FIFA president Sepp Blatter hinted that the head-butt on Italy's Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final might cost the France captain the best player's award.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field.
He might be travelling halfway across the globe to promote youth football through Subroto Cup but Brazilian legend Pele on Friday declared that there won't be another like him and the man who draws constant comparisons with him, the inimitable Diego Maradona.
News that transpired on and off the football field.
Australia has shelved its bid for the 2023 Women's World Cup pending an "overhaul" of FIFA as the global football governing body reels from a corruption scandal.
Six football officials were arrested in Zurich early upon request from US authorities, suspected of receiving bribes worth millions of dollars, Swiss authorities said.
His message contained some defiance: he vowed to fight the ban, insisted he had done no wrong and hit out at those who had questioned his integrity and honesty.
The former president of the Afghanistan Football Federation (AFF), Keramuddin Keram, was banned from football in June for life after FIFA's ethics committee found him guilty of abusing his position and sexually abusing female players.
FIFA faces more embarrassment after a member of its financial watchdog was arrested on suspicion of corruption and money-laundering in the Cayman Islands.
FIFA approved major reforms at a congress on Friday, part of world football's effort to end the culture of corruption that has plagued its governing body for years. The measures were adopted by 179 members, while 22 voted against and six abstained at a congress in Zurich that will also elect a replacement to FIFA's disgraced president Sepp Blatter. The reforms were developed since June by a committee led by Francois Carrard, a Swiss lawyer tasked with a similar cleanup effort at the International Olympic Committee more than a decade ago. Among the most crucial measures are changes in the role of FIFA's president and its executive committee. The president's job has been altered to function like a corporate chairman of the board, providing strategic guidance but with less management authority. FIFA's executive committee, which had become an epicenter of graft, has been re-branded as a FIFA council, and will operate similar to a corporate board of directions. FIFA's secretary general, previously number two to the president, will serve as world football's CEO.
He also branded new FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, the former UEFA general secretary, a "traitor" for not standing by UEFA president Platini
Leading sponsors of football's world governing body have demanded independent oversight of FIFA's reform process in an open letter published on Tuesday ahead of a key meeting to finalise proposed reforms at the scandal-plagued organisation.
This and more from the happenings in the world of football.
The public are growing tired of hearing about allegations of wrongdoing against Qatar's winning 2022 World Cup bid, according to organisers, with the Gulf state more interested in improving worker's rights than publishing Michael Garcia's report.
Despite widespread speculation that FIFA will vote to switch the dates of the 2022 World Cup on Friday, soccer's world governing body will probably delay making a decision and instead set up a task force to analyse the huge implications of moving the tournament from the searing heat of the Middle East summer.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Football legend Pele described the FIFA corruption scandal as a "shame", but made it clear that the reputation of the game was not tarnished.
Bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups was criticised by its own investigator.
England's Football Association, which has supported Platini's candidature, said on Friday it was among a number of other groups who had called for a FIFA crisis meeting where the election would be discussed.
Highlighting the divisions, the former French diplomat pointed out that the top European clubs spend millions on players while Papua New Guinea's football federation struggles to pay air fares for its team.
Goal-line technology would be used in the Champions League from the final qualifying round but not in the first three preliminary rounds. It could also be introduced in the Europa League from 2017-18.
Sepp Blatter, Luis Figo, Michael van Praag and Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein have bid to stand for FIFA president.
Frozen balls containing team names have been used to rig European soccer's club competition draws although the ruse was never used at FIFA, the former chief of the game's world governing body, Sepp Blatter, has said.
The Swiss lawyer heading up a committee charged with reforming the structure and management of world soccer body FIFA says major changes to the organization's voting structure and imposing term limits on executive committee members will be difficult to achieve in the short term.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Less than a week after FIFA set up a task force to look into when the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar can be held, English FA chairman Greg Dyke said it will never take place in the searing heat of the Middle East summer.
The Swiss is out of sight as FIFA corruption scandal deepens
FIFA named an African woman with no experience in football administration as its second most powerful official on Friday, part of changes made by the sport's ruling body to move on from a major corruption scandal.
Banned European soccer boss president Michel Platini has withdrawn his candidacy from the race for the presidency of soccer's scandal-plagued governing body FIFA, he told French sports daily L'Equipe on Thursday.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino said a wind of change was blowing through football's scandal-plagued world governing body after announcing a sponsorship deal with China's Wanda Group on Friday.
FIFA presidential candidate Jerome Champagne has protested to football's world governing body about the number of observers allowed into the hall for Friday's election, saying he believed they were working for his rivals.
Banned UEFA president Michel Platini said he hoped to clear his name in time for the 2016 European Championship soccer tournament in June after attending a hearing on Monday to appeal against his suspension.
A European-led boycott of FIFA or the World Cup is unrealistic.
FIFA President Sepp Blatter began his fifth term at the helm of football's governing body on Saturday facing the daunting task of restoring public faith in an organisation tainted by allegations of corruption and deeply divided over his re-election.
Esther Staubli is set to become the first female referee to officiate a match at the ongoing FIFA Under-17 World Cup 2017.
England's failed bid to host the 2018 World Cup "was by far the strongest contender", FIFA official said.
Former Argentina captain Diego Maradona has been handed an ambassadorial role by the game's global governing body FIFA.
A defiant FIFA President Sepp Blatter declared there was no moving the 2022 World Cup form Qatar, despite widespread concerns about the bidding process that took the tournament to the Middle East for the first time.
UEFA has hit back at suggestions that it and other continental confederations have been responsible for blocking reforms.
History is not likely to be so kind to the 79-year-old Swiss, who only recently compared himself to a mountain goat that keeps "going and going and going and cannot be stopped." Instead, his name is likely to be associated with the succession of corruption scandals which occurred on his watch.
