By Samindra Kunti in Kigali, Rwanda
March 15 – The World Cup will never be quite the same again. FIFA and its council decided that the global finals must be seemingly endless, the 48-team finals have now grown into a group stage of four teams and a tournament of 104 matches, eight to reach the final. In all the competition will last six, or seven days longer.
March 15 – The Confederation of Brazilian Football (CBF) president Ednaldo Rodrigues has ousted long-standing FIFA Council member Fernando Sarney (also Brazilian) as a South American representative on the world federation’s top body.
By Samindra Kunti in Kigali, Rwanda
March 14 – Norway FA president Lise Klaveness has spoken of a “realm of fear” among football FA presidents as Gianni Infantino heads for re-election and another four-year term as FIFA president in the Rwandan capital.
March 14 – On the eve of the FIFA Congress and president Gianni Infantino’s retaking of his vows in Kigali, Amnesty and a million petition signees have demanded FIFA compensate migrant workers who suffered human rights and labour abuses in Qatar.
March 14 – FIFA has kicked off a new initiative to encourage greater female participation in football esports with the launch of a women’s inclusivity programme titled FAMEHERGAME.
March 13 – This week in Kigali, Rwanda, in and around its Congress, FIFA will discuss proposals to change the opening group stages of the 2026 World Cup from three to four teams. Mario Guajardo and Alex Krumer, business and economics professors at universities in Norway are specialists in studying formats and schedules for sports competitions. They analyse some of the options available to FIFA.
March 13 – On the eve of the FIFA Congress in Rwanda where Gianni Infantino will be re-elected FIFA president, the Italian-Swiss football official has been further embarrassed following a report in Swiss Sunday newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung that Qatar spied in 2017 on Infantino and then Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber.
March 10 – The follow-up and fall-out from the FIFAgate scandal is still working its way through US courts with the former head of Fox International Channels Hernan Lopez convicted on charges that he participated in a scheme to bribe South American soccer officials.
March 10 – A majority of players from the World Cup in Qatar do not want the tournament to be staged in winter again, according to the global players’ union Fifpro.
By Paul Nicholson
March 9 – Swiss prosecutors have dropped the criminal investigation into FIFA president Gianni Infantino for the charter of a private jet between Suriname and Geneva in 2017.
March 7 – Ousted French FA president Noël Le Graët has succumbed to the inevitable by at last withdrawing his candidacy for re-election to the FIFA Council.
March 7 – Football’s lawmakers have been accused of losing “further credibility” by a leading brain injury charity after rejecting a trial of temporary concussion substitutes.
March 7 – The final teams have now qualified, the World Cup trophy is on tour and headed for Australia and New Zealand, and now the official poster for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 has been released.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – Disgraced former French FA president Noel Le Graet, who resigned last week after 11 years in charge amid a slew of allegations, looks increasingly likely to also have to throw in the towel from his privileged position within FIFA’s inner circle of decision makers.
March 6 – Pressure is growing on FIFA to abandon mooted plans for Saudi sponsorship of this summer’s Women’s World Cup after the Australia and New Zealand co-hosts again called for any prospective deal to be scrapped.