FIFA World Cup and Football Soccer News

AP 3:52 p.m. EST December 2, 2014

ZURICH (AP) — FIFA has committed to tackle racism incidents harder at World Cup matches after criticism of its lackluster efforts in Brazil.

Taking advice from its anti-racism task force, FIFA has pledged to help train and appoint anti-discrimination officers to work at qualifying matches for the 2018 World Cup in Russia.

The task force met Tuesday, chaired by FIFA vice president Jeffrey Webb, who spoke out in Brazil against failures to gather evidence and prosecute disciplinary cases.

FIFA will also guide its 209 member federations toward "best practice on policy, education, sanctions and cooperation with civil society partners."

"Both measures send out a concrete message," Webb said in a statement published by FIFA. "Now we need the full support from clubs, member associations, NGOs and campaign groups."

The full support of FIFA appeared to be lacking in June when it did not sanction reported incidents of discriminatory chants and banners, and fans wearing black-face makeup.

Webb, who is black, also pointed then to challenges in tackling longstanding racism problems in Russian football.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter said, after watching the World Cup final in Rio de Janeiro with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, that they would make the issue a priority.

FIFA's statement Tuesday acknowledged the importance of using the next World Cup to "showcase FIFA's zero-tolerance policy against any form of discrimination."

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The contenders for this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the best player of 2014 and for the FIFA Women’s World Player of the Year 2014 award were announced today on FIFA.com, francefootball.fr and YouTube.

In alphabetical order, the FIFA Ballon d’Or nominees are: Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Lionel Messi (Argentina) and Manuel Neuer (Germany), while Nadine Kessler (Germany), Marta (Brazil) and Abby Wambach (USA) will contest the women’s award.

The candidates for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football and FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football awards were also announced. In alphabetical order, the contenders are: Carlo Ancelotti (Italy/Real Madrid CF), Joachim Loew (Germany/German national team) and Diego Simeone (Argentina/Atletico de Madrid) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Men’s Football award, and Ralf Kellermann (Germany/VfL Wolfsburg), Maren Meinert (Germany/Germany U-19 and U-20 national teams) and Norio Sasaki (Japan/Japan national team) for the FIFA World Coach of the Year for Women’s Football award.

All the nominees were confirmed after a voting process which was open to the captains and head coaches of the men’s and women’s national teams of the 209 member associations as well as to international media representatives selected by FIFA and France Football voted for candidates.

The percentages of the collected votes are as follows (number of votes/number of associations): 

Voting for men’s awards: 

Member associations (captains & coaches): 87% 

Media representatives: 94%

Voting for women’s awards: 

Member associations (captains & coaches): 83% 

Media representatives: 77%

The voting procedure for each of the awards is supervised and monitored by the independent observer PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Switzerland.

The shortlist of 15 forwards for the FIFA FIFPro World XI was also announced, completing the final shortlist of 55 players also featuring five goalkeepers, 20 defenders and 15 midfielders.

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