Former England national team coach Roy Hodgson has been "seconded to Australia in an advisory role to assist A-League club Melbourne City but the 69-year-old is not under consideration for the coaching role filled by caretaker Michael Valkanis." Hodgson is instead "spending time with coaches and leaders at the club in the hope he can share experiences gained over his 40-year long coaching career." A friendship with City Football Group exec Brian Marwood "led to the move" (AAP, 4/6).
Former FIFA VP Chung Mong-joon said that he is "taking his fight against a lengthy ban" from football to the Court of Arbitration for Sport as part of a "decades-long battle to reform the game's governing body." The South Korean's bid to replace Sepp Blatter as FIFA president was "torpedoed" in '15 when the governing body banned him from all football-related activities for six years and fined him 100,000 Swiss francs following a probe into corruption. Chung, a billionaire "scion" of South Korea's Hyundai industrial conglomerate, "denied all wrongdoing" and vowed to take the case to sport's highest tribunal but had to wait to receive a "reasoned decision" from FIFA, which arrived last month (REUTERS, 4/5).
UEFA expanded its video gaming commercial category into three parts, "taking account of the growth opportunities in the video gaming and exploding esports sector." A tender for proposals has been "issued for separate club and national team rights" for: official football simulation game and associated esports rights, official football management games and football-related casual games and associated esports rights (INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL, 4/6).
FIFA announced that Qatari and Asian football official Saoud al-Mohannadi won an appeal against a one-year ban that "prevented him from standing for a place on the FIFA Council." Al-Mohannadi, a VP of the Asian Football Confederation and Qatar FA, "was banned by FIFA's ethics watchdog in November for failing to cooperate as a witness in an investigation." FIFA's Appeal Committee said in a statement that there was "insufficient evidence to establish that al-Mohannadi had violated the code of ethics" (REUTERS, 4/6).
