Pitch Invasion

It’s been bubbling under the surface for a while now. The collapse of Fifa’s former marketing partners ISL/ISMM almost seven years ago is soon to be dragged through the courts in Switzerland — the scandalous and hugely costly fall of ISL/ISMM almost brought down Blatter at the time, and there’s a chance senior FIFA executives could be named as having taken bribes. It might get ugly for Sepp Blatter.

Jack Warner and FIFA at it again.

In the wake of this week’s Uefa/Fifa-G14 accord, Brian Phillips sat down with the two men responsible at, uh, a Red Lobster?

Find out what they had for dinner and how they crushed the G14.

I wrote about the dirty dealings behind the glitz of Fifa’s latest World Cup draw here the other day as well, but writing for print always makes me actually explain things properly.
So anyone interested in the suspect dealings going on at FIFA might want to read my latest column at the Chicago Sports Weekly on […]

The draw’s in the bag, and obviously as an England fan, being drawn against Croatia again has just made my day. But there are also a number of other interesting matchups, for non-footballing reasons. Here’s a few that spring to mind:
There’s Cuba-U.S.A. I bet the guys at USSF are excited about organising that trip (at […]

Today, the draw for the qualifying round of the 2010 World Cup will take place. It will be beamed to 173 countries, and FIFA’s General Secretary Jérôme Valcke will be centre stage alongside Sepp Blatter.
Yet less than twelve months ago, Valcke, then FIFA’s marketing director, faced ruin following the finding of an American court that […]

With 2014 now in the bag for Brazil (fingers crossed, anyway), thoughts turn to 2018. With FIFA removing the system of rotating the World Cup around the confederations, the next contest will be far more fierce than the procession for 2014. Only countries from Africa and South America (as the last two host continents) will […]

So, Brazil in 2014 it is then. As we discussed last week, all is not rosy in this choice, despite the obvious allure of that country; the lack of competition to win the rights to host the World Cup has hardly helped them kick things into shape, either.
I was going to write about this at […]