March 7 – Football’s lawmakers have been accused of losing “further credibility” by a leading brain injury charity after rejecting a trial of temporary concussion substitutes.
March 7 – The final teams have now qualified, the World Cup trophy is on tour and headed for Australia and New Zealand, and now the official poster for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 has been released.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 6 – Disgraced former French FA president Noel Le Graet, who resigned last week after 11 years in charge amid a slew of allegations, looks increasingly likely to also have to throw in the towel from his privileged position within FIFA’s inner circle of decision makers.
March 6 – Pressure is growing on FIFA to abandon mooted plans for Saudi sponsorship of this summer’s Women’s World Cup after the Australia and New Zealand co-hosts again called for any prospective deal to be scrapped.
March 6 – The International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body that controls the rules of the game, is keeping the proposal for temporary concussion subs on the back burner but is advocating the wider global rollout of its accurate calculation of ‘additional time’ that was implemented at the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
By Paul Nicholson
March 3 – FIFA is set to discuss a change to the planned first group stages for the expanded 2026 World Cup – increasing groups from three to four nations – at its next Council meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, later this month.
March 2 – Haiti’s former FA president Yves Jean-Bart, whose lifetime FIFA ban from the sport over sexual abuse allegations was overturned last month, says he is reclaiming his position.
March 2 – FIFA’s choice of Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima as its first global fan ambassador five months before the Women’s World Cup has been lambasted as “tone-deaf” by Moya Dodd, a former FIFA executive committee member and one-time leader of the organisation’s taskforce for the women’s game.
March 2 – Austria captain David Alaba says it was a team decision for him to vote for Lionel Messi over his own Real Madrid team-mate Karim Benzema as men’s player of the year at the recent Best FIFA Awards.
March 2 – FIFA is sticking with its Fan Festival format for this summer’s Women’s World Cup but has lengthened its name from ‘fest’ to ‘festival’.
By Andrew Warshaw
March 1 – Disgraced former French FA president Noel Le Graet looks as if he will still be given carte blanche by FIFA to oversee its office in Paris despite being forced to resign over a series of allegations including sexual misconduct.
This is the tale of ‘The Old Man who can’t See’: a French autocrat, adorned with Napoleonic complexities, was handed his Waterloo by two women. At 81, after 12 years at the helm of French football, he resigned yesterday, only to assume a new assignment next week. You guessed it: at Infantino’s FIFA.
By Paul Nicholson
February 28 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), generally condemned by football’s stakeholders both privately and publicly for overturning the lifetime ban on former President of the Haitian Football Federation (FHF) Yves Jean-Bart for multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, has issued the reasoned arbitral award.
February 28 – Lionel Messi was named FIFA player of the year once again on Monday as Argentina scooped all the major men’s awards after winning a memorable World Cup final last December.
February 23 – Panama became the sixth Concacaf nation to qualify for the Women’s World Cup in Australia/New Zealand this summer with a 1-0 play-off win over Papua New Guinea in Hamilton, New Zealand.