Pop quiz. Who is in charge of the laws of the game of association football? If you said FIFA, you would be wrong. It is in fact the International Football Association Board (“IFAB”) which determines the rules of the world’s most popular sport and has done since its formation in 1886. FIFA, which was not … Continue Reading
English fans of Spanish football may have been disappointed this weekend not to find El Clásico, the match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, in their TV guides. The match kicked off at 3:15pm UK time and finished 1 – 1, with honours even, but was not shown on English television. While El Clásico represents one … Continue Reading
On 2 November 2016, Sports Shorts wrote about the English and Scottish Football Associations’ request for their players to wear armbands featuring poppies. On Friday, the two teams ignored FIFA’s guidance and decided to play with the armband anyway. Our blog post on this issue noted the thorny intersection between sports and politics and the … Continue Reading
On Friday 21 October 2016, the Association of European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) announced that it was terminating its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with UEFA as a result of changes being made to the qualifying system for both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League for three seasons from 2018/2019 onward. The EPFL … Continue Reading
Sports Shorts recently blogged about Michel Platini, the disgraced former FIFA Vice-President and UEFA President, being granted permission to speak at the UEFA Congress on 14 September 2016. Permission was granted by FIFA’s Ethics Committee, the same body that investigated Platini for taking a 2 million Swiss franc payment from FIFA in 2011 and recommended … Continue Reading
