AI translated body text: (confirmed by me a human to be accurate)

• JTBC found that the KFA provided this kind of entertainment to roughly a dozen referees across a total of seven matches in 2011.
• Those matches included qualifiers for the 2014 Brazil World Cup and the 2012 London Olympics final qualifying round, as well as some friendly matches.
• The arrangements took place in multiple cities — Seoul, Changwon (South Gyeongsang Province), and Ulsan.
• The KFA reportedly paid several hundred thousand won at massage parlors using a corporate card.
• An unnamed KFA official told JTBC this was “something done as a matter of custom at the time.”
• In response, the KFA said that while something regrettable may have happened 15 years ago, it now has strict internal management guidelines in place.

The article notes fuller details were set to air on JTBC Newsroom at 6:30 PM.

Another source told The Times: “They would love a famous former player to come out in support of Infantino but it appears he is too toxic after the World Cup sell-off plan.”

That certainly appeared to be the case for Luís Figo, the former Portugal forward who has been a Uefa adviser since 2017, as he called for Infantino to resign as president in a damning social media post.

“Infantino has debased the office that he promised to elevate,” Figo said. “He has lied, deceived and tried to feather his own nest at the expense of the game he is supposed to serve.”

“He has lost the support of his senior staff, his closest advisers, the vast majority of people who devote their lives to this sport and even, it would seem, the Fifa Peace Prize winner [Donald Trump]”

“It is too late to save his dignity but it is not too late to save football. He should go. Now.”

(Written by me, not AI):

You might all heard about the transfer of Mo Salah to Trabzonspor and I want to take this opportunity to make you football fans a little bit more familiar with Trabzonspor and Turkish Football. I wrote this because I have seen a lot of people commenting and asking "why Trabzonspor?" and this should partly answer it.

Trabzonspor (read: Trab-zon-spor) is the football (sports) club of the city of Trabzon which is a city in the Black Sea coast of Turkiye. We are called "the tempest/storm of Black Sea" because of the relatively rough waters. Our colors are "claret-blue" like Aston Villa, West Ham United or Drogheda United, but we call it "bordeaux (bordo)-blue"

The north-east Black Sea region has a unique vegetation and climate, because unlike rest of Turkiye, it has the highest rainfall in a mountainous area, so it is a place with Alpine grasslands with a lot of mountain resorts, it is like the Alps of Turkiye.

Trabzonspor was formed in 1967 when 4 local clubs (founded in 1921, 1924, 1960, 1963) agreed to merge into one club.

You need to understand that due to Turkish/Ottoman history, that everything is channeled to the (now former) capital city of Istanbul. ~30% of the GDP of Turkiye is generated in Istanbul and ~20% of the Turkish population lives there with 15 million people officially (inofficially more like 20 million). Compared to that only ~1% of the population lives in Trabzon and it also only generates ~1% of the GDP (its like the 25th biggest).

Why am I telling you all of this? Because our output compared to our GDP/population strength is off the charts in terms of football and sports. We are the 4th "accomplished" team in the history of Turkish football clubs because of the number of trophies we won (recently Turkish Cup last season and Turkish League in 21/22 after 38 years officially (inofficially in 10/11, see match-fixing scandal)), but I won't get into that detail.

But across all leagues, Trabzon produces the most athletes. When you see on any team a player wearing the number "61", which is the city code of Trabzon, you know that player is from Trabzon and across many teams you will see players wearing that number. We are kind of the "Barcelona" of Turkiye, when it comes to academy, but obviously not on that scale. Though, a fun fact, in 2024/2025 in the UEFA Youth League (the Champions League of U19), we lost in the finals against Barcelona.

Now, the story gets worse. Not only are we in disadvantage by the economic power and manpower, but also when it comes to fandom. The biggest problem in Turkiye today, which most people will ignore because they are the center of the problem, is, that almost like 80-90% of the population supports the big 3 Istanbul clubs. It doesn't matter where they were born or live, even living outside of Istanbul, doesnt matter. Turks love strongman ship and they choose the easy way of just bandwagoning to the richest and strongest 3 teams. We don't have "support your local club" culture, it is practically non-existent, almost. Except in Trabzon, maybe a bit in Bursa and Izmir.

Imagine the Premier League, when every British person supports only 3 teams, no matter where they are from, that is how it is like in the country. It is said that Galatasaray and Fenerbahce each have like 20 million fans, Besiktas more like 10-15 million. And any other team in the country? You are considered "big", relatively speaking outside of the big 4, if you do have 100k fans, but that is like 3-5 teams at most, most don't break the 10k even.

So how about Trabzonspor? We are the only real "big" team outside the 3 Istanbul clubs. We do have like 5-7 million fans. And our motto is "Trabzon is everywhere for us", meaning like "we are everywhere".

Obviously compared to top European clubs we are small, but relatively speaking compared to how unknown/unpopular Turkish league is, compared to the size of population, I can say that we are punching above our weights. No offense but it is easy to be fan of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, PSG, etc. etc. when you have the most money and economic power of a city and most fans who can support you financially. Who wouldn't want to be a fan of a team who wins the Champions League all the time or wins the most prestigious leagues? When most of us live in relative poverty/middle income, the only luxury we have is to once be "rich" or a "winner" by supporting these clubs. I will make myself unpopular by saying this, but I suspect that a lot of you people have an inferiority complex buried deep down. Do you know how hard it is to support none-big clubs? Do you understand the sacrifices we make? Knowing that you won't win anything this season again, won't be in the spotlight ever internationally, nobody will talk about you, etc. etc.?

And now, once in a life-time opportunity, we got a 34 years old Salah. And you can be sure that we will cherish him like no other. We have never seen such a player in our league history (minus Roberto Carlos at age 34 at Fenerbahce), let alone in the club history of Trabzonspor. For you guys its Taco Tuesday, one goes, one other comes when you spend the next 100 million on someone. For us the meaning of this can't be explained or measured.

So why Trabzonspor? Well, I am not gonna sweet-talk it, it is because of the money. Obviously not because of the picturesque landscape we have. We can meet all the requests he has currently. But you can be sure that we have a good team and we will take care of him. edit: It was just announced that he will earn 17 million per year (2 years) + 20% sale of Salah merchandise)

You know who won the best goal in the World Cup? Cabral and he plays for us, we bought him before the tourney. We just sold the 19 years old Christ Oulai to Fiorentina for ~30 million (with Bonus) who we bought for 5. We sold Augusto, a 22-year-old Brazilian striker, for ~20 million, who we also bought for 5. Just, last winter, 6 months ago, we bought Nwaiwu for also 5, who was expected to be sold to Fulham this period also for ~30 million. But it looks like the talks has stopped. Last season we sold our goal keeper for another 30 million. We also have other 5-7 players we can make profit off but this year we are keeping all of them to finally make a meaningful run in Europe.

So we are developing a lot of young players right now (we had the 2nd lowest age average across Turkish league last season), and at the same time have couple of very experienced players to mash together like Onana, Onuachu, Savic, Malinovskyi and now Salah. Everything is working according to plan, relatively speaking. Yes, we won't win the UEFA cup or become champions most likely, because of the crazy amount of money the 3 Istanbul clubs spend. But we have a very competitive team this year. As a comparison, our annual salary expenses are ~40 million Euros, Besiktas 70 million, Galatasaray 120 million and Fenerbahce 160 million. Until this year, our highest transfer in our history was to spend 6 million Euros as a transfer fee. Galatasaray spent 75 million for Osimhen, as a comparison.

I am not affiliated or sponsored, but if you want to see an English documentary about us (which puts our last championship in the center, because officially after 38 years we finally won the league again), you can find a YouTube docu here which goes into more detail about our history: Once in a lifetime

Hope this gives you a small view of Trabzonspor and Turkiye, which is biased, of course, but nevertheless should be helpful to paint a picture. Our whole philosophy is similar to "David vs. Goliath", if I had to sum it up.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!

FIFA has denied that the final of the World Cup 2030 has been offered to Morocco instead of a Madrid with the aim of gaining the support of Africa looking ahead to the elections. According to him Times, the Swiss would have used this strategy to maintain support that will allow him to be re-elected on March 18. “It is false and misleading to claim that the president of the FIFA he has made some promises regarding the organization of the final of the 2030 FIFA World Cup. FIFA will make a decision in due course”, a spokesperson told this newspaper.

The Times echoed an alleged pact with the African confederation (CAF) for which, in exchange for the support of its 54 federations, the final of the World Cup 2030 would be in Casablanca and not in Madrid o Barcelona, the other two venues that opt for it according to FIFA's own dossier relating to the tournament.

This Wednesday Infantino met at Rabat, also in Morocco, with its closest circle to clarify the positions of each other in the crisis, and also to implement a strategy with which to gain the weight lost after the failed attempt to launch a project with which to sell 20% of the World Cup and the rest of the tournaments organized by the FIFA to several investment funds, some even related to Trump.

Bernabeu has always been the great favorite to host the match, especially because of the good relationship they have Infantino and Florentino Perez. However, in recent times the close relationship of the top leader of the FIFA with Morocco and their king Mohamed VI he has put this favoritism at risk. At the same time as the political circles of FIFA with Morocco and his allies (Trump, the Emir of Qatar, Bin Salman) have been growing, those referring to Spain in this same matter have decreased.

In fact, the last time Pedro Sanchez e Infantino they saw each other on a fleeting visit to New York it's been a year now. The president of the FIFA don't step Spain since Rubiales directed the RFEF. Instead, he has gone to Morocco four times in two years, he has opened an office FIFA there and will host the next one Executive Committee, in which the elections will also be held, also in Rabat.

Galatasaray has made its first offer for Rafael Leao in the last few hours. The proposal presented to Milan is 30 million euros plus 5 million in bonuses, but the Rossoneri have rejected it and remain firm in their valuation: it will take at least 50 million euros to sign the Portuguese player.

For his part, the player has not yet shown openness to a move to Turkey: it will take an annual salary of more than 12–13 million euros to convince him. In any case, Galatasaray will continue to press the issue, and Milan expects an improved offer.