My attention was caught t’other day by a piece in the paper headlined ‘World Cup: Ten Talking Points From The Midweek Friendlies’.

Ex-UEFA president Michel Platini has attacked the "clowns" and "worthless judges" who have banned him from football and told a French magazine that he will eventually be cleared of any criminal wrongdoing.

Diego Maradona's retelling of Argentina's 1986 World Cup victory is a quixotic joy, writes Noel Baker

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has accused his replacement Gianni Infantino of disrespecting him.

Blatter claims €2m payment to Platini was the repayment of a debt.

FAI chief John Delaney and Ireland team manager Martin O’Neill were among the mourners yesterday at the funeral Mass for Milo Corcoran, a former FAI president who leaves “many, many legacies”.

Michel Platini will resign as Uefa president after failing to overturn his ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which cut his sanction from six to four years.

For most of his 17 years at the helm of Fifa, Sepp Blatter travelled the world to be feted like a head of state, with VIP treatment for his private jet, police escorts to whisk his limousine to the best hotel in town, and gala banquets in his honour.

Sepp Blatter, the dethroned Fifa president, is preparing to publish a personal account of his near 18 years at the head of football’s world governing body.

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are expected to have their respective eight-year suspensions from all football-related activity upheld this week as FIFA delegates prepare to gather in Zurich to elect a new leader.

The Après Match crew are hitting the road with a new live show that mixes harmless footie fun with skewering satire, writes Richard Fitzpatrick

Sepp Blatter’s 40-year Fifa reign came to a humiliating end as he and Michel Platini, the two most powerful men in world football, were banned for eight years by Fifa’s ethics committee for abusing their positions yesterday.

We express our best instincts and hopes — the worst too — through many mediums but few represent the human spirit and human frailty as brightly or as loudly as sport. 

Fifa’s ethics court is expected to ban Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini, the scandal-scarred football body’s most powerful leaders, today.

The Football Association would find it “difficult” to support Michel Platini even if he is cleared by Fifa’s ethics committee this week over the €1.8m payment he received from the world governing body.

Sepp Blatter has written to Fifa’s 209 member associations protesting his innocence and criticising Fifa’s ethics committee for being “tendentious and dangerous” ahead of disciplinary hearings later this week.

Fifa vice president Juan Angel Napout has agreed to be extradited to the US to face charges in the football bribery investigation.

FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee is continuing to study the secret €5m agreement between FIFA and the FAI, and could yet open a formal investigation into the affair.

At an extraordinary session in Zurich last Tuesday, the Fifa Executive Committee appointed Spanish FA president Angel Maria Villar Llona as acting chairman of the Organising Committee for the Fifa World Cup 2018.

Sepp Blatter has claimed a £1.35m (€2m) payment to Michel Platini which has seen the pair provisionally suspended by Fifa’s ethics committee was part of a “gentleman’s agreement” between the two of them.

Uefa’s members remain split over their support for Michel Platini with some associations backing an alternative candidate such as Holland’s Michael van Praag be put forward for the Fifa presidential election.

It was the France of Platini, Giresse, and Tigana that mesmerised us first. Between 1982 and 1986, that generation of French footballers bewitched and bewildered those of us already hopelessly in love with the game of football. The only time most of us were caught on the fence was when they faced Brazil.

ENGLISH FA chairman Greg Dyke has said for the first time that the governing body will drop its backing for Michel Platini if FIFA’s ethics committee finds he behaved improperly.

The Football Association is standing by its decision to back Michel Platini for the Fifa presidency for the time being at least but says there are issues which need to be “fully examined”.

Disgraced former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner has claimed there is no coincidence that his lifetime ban has been announced at the same time that Sepp Blatter is engulfed by a storm of controversy.

Michel Platini has confirmed a £1.3m (€1.75m) payment from Fifa came more than nine years after he worked for the organisation but did not provide the reasons for the lengthy delay.

Swiss prosecutors yesterday opened criminal proceedings against Fifa president Sepp Blatter and questioned Uefa president Michel Platini on another momentous day at football’s world governing body.

Prince Ali of Jordan has announced he will run again for the Fifa presidency next year and threw down the gauntlet to his rivals, including Michel Platini, by claiming they “didn’t have the guts” to challenge Sepp Blatter.

One of the most exquisitely gifted football players of his generation, Fifa presidential candidate Michel Platini likes to portray himself as an old-fashioned romantic with a mission to maintain the game’s purity.

Sepp Blatter yesterday brushed off a stunt by an English comedian to categorically state he will not stand in next year’s Fifa presidential election — and sent a ‘good luck’ message to Michel Platini, the man who is favourite to succeed him.

Qatar World Cup organisers insist the crisis at FIFA will not affect their preparations for the tournament in 2022.

There were cheers in Abbotstown yesterday evening with FAI chief executive John Delaney describing events at Fifa headquarters in Zurich as a “good day for football”.

FAI boss John Delaney does not support calls for a World Cup boycott following Sepp Blatter’s re-election as Fifa president.

The corruption charges engulfing soccer’s governing body have heaped shame and humiliation on the game, Fifa president Sepp Blatter said yesterday, although he flatly rejected calls to resign over the scandal.

Football appears to be at a crossroads today as Sepp Blatter remains defiant in the face of a threatened revolution from Uefa as the shockwaves from Fifa’s “seismic” corruption scandal continued to rock the global game.