Qatar may lose the World Cup.

A Fifa inquiry into persistent claims of corruption during the bidding process could lead to the FIFA executive committee making the unprecedented move of redoing the vote that gave Qatar the victory.

Blatter,who has his beady eyes firmly fixed on being reelected to the the post of FIFA president said.

We are the champions!

Recently we've shared that various soccer luminaries such as Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson has advocated a spring-to-fall schedule change in advance of the 2022 World Cup. Now we find out that UEFA itself is advancing well past the thinking stage.

The British press is reporting that the English Premier League and Bundesliga are gearing up to fight a UEFA (specifically, Michel Plantini) plan to implement a spring-to-fall schedule permanently for UEFA member leagues and alter the qualification calendar for international events.

We are the champions!

Recently we've shared that various soccer luminaries such as Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson has advocated a spring-to-fall schedule change in advance of the 2022 World Cup. Now we find out that UEFA itself is advancing well past the thinking stage.

The British press is reporting that the English Premier League and Bundesliga are gearing up to fight a UEFA (specifically, Michel Plantini) plan to implement a spring-to-fall schedule permanently for UEFA member leagues and alter the qualification calendar for international events.

Black and Red United give DC winger Andy Najar five-stars for his performance on Saturday. Hard to argue.

MLSTalk praises Peter Nowak as the Arsene Wenger of MLS. I am totally confused about the comparison. Both successful yet flawed coaches? Both European?

Former Union netminder Brad Knighton helped his Carolina Railhawks to their 10th straight win, earning his 5th shutout of the year in the process.

-Chris Ballard
When I logged onto my Twitter account this morning I saw talk about an article written by Grant Wahl regarding the FIFA Presidency. Having an interest in the matter, I zipped over to Sports Illustrated's website to have a look. And I was outraged. Outraged, I tell you. Essentially, Wahl has thrown his hat into the ring for the presidential elections in June.

Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA's President today in one of the more lopsided elections in history.
Here's how Blatter's 91.63% total (186 votes out of 203 possible) compares to some of his dictatorial counterparts:
Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov 2007 Election 80%
Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev 2005 Election 91.

Amanda and Megan discuss Grant Wahl's curious decision to challenge Sepp Blatter's position as FIFA president. They consider his chances and address some of their issues with his platform. Charlie Davies' recovery trail has led him to DC United. Pat Onstad is coming out of retirement, but both girls agree that he is no Brett Favre.

Video footage showing Blatter in denial about there being a "crisis" in FIFA.
He also sounds a bit like Don Corleone when he talks about FIFA being a family.

The weekend's events have caused the English and Scottish Football Associations to call for a postponement of Wednesday's scheduled FIFA presidential election.

FIFA executive committee members Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner were suspended after an ethics hearing on Sunday, and Bin Hammam withdrew his candidacy for FIFA president, leaving current president Sepp Blatter as the lone candidate in the race.

Por snedecor
Con la candidatura de Grant Wahl descartada por no poder encontrar a una sola federación que la avalase ("sí, lo que dices está muy bien y te daría mi voto, pero..."), llegamos a mayo de este año, y a esa reunión de las federaciones caribeñas promovida por Bin Hammam y Jack Warner.

I've sort of kept my peace about FIFA and their madness as of late. Same goes for the drama with CONCACAF yesterday. Honestly I've been busy with work and other soccer ventures that I just didn't have the time or energy to comment.

Well this photo just about sums up all the energy I have to talk about it.

Update: Later on Tuesday night, acting CONCACAF president Lisle Austin released a statement saying it is within the rights of the president to fire the secretary general and Blazer was 'trespassing' by using CONCACAF's media channel to distribute a contradictory media release.

By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (May 31, 2011) US Soccer Players -- A day after Sepp Blatter is once again securely in his role as FIFA president for the next four years, it's worth wondering why it was so difficult to get to an obvious result. Blatter keeps his job, no one is all that surprised, and FIFA manages to skirt a set of potential crises of the type that would cause most organizations.

STARTERS
DaMarcus Beasley has signed with Puebla in Mexico.
-Puebla has also signed Portuguese attacker Nuno Gomes.
dN
The USA U17 team choked big time today as they lost 2-1 to heavy underdogs Uzbekistan.

He's off and running. Looks like Sepp Blatter has kicked off his reelection campaign for the FIFA Presidency to be held in June. Only, it's unclear what kind of entity FIFA really is. It's not a country (its reach is global), it's not a state (it doesn't have an army), it's not a democracy (despite the elections to the body's Presidency), and it's not the Vatican (despite the lovely idea of a "year end message", in which the FIFA chief boldly states that he looks "forward to meeting the representatives of the member associations there in person, addressing their concerns and, together, setting a strategic course for the future.

Uber-creep Sepp is back to his old tricks, offering up his weekly soundbite that is both confusing and probably a little bit offense.

This week's target: economically-challenged housewives. A group that, according to his Seppness, deserves to be randomly fired under the bus from time to time.

Ok, it's time to revive the dead horse and ride it some more. Trust me, I don't want to but I have to.

Since the December 2 vote to award Qatar the 2022 World Cup, I have made peace with the decision. While I still believe the country was not the best bid put forward (the U.

Machinations at the top of soccer politics revolve around Qatar 2022 -We should all pay more attention to the name of Mohamed Bin Hammam, as he could end up running our sport before long.The global condemnation of FIFA's handling of December's World Cup vote has increased the likelihood of a challenge to the tumultuous 12-year reign of Sepp Blatter, and the knives are already being sharpened.

Chris Dillow has a great article (link here – would recommend reading all of it) that considers the revolution taking place in Tunisia at the moment, and how the events over there may serve as an...
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By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Mar 18, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Mohammed Bin Hammam is now officially campaigning to replace Sepp Blatter as president of FIFA, giving us that contested election I've seemed so insistent about in recent months. Now granted, since the voting is an insider operation involving representatives from the 208 members of World Soccer's governing body there's the likely outcome that this becomes an internal squabble.

By JOHN BOSCHINI

For the first time in a decade, Sepp Blatter has a challenger.

Mohammad bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation, ended months of speculation today when he confirmed that he would stand for president of FIFA in this year's election.

The England-FIFA drama continues.

The English FA said Thursday it will abstain from casting a ballot in this summer's FIFA presidential campaign in a protest against candidates Sepp Blatter and Mohamed bin Hammam. FA chairman David Bernstein said the decision to not support either candidate was made due to recent and current issues involving FIFA.

By Soraya Soemadiredja, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Part One of Three Parts in AFR's FIFA Elections coverage.

All over the world, on every continent, it's election fever. You just have to turn on any news channel, open any website or read the paper to know that.

FIFA cleared the re-election of Sepp Blatter as FIFA president today.

"No investigation against Blatter is warranted," according to Petrus Damaseb, the ethics committee deputy chairman.

A full inquiry into Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner having made bribes to the Caribbean Football Union officials in exchange for their votes in the presidential elections will be conducted later till which time both executive members are suspended.

Morning all,

some interesting quotes from Arsene have emerged from a radio interview he did in France. They've been carried via the Twitter account of the President of the Arsenal supporters club France. And if yesterday's performance by Mr Blatter has taught us anything it's that Presidents are men of honour and quiet dignity who are to be trusted implicitly.

Given the uproar around the recent happenings at FIFA, you'd think that something new and horrific had happened, but corruption has been at the core of our governing body for years. It's just that now we're reaping the fruit of our ignorance and, as a footballing family, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Por snedecor
- Oye, Sepp, mira, es que tu rival Bin Hammam tenía pensado organizar una reunión con los presidentes de las federaciones caribeñas para comentarles un poco por encima su proyecto y bueno, ya sabes cómo son estas cosas, a lo mejor les ofrece algún dinerillo... Unos 40.000 dólares o así, pero para cubrir sus gastos, no es para que luego le voten ni nada de eso, ¿eh?

The FIFA/CONCACAF corruption mess just keeps getting uglier and uglier.

Just days after blowing the whistle on alleged bribes involving then-CONCACAF President Jack Warner and FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed Bin Hammam, Chuck Blazer has been fired by the man who has temporarily replaced Warner as the head of CONCACAF.

Sepp Blatter has announced that all 208 FIFA member associations will vote on World Cup hosts in the future after it was confirmed he would continue as the president of world football's governing body.
John Brewin: Reform the only way forward
Delegates Attack England
David Conn: Even Grace Jones struggles to make executive committee members get up and dance at their congress
James Lawton: Money is Blatter's oxygen and only sponsors can cut supply

01.06.2011 - Otra vez gana el núcleo duro de la FIFA (?), la Confederación Sudamericana con Julio Grondona como más el pesado ariete que sostiene a Blatter y la UEFA que cerró filas ante el intento inglés de parar la elección mientras se investigue profundamente sobre las acusaciones cruzadas entre los distintos miembros, a partir de la sugerencia de compra de votos (para esta votación o para conseguir la sede del Mundial 2022 para Qatar en el caso de su renunciante contrincante, el qatarí Mohamed Bin Hammam.

Sepp Blatter will be the president of FIFA for the next four years.

Without a challenger on the ballot, the outcome was inevitable, but Blatter won the FIFA election on Wednesday, garnering 186 votes out of the 203 ballots that were cast.

"Our pyramid is intact, the base, the foundation is strong, and together we have four years to continue on our path and do our job," Blatter said upon his re-election at the FIFA Congress.

By Chris Wright

The heartiest of hearty congrats go out to Sepp Blatter who has just been successfully re-elected as FIFA president after running completely unopposed and harvesting 186 of the 203 available votes...

Once again, absolutely no punchline is necessary.

It should go without saying that if you are looking for the best writing on the current car crash that is FIFA at the moment, you should probably be following, amongst others, Matt Scott, David Conn and Paul Kelso on Twitter, to say the least.

Sepp Blatter was re-elected for another term as FIFA president un-opposed tonight amid bribery scandals which are set to rock soccer to the core.

Of the 203 football associations who voted, only 17 found this absurd.
186 dutifully put a tick in the appropriate box.King Blatter is back on his throne.

I won't bore you with another mega-post detailing this FIFA crap. Just remember two things: 1) As long as FIFA gets (practically) free labor from players and shifts the burden of hosting to countries, then they will be a money-grubbing gang of crooks with no incentive to change. 2) FIFA is not a dictatorship, it is a 21st century kleptocracy ala Latin America where the forces of capital hollow out democratic mechanisms.

Like EastEnders or Coronation Street going on a summer break to Spain, Blackpool or Ireland, the footballing soap opera has upped sticks for the summer.
A cast of thousands, a few suitably over the top villians, a couple of unlikely characters attempting to play the hero and subplots aplenty.

Blatt to reality Sepp Blatter has many strong attributes that OTP has long admired. But surely his finest trait is audacity. Just hours after securing his 're-election'/coronation as FIFA President, when he ought to be getting his head down and concentrating on getting his organisation clean, Blatter has taken the opportunity to hit out at [.

FIFA president, Mr Joseph S. Blatter, was re-elected for a fourth term of office until 2015 by the 61st FIFA Congress, held in Zurich. Standing without an opponent, Mr Blatter received 186 of the 203 votes cast by member associations in a secret ballot. The FIFA president spoke about the need for transparency and "zero tolerance" in the fight against the dangers that threaten football.

While Truly Reds presents a regular Sunday Review feature which looks at various Manchester United related books, this weeks obscene election - if it can really be described as an ‘election', of FIFA...
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