By Andrew Warshaw
August 1 – Tahiti, the smallest nation ever to compete in a senior football tournament and composed almost entirely of amateurs, has been hit by a drugs scandal after FIFA announced one of its players tested positive at the recent Confederations Cup in Brazil.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
July 25 – Growing calls for switching the Qatar World Cup to winter – now led by FIFA president Sepp Blatter – have taken a dramatic new twist with Germany’s top FIFA official declaring it was a “blatant mistake” to award to the 2022 tournament to the Gulf state in the first place.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 23 – Palestine has made another bold move to make its political presence felt in Middle East football by putting its name forward to host the FIFA Congress in 2017.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 22 – Ticket prices for next year’s World Cup in Brazil have been kept as low as possible, say FIFA, in a move the authorities hope will appease local Brazilian fans angered about the costs of staging the event. Of the three million tickets on sale, 400,000 will be available at a discount to Brazilians, with the cheapest costing around $30.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
July 18 – After months of strong hints and tactical manoeuvring, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has finally come out and supported the growing calls to switch the 2022 Qatar to the winter.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 17 – Fifteen months after an aggressive report into the way FIFA operates, the Council of Europe appears to have softened its stance towards football’s world governing body.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
June 16 – What was supposed to be a summer of optimism and celebration for Turkish football has turned into a summer to forget. As well as the highly publicised UEFA bans on Fenerbahce and Besiktas over match fixing allegations, the Turkish authorities struggled to get it right when it came to staging the under-20 World Cup, known alternatively as the World Youth Cup.
July 15 – France are celebrating their first ever under-20 World Cup title after beating Uruguay 4-1 on penalties following a goalless draw in the final in Istanbul. But Iraq’s fairytale tournament provided just as big a talking point.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
July 10 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter aims to set up a special task force to try and break the increasingly bitter deadlock between Israel and Palestine over restrictions placed on Palestinian footballers in the occupied territories.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 8 – On a truce mission some might describe as mission impossible, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has promised to do everything he can to ease travel restrictions placed on Palestinian footballers by the Israeli authorities and to help resolve the differences between the two sides.
By Mark Baber
The new FIFA/Coca Cola world rankings, whilst delivering their usual set of surprises and statistical quirks, will be welcomed across the world of football for returning Brazil – still the world’s most charismatic team – to the top ten, following their victory in the Confederations Cup.
By David Owen at the Beaulieu conference centre in Lausanne
July 3 – Neither Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, nor Issa Hayatou, the African football leader who is also an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, are to attend this week’s extraordinary Session of the body behind the Olympic Games in Lausanne.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 2 – FIFA President Sepp Blatter once again declared the Confederations Cup a success at his final news conference of the two-week event – and re-iterated that football was playing a unifying rather than divisive role in the country.
By Andrew Warshaw, chief correspondent
July 1 – FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke has accused UEFA of “opportunism and irresponsibility” after Europe’s governing body denounced FIFA for asking World Cup hosts to fork out a fortune on infrastructure to the detriment of more important social needs.
June 26 – FIFA has imposed a worldwide ban on two Lebanese assistant referees who were jailed in Singapore this month for accepting sexual favours to fix a match.