By Samindra Kunti
September 1 – Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh have thrown their weight behind plans for a biennial World Cup, becoming the first member associations from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to do so in a significant boost to Gianni Infantino’s pet project.
September 2 – Argentina says it will defy the wishes of English Premier League clubs and hold on to its English-based players for all three of its upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
August 31 – La Liga has been forced to release international players for next month’s South American World Cup qualifiers following a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
August 31 – The Albanian football federation has won a potentially landmark case against FIFA in court, proving that Big Brother doesn’t always succeed.
August 27 – The French league has become the latest major European body to voice concern over FIFA’s World Cup qualifying plans in September. The Professional Football League (LFP) however has not expressly backed clubs who refuse to release players for the international window.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 26 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino has personally intervened to try and end the club versus country spat that is seriously undermining next month’s international programme, but his appeal looks unlikely to be granted.
By Andrew Warshaw and Paul Nicholson
August 25 – The US Department of Justice has agreed to hand over $201 million of ‘remission’ money to FIFA, Concacaf and Conmebol from the amount collected from corrupt administrators in the FifaGate scandal.
August 24 – English Premier League clubs and other members of the European Clubs Association look set for a showdown with FIFA by banning players from visiting so-called “red list” countries for September’s international break.
August 24 – The former president of El Salvador’s FA (FESFUT) has changed his plea to guilty over his alleged role in the FIFAgate corruption scandal.
August 20 – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) kicked off the 2021 Beach World Cup in Russia with narrow 4-3 win against two-time finalists Tahiti in the tournament’s opening match.
August 18 – Former El Salvador FA president Reynaldo Vasquez is set to change his plea to guilty over his alleged role in the FIFAgate corruption scandal, according to court records.
By Paul Nicholson
August 16 – The World Leagues Forum (WLF) has slammed FIFA’s decision to amend the international match calendar without consultation and which has seen the rescheduling of South America’s FIFA World Cup qualifiers that had originally been due to be played in March 2021 to extended triple match windows in September and March.
August 13 – Football Australia chief executive James Johnson has played down speculation about a possible Australian bid for the 2030 or 2034 World Cup but says it is still the country’s goal to be hosts.
August 12 – After a long period of covid-inactivity, international has exploded over the summer with Euro 2020, the 2020 Copa America, the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup, as well as qualifiers for Qatar 2022.
August 11 – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has met with Swiss prosecutors in the latest round of talks over the long-running probe surrounding his CHF2 million “disloyal payment” to Michel Platini back in 2011.