lol, FIFA

[Lineker]

Fifa hands one-year ban to former DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach

[Lineker]

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has been cleared over allegations he breached the football governing body's code of ethics.  

"After conducting both preliminary and formal investigation proceedings, the investigatory chamber of the independent ethics committee has decided to conclude its investigations concerning Fifa president Gianni Infantino," said a Fifa statement.

"It was found that no violation of the Fifa code of ethics had been committed by Mr Infantino. The adjudicatory chamber took note of and accepted the decision of the investigatory chamber."

[Colly]

Still clean and shiny.

[Lineker]

Franz Beckenbauer is now officially under investigation for corruption. 

[Lineker]

Fifa has disbanded its anti-racism task force, declaring the work complete despite ongoing concerns about discriminatory behaviour in Russia, the hosts of the 2018 World Cup.

Fifa has written to members of the task force to say that it has “completely fulfilled its temporary mission” and “is hereby dissolved and no longer in operation.”

“I wish I could say that I am shocked by the decision, but unfortunately I am not,” task force member Osasu Obayiuwana said on Sunday. “The problem of racism in football remains a burning, very serious and topical one, which need continuous attention.

“I personally think there remained a lot of very serious work for the task force to have done – the 2018 World Cup in Russia being one such matter. But it is evident the Fifa administration takes a different position.”

The task force was established in 2013 by then-Fifa President Sepp Blatter and headed by Jeffrey Webb, a vice-president of world soccer’s governing body until he was arrested in 2015 as part of the American investigation into corruption in football.

Webb, who pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, was replaced exactly a year ago as the task force chairman by the Congolese federation president, Constant Omari, who also sits on Fifa’s ruling council.

“We never had a single meeting under his chairmanship,” Obayiuwana said. “I wrote [to] him, more than once, asking for when a meeting would be held. But I never received a reply from him.”

Obayiuwana, a journalist, broadcaster and qualified lawyer, received the letter from Fifa on Friday announcing the end of the task force.

“The Fifa Task Force Against Racism and Discrimination was set up with your help on a temporary basis to develop recommendations for Fifa,” wrote Gerd Dembowski, Fifa’s diversity and anti-discrimination manager.

“We are therefore delighted to inform you that all of the task force’s recommendations have been implemented and all resulting projects are ongoing.”

Fifa pointed to the introduction of an anti-discrimination monitoring system at matches, the launch of a “Good Practice Guide ,” starting a team of footballing legends and a new diversity award. Fatma Samoura, Fifa’s first female and non-European secretary general, will present the award on Monday at the SoccerEx convention in Manchester.

Fifa also told task force members that its own initiatives “actually exceed the working group’s recommendations” – trumpeting its “Say No to Racism” campaign, women’s leadership conferences and programs in Russia. There are less than nine months until Russia stages the Confederations Cup, the warm-up event for the 2018 World Cup.

The most recent research from the Moscow-based SOVA Center and the Uefa-affiliated FARE Network reported a surge in the number of racist incidents involving Russian fans, with most cases going unpunished. Researchers logged 92 incidents of discriminatory incidents by Russian fans in and around stadiums in the 2014-15 season, against a total of 83 for the previous two seasons put together.

 

[Adam]

I'd laugh more if it wasn't the ruling governing body of the sport that keeps doing ridiculous shit like this.

Mess.

[MDK]

Playing devils advocate, what can FIFA do apart from stop the WC or ban Russia from the WC? 

[DavidMarrio]

I bet the task force was basically "shall we just plaster say no to racism in a couple more places and say we've eradicated it"

"Do we get any money from it....what do you mean no. Pfft."

Absolute farce of an organisation. 

[Lineker]

Sepp Blatter has lost his appeal at the court of arbitration for sport against a six-year ban from football.

Blatter said in a statement on Monday it is “difficult” to accept but that “the way the case progressed, no other verdict could be expected”.

The former Fifa president, who was banned for approving a £1.35m payment to Michel Platini in 2011, said he will accept the decision.

“I have experienced much in my 41 years in Fifa. I mostly learned that you can win in sport, but you can also lose,” Blatter said. “Nevertheless I look back with gratitude to all the years, in which I was able to realise my ideals for football and serve Fifa.”

The verdict ends Blatter’s hopes of becoming honorary president of football’s governing body which he left in disgrace. Blatter could have appealed against the Cas ruling to Switzerland’s supreme court. It can annul verdicts if legal process was abused.

Still, his legal problems are far from over. Blatter, 80, now faces a separate Fifa ethics investigation into suspected bribery linked to multimillion-dollar bonuses in top executives’ contracts. Swiss prosecutors also opened criminal proceedings against Blatter for the Platini payment, and a sale of World Cup television rights. Blatter denies any wrongdoing.

Blatter said on Monday that it was “incomprehensible” that his claim of having a verbal agreement in 1998 was not accepted “in spite of my testimony to the contrary and the testimony given by other witnesses”.

The court of arbitration for sport was judging whether Blatter was guilty of unethically offering a cash gift and conflict of interest with Platini, who was a Fifa vice-president in 2011.

Blatter and Platini both said the £1.35m was uncontracted salary based on a verbal agreement more than a decade earlier. From 1999 to 2002, the former France player was the newly elected Blatter’s presidential adviser.

However, their explanation of a salary deal was doubted by Fifa’s ethics judges, and by the three-member Cas panel on Monday. “The payment amounted to an undue gift as it had no contractual basis,” Cas said in a statement.

The Fifa ethics committee investigated after the payment emerged in September 2015 during a wider Swiss federal probe of alleged corruption linked to Fifa.

Blatter and Platini – whose Fifa presidential bid was stalled, then ended, by the case – were banned from football duty for eight years in December last year. The Fifa appeal committee cut two years from both men’s bans as “appropriate recognition” for their long service.

After a separate Cas appeal hearing, Platini’s ban was reduced in May to four years, ensuring he lost the Uefa presidency. When Blatter’s case came to the Cas in August, Platini testified on his behalf during a 14-hour hearing.

[MDK]

So, the dickheads at FIFA are going to vote on expanding the WC to 40 teams or whatever. And there is talk about having however many groups of 3 instead of 4, which is bollocks.

[Chris2K]

There's a 8 groups of 5 plan which sounds like the best out of a bad bunch of ideas, groups of 3 with 2 automatically qualifying seems to be a complete waste of everyone's time. They would also have to bring in mandatory penalty shoot-outs for group games that ends in draws to avoid teams playing out a 0-0 so they both qualify.

[DFF]

The vote went through, and it will be implemented from the 2026 tournament.

They've gone for the 16 groups of three option.

[FLiam]

International football is now completely dead to me. 

[MDK]

19 minutes ago, DFF said:

The vote went through, and it will be implemented from the 2026 tournament.

They've gone for the 16 groups of three option.

I really, really hate it. 16 groups of 3 is just stupid. Its just so obviously about money and nothing else.

[DFF]

I'm looking forward to the inevitable move to 64 teams around the year 2050...

 

Though, by that, point countries around the world may have broken up to the point where we get Catalonia vs Cornwall in a qualifier >_>

[GA!]

A pointless group stage followed by 32 teams playing cagily as one fuck-up would see them out. Sounds like fun. Euro 2016 already proved what happens when you add far more teams than necessary and have the main majority go into the knockout stage - just shite football all round.

[Adam]

Utterly awful decision, what a waste of time that's going to be. I wouldn't really have minded 40 teams, 5 in each group but this format they've decided is probably the worst of the lot. I hope we don't even qualify anymore, international football has long been in decline and frankly, I'd be fine if they just did away with it altogether and made an international club tournament the summer centrepiece instead.

Do any other team sports have nearly 50 nations in their world cup? I highly doubt it.

FIFA will always be all about the money, stuff the actual sport.

[Lineker]

It'll be even more funny when England don't manage to qualify now.

[DFF]

Didn't cricket start doing that pre-tournament tournament to decide the final spot(s) in recent years? I'd have thought some like that might have made more sense - so long as you don't go totally OTT with the additional number of games, a host could put on a mini-tourney to decide some final spots.

[MDK]

They might as well just give a bye to the emerging markets they are hoping to make money from.