Oceania has long been considered the weakest of FIFA's six confederations, especially since Australia departed for the Asian Confederation in 2006. But FIFA's new streaming platform, FIFA+, ensures Oceania football remains visible by providing global coverage of all Oceana Football Confederation (OFC) tournaments and competitions over the next two years. Broadcasting Oceania matches worldwide presents […]

Doha (AFP) – Football's rules body on Monday said that five substitutes would be permanently introduced for all top games and that an automatic offside detector is closer to being introduced for this year's World Cup. FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the substitute change, which was started after the coronavirus pandemic, followed "strong support from […]

FIFA's recent FIFA+ launch brings the newest streaming platform to soccer fans in the world. The International Federation of Association Football claims that over 40,000 games will air in 2022. These come from men's, women's and youth competitions under the FIFA umbrella. Moreover, 29,000 of these games are men’s matches. Then, over 11,000 of the […]

Doha (AFP) – FIFA is on target to reap record revenues of seven billion dollars on the back of this year's Qatar World Cup, president Gianni Infantino said Thursday as experts predicted a long-term financial boom for football. Infantino told the annual congress of the sport's world governing body that FIFA's finances were "great" and […]

Paris (AFP) – FIFA has invited football's national federations to an online summit on September 30 to discuss the international calendar, in its push to hold the World Cup every two years instead of four. World football's governing body wants to launch a "new consultation phase" for the international women's and men's calendar, set to […]

Seoul (AFP) – South Korean billionaire Chung Mong-Joon said Thursday he would appeal to the international sports tribunal over his five-year ban by FIFA, accusing its ethics committee of acting like "hitmen" for former leader Sepp Blatter. Chung, a former FIFA vice-president and presidential candidate, and a scion of the Hyundai family, was banned by […]

Zurich (AFP) – FIFA's World Football Museum in Zurich, a landmark project of disgraced former president Sepp Blatter, is not under threat of closure despite a new round of redundancies according to its director. A total of 36 jobs will be cut at the museum by June in the latest round of redundancies at the […]

Kuala Lumpur (AFP) – Asia's football body on Tuesday urged FIFA to rule whether its candidates can stand for election to the world organisation's top decision-making body, following a walk-out over the issue last year. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said FIFA's decision on the candidates was already overdue, after their names were submitted early […]

Johannesburg (AFP) – FIFA president Gianni Infantino will be in South Africa and Zimbabwe this week to meet African football bosses and attend a birthday party. He has invited all 54 African national football association presidents to Johannesburg for two days of meetings, starting Tuesday. The 46-year-old Swiss-Italian leaves for Harare Thursday to attend […]

Zurich (AFP) – FIFA insisted Thursday there is no conclusive proof that heading a ball causes an increased risk of brain disease, after the release of a study on footballers who died from dementia. "To our very best knowledge, there is currently no true evidence of the negative effect of heading or other sub-concussive blows," […]

Doha (AFP) – FIFA president Gianni Infantino said Thursday he did not fear hooligan troubles at the World Cup in Russia next year despite reported threats against foreign fans. "I am not concerned about trouble in 2018, I have full confidence in the Russian authorities," Infantino told AFP and a small group of reporters on […]

London (AFP) – Professional footballers are at heightened risk of developing a brain disease that can cause dementia and is usually found in boxers and American football players, a study published on Wednesday suggests. The study, published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica, looked at 14 retired footballers with dementia who had started playing football and […]

Berlin (AFP) – Time penalties instead of yellow cards, no off-side rule and more substitutions: legendary ex-striker Marco van Basten, FIFA's technical director, has a radical vision of football's future. "We must keep looking for ways to improve the game, to make it more honest, more dynamic, more interesting, so that what we offer is […]

Lausanne (AFP) – FIFA has called in two lawyers to act as mediators in conflicts with staff amid mass changes at world football's governing body. A FIFA spokesman said that specialist labour lawyers Nirmala Dias and Andreas Blattmann would "work with employees of FIFA to explore and assist them in determining options to help resolve […]

London (AFP) – FIFA is thinking about introducing new measures to improve player behaviour towards match officials, chief officer for technical development Marco van Basten revealed on Saturday. The former Netherlands striker and manager says football's world governing body could follow the lead of rugby union, in which only team captains are allowed to speak […]