The book ’Foul!’ draws a depressing picture of the decay taking place outside the fields in the world’s most popular sport, writes sports editor Søren-Mikael Hansen in a review of Andrew Jennings’ new book.

In the face of strong resistance from FIFA, investigative reporter Andrew Jennings published his book ‘Foul!’ on wrong-doings in soccer’s international governing body in May 2006. In this extract from the book’s chapter one, Andrew Jennings introduces the theme of bribery with a vivid description of a confrontation between himself and FIFA president Blatter at a press conference.

Since Nigeria failed to qualify for the World Cup in Germany, the country’s soccer politics has been marked by all the features of a bad crime novel and now is at risk of being banned from FIFA.

In the months counting down to the World Cup in football, Iran’s sporting community has been facing much stress as international politicians try to prevent the Iranian team from entering the tournament and the Iranian president from attending the World Cup.

Germany replaced two old sports organisations with one new on 20 May as its former sports confederation and national Olympic Committee merged into a new all-encompassing sports confederation Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (DOSB).

Having been the president of a national football federation blown apart by match fixing is not necessarily considered a career stopper in international sport. Last week, FIFA president Sepp Blatter gave his full support to Franco Carraro who has resigned as president of the Italian Football Federation and said that he should continue to serve as a FIFA official.

The Danish "Nykredits fond" - a charitable foundation owned by the financial company Nykredit - has decided to grant 50,000 Danish kroner (almost 7,000 Euro) to Play the Game.

Two journalists from San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, have been summoned to appear before a federal grand jury in Los Angeles to explain how they obtained transcripts of confidential grand jury testimonies from top athletes who were questioned in connection with the BALCO case.