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Palestinian Football Association president prevented from accompanying team to Australia

Khaled Ghannam — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 15:00:00 +1000

Whatever Australia’s reason to deny a visa to the President of the Palestinian Football Association, it is not a good look for Australia or its attempts to woo the world’s major sports events, including football. Khaled Ghannam reports.

Deadly Games: The worker casualties of Qatar’s World Cup

Binoy Kampmark — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +1000

The FIFA World Cup, due to begin in Qatar in November, will be stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in the competition’s history, reports Binoy Kampmark.

Israel cancels Palestine Cup simply because it could

Dave Zirin — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:15:00 +1100

It’s been barely noticed, but last month there was an incursion of politics into sports like no other, writes Dave Zirin.

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With little reason, the Israeli government made the decision to cancel the Palestinian national football (soccer) club championship, otherwise known as the FIFA Palestine Cup.

FIFA can afford to close pay gap – but won’t

Stuart Munckton — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 15:00:00 +1100

When world football executives receive FIFA’s annual report this year, they will see that US$753,000 is funding a women’s league in Colombia, $588,197 is helping female players in New Zealand and girls in Botswana are benefiting from $341,600.

That’s merely a snapshot of the $270.3 million that football’s world governing body has invested in projects between 2016 and 2018.

Four years since police raided the hotel and offices of football officials and FIFA’s Zurich headquarters in 2015 in a scandal that threatened the organisation’s existence, FIFA is awash with cash.

Australian government must act to stop deportation of Bahraini refugee

Sue Bolton — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 12:45:00 +1100

Bahraini refugee Hakeem Al-Araibi has been held in detention in Thailand since November 27, facing the terrifying prospect of deportation to the country where he was tortured.

Abandoning LGBTI rights, FIFA shows its only allies are corporate

Stuart Munckton — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 19:30:00 +1000

World Cup organisers FIFA and its corporate sponsors market their products to the members of the LGBTI community by presenting themselves as allies and advocates for their struggles. But this is questioned by its holding of the 2018 World Cup in Russia and giving the rights to the 2022 event to Qatar.

World Cup displays FIFA’s weak response to racism

Andrew Tan-Delli Cicchi — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 17:30:00 +1000

The Fare Network (Football Against Racism in Europe) is an organisation that tracks racism and homophobia in the football (soccer) world. For the 2018 World Cup in Russia, they set up a series of “diversity houses” for the LGBTQI community and people of colour.

Now in St Petersburg, they have been evicted from the building they were leasing for these safe spaces. Other tenants are also reportedly under instruction not to offer subleases, leaving only the brutal symbolism of a diversity house shuttered.

How Big Money corrupted the people’s game

Phil Shannon — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 11:30:00 +1100

The Billonaires’ Club: The Unstoppable Rise of Football’s Super-Rich Owners
James Montague
Bloomsbury, 2017
330 pages

At this stage of the 2017 English Premier League (EPL) season, it looks like one of the two Manchester teams will win the championship — and with barely a Mancunian between them. Both Manchester United and Manchester City have overseas owners, overseas managers and overseas-dominated player lists.

FIFA’s sins laid bare

Phil Shannon — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 10:00:00 +1000

In no breast did the prodigious financial corruption of world football’s administrative elite beat more vigorously than that of Chuck Blazer, the head of football in the North and Central American and Caribbean regional body.

Chuck was not called American soccer’s “Mr Big” for nothing. His bottomless appetite for high-calorie nosh gave him a gargantuan girth, which was matched financially in size by his tax-sheltered bank accounts. These bulged with millions of dollars received through fraud, embezzlement, bribes, perks, gifts and inducements.

Not only could he afford to rent an entire floor of luxury apartments in the prestigious Trump Tower in Manhattan, but he preserved one of them solely for the use of his cats.

FIFA capitulates to Israel again

Ali Abunimah — Thu, 11 May 2017 10:00:00 +1000

FIFA, the governing body of world football (soccer), has capitulated once more to intense pressure from the Israeli government. It has removed from the agenda of its upcoming congress the issue of teams from Israel’s illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land playing in Israel’s national league.

Will FIFA bow to Israeli pressure over illegal settlement teams?

Ali Abunimah — Tue, 09 May 2017 10:00:00 +1000

Calls are mounting on FIFA to require Israel’s national league to exclude teams from West Bank settlements or face suspension from the governing body of world football (soccer).

But there are warning signs FIFA may be succumbing to intense pressure to once again give Israel a pass to continue violating Palestinian rights with impunity.

Will FIFA ever stand up to Israeli teams in illegal settlements?

Dave Zirin — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 11:00:00 +1100

The situation for Palestinian and Arab football (soccer) players in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza has, for some time, been dire.

On one side of Israel’s Apartheid Wall, within the formal borders of Israel, segregated youth teams, racist abuse, and heckling — including charming chants such as “Death to the Arabs” — are frequent. On the other, in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, checkpoint detention, jailings, and the bombing of stadiums have become regular features of what is supposed to be the people’s game.

Given the powerful role that football plays as a point of community cohesion in the West Bank and Gaza, this everyday violence feels like a full-frontal attack on civil society, normalcy and hope.

Uncovering FIFA's dirty game

Phil Shannon — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 10:00:00 +1000

FBI raid in Miami gathering evidence on FIFA. May, 2015. The Dirty Game: Uncovering the Scandal at FIFA Andrew Jennings Arrow Books, 2016 305 pages The unravelling of the empire of Sepp Blatter, the multi-millionaire president of world football, began in 2014.

Diego Maradona to run for FIFA presidency

TeleSUR English — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona confirmed on June 21 that he will run for FIFA's presidency, according to his friend and former co-host of a TeleSUR football show, Uruguayan journalist Victor Hugo Morales.

Dave Zirin: Women's World Cup exposes inequality in football

Dave Zirin — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 10:00:00 +1000

With the football world still exhaling after a thrilling Women's World Cup, won 5-2 by the USA on July 5, it is worth taking a moment to look back at the tournament.

Qatar's ugly World Cup exposed

Phil Shannon — Fri, 19 Jun 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Migrant workers are employed in slave-like conditions on construction of Qatar's World Cup facilities. The Ugly games: The Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup Heidi Blake & Jonathan Calvert Simon & Schuster, 2015 472 pages The only surprising thing about the FIFA corruption scandal is that anyone should be surprised, given the long history of credible allegations of bribery in world football’s governing body.

FIFA scandal fuelled by corporate riches, political manoeuvres

Tony Traub — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 10:00:00 +1000

The corruption scandal that has hit FIFA, culminating in the recent arrest of seven FIFA officials in Switzerland and the resignation of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, has focused attention on the world’s most powerful football (soccer) body. You have to go back to FIFA's founding to understand the factors that have led to these events. It was formed in 1904 to oversee international competition among various European football associations.

Maradona to FIFA: 'Enough of your lies'

Tony Iltis — Fri, 29 May 2015 10:00:00 +1000

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona welcomed the arrest of six FIFA executives by Swiss police in an interview with the Argentine Radio La Red on May 27. “Stop these shady businesses, stop lying to people, stop throwing a dinner to re-elect Blatter,” Maradona said, referring to current FIFA head Sepp Blatter, who is seeking re-election. Blatter was not named in the indictment, but his re-election in 2011 is part of the United States-initiated corruption probe.