October 26 – Under the global spotlight over its treatment of foreign workers, Qatari authorities have agreed a range of labour reforms including the introduction of a minimum wage and the abolition of the controversial kafala system under which foreign workers must get their employer’s consent to change jobs or leave the country.
October 26 – After being grilled for some eight hours by Swiss prosecutors, Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the under-fire Qatari boss of beIN Sport Media who is at the centre of corruption allegations over World Cup TV rights, said he had nothing to hide and would willingly testify again.
October 26 – Spurs broke the 10-year-old Premier League attendance record in Round 9 of fixtures last week with 80,827 fans at Wembley for their 4-1 win over Liverpool.
By Paul Nicholson
October 26 – Former Guatemala Football Federation leader Hector Trujillo has been handed an eight month prison sentence and fined $415,000 by a Brooklyn federal court judge Pamela Chen. Trujillo is the first of the football officials in the FIFA corruption scandal to be sentenced in the US.
October 26 – After almost 20 years AC Milan have agreed with Adidas to end their technical sponsorship deal early at the end of the 2017/18 season.
US striker Megan Rapinoe’s claim that FIFA is “old, male and stale” may have been a comment triggered by disbelief over FIFA’s final nominations for its top female player award, but the wider context does bear closer examination. A look at the top of the FIFA hierarchy shows that half its confederation presidents do not have competing national women’s senior teams.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 25 – A pro-Palestinian campaign group has re-ignited Middle East tensions by writing to FIFA ahead of this week’s Council session protesting at Israel’s alleged continuing obstructive conduct in the region.
By Samindra Kunti in Kolkata
October 25 – FIFA’s head of referees Massimo Busacca has praised the steps female referees have taken at the U-17 World Cup in India. He reiterated that VAR is a work in progress.
October 25 – More than three-quarters of North Americans polled in a survey broadly support plans to host the 2026 World Cup.
October 25 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) says it has yet to receive any official notification confirming Egypt’s withdrawal from the 2018 African Nations Championship (CHAN).
October 25 – Proposals to give a greater share of overseas television revenue to the Premier League’s so-called big six from 2019 has been ditched after no progress was made over the controversial plan.
October 25 – Real Madrid and Barcelona top the ranking of Big-5 clubs that have trained the most footballers playing in the Big-5 European leagues on October 1. Manchester United rank 5th while PSG come in at 14th.
October 25 – FIFA is not the only football body to face problems with a flooded pitch. But in India FIFA could switch venue and city for its U17 World Cup semi-final between Brazil and England. In Kiribati they don’t have that luxury.
By David Owen
October 24 – He may have kept his audience waiting at this week’s Sportel sports media and marketing convention in Monaco, but La Liga President Javier Tebas did not disappoint. Interviewed onstage for 30 minutes, as ever in his native Spanish, the man who has emerged as probably the most colourful and consistently interesting league boss in the business in recent years, since La Liga moved belatedly to a collective selling model for its broadcasting rights,
By Andrew Warshaw
October 24 – Cristiano Ronaldo was duly crowned the world’s best player for the second year running at FIFA’s Best Awards gala on Monday but that didn’t tell the whole story.