President to begin his term in Wales
NEW FIFA president Gianni Infantino will make his first overseas trip as leader of world football to Cardiff to approve the biggest changes in the laws of the game for nearly 135 years.
Next weekend Wales will host the annual summit of the International Football Association Board, who govern the laws of football which have been revised and refined from a 22,000-word document to one of 12,000 over the last 18 months.
Former top referee David Elleray, responsible for the significant changes, hopes the simplified rules will no longer be open to interpretation and has kept the language as clear as possible. The new laws — to come into effect at Euro 2016 — include the ball not needing to go forward at kick-off, equal numbers of penalty takers even if a player is sent off during a shootout to avoid an unfair advantage, and allowing players to receive treatment on the field if it follows a foul resulting in a booking.
Elleray’s law revision puts him back in the spotlight for the first time since he was ordered by the FA to take diversity and equality training after the referee grandee, who sits on FA, UEFA and FIFA refereeing committees, made a racist comment about a colleague. THE Premier League , having completed their £8.3billion TV rights haul, will be sitting down soon with the PFA to discuss the players’ union cut. Ever since PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor (right) threatened to bring the players out on strike in 2001 before securing TV terms, the PFA have received so much money from the PL they can afford to pay Taylor over £1million a year and were able to reward him with a £2m long-service bonus in 2014. Surely the PFA — given the massive salaries paid to the leading players — should be self-sufficient. At least the Premier League say they will be raising their corporate governance expectations from the PFA and will want greater accountability on how the union’s TV money is spent. ONLY at the FIFA Congress could five per cent of the 207 voters — while testing the voting electronic equipment — press ‘no option’ when asked the question whether the next World Cup will take place in Russia.
There has surprisingly been no police activity during the Congress but UEFA and FIFA executive member Marios Lefkaritis, linked with the alleged sale of land in Cyprus to the Qatar sovereign wealth fund for £27m, left Zurich before the Congress because of a friend’s illness. IT IS hoped that Bahraini Sheik Salman’s candidacy in the FIFA presidential election will focus more attention on the scandal of former Leeds managing director David Haigh still being imprisoned in Dubai two years after being lured to the UAE on false pretences. Haigh had worked for GFH Capital, a subsidiary of Gulf Finance House, a Bahrain-based investment bank to whom former Leeds owner Ken Bates sold Leeds. Bates, who was led to believe the Bahrainis had the wealth to make Leeds successful again, is among those keen to know just how much knowledge Salman has about Gulf Finance House’s dealings and Haigh’s long imprisonment.