Category Archives: Football politics

European Super League will pour €400m into grassroots football, says new chief

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Anas Laghari claims elite competition will reignite love of game and end ‘madness’ of big money transfers

The Spanish banker who created the controversial new European Super League has promised the new JP Morgan-backed competition will pump €400m (£350m) into the national leagues that the elite clubs plan to leave behind.

Anas Laghari, a partner at the Madrid bank Key Capital and the newly appointed general secretary of the Super League, said the new league would reignite younger people’s love of football and end the “madness” of big money transfers.

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Boris Johnson threatens to use ‘legislative bomb’ to stop European Super League

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Prime minister will offer ‘unwavering support’, he tells FA, Premier League and fans

Boris Johnson has promised football groups that the government will consider using what he called “a legislative bomb” to stop English clubs joining a breakaway European Super League, as official efforts to thwart the plan were stepped up.

The prime minister and Oliver Dowden, the sports and culture secretary, held a meeting with the heads of the Football Association and Premier League, as well as representatives of fans’ groups from Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, three of the clubs involved.

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European Super League: government, FA and Uefa unite to denounce plans

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  • Dowden pledges to do ‘whatever it takes’ to thwart plans
  • Poll finds 79% of football fans opposed to breakaway

The UK government and football’s authorities launched a furious counter-offensive on Monday against plans for a European Super League that threaten the entire structure of the club game.

The culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, supported by Downing Street, vowed to do “whatever it takes” to thwart the plans which feature 12 “founding members” including six leading clubs from England. European football’s governing body, Uefa, also threatened to ban any players involved from next year’s World Cup.

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The ESL would destroy football as we know it – it’s almost as if they don’t care | David Baddiel

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We all knew that eventually, money and corporate interest would mutate the game at the top level into something approaching Rollerball

In my children’s novel Future Friend, which I began writing in January 2020, the future is imagined as a dystopian universe where the presence of mutant viruses infecting the air mean that no one goes out. When it was published, in the midst of lockdown, I was therefore congratulated by some for my previously unacknowledged psychic powers. A not so noticed feature of the Future Friend world, however, is that football is still played there: but only in one stadium, above the clouds, and only the super-rich can go and watch games there. So, given Sunday’s Super League news, I say, just call me Nostradavidmus.

Or don’t bother. Because of course we all knew this was coming. We all knew that eventually, money and corporate interest would mutate the game at the top level, beyond what it already in so many ways has, into something approaching Rollerball.

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European Super League: Premier League ‘big six’ sign up to competition

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European football was thrown into turmoil on Sunday night after new plans for a European super league were revealed that would mean six English clubs – Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham – joining the breakaway competition alongside three teams from each of Italy and Spain.

Related: Only someone who truly hates football can be behind a European super league

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World Cup likely to stay in Qatar despite new bribery accusations in US

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  • US prosecutors say three Fifa officials took bribes during voting
  • Qatar supreme committee denies any allegations of wrongdoing

The 2022 World Cup is highly unlikely to be moved from Qatar despite the latest criminal indictment by the US Department of Justice accusing three senior Fifa officials of receiving bribes for voting in favour of the Gulf state hosting the tournament.

The indictment, the latest in the long-running US prosecution of football officials for alleged corruption, accuses Nicolás Leoz, the Paraguayan then president of Conmebol, South American football’s governing body, and the former Brazil federation president Ricardo Teixeira of being paid bribes to vote for Qatar at the decisive Fifa executive committee (exco) meeting in December 2010. A third then very senior member of the exco under the former president Sepp Blatter, who is not named but is identifiable as Julio Grondona, the then president of Argentina’s FA, is also accused of being paid to vote for Qatar, but Grondona, who died in 2014, was never criminally charged.

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Former Fox executives indicted in Fifa bribery scheme

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Multimillion dollar scheme involved kickbacks to Fifa officials for broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup

Two former senior executives at Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to Fifa officials in exchange for broadcast and marketing rights to some of the world’s biggest football tournaments.

The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels and Carlos Martinez, the former president of Fox Latin America, have been charged with wire fraud and money laundering offenses, marking another series of indictments in the US government’s sprawling investigation of corruption in world football.

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Iranian women allowed to watch football at stadium for first time in decades

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  • Women free to watch World Cup qualifier after ban lifts
  • Those attending in Tehran will be segregated from men

Iranian women will be able to enter a football stadium on Thursday for the first time in decades, after Fifa threatened to suspend the Islamic republic over its controversial male-only policy. Iran has barred female spectators from football and other stadiums for around 40 years, with clerics arguing they must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men.

World football’s governing body last month ordered Iran to allow women access to stadiums without restrictions and in numbers determined by demand for tickets. The directive came after a fan dubbed “Blue Girl” died after setting herself on fire in fear of being jailed for dressing up as a boy in order to attend a match.

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Hakeem al-Araibi’s detention not Sheikh Salman’s responsibility, AFC says

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Asian Football Confederation, which has come under fire for failing to call for the refugee footballer’s release, says its president was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago

The Asian Football Confederation claims its president, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, is not responsible for matters regarding the Thai detention of Hakeem al-Araibi because he was recused from overseeing the region 18 months ago out of conflict-of-interest concerns.

The new claim came in response to a call from the World Players Association for Salman to be disqualified from office if the refugee footballer was returned to Bahrain.

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