fifa Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Megan Rapinoe Calls FIFA "Old, Male, And Stale" After Awards Controversy
Following the bizarre nomination of an amateur player for FIFA’s female Player of the Year award, USWNT and Seattle Reign midfielder Megan Rapinoe has criticized soccer’s governing body, calling them “old, male and stale” in an interview with BBC....
Ghana Effectively Knocked Out Of World Cup Qualifying By Bullshit Offside Call
Raphael Dwamena’s match-winning goal with 15 seconds remaining in added time against Uganda came off the board as South African referee Daniel Bennett inexplicably ruled Dwamena to be offside, effectively eliminating Ghana from World Cup contention. ...
U.S./Mexico/Canada World Cup Bid Cuts Host City List To 32
On the same day that Brazilian federal police made early-morning corruption arrests of three Olympic committee executives, including the head of the Rio 2016 Committee—a good reminder that people do financially benefit from hosting major international sporting events, just never the people that are ...
FIFA Wants To Know Who Dele Alli Was Flipping The Bird To<em></em>
It’s a little hard to summarize this one, so I’ll start with just the facts and explain later: Late on during Monday’s England-Slovakia World Cup qualifier, Dele Alli raised his middle finger at ... someone, and now FIFA is looking into it to determine if the target of Alli’s bird was someone who co...
FIFA Orders World Cup Qualifier To Be Replayed After Referee Banned For Life
Last November, South Africa beat Senegal 2-1 in a World Cup qualifying match, their only win through four qualifying games. However, a few months after the game, Joseph Lamptey, the referee in charge, was found guilty of “unlawfully influencing match results” and was subsequently banned for life. He...
FIFA Executive Chuck Blazer Has Died
Chuck Blazer, an influential and controversial figure in the history of American soccer, has died, as first reported by Jack Bell and confirmed by Andrew Das of the New York Times. He was 72....
French Guiana Says Fuck It, Starts Ineligible Player In Gold Cup
In last night’s Gold Cup match between French Guiana and Honduras, former Chelsea winger Florent Malouda played the whole 90 minutes for the national team of his native French Guiana, despite having been ruled ineligible before the tournament because he had already capped 80 times for the French nat...
How Qatar Used Its Youth Soccer Academy To Influence The World Cup Bidding Process
The Aspire Academy’s listed mission statement is to “develop well educated sports champions” and “foster Qatar society realizing a healthy, active lifestyle.” The Qatari government founded Aspire in 2003, building a state-of-the-art sports complex in Doha with the aim of identifying and training ath...
FIFA: Computer-Destroying Russian Bid Committee Did Nothing Corrupt
Today brought the release of the 430-page report on World Cup corruption that FIFA fought to keep secret for nearly three years. One section of that report details the FIFA Ethics Committee’s investigation into potential corruption by the Russian bid committee that secured the 2018 World Cup. The re...
FIFA Finally Releases Full World Cup Corruption Report
Nearly three years after it was completed, FIFA has at long last released in full the internal report on alleged corruption relating to the bids for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups that it had previously been so determined to keep secret. This didn’t happen from any change of heart on FIFA’s part, natu...
Report: FIFA Is Investigating The Entire Russian World Cup Team For Doping
The Mail on Sunday today reported that FIFA is investigating the Russian 2014 World Cup soccer team for doping—literally every member of Russia’s 2014 World Cup team:...
Russia Has A Lot To Prove At The Confederations Cup
The start of the Confederations Cup is essentially the first day of Advent before the Christmas that is the World Cup. Played in the World Cup’s host country the year before and consisting of 8 teams—the champion of each continent, the host, and the defending World Cup champs—this tournament is unim...
FIFA Will Allow Referees To Suspend Matches Due To Racism At Confederations Cup
Ahead of the Confederations Cup, which begins Saturday in Russia, FIFA has announced a “ground-breaking” procedure for limiting racism and discrimination in soccer. Referees will now be able to abandon a match entirely if fans participate in racist or discriminatory behavior....
Five Gulf Countries Cut Ties With Qatar; FIFA Has No Comment
Five Arab countries—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen—have severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, cut off all travel to and from the country, and ordered their citizens to leave the country. According to the BBC, the countries have accused Qatar of destabilizing the regi...
This Slave-Built Qatari World Cup Stadium Sure Is Pretty!
Judging by the looks of the newly renovated Khalifa International Stadium—the first stadium construction project the nation has completed ahead of the 2022 World Cup it will host—Qatar’s massive population of migrant workers, who toil under life-threatening conditions in a working system often descr...
FIFA Makes Completely Meaningless Ethical Stand
The U.S.-led North American bid for the 2026 World Cup earned 93 percent of the 209 votes in FIFA Congress today. In March, the North American soccer federations requested an exclusive window to begin submitting technical specifications, which would give them a head start in the planning process. Bu...
FIFA Did A Bunch Of Shady Shit This Week
There is a lot of corruption going on in the world, but not at FIFA, no siree. Since numerous top officials were arrested two years ago, and longtime president Sepp Blatter was ousted and replaced by the much chiller Gianni Infantino, one might assume that FIFA now takes corruption and ethics seriou...
FIFA Opens Investigation Into Paul Pogba's Transfer To Manchester United
According to reports, FIFA has decided to investigate last summer’s record-breaking transfer of Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United. It’s not clear which aspect of the deal piqued FIFA’s suspicions, but presumably it has something to do with recent reports about the transfer and Pogba’s co...
Woman Who Doesn’t Know Who Won Most Recent Women’s World Cup Elected To FIFA Council
Mahfuza Akhter Kiron of Bangladesh was elected to FIFA’s Asian Football Council today, occupying one of six places on the council that are specifically reserved for a woman. She defeated Australia’s Moya Dodd, an outspoken advocate of including more women in soccer’s governing bodies, 27 votes to 17...
FIFA's Four-Match Suspension Of Lionel Messi Overturned On Appeal
A little over a month ago, some snitches in the Chile soccer federation ratted out Lionel Messi for saying some mildly harsh words to a referee after an international match. FIFA suspended Messi for four matches in response, endangering Argentina’s chances to qualify for the World Cup and threatenin...