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The 2022 World Cup in Qatar has become the focus of fresh FIFA corruption allegations after the release of a new U.S. Department of Justice indictment which says bribes were paid to football officials to secure their votes for hosting rights.

Suspicion and rumours have long surrounded both the 2010 vote by FIFA's executive to hand the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. But on Monday, for the first time, prosecutors set direct, formal allegations down in print.

Without knowing how this’ll all play out, it’s tough to speculate or predict much with regards to the 2020 summer transfer window. UEFA insists that the 2019-20 season must be completed, but we have no clear idea as to when that’ll happen with European football still suspended.

U.S. prosecutors on Monday announced new criminal charges against two former executives of 21st Century Fox Inc and others stemming from a long-running investigation of corruption surrounding FIFA, soccer's world governing body.

The former Fox executives, Hernan Lopez and Carlos Martinez, were indicted in Brooklyn federal court on wire fraud and money laundering along with Gerard Romy, former co-CEO of Spanish media company Imagina Media Audiovisual SL, and Full Play Group SA, a Uruguayan sports marketing company. Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be identified. 

Two amateur Swedish soccer clubs felt forced to cancel a friendly and then play the game in secret due to fears of match-fixing after almost 150 bookmakers worldwide offered odds on the game in the absence of other live sport, the newspaper Sportbladet reported. 

MANCHESTER, England — The players union representing Premier League footballers has questioned the league's call for a 30 percent player wage reduction amid the coronavirus crisis, saying it would reduce tax revenue for the National Health Service.

The stance taken by the union raises the prospect of a damaging public wrangle over the salaries of some of the best paid footballers in the world at a time when Britain is facing a major public health crisis.

The Premier League has said its clubs will consult with their players over a proposed 30 percent reduction in wages and the suspended season would only resume when it was "safe and appropriate."

The league accepted that a previous target of returning to action in early May would not now happen and said on Friday it was keeping the restart date under "constant review."

While there has been speculation about a reduced season or even abandoning this campaign, the league said it remained their aim to complete all remaining domestic league and cup matches.

It began simply enough. On Monday, former javelin thrower and Cheltenham Town youth footballer James Campbell — bored inside his house — sent out a simple photo of his modest backyard along with a promise that he’d run a marathon in it if he could get 10K retweets.

10,000 retweets & I’ll run a marathon in my back garden. It’s about 6 metres long pic.twitter.com/birrnVQ93Y

MANCHESTER, England — Tottenham Hotspur's decision to impose a 20 percent wage reduction on 550 non-playing staff due to the impact of the coronavirus has prompted increased pressure on Premier League players to take a pay cut or a deferral of wages.

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) are in talks with the Premier League over how best to deal with the current suspension of competition, but the moves by some clubs to use the government's furlough scheme has prompted sharp criticism.

MANCHESTER — FIFA is working on the details of a "Football Marshall plan" to deal with the financial fall-out from the coronavirus pandemic, which will almost certainly result in them dipping into their $2.7 billion reserves.

World soccer's governing body has set up a working group to look into the myriad of issues thrown up by the halting of the game across the globe as a result of the pandemic and this week it is expected to focus on ways in which it can help give a cash boost to those struggling.