The BBC reported on Tuesday that FIFA president Sepp Blatter could be preparing to release court documents that FIFA previously refused to make public – documents which could reveal that senior officials at the world governing body for football took bribes.

Bringing change to the heart of sport was the slogan for the 2011 Play the Game conference. Judging from media coverage of the conference, there is little doubt that the heart of sport lies in football, and its main affliction is corruption.

The British newspaper, The Telegraph, has published videos and a transcript of a speech given by former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner back in May in which he appears to urge FIFA officials from the Caribbean to accept cash gifts from Mohammad Bin Hammam, who challenged Joseph Blatter for the FIFA presidency earlier this year.

In a sensational session at Play the Game, FIFA’s new communications director, Walter De Gregorio, confronted Andrew Jennings during a session on corruption in FIFA and refuted the veteran investigative journalist’s claim that he was banned from the world body for his tough line on questioning corruption claims.

After years of trying to engage FIFA in open debate about issues of governance in world football, organisers of the Play the Game conference were surprised to learn that FIFA's new Director of Communications and Public Affairs had decided to attend the conference and listen to a number of presentations. The surprise grew as Walter De Gregorio later told a group of journalists that he was prepared to speak at the next Play the Game conference.

The “most extraordinary story I ever worked on” is how sports writer James Corbett described the bidding procedure for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups. Corbett followed the process closely through his involvement with World Football Insider, an independent organisation which shadowed FIFA’s inspection process with its own rankings of the respective national bids.

Why are so many sports governing bodies based in Switzerland?

The Military Academy Stadium in Cairo, Egypt looked as though it was on fire. Sizzling flares peeked through the smoke at intervals. A closer look at James M. Dorsey’s video presentation at the 2011 Play The Game Conference revealed thousands of sweaty young men bouncing up and down as they waved flags and flares.