The British set the principle of keeping politics and religion out of sport and Sir Stanley Rous was absolute in his interpretation of itWhisper it – you have to, beneath the barrage of furious indignation, bad temper, even declarations of “war”, from the prime minister down, over our gentle symbol of peace – but Fifa has a point about poppies. World football’s governing body, which Fifa still is, tried to articulate this as it unveiled the fines levelled at the football associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for framing their November World Cup qualifiers as Armistice Day events.“It is not our intention to judge or question specific commemorations as we fully respect the significance of such moments in...
How would the new Fifa president best regain some credibility for football’s ailing governing body? A root and branch reform from top to bottom, or a madcap plan to expand the World Cup to 48 teams …Some movies are so bad they kill more than themselves. Sometimes, they kill a series. As George Clooney wryly (and rightly) observed after Batman & Robin: “I think we might have killed the franchise.” Occasionally, a movie is such a disaster it kills an entire genre. The monstrous excesses of Cleopatra fatally wounded the swords‑and-sandals epic genre, and the flop of The Fall of the Roman Empire a year later finished it off so thoroughly that it didn’t return for decades. Heaven’s Gate is...
A $5,000 legal challenge over exploitation of workers building for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar pales next to the value of private flights accepted by Fifa’s presidentIn the grim scheme of things, it is the modesty of the sum that gets you. With the formal backing of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation, a Bangladeshi man named Nadim Sharaful Alam is to sue Fifa for its alleged complicity in the mistreatment of those migrant workers in Qatar who are charged with building its World Cup venues and infrastructure. (Suggested tournament slogan: “Believe The Mirage™”.) Related: Fifa faces legal challenge over Qatar migrant workers Related: Athletes on Trump's 'locker room banter': that's not how we talk at work Continue reading...
New Fifa president is taking a leaf straight out of Sepp Blatter’s book with his proposal to expand the competition and the way he is going about itNot for the first time when it comes to global football’s discredited overlords, the closing lines of Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who come to mind. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Ever since the former Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino almost accidentally ascended to the Fifa president’s office following the fall from grace of Michel Platini the question has been whether the Swiss-Italian who hails from the next village along from Sepp Blatter’s birthplace represents a break from the past or a continuation of it.Allegations that swirled about...