FIFA Organization

EA Sports has released its “FIFA 16 - Best Goals of 2015” video and the final cut is outrageous. Scorpion kicks, rambonas, 35-yard volleys and overhead kicks from the top of the 18, every goal in this collection would certainly win the FIFA Puskás award if it were accomplished in reality.

While online opponents might be yelling “sweaty goal!” and heading for the menu’s exit, you can imagine the delirium the goal scorers must have felt. Mastering the controls and executing with this kind of precision certainly takes a huge amount of skill...and time.  

And then there were five. Reports surfaced Thursday that Michel Platini, previously considered the frontrunner for the vacant FIFA presidency, is dropping out of the race.

Platini is facing an eight-year ban from soccer activity from the FIFA ethics committee, and has reportedy dropped out of the presidential race to concentrate on fighting it.

Dutch journalist Michel Abbink has apparently got ahold of the results for the 2015 Ballon d'Or award, given to the best player in the world, and the reported winner will surprise approximately nobody: Lionel Messi.

This would be Messi's fourth Ballon d'Or win in the six years the award in its current form has been given out. Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo are also finalists.

Abbink tweeted a photo that shows Messi as the male Ballon d'Or winner, and German Celia Sasic as the female winner.

Players like Bryan Ruiz, Clint Dempsey, Javier Hernandez and Dwayne De Rosario (recently retired) have been leading their respective countries attacks for years now. With the 2018 World Cup qualifiers underway, these young forwards, aged 24 and under, will be looking to make massive contributions on the road to Russia.

So, how do the forwards stack up against each other? Which CONCACAF nation has the most promising goal scorer? Don't let your allegiance and bias cloud your judgement...or do. We won't stop you.

As fans of soccer, we appreciate the theater, drama and storylines that call us to develop personal opinions. The game is as much about heroes and tribes as it is about common enemies and villains. There are some things we all love to hate. If you can’t admit that, well, you’re just afraid of your own primal instincts.

Tennis has it. Rugby has it. Even cricket has it, and hardly anyone bothers with cricket. Video replay technology has been embraced by a great number of sports as an aide to umpires and referees, but until now, soccer has been steadfast in its rejection of the replay.

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were both given eight-year bans from all soccer activity today by the FIFA Ethics Committee. After the bans were announced, Sepp Blatter put on a little press conference in which he said some outlandish things and then said some even more outlandish things. What follows is a "greatest hits" of Blatter's press-conference quotes (via AP reporter Rob Harris). They were a delight.

Sepp came out swinging. 

After the latest bust took down a bunch more of FIFA's top brass, we have some questions.

Are FIFA even paying attention? They stayed in the same hotel as the last big bust. It didn't even occur to them to switch hotels! The only difference between this bust and the last one was the police came in a different door to arrest people.

Sepp Blatter's take on his recent health scare:

"I was between the angels who were singing and the devil who was lighting the fire, but it was the angels who sang."

Perhaps he was just lighting a cigarette and happened to take a glance at a mirror, but all jokes aside the suspended FIFA president claims he was really close to the final whistle.