Quote of the week
Gianni Infantino on this month’s Fifa trials in the US: “These are cases of the past. These things couldn’t happen again.” Infantino, who sacked the ethics team investigating him in May, told media: “We used to be a toxic brand … Now we’re more transparent.”
Meanwhile: best timing
27 Oct: Infantino praises India’s FA head Praful Patel for introducing Fifa “values” to Indian football: “I have a feeling that India is now a football country.”
31 Oct: Patel barred from office by Delhi’s high court over alleged electoral irregularities. He denies wrongdoing.
Most misunderstood
Ex-Cayman Islands FA general secretary Costas Takkas – jailed for 15 months for laundering Fifa bribes, despite his lawyer defending him as “a little bit of a Peter Pan. A kind, sweet, gentle, honourable man.” Takkas told court: “It’s not in my nature to cause harm. I love the game of football.”
• Among Takkas’s moves: trying to disguise a bribe payment to former Concacaf head Jeffrey Webb by buying him a swimming pool “as a wedding present”. Webb – who hosted a pool-side Harlem Renaissance-themed blackjack party at the mansion soon after pleading guilty in 2016 – is due for sentencing next year.
Other news: advice of the week
Lazio communications head Arturo Diaconale – still upset by press exaggerating fans’ antisemitism “in order to hurt the club”: “They are using the Holocaust for low ends, and this cannot be acceptable. This ought to be the biggest problem for the Jewish community.”
• Diaconale’s key message last week – a call for respect for the victims: “There are three parties hurt by this episode: the Lazio president, who was presented in the worst light by a bitter media, the club that lost money because it is floated on the stock exchange, and the fans who, due to this witch hunt, are depicted as being racist.”
• Also reflecting on last month’s events: Lazio president Claudio Lotito, telling live TV about his bridge-building visit to a Jewish “mosque”; and Torino manager and ex-Lazio player Sinisa Mihajlovic: “Who is Anne Frank? I don’t know who she is. I’m a bit ignorant on that.”
Campaign of the week
Spain: La Liga head Javier Tebas, renewing his call on Uefa to sanction PSG for “state-backed financial cheating”. Tebas – who called last year’s EU action against La Liga clubs receiving illegal state aid “incredible nonsense” – says PSG are “like cyclists who dope … If we let cheats compete, it hurts the rest.”
Biggest turn-up
2014: Massimo Cellino passes a fit and proper test to buy Leeds, 12 months after an Italian arrest warrant called him a man of “marked criminal tendencies, capable of using every kind of deception to achieve his ends”. 2017: Cellino fined £100,000 for “deceiving the FA” with a “sham scouting agreement to cover up irregular payments” – then “lying in his oral and written evidence”.
Coolest head
23 October: Sunderland chief executive Martin Bain, urging fans to lay off Simon Grayson: “I look at my calendar and I see it’s only October. We’re in October, there’s a long way to go.” 31 October: Sacks him.
• Giving Bain a lift last week amid mounting criticism from fans: the Football Business Awards night in London:
Football Biz Awards
(@footiebizawards)Congratulations winners of Best Fan Engagement by a Club @SunderlandAFC pic.twitter.com/GU36IspNSs
Also making moves
Germany, 18 Oct: Werder Bremen chairman Marco Bode: “Yes, we’re in a difficult situation, there’s no denying that – but there’s total conviction here that Alex Nouri will get us out of it. The board is unanimous. We trust him.” 30 Oct: They sack him.
Brazil, 20 Oct: Santos president Modesto Roma Júnior attacks “made up” reports about his plan to sack coach Levir Culpi. “These are reports about a situation that simply doesn’t exist. We’re united at this club. You could say that here in this bacon omelette of ours, everyone is pork, and nobody is chicken. In a bacon omelette, the chicken may be in there somewhere, but the pork is essential. At Santos, everyone is essential.” His broader view: “People should know I only ever do what is best for the club. Not what is best for me, or what I can do to please public opinion. I only do what’s best for the club.” 29 Oct: Sacks him.
Setback of the week
UAE: Al-Wasl forward Fabio Lima, upset after being fined and banned for “doing a penguin impression”. FA officials ruled the dance was an “offensive” reference to rivals Al-Nasr’s unwanted “Penguins” nickname – derived from the plastic penguins at nearby Al-Nasr Leisureland. Lima told local media: “I don’t want any trouble, I didn’t mean to offend. I love the UAE. Everything here is beautiful.”
Plus: most focused
Mexico: Club América coach Miguel “The Louse” Herrera, facing sanctions for “a finger gesture” at Monterrey fans who mocked him: “Why do the FA need to ‘investigate’? There’s not much to investigate. I did it.” Herrera – also starring this month in Mexican TV soap opera I Plead Guilty – denied he was too easily distracted. “I’m a professional. You should never lose your focus.”
I Plead Guilty