Greg Louganis and cohorts can rest easy although players such as Didier Drogba and Joe Cole may face a slight problem if FIFA go ahead with the FA’s proposal to allow retrospective punishments for players found guilty of diving to earn free kicks and penalties.

With the problem currently under the media spotlight again following Didier Drogba’s admittance that he did dive during games (shock horror!) the FA are trying to talk players and managers into a regime of self policing instead of using legislation to end the scourge of the modern game but it has to be said that self policing hasn’t worked in the past and has only allowed the situation to get worse.

Current managers Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes both believe the problem has gotten worse since they played at the highest level and these days it can’t only be blamed on foreign players with such England regulars as Michael Owen and Joe Cole being renowned for going down easily under challenges. If the clubs and managers aren’t willing to stop the practice (who’s to say they don’t actively encourage it?) then it is the responsibility of the FA and FIFA to step in and implement laws worldwide to end the ridiculous spectacle of grown men playacting. I thought football was a man’s game?

In another challenge to FIFA and UEFA’s control of the game, the G14 clubs are backing Belgian club Charleroi as they prepare to face FIFA in court in a case that could have as wide ranging effects on the game as the infamous Bosman ruling in 1995.

Charleroi are claiming compensation from FIFA for the injury caused to their player Abdelmajid Oulmers while on international duty for Morocco against Burkina Faso in 2004. Oulmers missed eight months while out injured and Charleroi have claimed that his injury prevented them from winning the domestic Belgian League during this time.

G14 have made their stance on the issue very clear as they have also backed Olympique Lyon in a similar court action over the injury their French defender Eric Abidal suffered in a freidnly for the France national team.

A G14 spokesman outlined their position: “We believe Fifa has the financial muscle to put together an insurance pool to cover players injured while on international duty. This case is not about shifting the cost from the clubs to the national associations.”

FIFA disagree and maintain that the responsibility for players on international duty lies with the national associations and not the world governing body while claiming, in the Charleroi case, that Oulmers injury had no bearing on the club’s eventual failure to win the Belgian League.

Depending on the outcome of the case, the G14 could have the case referred to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the scene of another Belgian, the aforementioned Jean-Marc Bosman’s, famous victory for player power. Whether the ramifications of this case will have such far reaching effects as that case will be judged over the next few years.

Mark this date down in your calendars as it will be probably the first and last time that State of the Game has any praise for Sepp Blatter and his FIFA cronies but I want to stay as positive about this news as possible so here goes: FIFA have introduced some of the toughest measures since their inception in the worldwide fight against racism.

After outrage around Europe following high profile incidents such as the Spanish fans monkey chants at England’s black players and Samuel Eto’o’s recent problems with the racist chanting from Real Zaragoza fans, FIFA have decided to get tough and bring in disciplinary sanctions which will finally put real pressure on clubs to root out the sections of their support that are carrying out this disgusting crime.

With punishments ranging from match suspensions to points deductions (three points for a first offence, six points for a second offence and best of all, RELEGATION for a third offence), clubs are really going to have to make the stamping out of racism a number one priority with FIFA no longer willing to turn a blind eye to a problem that seems to have been on the rise again over the last few years in European football.

Blatter is talking the talk and while threatening to suspend national associations frominternational football for two years for failing to uphold the new laws, he may finally be ready and willing to walk the walk as well. I can’t say that it’s before time either as the cowardly, moronic attitudes of racist fans and the lenient “punishments ” imposed on them and their clubs over the last couple of years, particularly in Spain, have made my blood boil. There is no room in football or society for racist behaviour and if FIFA are about to make their efforts as hardline as possible to eradicate this scourge of the game then State of the Game are fully behind them.

FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has been found guilty of a conflict of interest over ticket sales for the 2006 Germany World Cup.

His family’s travel agency were given the rights to sell Trinidad and Tobago’s entire ticket allocation and Warner has now been judged to have violated Fifa’s code of ethics over his involvement with selling 2006 World Cup tickets.

After bringing the matter to the attention of Fifa himself, Warner may be suspended from the organisation at a meeting on 16-17 March.