Tag Archives | football

FIFA reforms: beware the small print

24 February 2016 in Sport

On 26 February 2016 FIFA will convene an Extraordinary Congress meeting with just two substantive agenda items: to elect a new president in place of the suspended Sepp Blatter – and to amend the FIFA statutes on governance. Although the former will dominate the headlines, it is the latter that could determine FIFA’s fate. The […]

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Football on trial

24 November 2015 in Accountability, Americas, Cost of Corruption, Sport

Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end the Germans always win, or so said Gary Lineker, the popular TV commentator and former England international. He was wrong. Football, in fact, is a system that benefits a small group of people by exploring the passion and […]

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The 2018 World Cup in Russia must be transparent

4 August 2015 in Accountability, Europe and Central Asia, Sport

In 2010 Russia was awarded the right to host the next FIFA World Cup. After the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, the 2018 World Cup will become the second major international sports event held in the country in its recent history. The Russian government approved a total budget of 660 billion roubles (US$16 billion) for the […]

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Fans can influence how football is run

15 May 2015 in Miscellaneous, Sport

Fans today are speaking out more about actions that take place off the field of play as well as on it. Ben Shave works at Supporters Direct Europe, an organisation that helps football fans gain influence in the running and ownership of clubs. Shave is also on the Expert Advisory Panel of the Corruption in […]

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FIFA: how to win back trust

19 September 2014 in Access to information, Accountability, Impunity, Private sector, Sport

Recently FIFA vice-president Jeffrey Webb admitted publicly that FIFA still had a lot of work to do to repair its battered image despite introducing a slew of organisational reforms. He’s right. FIFA is often seen as synonymous with scandal and not just for football fans. It is the butt of media satire, Twitter wit and […]

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Messi and the International Impunity System

7 August 2014 in Access to information, Accountability, Americas, Europe and Central Asia, Politics and government, Private sector, Sport

The ongoing prosecution of football super star Lionel Messi for alleged tax evasion made global headlines last week. Messi and his father Jorge are accused of evading 4.2 million euros (US$5.6m) in tax on sponsorship earnings in court documents submitted by the prosecutor. The alleged tax evasion scheme was based on using a web of […]

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World Cup winners and losers

16 July 2014 in Americas, Cost of Corruption, Europe and Central Asia, Human rights, Politics and government, Poverty and development, Private sector, Sport

The 2014 World Cup had it all. Goals galore on the pitch, surprise results, tears and triumphs: a cornucopia of sporting excitement for a worldwide audience of more than a billion, culminating in a deserved win for an exceptional team from Germany. But it also had a series of own goals off the pitch by […]

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Efforts to educate players and officials about match-fixing must be increased

29 November 2013 in Accountability, Anti-corruption movement, Cost of Corruption, Private sector, Sport

Six people were arrested in the United Kingdom this week on suspicion of match-fixing following an undercover sting operation. It’s not yet clear what games were targeted, but one player named is a former Premier League striker, now playing in a lower division. The fixer is alleged to have come from Singapore, the centre of […]

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A bad week at FIFA with more to come

26 April 2013 in Sport

This time two years ago a barrage of corruption scandals hit the headlines about FIFA, world football’s world governing body. At the time its president Sepp Blatter promised to start a fast track reform process to “clean house”. Two years on little has changed. This week FIFA was faced with the resignation of one executive […]

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Match-fixing in Turkey: a step in the right direction

6 March 2013 in Europe and Central Asia, Sport

When Europol, the European policing organisation announced recently that it had investigated more than 425 individuals in 13 countries for football match-fixing over the past 18 months, everyone was shocked at the sheer scale of the problem. Each country has its own experiences with match-fixing. In Turkey we have been closely following a match-fixing scandal […]

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