December 7 – It didn’t rain on FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s World Cup Draw parade last Friday, but it did snow, and it provided a sub-zero chill for the media who waited outside for 90 minutes-plus until they could no longer feel their toes.
The final of the Club World Cup was bizarre, surreal and supremely ugly in its beauty. The Club World Cup has been a month of lies and PR overkill from FIFA, a massive over-hyping of what, for 90% of the competition, was like watching walking football. But then this was never really about football as a sport.
May 16 – He may have turned up four hours late, and have key members of his ‘football family’ walk out on him at the interval in protest, but FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino barely missed a beat as he rattled through all the talking points that in his ivory tower make him a global powerbroker and now seemingly bigger than the sport he was elected to administer.
November 18 – Sometimes you come across a person who appears to have become bigger than the organisation or institution they represent. FIFA seems to have found one – and it isn’t Lionel Messi.
Brazil’s success in winning the vote to host the 2027 Women’s World Cup at the FIFA Congress in Bangkok last Friday will undoubtedly provide a stimulus to, until now, a generally unloved women’s game in the country.
September 6 – Former Concacaf president and FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb, who was scooped up in the FBI raids on the Bar au Lac hotel in Zurich will not be sentenced until December 7, more than six years after his arrest in May 2015.
September 8 – If you think you might need moral support then call up a group of your sycophantic and often well-paid ‘legends’ to get you over the trickier hurdles of public and industry opinion.
July 28 – The last time these two teams met Qatar beat the USA 14-8. That was in the vote for the 2022 World Cup hosting in 2010 and it unleashed a storm the like of which the football world has never seen.
By Paul Nicholson
Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. FIFA’s ethics folk don’t do much that isn’t in their own interest either.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s insistence that he will continue in post and brazen it out in face of the criminal investigation into his own behaviour – repeat, CRIMINAL investigation into his own behaviour – is no small thing. On multiple levels.
By Paul Nicholson
The fate of Trinidad and Tobago’s 2020 World Cup qualifying campaign currently looks to be lieing in the hands of a Port of Spain High Court judge rather than at the feet of a team on the pitch.
By Paul Nicholson
May 4 – FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino’s insistence on the Swiss judiciary pursuing a criminal case against former FIFA president Sepp Blatter could blow back on the governing body and potentially become a PR embarrassment for beIN Sports and PSG boss Nasser Al-Khelaifi.
By Paul Nicholson
January 6 – FIFA has a new human rights case to champion and this one looks like it is directly related to football. Following the Iraq vs Qatar game at the Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates, British passport holder Ali Issa Ahmed was arrested, reportedly for wearing a Qatar shirt to the game.
By Paul Nicholson
The alacrity of FIFA’s move to call on stakeholders to find a solution to the detention of part-time footballer Hakeem Al Araibi in Thailand shows a remarkable new found conscience and morality in an organisation that eschews a philosophy of never mixing politics and football.
By Paul Nicholson
The three biggest football presidencies in global football come up for election in 2019 with FIFA, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and UEFA all voting on new presidential terms. At present the only election of the three that will be contested will be in Asia – current president Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa announced his intention to run again last week.