A book written by Bonita Mersiades, planned to be published March 2013, reveals the details of the lobbyism going on behind closed doors in the FIFA World Cup bidding process.

French football team Paris Saint-Germain has recently signed a record sponsorship deal with Qatari National Bank. This deal is only a part in a long-term strategy designed by Qatar to forge national identity with sports as a key-pillar, says journalist and blogger James M. Dorsey in this article that takes a look into the Qatar-France relationship.

Three major investigations into corruption in global soccer are putting the credibility of major soccer associations and World Cup 2022 host Qatar to the test and could challenge the Gulf state’s successful bid as well as a massive Asian soccer rights contract.

FIFA has become an international commercial behemoth, but it has been at the expense of the reputation of world football and without regard for the forgotten stakeholders of the game – the players and fans – argues the former head of corporate and public affairs in Football Federation Australia in an article based on her presentation to the Chartered Secretaries Australia Conference in December 2011.

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.

Two major sports events in recent months were intended to anchor Qatar’s image as a global sports hub and demonstrate its mastery in hosting major sporting events. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Comment: The AFC Asian Cup 2011 starts this week in Qatar. It is the second time Qatar arranges the AFC Asian Cup (last time was 1988), but this time extra attention is drawn to the cup, as Qatar last month controversially won the right to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The big topic of discussion after Qatar got the World Cup - next to accusations of corruption - has been Qatar’s hot climate.