In 2018, according to documents seen by Josimar, the African Football Confederation (Caf) entered a ten year long sponsorship deal worth close to 60 million euro with controversial online bookmaker 1XBet. But Caf is now “re-evaluating” its business relationship with 1XBet, in a move that could cost millions for the cash-strapped confederation.
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The sponsor of Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, 1XBet, was declared bankrupt this week. But the bookmaker is still signing new deals with several actors in international football.
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In December Molde sold Datro David Fofana to Chelsea for a reported 13 million euro, a new record for a transfer from a Norwegian club. But was Fofana Molde’s player? Or did the club steal the attacker from his Ivorian club Abidjan City FC?
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Low level club friendlies remain at greater risk of match fixing but football’s international governing bodies are doing little or nothing to try and regulate what are essentially privately organised fixtures with no integrity safeguarding.
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Mohamed works as a security guard at a World Cup stadium. He has not been able to sleep for days – the stress and the anxiety getting to him. He wants to return to Dhaka as soon as possible.
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They haven’t been paid salaries for the last two months. Meet two African security guards that work for a company that has several Fifa and World Cup assignments during the tournament in Qatar.
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Multi club-ownership (MCO) might make sense as a corporate strategy for Middle Eastern sportswashers or private equity raiders but for just about everyone else, the concept of gobbling up football clubs into one amorphous group does not.
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Politicians, leading academics and international trade unions have praised Qatar for its reforms since they were given the hosting rights to the 2022 World Cup in 2010, following a corrupt process. But how are things really on the ground?
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Russian-owned betting company 1XBet has been declared bankrupt and owes millions. Yet it still operates, using porn stars to attract punters, and is a partner of FC Barcelona. It expanded into Ukraine, but was recently banned for its support of Putin’s war machine.
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A company directly and heavily involved with the World Cup in Qatar, with thousands of employees, is blackmailing its workers.
No salary and no food. David, 17, and Paul, 18, worked as security guards during the World Cup, but are now left without a job and accommodation.
In the shadow of the vast gold-clad bowl Lusail stadium, the World Cup’s 1 billion-dollar centrepiece venue resembling the ark of Noah, Joseph sums up his existence, his fate tied to that of the World Cup: “No one sees us.”
According to Fifa, Qatar 2022 is to be the ‘greenest of all World Cups’. But independent reports show that far from being the first carbon-neutral global sports competition in sports history, as promised by Fifa president Gianni Infantino, the forthcoming World Cup will be the dirtiest ever staged.
President of the French olympic committee (CNOSF), Brigitte Henriques, is accused of not taking action towards sexual abuse during her time as head of women’s football and vice president of the FFF. Josimar can reveal that she openly supported a senior officer convicted for sexual harassment.