October 25 – Six weeks after European powerhouses Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid lost their respective appeals against a FIFA-imposed transfer ban for breaching regulations on the acquisition of non-Spanish minors under the age of 18, FIFA have fined the Spanish FA (RFEF) CHF 220,000 for allowing the pair of them to sign and register underage foreign players.
October 21 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is poised to beef up its governance procedures with a raft of reform proposals to include an AFC whistleblower policy, new anti-bribery and corruption measures and, crucially, a commercial strategy paper for future rights sales.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 21 – American marketing executive Aaron Davidson has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the US-led probe into football corruption and has had his trial set for April 24 next year.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 19 – Yet another of those arrested in the US-led corruption probe into football corruption has agreed to plead guilty. Agency reports citing court papers say Aaron Davidson, who headed Traffic Sports USA, the Miami-based business of Brazilian sports marketing group Traffic, is due to enter his plea on Thursday.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 19 – Time and again he fought off his accusers and protested his innocence while other FIFA powerbrokers around him were plunged into shame. But the net has finally closed in on Thailand’s Worawi Makudi who has been banned by FIFA’s ethics committee for five years for election forgery.
October 19 –Argentina has refused a US extradition request for three of it nationals accused of bribery and money laundering in the US Department of Justice investigation into football corruption worldwide.
October 18 – Rome-based John Cabot University (JCU) has joined with exclusive sports law association Rex Sport to launch their Advanced Course in International and Comparative Sports law, a masters-level course aimed at law and other graduates who want to build careers in sports law.
By Paul Nicholson
September 1 – Argentine investigations into corruption and money laundering by former President Néstor Kirchner between 2003 and 2008 look set to touch on FIFA and at least one of its former officials, as well football investments within the Swiss market.
By Paul Nicholson
October 7 – In what can be a positively perceived next step for an organisation still working through ways to define itself, the Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA) has announced a set of Universal Standards that underpins its philosophy, perhaps the longest mission statement ever issued.
By Andrew Warshaw
September 7 – In an extraordinary move given the significance of the occasion and the media interest worldwide, FIFA have scrapped staging a press conference following next week’s eagerly awaited first full meeting of its new 36-member ruling Council.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 7 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino seems unlikely to face an ethics prosecution over his role in a loan to the Slovenian Football Association while he was UEFA general secretary.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 6 – The Norwegian publication that has run a series of investigative reports into whether Gianni Infantino is fit for FIFA president has thrown up yet more questions about his credentials, this time involving his relationship with new UEFA boss Aleksander Ceferin.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 5 – Top leagues from across European football today moved closer to all-out war with UEFA over plans to revamp the Champions League. Urgent talks between the head of the umbrella body for Europe’s leagues and new UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin are due to take place in the next 48 hours with the genuine threat of a free-for-all if the controversial deal favouring Europe’s elite clubs is not modified or scrapped.
By Paul Nicholson
October 5 – “Reform or die, and reform had better happen sooner rather than later,” was the unequivocal, if not evangelical, message from Emanuel Medeiros, CEO of ICSS EUROPE, at the Leaders in Sport conference in London.
October 4 – The Belgian FA has launched an inquiry into allegations that several players in the country’s top league bet on their own matches.