Last month, Chelsea were fined £10m and handed a suspended two-window ban on registering new players after violating regulations governing payments to agents between 2009 and 2022. The club also faced a six-point penalty, suspended until 30 June 2027, but that sanction was overturned on appeal. Chelsea acknowledged that £47m had been paid secretly to […]
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Kevin Lamour, the chief operating officer of FIFA, has been dismissed after publicly opposing Gianni Infantino’s unsuccessful proposal to sell stakes in World Cup-related assets to private investors. The departure marks a major development within football’s troubled global governing organisation. Lamour leaves less than two years after arriving from UEFA. He strongly objected to Infantino’s […]
Continue ReadingGianni Infantino’s standing suffered another setback after Fifa secretary general Mattias Grafström, his second-in-command, described the abandoned private investment proposal for the World Cup as a “regrettable and deeply troubling sequence of events”. Further signs that senior figures within Fifa are distancing themselves from Infantino and the unsuccessful initiative emerged on Tuesday morning, when Arsène […]
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Infantino was elected Fifa president in 2016, defeating AFC president Sheikh Salman al-Khalifa by 115 votes to 88. The next Fifa president is due to be confirmed at the organisation’s 77th Congress in Morocco next March. Anyone wishing to stand must submit their candidacy by 18 November. Before this week’s developments, Infantino had been expected […]
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Yet Caf’s strong relationship with Fifa has also created difficulties, as Motsepe has seemed reluctant to publicly question Infantino or decisions made by his organisation. Fifa faced widespread criticism after US officials denied Somali referee Omar Artan entry to the country before the World Cup. It received further condemnation for suspending the one-game punishment imposed […]
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The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has backed Uefa and Concacaf in rejecting Fifa’s proposal to offer private investors ownership stakes in its competitions. In a statement released on Friday, the AFC argued that the plan put forward by Fifa president Gianni Infantino was unlikely to secure the widespread agreement and unity needed for it to […]
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Uefa’s 55 national associations are expected to convene an emergency meeting later this week to consider Fifa’s disputed plan to sell ownership shares in its leading tournaments. The global governing body for football intends to establish a separate commercial company responsible for managing its flagship events, including the World Cup, with outside investors permitted to […]
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