The leader of the secular Ahrar party, Ayad Jamal Aldin, has hit out at FIFA for suspending the Iraqi Football Association (IFA).

"I told you so", Declan Hill says in a press statement on the large probe into match-fixing leading to 17 arrests and confiscation of documents, cash and valuables after 50 raids in three European countries.

Reigning Asian champions Iraq have become the eleventh country in the last five years to be plunged into international isolation by FIFA for political interference but the world body is not seemingly intent on suspending Guinea for similar offences.

FIFA threatens to throw out Asian football champions Iraq after the Iraqi Olympic Committee has taken control of and disbanded the Iraqi FA.

Recognition or denial? Two very different approaches on how to tackle the threat of match fixing in football met journalist and author Declan Hill promoting his book "The Fix" in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Kosovo’s footballers could have to wait another decade for international recognition. That is the view of the country’s former manager after the Serbian Football Association did not take up an invitation from FIFA for tri-partite talks with the Kosovans in Zurich.

The football associations of Serbia and Kosovo will have their first official meeting in Zurich this Friday in talks hosted by FIFA aimed at dragging the former Yugoslav republic out of sporting limbo.

A football tournament staged by the Italian separatist party, Lega Nord, was played out with the tacit permission of the Italian sporting authorities according to the organizers.