UEFA said that "it is considering action against players and officials of Latvia’s Daugava Daugavpils team after arrests this week following allegations of match-fixing." The team, an undisclosed number of players and the club president "face disciplinary proceedings after several arrests in Latvia." The allegations "involve Daugava’s 7-1 loss in its first Champions League qualifying match against Sweden’s IF Elfsborg in July 2013." The Latvian squad "lost the second match 4-0 at home." UEFA said that "its betting-fraud detection system found irregular gambling on the game, and an investigation by Latvian authorities lead to arrests in the case" (BLOOMBERG, 10/24). ... Leading FIFA anti-racism campaigner Piara Powar "has warned that an African team may walk off the field at Russia’s 2018 World Cup if nothing is done about the country’s racism problem." The prediction came as CSKA Moscow learned that it will" not face action despite a flagrant flouting of a fan ban imposed at Tuesday’s Champions League tie with Manchester City because of home supporters’ persistent racist abuse." Piara "stopped short of calling for Russia to be stripped of hosting the 2018 World Cup." Powar: "I think the time has come for President Putin and also for the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, to come out publicly and say enough is enough. This has got to stop. ... It is an absolute possibility (in '18) that we will have a strong, confident African team that will say, 'We are not taking this, we are leaving regardless of what is at stake -- this issue is bigger than this match'" (REUTERS, 10/26). ... No one involved in FIFA’s attempt at a box-office blockbuster, United Passions, "should be winning awards any time soon." Yet at a cost of £20M ($32M), someone, somewhere, "obviously thought documenting Fifa’s apparent progress through the 20th century over one hour and 45 minutes was a good idea." FIFA contributed almost £17M ($27M) toward the film which, as many critics have pointed out, "equals the annual budget for its Goal programme to fund football projects in poorer countries" (London GUARDIAN, 10/25).
