The International Football Federations Thread

[Matt]

It's clearly referring to the Olympics, I don't see how you read it as anything else.

I really dislike the idea of Istanbul hosting either the Olympics or the Euros though.

[METALMAN]

why? It's a nice city.

[Lineker]

Leeds fans aren't exactly the biggest fans of Turkey/Turks.

[Dingle]

Leeds fans aren't exactly the biggest fans of Turkey/Turks.

Then what do they eat at Christmas?!?

[Lineker]

Goose, obvs.

[King Ellis]

Bread n' drippin.

[Dingle]

Goose, obvs.

My christmas spirit feels violated.

[Matt]

Leeds fans aren't exactly the biggest fans of Turkey/Turks.

Then what do they eat at Christmas?!?

Whippets.

[Lineker]

Goal-line technology is set to get the go-ahead when the International Football Association Board (IFAB) vote on Thursday over whether to use it.

The results of testing will be heard before IFAB are expected to approve the Hawk-Eye and the GoalRef systems.

The Premier League and Football Association can then introduce the technology into their competitions.

FA chairman David Bernstein and general secretary Alex Horne have travelled to Zurich to take part in the vote.

The English FA and their Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland counterparts each has a single vote, while Fifa - world football's governing body - has four.

Any law change needs at least six of the eight votes.

BBC Sport's Richard Conway, who is in Zurich for the vote, said: "The likelihood will be that the Fifa World Club Cup in Japan in December will be the first to feature any new technology but the Premier League is keen to adopt it too.

"Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore spoke in May about how the start of the 2012-13 season may come too soon. But he did raise the prospect of introducing it mid-season."

The desire to bring in goal-line technology increased after Ukraine were denied an equaliser after the ball appeared to cross the line in a 1-0 defeat by England at Euro 2012.

That incident led to Fifa president Sepp Blatter adding his support to calls to bring in technology to help in such decisions.

Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo said: "We see every season, every big tournament, we need it because there are some crucial moments within those games where you could find the right solution with a bit of technology.

Uefa president Michel Platini is believed to favour the use of five match officials and the IFAB will also examine whether that strategy has been a success.

They are also set to rule on whether special headscarves can be worn during matches after pressure from some Muslim countries.

[Lineker]

Goalref and Hawkeye have both been approved!!

They will both be used from the CWC.

[Hobo]

Goalref involves using Magnetic Fields! FIFA, You Must Be Out of Your Mind!

[Colly]

Couldn't CERN be working on this?

[EddieG]

Why not start with the community shield, wasn't technology already implemented for a trial against the Belgiums?

[Rafael]

This is great news, finally Sepp understood that technology is necessary. One thing I think that should also be done is the challenge thing that happens in tennis.

[Hobo]

Why not start with the community shield, wasn't technology already implemented for a trial against the Belgiums?

Well, I assume it's now up to the leagues to do it when they want?

[Adam]

Why not start with the community shield, wasn't technology already implemented for a trial against the Belgiums?

If your point is that the technology was already implemented at Wembley, then that'll be no good for the Community Shield as that will take place at Villa Park this season due to the Olympics.

And I guess it's just so that the leagues have time to discuss the implementation of the system. I guess it looks like we're going to have it from christmas time.

[Lineker]

Former Fifa president Joao Havelange was paid huge sums in bribes by collapsed marketing company ISL, court documents have revealed.

Havelange received at least 1.5m Swiss francs (£986,000) and executive committee member Ricardo Teixeira at least 12.74m SFr (£8.4m).

The Swiss prosecutor's report, published by Fifa, reveals the pair may have received up to 21.9m SFr (£14.4m).

They are the only two Fifa officials named in the report.

Switzerland's supreme court ordered the release of the documents identifying which senior officials took millions of dollars in payments from ISL, Fifa's marketing partner until it collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001.

The papers were released to five media organisations, one of which is the BBC, and detail the court settlement which closed a criminal probe of the ISL case in May 2010.

In November that year, the BBC's Panorama programme alleged that three senior Fifa officials, including Teixeira, took bribes from Swiss-based ISL in the 1990s, though commercial bribery was not a crime in Switzerland at the time.

A statement issued by the BBC said: "A year long legal battle by BBC Panorama to force publication of documents related to a confidential police investigation into bribery and corruption at Fifa was vindicated today.

"In Panorama - Fifa's Dirty Secrets in November 2010, reporter Andrew Jennings named the two officials as recipients of bribes from the Swiss ISL sports marketing company, which was repeatedly given lucrative World Cup marketing rights by FIFA."

The documents concerning Havelange also revealed that officials repaid 5.5m Swiss francs (£3.6m) to end the prosecution office's investigation on condition their identities remain secret.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter said in October 2011 that he wanted to release the ISL dossier, despite his organisation seeking to deny access to its contents at the same time.

"Fifa is pleased that the ISL non-prosecution order can now be made public," football's world governing body said in a statement.

"This decision by the Federal Court is in line with what Fifa and the Fifa president have been advocating since 2011, when world football's governing body announced its commitment to the publication of the ISL non-prosecution order.

"The decision of the Swiss Federal Court also confirms that only two foreign officials will be named as part of the process and that the Fifa president is not involved in the case."

Havelange was Fifa president for 24 years before being succeeded by Blatter in 1998. The 96-year-old Brazilian, who remains Fifa's honorary president, has been treated extensively in a Rio de Janeiro hospital this year for septic arthritis.

He resigned his 48-year International Olympic Commitee membership, citing health reasons, in December, days before the Olympic body was due to sanction him following its own investigation into wrongdoing connected to ISL.

Teixeira, Havelange's former son-in-law, this year resigned as head of Brazil's football federation and the 2014 World Cup organising committee, and gave up his Fifa executive committee seat, citing unspecified health and personal reasons.

[Lineker]

Mohamed Bin Hammam's lifetime FIFA ban imposed for allegedly paying bribes has been annulled by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The 63-year-old Qatari has been not proven innocent by CAS but the appeal has been upheld on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Bin Hammam was found guilty by Fifa's ethics committee last year of paying bribes to Caribbean Football Union officials at a meeting in Trinidad last year while campaigning against Blatter for the FIFA presidency.

In its ruling, the CAS said: "The CAS panel has not been presented with any direct evidence to link Mr Bin Hammam with the money's physical presence in Trinidad and Tobago, its transfer in a suitcase or otherwise to Mr Warner, and its subsequent offer to the CFU members for the purpose of inducing them to vote for Mr Bin Hammam." The CAS panel added that "it is more likely than not that Mr Bin Hammam was the source of the monies" and that "his conduct, in collaboration with and most likely induced by Mr Warner, may not have complied with the highest ethical standards that should govern the world of football and other sports".

[METALMAN]

Technology won't make football any happier

They're talking about goal-line technology again. A meeting taking place today could vote to give it a try. I don't know anything about officiating but it seems to me;

This is a game into which cheating, deception, rule-bending, intimidation, finagling and arguing black's white is hard-wired. It's coached. This is Jarndyce and Jarndyce in shorts. Nobody is interested in what's right. They're interested in what goes for them or against them. There is nothing that top managers won't do to get an inch of advantage.

In the light of this the argument advanced by the proponents of goal-line technology, that its introduction will "settle the disputes", is naive.

Furthermore, arguments on football pitches expand to fill the time available for them. If there is a stoppage during which the referee has to consult, either a person or a piece of technology, said stoppage will be used as an opportunity for further argument. If there isn't a stoppage, somebody will be arguing there should have been one.

There's only one way to run a football match and that's with one official who's the final arbiter of everything that's gone on and what should be done about it. If you open it up beyond that you're getting into questions of what happened in real life. That way madness lies.

I'm inclined to agree.

[Matt]

I assume that the technology is going to be something automatic that gets sent to the referee/4th official and thus there'd be no need to stop play unless the referee is notified that the ball crossed the line. If it's done properly I can't see how it wouldn't stop goal-line arguments - doesn't stop the rest of the problems like offside/penalty decisions but on whether the ball crossed the line it should be effective.