By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 11 – CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb pledged to never to return to the confederation’s corruption-tainted past. In a dignified yet passionate address to the region’s 41 member nations at the CONCACAF congress here, Webb told delegates there would be no letup in maintaining the transparency showed in his two years in charge.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 11 – Sepp Blatter’s declared intention to run for FIFA president for the fifth time crashed against a rock of European hostility and indignation today as UEFA took a united stand by telling the 78-year-old Swiss to his face it was time to step down as a result of the organisation’s tarnished image.
By Mark Baber
June 10 – With just days to the start of the World Cup in Brazil, Twitter and YouTube and Facebook are challenging for the largest slice of the quickly growing social media pie, with Facebook laying claim to providing the “biggest stadium” of football fans.
By Mark Baber
June 10 – EA Sports has announced FIFA 15 is now available for pre-order. The new version of the game is touted to further blur the boundaries between the real and virtual worlds and comes as CONCACAF issue an official press release announcing the winner of the CONCACAF Interactive 2014 championship who has won a trip to Brazil.
By Paul Nicholson
June 10 – Former FIFA general secretary Michel Zen Ruffinen (right) who was caught in a newspaper sting in 2010 talking about rumours of vote collusion between the Spain/Portugal, Russia and Qatar world cup bids, now believes that the rumours circulating were fabricated, most probably by a rival bidding committee.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
June 10 – The Czech football association (FACR) is considering a plan to transfer oversight of the top tier to a new entity, according to Miroslav Pelta, chief executive of FACR.
June 11 – “Today, I am certain that the information I received from a European source [football official] was a fabrication,” says Michel Zen-Ruffinen in an exclusive interview with INSIDEWorldFootball.com, referring to the rumours of vote collusion in the race for the 2018 and 2020 World Cup hosting rights
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – The thorny issue of age limits and term mandates, the one FIFA reform measure that shows little sign of being resolved, is back on the agenda at world body’s annual congress starting Tuesday – but it won’t affect Sepp Blatter’s likely bid to go for a fifth term of office.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – The youngest and most reformist member of FIFA’s inner sanctum, Prince Ali bin Hussein of Jordan (pictured right), was dramatically shunted out of office as Asia’s FIFA vice-president today when the region took what could prove a totally misguided decision to merge his position with that of AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa (pictured left) in 2015, thereby giving the Bahraini total control of an organisation he only inherited a year ago.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 10 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter, riled by repeated criticism of his organisation from elements of the British media, today fired back one of his most vociferous salvos to date as what he dubbed ‘Qatargate’ threatened to overshadow the build-up to FIFA’s congress here.
By David Owen
June 10 – FIFA has urged member associations to designate one individual to be responsible for all matters related to manipulation, as world football’s governing body looks to step up the battle against match-fixing. In the run-up to this week’s Congress, FIFA has distributed a 23-page booklet of guidelines to member associations entitled, ‘Specific Recommendations to Combat Match Manipulation’.
By Mark Baber
June 9- Cameroon’s squad is departing for Brazil 12 hours later than scheduled, after settling a dispute over World Cup pay with their Federation which had to borrow money to be able to meet the players’ demands. Meanwhile, in Spain, there is uproar as the players are offered $720,000 each if they win the World Cup.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 9- World Cup sponsors have called on FIFA to deal thoroughly with corruption claims as a second swathe of allegations over Qatar’s conduct in securing the 2022 tournament was published by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, overshadowing this week’s big kick-off.
By Andrew Warshaw in Sao Paulo
June 9- FIFA President Sepp Blatter is to hold last-ditch talks with Palestinian and Israeli officials in the next 48 hours in an attempt to bring the two sides together to sign a symbolic memorandum of understanding at this week’s FIFA Congress.
By Alexander Krassimirov
June 9 – Turkey’s Sivasspor and Eskisehirspor have been added to UEFA’s banned list for next season, both being denied entry to the Europa League for involvement in a domestic match-fixing scandal.