news that FIFA’s ethics watchdog is opening formal proceedings against former DFB secretary general Helmut Sandrock (pictured).
By Andrew Warshaw
September 7 – FIFA’s ethics watchdog has opened formal proceedings against one of the Qatari FA’s highest ranking officials, vice-president Saoud Al-Mohannadi, but much intrigue surrounds what he has specifically done wrong.
September 2 – Video replays, for years rejected by FIFA as too great a step to take in modernising the game, were used for the first time in an international fixture on Thursday and hailed by FIFA president Gianni Infantino as “football history”.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 1 – Despite continually protesting his innocence over any involvement in manipulating the vote that handed Germany the 2006 World Cup, Franz Beckenbauer, his country’s most revered footballing figurehead who led the bid process, is being investigated by Swiss prosecutors as part of a corruption probe.