By Andrew Warshaw
January 9 – The dream is finally over. Faced with the growing realisation that time is running out, Michel Platini, only a few weeks ago odds-on favourite to succeed Sepp Blatter, has been forced to withdraw from the FIFA presidential election.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 7 – FIFA’s ethics committee has opened formal proceedings against Jerome Valcke after investigators recommended a nine-year ban against the organisation’s 55-year-old general secretary.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, the Jordanian royal who has put his reputation on the line by taking a second stab at the FIFA presidency, has warned that if the wrong man is appointed to succeed Sepp Blatter, the organisation faces a catastrophic future.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 6 – Jerome Valcke, the forgotten man in the FIFA corruption scandal who has been out of the game since being relieved of his duties as general-secretary back in October, faces a far longer spell on the sidelines following the recommendation of a nine-year ban by FIFA’s ethics committee.
By Andrew Warshaw
January 5 – He is regarded as an outsider and has been accused of being verbose and too close to his former boss, the currently banned Sepp Blatter. But Jerome Champagne has lost none of his passion or approachability and believes that if football, and FIFA, wants meaningful change and an inclusive future, he is the only presidential candidate who can bring it about.
January 3 – Liberia Football Association chairman Musa Bility (pictured) has failed to overturn his exclusion from February’s FIFA presidential election. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed Bility’s attempt to throw out the ruling imposed by FIFA’s Ad hoc Electoral Committee.
By Paul Nicholson
December 30 – Shaikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al-Khalifa has launched his FIFA presidential campaign platform formally with a website outlining his election manifesto.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 30 – The US sports television network ESPN has invited all five candidates in FIFA’s presidential election to participate in a round-table debate on how they would solve the scandal-hit organisation’s problems.
December 30 – Rafael Esquivel, one of the original ‘Zurich Seven’ arrested last May in the first crackdown by the US Justice Department on FIFA-related corruption, is to remain in custody in Switzerland after losing his latest request to be allowed to be held under house arrest.
December 29 – FIFA presidential candidate Prince Ali bin al-Hussein has once again called for former FIFA ethics investigator Michael Garcia’s report into possible wrongdoing during bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to be published immediately.
December 29 – Outgoing FIFA president Sepp Blatter says he fighting for his honour as he bids to clear his name in the wake of being banned for eight years by FIFA’s ethics committee.
December 23 – The last words of Sepp Blatter at that extraordinary press conference he gave on Monday after being banned for eight years by FIFA’s ethics committee was “I’ll be back.”
By Andrew Warshaw
December 23 – Banned UEFA president Michel Platini has accused FIFA’s ethics committee of being “asleep”, between 2011 and 2015 following its decision to ban him for eight years.
December 23 – The failed Dutch-Belgian bid for the 2018 World Cup is to be submitted for a FIFA Ethics Committee inquiry following newspaper allegations of possible vote buying.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 23 – After years of debate, the traditionally conservative lawmakers of world football are moving a step closer to approving rugby-style video replays for referees.