It was not long ago in the Rwandan capital Kigali following FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s re-election by acclamation that Fatma Samoura yelled “I love you, president,” but the love story between the world federation and its current secretary general has come to an end.
Russian-owned betting company 1XBet has been declared bankrupt and owes millions. Yet it still operates, using porn stars to attract punters, and is a partner of FC Barcelona. It expanded into Ukraine, but was recently banned for its support of Putin’s war machine.
Football has long had a problem with female executives. At the UEFA Congress, the Norwegian FA president Lise Klaveness clearly lost the election for the Executive Committee against the male majority, many of whom have questionable CVs.
While World Athletics president Sebastian Coe sides with democratic nations, the IOC President Thomas Bach rejects their statements on Russia's war of aggression as uninformed and a violation of sport’s autonomy.
Investors assembling a portfolio of football clubs is changing football and existing regulation may not be big enough to cope with the burgeoning phenomenom of multi-club ownerships, which has tied up more than 9,000 football players and swathes of financially weak smaller clubs.
"The IOC is not the official body representing sport", writes the Secretary General of a non-Olympic federation. This letter can be seen as a direct attack on the IOC leadership. It is tantamount to blasphemy. However, the fight against the dissolution of the GAISF comes too late.
A great majority of non-Olympic sports federations may be ready to weaken their position vis-à-vis Olympic federations if they vote to dissolve their common association GAISF at a General Assembly on 29 November. This will further strengthen IOC’s grip on world sport.
What we won’t miss: Sun Yang & an entourage that still has questions to answer over 2014 doping positive.
FINA has stripped Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia and aggressor in the invasion of Ukraine, of the highest honour of the global regulator, the FINA Order, granted in 2014.
The IOC and the Olympic federations are obliged to punish Russia and its warmonger, Vladimir Putin. Jens Weinreich calls for a comprehensive independent criminal investigation of the longstanding deep connection of the Olympic institutions with the Kremlin within the framework of the EU.
Kamila Valieva' doping case raised questions about a minimum age for Olympic athletes. The Games thrive on high-performing children – some of them so young that they are not even allowed to compete in the Youth Olympic Games. Children are vulnerable to authoritarian states chasing medals and glory.
For decades there has been speculation about information and possibly incriminating material on IOC members and other big names that might be stored in Moscow's secret service archives. If anyone had access to compromat, it was Vladimir Putin. The spying activities span half a century.
Normally, for most of the Winter and Summer Games I have covered so far, thirteen times in total, I started my coverage exactly one week before the Opening Ceremony. Today I would like to outline why I did not fly to Beijing, to the Genocide and Propaganda Games of CCP
Did you place a bet over the Christmas period? You certainly wouldn’t be alone. Betting on sports is big business, and the FA Premier League (FAPL) is globally recognised as football’s most commercially successful league. And online sports betting is a regulated, legal activity in the UK.
Low level club friendlies remain at greater risk of match fixing but football’s international governing bodies are doing little or nothing to try and regulate what are essentially privately organised fixtures with no integrity safeguarding.
Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah has been sentenced to prison. Our author has observed the Kuwaiti Sheikh for many years and has been threatened by the Sheikh’s aides several times. He describes the methods that brought Ahmad to power and the implications of the conviction for Al-Sabah and the Olympic system.
