By Samindra Kunti
November 23 – Belgium’s leading university KU Leuven has screened 35 Olympic sports federations on good governance. The report suggests FIFA is among the better run international sports federations.
I can’t be the only European football follower of a certain age who last week, when the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek hit the news for the reasons we all know about, thought that the name of the place rang a vague bell.
“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor.” Arthur Conan Doyle
Electricity is a wonderful, life-giving force. The defibrillator whose high-voltage pulse revives the dead from cardiac arrest; the electrical storm that destroys forest deadwood to give way to new growth beneath; the power that animates a television. It illuminates the floodlights that give us night football and, figuratively, it gives us the best of those nights when the atmosphere is electric.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 21 – Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini suffered a potentially crippling blow in their efforts to clear their names of any wrongdoing when FIFA investigators today announced they have officially called for sanctions to be taken against both men over that notorious SFr2 million payment.
By Mark Baber
November 20 – Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger argued that FIFA must tackle the international calendar as part of its current reform programme – or clubs could split away from national teams and international competitions.
By Andrew Warshaw
November 20 – FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali bin al-Hussein has openly criticised the decision to force Palestine to play a couple of key World Cup qualifying games on neutral ground.
In all the coverage of the crisis in FIFA what has been happening in the far flung corners of world football, like for instance Nepal and Laos, has been rather missed out. Now I do understand that you cannot expect the western media, in particular the British media where a story about Sepp Blatter or Michel Platini now nearly always makes the front page, to dwell on such remote corners of the globe. For the British in any case Nepal means Gurkha soldiers,
By Andrew Warshaw
November 20 – Michel Platini has followed Sepp Blatter’s move in going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try and get his 90-day provisional suspension lifted. Platini is rapidly losing the battle to clear his name in time to take over from Blatter on February 26 after both had their initial appeals turned down by FIFA’s appeals committee but the UEFA president’s lawyers insisted he has been untreated fairly.
November 20 – World Cup sponsors Adidas, who have taken somewhat of a backseat over the need for FIFA reform compared to their US-based front-line commercial partners, have now waded into the debate with a call for term and age limits on future presidents in the post-Sepp Blatter era.
November 20 – Manchester City will not face UEFA sanctions for their fans booing the Champions League anthem.
November 20 – Daily fantasy football platform Oulala.com, which launched its first English language game last month, has secured its first partnership with a Premier League club becoming the Official Fantasy Football Partner of high flying Leicester City.
By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
November 20 – Alexei Sorokin, the man running the 2018 World Cup in Russia, has spoken out for the first time in public about Sepp Blatter’s remarkable claim of a pre-vote deal that cast growing suspicion on how both the 2018 and 2022 tournaments were won and lost.
By Paul Nicholson
November 20 – With clubs across Europe returning to their domestic league programmes after the international fixture window, focus will fall on crowd attendances, particularly in the aftermath and uncertainty of the Paris attacks.
By David Owen
November 20 – FIFA is to trial the ADAMS database management system during the Club World Cup in Japan in December, in a move likely to be welcomed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as it battles through a challenging period.
By Paul Nicholson
November 20 – Organisers of the Copa America Centenario to be played in the US next year have selected 10 metropolitan areas across the country to host matches.