FIFA president Sepp Blatter endorsed a German proposal for stronger integrity checks to vet top soccer officials as the sport's global governing body grapples with the fallout of a massive corruption scandal.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has rejected allegations of corruption at soccer's governing body after Russia and Qatar won the right to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, calling England "bad losers" for their reaction.
Outgoing FIFA President Sepp Blatter said a Swiss criminal investigation against him was 'not correct' and defended his decision not to step down sooner as head of the world soccer body, according to a German magazine.
Sepp Blatter believes that any boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics would change nothing and those who refused to go in protest against alleged discrimination in Russia would be "surrendering".
"It is clear that there was a slush fund for the German World Cup bid," Zwanziger told Der Spiegel magazine, which first reported the allegations last week.
Franz Beckenbauer, who headed Germany's 2006 World Cup organising committee, said on Monday a transfer of 6.7 million euros to world football's governing body FIFA in 2005 was a mistake but rejected claims it was a return of a loan to buy votes in favour of the country's World Cup bid.
Suspended world soccer chief Sepp Blatter was named 'Swiss of the Year' on Thursday by a weekly magazine in his native Switzerland, on the same day he appeared before a FIFA ethics committee to face questioning in a corruption scandal.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter and its secretary general Jerome Valcke have both hired high-powered US lawyers to represent them as a corruption probe roils soccer's global governing body.
Just four days before the draw for the 2014 World Cup, FIFA faced yet another embarrassment when a Sao Paulo prosecutor opened an investigation into possible racism by soccer's world governing body.
Ronaldo's nomination comes after the 33-year-old last week denied rape allegations levelled against him by a woman who sued him in court in the United States.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Slush fund allegedly used to buy votes for the World Cup, claims report
Banned FIFA president Sepp Blatter feels 'abandoned' by the global soccer body and will now focus on clearing his name, the 79-year-old Swiss told German magazine Bunte.
Pressure on Franz Beckenbauer to explain payments and provide answers over a 2006 World Cup scandal grew on Tuesday, a day after the president of Germany's FA (DFB) resigned despite insisting he had done nothing wrong.
The committee also handed out a 90-day suspension to FIFA Secretary-General Jerome Valcke, who had already been put on leave by the football body, and banned former FIFA Vice-President Chung Mong-joon for six years and fined him 100,000 Swiss francs (67,021).
Cristiano Ronaldo capped a remarkable year by claiming a fourth Ballon d'Or award on Monday after leading Portugal to an emotional European Championship title and Real Madrid to a record-extending Champions League crown in 2016.
Awarding the 2022 football World Cup to Qatar's desert state was a "blatant mistake" FIFA executive committee member Theo Zwanziger said on Wednesday, adding that staging the tournament in winter would be just as big a problem.
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The pair exchange gifts for the cameras when they met in Tunis on Monday with Bennaceur handing the former Argentina skipper a framed photo of himself, Maradona and Shilton, who captained England, before the match at the Azteca Stadium.
Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil has endured a difficult time of late having been ruled out for up to six weeks out with a knee ligament injury, and, it would now appear, that he is on the verge of a break-up from girlfriend Mandy Capristo.
Rafael Nadal is recovering satisfactorily from appendicitis and will continue a course of antibiotics in a bid to be fit for the remainder of the 2014 season, the World No 2's spokesman said on Thursday.
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