FIFA President Gianni Infantino "has expressed his concerns over third-party ownership" and hinted that the sport's global governing body "may need to adopt fresh measures to weed out the issue," according to Shravanth Vijayakumar of REUTERS. Sam Allardyce was sacked as England manager after 67 days in charge "when he was filmed making comments about how rules banning transfers involving third-party ownership could be circumnavigated." Infantino: "First of all, I was very surprised. Then I felt very sad because when stories like this come out with regard to misconduct, money flows and so on, it's not good for football." The London Telegraph "unearthed another crisis when eight current and former Premier League managers were accused" of receiving "bungs" for player transfers. Infantino: "When you hear that this is only the tip of the iceberg and there is maybe more to come then this is maybe more worrying. Before taking any final judgement, we have to wait for the investigation by the (English) FA" (REUTERS, 10/10).
'MEDIA BRIEFING': AS reported despite speaking on Thursday "about removing controversy" and increased transparency, Infantino and his communications team "have done away with the globally streamed structured press conference," instead opting for what seems like a cozier "media briefing" for journalists in Zurich which can be watched online. Next week sees the new 36-member ruling Council "come together for their first meeting and the more structured press conference would have helped with the goals being spoken about" to be more open with "so many hot topics" to discuss. As well as the future World Cup bidding, the agenda also includes, among other topics, the proposed increase in teams participating, Russia 2018 regulations and the decision to abandon FIFA's anti-discrimination Task Force which "many have struggled to fully understand" (AS, 10/8).
