Qatar

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have withdrawn from the Gulf Cup of Nations football tournament amid their ongoing diplomatic dispute with host country, Qatar.

Julio Grondona, formerly a long-serving senior Fifa executive and president of the Argentinian Football Association (AFA), took at least $1m (€863,000) in bribes to vote for Qatar as host of the 2022 World Cup, according to Alejandro Burzaco, former chief executive of Argentinian media group and sports-rights agency Torneos.

The International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of the United Nations, has today (Wednesday) opted to close a complaint by workers over conditions in 2022 Fifa World Cup host nation Qatar.

Organisers of the Gulf Cup of Nations have given Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain until November 13 to decide on whether they will compete in the national team football tournament amid their ongoing diplomatic dispute with host country, Qatar.

The war of words in the Middle East over Qatar’s staging of the 2022 Fifa World Cup has continued with Doha describing desperate and “weak” calls from a senior United Arab Emirates politician for the hosting rights to the national team football tournament to be dependent on the country rejecting “extremism and terrorism”.

The Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) has today (Wednesday) unveiled a new brand and strategy as part of a “transformational” vision to support the future development of sport in the country.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, the organising body of the 2022 Fifa World Cup national team football tournament in Qatar, has revealed the design for its latest venue, the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha.

Sebastian Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), has maintained that Doha will host the 2019 World Athletics Championships after comments from Ed Warner, chairman of the London 2017 Championships, that the decision to stage the next edition of the event in Qatar was a “really strange choice”.

Fifa, the global governing body of football, has moved to deny a fake news report claiming that a group of Arab nations had requested that it strip the 2022 World Cup from Qatar.

Fifa, football’s global governing body, has released the full report by former ethics investigator Michael Garcia into the controversial bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which will be hosted by Russia and Qatar respectively.

Allegations surrounding Qatar’s successful bid to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup have been published by German newspaper Bild, which claims to have obtained the “suppressed” 2014 report by investigator Michael Garcia into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

The organising committee for Qatar’s staging of football’s Fifa World Cup in 2022 has dismissed suggestions that the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Gulf state will have a detrimental impact on preparations for the event.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino believes that Qatar’s hosting of football’s 2022 World Cup will not be scuppered by the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Middle East.

World football’s governing body Fifa has said it is in “regular contact” with the local organising bodies for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar as the diplomatic crisis involving the Gulf state raises questions over the status of the many sporting events it hosts.

The International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) is to lay off a significant portion of its staff due to budget cuts.

The Appeal Committee of world football’s governing body Fifa has moved to overturn the one-year ban imposed on Qatari official Saoud Al-Mohannadi by the adjudicatory chamber of its Ethics Committee after deciding that insufficient evidence was present in the case.