The African Investigative Journalism Conference

The African Investigative Journalism Conference starts Monday, October, 26, 2009 at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa with most of the journalists coming from southern Africa, but also with speakers and participants from Europe and the U.S.

Andrew Jennings from the United Kingdom, who has investigated FIFA, the global football (soccer) sports organization, will be speaking. The World Cup is coming to South Africa next year and FIFA says itself that the impact of the organization goes far beyond football:

"FIFA is no longer merely an institution that runs our sport. It has now taken on a social, cultural, political and sporting dimension in the struggle to educate children and defeat poverty. At the same time it has also become a powerful economic phenomenon. The 208 national associations affiliated to FIFA represent 260 million people actively connected to the game, including players, coaches and administrators..."

Jennings, who reports on FIFA on the Transparency in Sports Web site, is highly critical of the FIFA and his sessions and other sessions on sports should prove lively.

The conference schedule preview says:

Day One – Sport, FIFA and the 2010 World Cup
We look into corruption in FIFA, and ask what sports journalists should be writing about – is sports reporting just about which team won and who scored the top goal?