Fenerbahce – Declan Hill – Investigative Journalist & Academic

17MayMay 17, 2016

2 Farces, Turkish Nightmare & Infantino’s Blatter-Lite FIFA

It was not a good week for sport. The Turkish nightmare continues. There are strange doings, as usual, in Singapore and Qatar. However, the big story is that Gianni Infantino's FIFA has now become a Blatter-Lite FIFA: the same organisation, only with better table manners for the media. The key issue is the resignation of Domenico Scala as the Head of the Audit and Compliance Committee. He quit FIFA as Infantino pushed through a measure that would have allowed the FIFA Executive Committee...

Murdered Bikers, IOC/FIFA and Dead Men Walking

The links between organized crime bike gangs and the IOC/FIFA Okay, everyone calm down. This blog is not about Thomas Bach’s previously unknown (and utterly fictional) history as a Hells Angels member or Sepp Blatter’s non-role as a Bandido drug enforcer. Rather it is about the reason why those nine motorcycle gang members were murdered in Waco, Texas and how it is linked to a key issue around international sports organizations. Brand protection. The superficial reason for the killings last weekend was...

The Wrong People using the Wrong Tools in the Wrong Way

It is a tale of two reports. The first was released last month by the investigators of the Cycling International Report Commission (CIRI). They examined the actions of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) who govern elite cycling. Their report is a review of the colossal failure of anti-doping efforts in cycling over the last twenty-years. This failure came about despite tens-of-millions of dollars being spent on anti-doping and the deaths of a number of riders. The former cyclist Nicole Cooke brilliantly described...