By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – Four months after it was taken off the agenda at the FIFA Congress, Gianni Infantino says FIFA is still “discussing” trying to bring about a 48-team World Cup for Qatar in 2022, potentially shared with the tiny Gulf state’s neighbours.
October 31 – FIFA is bracing itself for another set of potentially incriminating leaks after admitting its computer systems have been hacked again.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – The man who was once the second most powerful official in African football has been banned for life by FIFA, the latest influential figure to dramatically fall from grace.
October 31 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who stands for re-election in June next year, was banging the drum of the success of his own regime in the backyard of the man he beat to the presidency in 2016, yesterday.
October 31 – Spanish FA vice president Andreu Subies has been arrested as part of the same police operation that also saw the federation’s former president and FIFA powerbroker Angel Maria Villar resign on corruption charges.
October 30 – The executive committee of the Namibia Football Association (NFA) has taken the unusual step of dismissing the federation’s president Frans Mbidi (pictured) with immediate effect saying the “drastic action” was necessitated by Mbidi’s failure to carry out his duties.
October 30 – Funding the women’s game is still a battle for equality. FIFA announced a boost to the Women’s World Cup prize fund last week and president Gianni Infantino said that he hoped the women’s World Cup would soon generate similar income levels as the men’s competition.
By Paul Nicholson
October 29 – Ink has gone to paper on the most significant commercial rights deal in international football this year with the Asian Football Confederation and DDMC Fortis signing off on an eight-year partnership with a minimum guarantee reported to be around $3.4 billion.
October 29 – The world players’ union FIFPro says the huge increase in prize money announced last week by the FIFA Council for the women’s game is not enough to redress gender inequality.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 29 – Rarely, if ever, has a foreign owner of a top-flight football club anywhere in the world endeared himself to the fans as much as Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
October 29 – Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz attracted the biggest crowd for a women’s game in Europe at the weekend with 3,914 watching the World Cup qualifiers play Nottingham Forest Ladies at The City Ground.
October 29 – The collective German football focus on cracking the Chinese market has seen Borussia Mönchengladbach, Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04, from North Rhine-Westphalia sign a collaboration partnership with Jiangsu Football Association following a trade mission organised by the German regional government.
October 29 – Former England manager Glenn Hoddle is “responding well” to treatment in hospital after having suffered a heart attack on Saturday.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 26 – Gianni Infantino’s pet plan to change the landscape of world football competition was shelved for another five months today as he all but admitted that not enough consultation had taken place.
October 26 – The Spanish league says it will appeal if prevented by FIFA from breaking new ground by staging the much-publicised fixture between Girona and Barcelona overseas in Miami in January.