By Andrew Warshaw
June 7 – The tit-for-tat row over the cancellation of Argentina’s friendly with Israel this coming Saturday has intensified with the Israelis demanding FIFA investigate what it said were threats against Argentina players and laying the blame squarely at the feet of the Palestinian authorities.
June 7 – A Croatian court has sentenced the former boss of Dinamo Zagreb, Zdravko Mamic (pictured right with brother Zoran), to six-and-a-half years in prison for tax evasion and siphoning off profits from player transfers, allegedly including that of Luka Modric to Tottenham Hotspur and Mateo Kovacic to Inter.
June 7 – England manager Gareth Southgate (pictured) says his squad have a plan to deal with any outbreaks of discrimination at the World Cup after fullback Danny Rose said he had told his family not to come to Russia for fear of racism.
June 6 – FIFA has filed a criminal complaint in Switzerland against the ticket website Viagogo on the eve of the World Cup as part of a crackdown on unauthorised sales.
June 5 – Just weeks after receiving a rapturous send-off after his final game for Manchester City, Yaya Toure has launched a remarkable broadside against title-winning coach Pep Guardiola.
June 4 – Eighteen months after the Swiss criminal investigation into corruption allegations over the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany was broadened to include former FIFA general secretary Urs Linsi (pictured), he is now reported to be among four former leading administrators charged by German prosecutors with serious tax evasion.
June 1 – First he was in, then he was out, he appealed, he lost, he appealed again. And now Peru captain Paolo Guerrero can play after all at the World Cup following a Swiss tribunal’s final verdict.
June 1 – A member of Russia’s World Cup squad could be guilty of a doping violation according to famed whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov.
June 1 – Just two weeks before the start of the World Cup, a report released by European football’s leading anti-discrimination body warns of a rise in racist and homophobic chants at Russian matches this season and claims FIFA and the Russian authorities have missed “valuable opportunities” to change attitudes.
June 1 – A month after co-hosting a sports integrity conference in Porto, Portugal, the Portuguese sports journalists’ representative body, CNID (National Club of Sports Press) has given the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) a ‘Recognition Award’.
May 31 – The English Football League’s title sponsor Sky Bet is spending £1 million on delivering a responsible gambling series of education workshops to all 72 of its clubs next season.
May 29 – A tub-thumping Michel Platini has vowed to return to football after Swiss prosecutors said no evidence has been found “so far” in their investigation into possible financial wrongdoing.
May 29 – Jose Hawilla (pictured), the ‘Mr Big’ in the football corruption cases brought by the US Department of Justice and who co-operated to bring down a cabal of crooked football administrators, has died in a Sao Paulo hospital aged 74.
May 29 – Being arguably the most powerful woman in sport and certainly in football has not stopped FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura encountering prejudice.
By Mark Baber
May 24 – German prosecutors in Frankfurt have filed charges of tax evasion against former DFB Presidents Wolfgang Niersbach (pictured left) and Theo Zwanziger and the DFB Secretary General Horst R. Schmidt.