Every year, the latest edition of the FIFA franchise promises spectacular changes, but, apart from minor adjustments here and there, the football simulator remains largely unchanged. FIFA 17 is looking to shatter that precedent by rolling out an abundance of changes this year — none bigger than the highly publicized switch to the Frostbite game engine.
Last weekend, the discovery of a serious match-fixing scandal has made Portuguese football a hot topic in crime pages in newspapers around the world.
Unfortunately this is not an isolated case, over the years, match-fixing scandals have dramatically grown.
Soccer is facing more suspicion than it ever has before, and that suspicion is driven by the possibility of a multibillion-dollar web of match-fixing that is corrupting the game.
Argentina will play in the Copa America Centenario despite earlier claims that a government investigation could cause the AFA to pull out of the competition. In a press conference on Tuesday following an emergency meeting of the AFA executive board, president Luis Segura said there was no possibility of Argentina being forced to miss the tournament.
Interim FIFA general secretary Markus Kattner has been fired for receiving lots and lots of money in secret bonuses.
For the previous 13 years, Kattner had served as FIFA's finance director, so he was in a perfect position to give himself a little extra million or several under the table.
FIFA's announcement was, um, succinct:
The implementation of Video Assistant Referees has divided a good portion of the football-watching public.
There are many who think that video technology is a necessity given the high-stakes nature of the game these days and that simply leaving potential game-changing calls to the referee and his assistants allows for too many mistakes and controversial decisions.
Gianni Infantino, we knew this would happen. We just didn't know it would be this soon. Infantino reportedly is trying to roll back some of the major reforms FIFA enacted when Infantino entered office back in February. This has reportedly caused Domenico Scala, formerly FIFA's audit and compliance chief, to resign in protest.
After the ousting of three different CONCACAF presidents on charges of corruption, bribery and money-laundering, the region has begun the slow process of recovery behind a newly elected leader, Canadian Victor Montagliani.
Key to FIFA reestablishing its reputation, as well as remedying the fall-out from the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, is to establish a World Cup bidding process that is both transparent and sensible.
Luis Suarez’s blatant handball from the 2010 World Cup continues to be a subject of debate amongst soccer’s lawmakers. Suarez committed the offense in the closing stages of a quarter-final match against Ghana, giving Uruguay the slightest hopes of staving off elimination.
Asamoah Gyan sent the resulting penalty over the bar for Ghana, and Uruguay went through to the semis after a shoot-out victory. The International Football Association Board (IFAB) is now looking into ways to prevent that situation from ever occurring again.
The odds your coach wants you trying a 30 yard bicycle kick in a game are probably 0. But Javi Gomez doesn't care what manager Ángel García Cabezali thinks, and that's a good thing because the UD Socuéllamos player scored the bicycle kick that could potentially land him on the Puskas list. Gomez chested a deep pass into the air before exectuing a perfect chilena past an out of position keeper. There isn't really much else to say about this goal because it's perfect. Just watch it from this different angle:
According to an investigation undertaken by ESPN, Liga MX clubs may have broken the same FIFA rules that got Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid slapped with transfer bans.
The investigation found Liga MX clubs may have breached Article 19 of FIFA's Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. Article 19 deals with players under 18 years old leaving clubs in their home countries for clubs in other countries.
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