The talks ran some seven hours. No press was admitted and no questions were taken.

A letter was published to inform the hoi polloi of the footballing world that FIFA's secretary general and Management Board had heard Infantino apologise and had accepted that FIFA Forward Enterprised (FFE) was mishandled rather than misconceived. Infantino accepted that "mistakes were made in the process” and that it "should have been handled differently". The Management Board had therefore concluded, with "full support", that Infantino could stay in office.

And who signed this letter of full support for Gianni Infantino?

Gianni Infantino himself.

And Secretary-General Mattias Grafström, whom the letter also states has Infantino’s full support in return.

If only the rest of the footballing world could be so tidily aligned. In the days before and after Salé, Infantino faced:

• reports that he offered Morocco the 2030 World Cup final in exchange for its backing, which FIFA has vehemently denied

• a former FIFA vice-president accusing the organisation of blackmail

• American host cities waiting for FIFA payments they say were promised

• European clubs continuing to demand money due from the Club World Cup

• the Jordanian football federation also demanding owed money

• Portugal legend Luís Figo calling for his head

• heads of government publicly abandoning him

The Sports and Crime Briefing dives into Gianni Infantino’s week from hell.

FIFA’s confession is that it got caught

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The FIFA president accused journalists and other detractors of having been “consumed by hate and criticism” during the World Cup. Those sitting “behind their pens”, he wrote, had spread false rumours while FIFA worked on the front lines to deliver the tournament. He reduced the relationship between FIFA and its critics to five words: “While you divide, we unite.”

Forty-eight hours later, FIFA asked those same critics, and the football world, to absorb a proposal that would fundamentally change how the sport is financed.

FIFA plans to create a new commercial company called FIFA Forward Enterprise, or FFE. The company would combine FIFA’s broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing rights with the operational delivery of its tournaments across men’s, women’s and youth football.

Private investors would be invited to buy minority interests. FIFA hopes to raise up to $4.2 billion on an initial equity valuation of $20 billion, meaning that outside investors could collectively acquire roughly one-fifth of the business.

Infantino described FFE as a “focused, dedicated business” whose value would be shared more widely across the game. The money raised would finance a new programme offering each of FIFA’s 211 member associations up to $20 million for major development projects. Infantino called it the “democratisation of football”.

Incidentally, Infantino stands to benefit colossally from this new arrangement, according to the Times, as he could become a chief executive of FFE, placing him in a commissioner-type role for world football once his term as FIFA president expires.

And the announced lead investor in this scheme is Joshua Kushner, brother to Jared, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump.

UEFA responded that the proposal “crosses a line”, pointing to the absence of transparency over who ultimately benefits.

The Sports and Crime Briefing breaks down the numbers and what they mean.

Takeaway 1: FIFA Is Selling Part of Its Commercial Future

FIFA is not offering investors shares in FIFA itself.

It is constituted as a Swiss association, governed through its member associations rather than conventional shareholders. FFE would be a separate company, initially owned and controlled by FIFA.

FFE would bring together FIFA’s commercial rights, including broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing, with the delivery of tournaments across men’s, women’s and youth football.

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Russian athletes can now qualify for the Los Angeles 2028 Games on a full national team. FIFA is considering doing the same thing.

Now, Russia’s suspension had nothing to do with doping.Russia was banned in 2023 for annexing Ukrainian sports organisations in occupied territory. According to the IOC, Russia has given up gave up its claim to those bodies and therefore, the IOC’s lawyers concluded the grounds for suspension were gone.

The Sports and Crime Briefing has previously revealed how egregious this is and the amount of death and destruction wrought upon Ukrainian athletes by Russian violence.

But Russia’s older problem, generations of a state-backed doping program, remains open. The IOC even said as much in its decision to reinstate Russia.

“To address the lack of confidence in the global sporting community relating to the return of Russian athletes to international competition and in view of the recent allegations regarding the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA)’s governance, and pending confirmation that reinstatement conditions concerning the World Anti-Doping Code have been met, all Russian athletes returning to international competition must meet relevant anti-doping requirements,” it read.

What are the allegations concerning RUSADA’s governance?

Those allegations concern Veronika Loginova, RUSADA’s director general, who is under two investigations by WADA, the global anti-doping watchdog.

In April, Insider reported that her long-term partner is a serving FSB colonel, Dmitry Kovalov, the very officer Russia’s security service assigns to defend its accused dopers in the Swiss courts.

Jens Weinreich’s Sport & Politics newsletter then tracked that the FSB unit running Russia’s Olympic doping operations also runs its political hit squads, including the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.

Loginova has been neither charged nor sanctioned, and nothing has been proven.

But her situation raises a more basic question than her own conduct: in the ten years since Russia’s doping exile began, has its anti-doping system improved at all?

There are four ways to check.

1. Did Russia ever hand over the evidence?

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FIFA ruled that Balogun’s automatic one-match suspension would be suspended for a one-year probationary period, clearing him to play in the United States’ World Cup Round of 16 match against Belgium. UEFA responded by accusing FIFA of going beyond a routine disciplinary judgment and undermining the authority of referees.

“Yesterday’s decision to suspend for a probationary period of a year the implementation of the one-match automatic suspension following the red card issued to the player Folarin Balogun crossed a red line,” UEFA said in a statement.

Belgium called the decision similar to April Fool’s. It then lodged a formal appeal within hours, claiming that FIFA had interfered in the integrity of the competition, perhaps at the behest of US Pr…

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The video used the captain of Manchester United to lead punters most to a banned betting site.

It was the most polished example of a world of online disinformation that has dogged Portugal.

During the World Cup, after Cristiano Ronaldo put in a poor performance against DR Congo, a forged screenshot showed a demand from João Neves’ partner, the actress Madalena Aragão, that Ronaldo should retire. It was convincing enough to draw a public reply from Ronaldo’s fiancée before it was dismissed.

An ambiguous quote from Neves about Ronaldo was rewritten online into a dressing-room mutiny the players spent days denying.

Can this be stopped given the level of fan support for the World Cup?

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There was the sitting president of the United States who had quietly bought stock in the UFC’s parent company while promoting the event. There was the federal lawsuit that tried and failed to halt the whole thing as “deeply corrupt”. There was the absence of any athletic commission willing to sanction the fights. There was a security bill of over 10 million USD the White House insisted cost the taxpayer nothing.

We were wrong. The full scale of the insanity did not reveal itself until the event itself.

On the night, a UFC commentator posted and hurriedly deleted screenshots that appeared to show Eric Trump asking him whether the fights were rigged. A victorious heavyweight used his live post-fight interview to inform the nation that Michelle Obama is a man.

A bonus for winning fighters would be paid in Trump’s own cryptocurrency. UFC fighter Sean Strickland was swarmed at the public fan festival and carried off by a multi-agency federal detail to chants of “USA”. And Alex Pereira had assured his followers that he had communed with nature and that it would therefore not rain.

Brace for the Sports and Crime Briefing’s takeways and why the UFC’s White House event was rather more worrying than weird.

Whose money were the fighters actually paid in?

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The decision lifts all restrictions on Belarusian or Russian athletes, except for standard anti-doping controls and background checks. World Aquatics President Husain Al Musallam said that “pools and open water remain places where athletes from all nations can come together in peaceful competition.”

The timing was inconvenient. Ukraine was supposed to face Russia in a Water Polo World Cup Division 2 seventh-place match the same day in Malta.

The Ukrainian water polo team refused to play in protest, resulting in a 5-0 default win for Russia.

The World Aquatics decision provoked immediate outrage from Ukrainian athletes, but it was not a surprise.

Russia’s gradual reinstatement into world sport is the logical terminus of a process running since at least the autumn of 20…

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When he became president of Congo-Brazzaville's football federation in 2018, he brought those skills with him. They led to sadly predictably results.

Mayolas has been sentenced to life imprisonment, in absentia. Interpol is hot on his heels France's financial intelligence unit is unpicking the wreckage.

Corrupt football federation presidents are a dime a dozen these days, but the Mayolas case is the most dramatic criminal prosecution of a sitting football chief we’ve seen for a while.

So who exactly is he, and how did he get this far?

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After scoring the goal, Amoura celebrated by mimicking a stiff, upright pose—a move that has been interpreted as mocking Michel Nkuka Mboladinga, a well-known DR Congo superfan known for standing motionless at matches. His pose is an homage to Patrice Lumumba, the former Congolese Prime Minister and independence hero assassinated in 1961.

This post is a guest piece by Karim Zidan, who runs my favourite sports newsletter, Sports Politika. I warmly encourage you to subscribe and support Karim’s work, as he continues to reveal the …

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The evidence, delivered to the New York State Gaming Commission (NYSGC) in 2023, identified approximately 280 trainers and owners who had purchased illicit substances from convicted veterinarian Seth Fishman, the central supplier in the largest horse-doping conspiracy ever prosecuted in the United States.

Read the full New York Focus investigation that broke this scandal here.

Despite receiving the material, the Commission did not initiate any disciplinary measure against those identified for more than two years. Trainers named in the FBI records continued to compete at New York venues, including Aqueduct, Belmont Park, Saratoga, and Yonkers Raceway, accumulating massive prize winnings during that period.

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Behind the walls of the affluent Buenos Aires suburb, investigators discovered a private heliport, stables housing Arabian thoroughbreds, and a climate-controlled garage sheltering fifty-four vehicles: Ferraris, Porsches, an Audi R8, and a collection of vintage automobiles.

The property's registered owners were Luciano Nicolás Pantano, a mid-level football administrator, and his retired mother. Their combined legal income could not have purchased a single Ferrari.

The raid came six months before Argentina defend their title at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It represents the most active phase of a corruption investigation that prosecutors say involves more than $550 million laundered through Argentine football.

This all began with Twitter accusation by retired star striker Carlos Tevez.

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In the recordings, senior club officials discuss using a presidential luxury box at Morumbi Stadium to sell Shakira concert tickets off the books, openly acknowledging that the arrangement was clandestine and in violation of the club’s rules.

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But in October 2025, FIFA appointed the man who will design the process by which future Peace Prize winners will be selected.

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Filed in the Southern District of New York, the two cases, U.S. v. Aiello and U.S. v. Earnest, charge nearly two dozen individuals in a web of high-tech poker fraud, illegal sports betting, and financial crime.

Headlines seized on the celebrity aspect: the involvement of four of the New York Five Families, and the roles played by three NBA athletes and coaches. Miami Heat star Terry Rozier allegedly faked an injury to hit “under” bets on his own stats, former NBA champion Chauncey Billups was linked to the rigged poker ring, and former assistant coach Damon Jones allegedly supplied insider injury information.

But the court filings, running over 100 pages between them, reveal a far more sophisticated picture.

These are the five things you may have missed.

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Predrag Bošković (53), one of the most influential officials in the sport, who has already held several ministerial posts in his home country, was arrested in Podgorica and faces allegations of being a member of a criminal organisation.

This article was first published in The Inquisitor Magazine by Jens Weinreich. Please read and subscribe to his excellent work on sports and politics here.

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Clubs and academies were starving for funding, visibility, and international exposure for their young talents. Success stories like that of Yankuba Minteh at Brighton are few and far between.

Afriskaut’s pitch was compelling: sophisticated data analytics, high-quality video scouting reports, and a bridge to top-tier European clubs.

But beneath Afriskaut’s shiny presentation and glowing success stories from Nigeria, such as the lucrative transfer of Nigerian talent Victor Orakpo to OGC Nice, troubling elements soon emerged, eventually leading to accusations of exploitation.

This story is part of a broader collaborative investigation by Kicker, The Sports and Crime Briefing, and Público, uncovering the global system enabling the exploitation and trafficking of young African footballers. This project was carried out with support from Journalismfund Europe.

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On September 9, the club was hit with its third sanction in under 18 months, despite a recent legal victory over UEFA over the same issue. UEFA fined Brann around 207,000 Norwegian kroner (€17,625) for incidents which took place during an August Europa League qualifier.

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