Vera Pauw’s side climbed one place up to 26th, which means they are now in the top 16 European teams.

Since Pauw took charge in 2019 the team has moved up six places overall. The Irish manager feels that they can go even higher as the team seeks qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

“It is fantastic to see the Republic of Ireland Women’s National Team rise up to their highest ever position in the FIFA Women’s World Rankings because this is a reflection of the tremendous work that the players and staff have put in over the years.

“We have been growing together and improving with each game, so while this achievement is brilliant it is only one part of our journey that continues with two hugely important FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifiers at home to Finland and away to Slovakia in September.

“Everything that we achieve is as a team and that includes our amazing fans, our sponsors and everyone at the FAI. We will continue to work hard to keep climbing those rankings as we aim to qualify for next summer’s World Cup.”

Ireland will take on Finland on Thursday, September 1st in Tallaght Stadium before Travelling to face Slovakia in Senec on Thursday, September 6th.

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This will be the 14th year that the SSE Airtricity League Premier Division has featured in-game. People that purchase the game will also get exclusive Club Pack Covers featuring the individual club crests of all 10 Premier Division teams.

Powered by The League, each Premier Division team will have their very own exclusive FIFA 22 Club Pack, and the cover sleeves will once again be free to download for all League of Ireland fans when the game launches on Friday, October 1st.

CITY CONFIRM DUFFY PRE-CONTRACT DEAL

Derry City FC can confirm that Michael Duffy has agreed a pre-contract at the club which will see the attacker return home at the end of the season. pic.twitter.com/MPpXlvX1lr

— Derry City FC (@MccaulCiaran) September 22, 2021

Many FIFA players are great fans of their most popular feature and there have been some upgrades and downgrades to the players in the Irish league.

The squad of best players is made up of four nations and five clubs with Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers having the majority of players.

Dundalk’s Michael Duffy is the new highest rated player in the game with a 68 rating. The best aspects of his card are his 81 pace and that he is one of three players in the league with four-star skill moves and weak foot – the other two are Rovers’ Danny Mandroiu and Sligo Rovers’ Kiwi forward Ryan de Vries.

The two fastest players in the league by FIFA 22 standards are English winger Junior Odegi-Uzokwe and Jamaican forward Romeo Parkes.

Kylian Mbappe is the fastest player in FIFA 22 pic.twitter.com/SB89YTQgVv

— B/R Football (@brfootball) September 21, 2021

FIFA 22 Airtricity League XI

Formation: 4-3-3

Goalkeeper: Talbot (65)

James Talbot just edges out Mannus with more individual stats. The Bohemians keeper stands at only 5’11” but his higher reflexes will make him strong with close shots.

Defence: Kavanagh (63), Cleary (64), Lopes (65), Gannon (65)

The mainly Shamrock Rovers defence is made up of two silver cards. Cape Verde’s Roberto Lopes and Ireland’s Sean Gannon will sure up a backline that is missing speed.

Midfield: McEleney (65), Zahibo (66), O’Neill (65)

Now we start to move on to the big guns. Wilfried Zahibo from the Central African Republic is a rare silver card with high physicality and an orange link to Athletico Madrid’s Kondogbia.

He is surrounded by Irish league mainstay’s Gary O’Neill and Patrick McEleney whose stats do not properly reflect the effect they have had on the league.

Front Three: Duffy (68), Hoban (65), Byrne (66)

The strike force has two of the Airticity league’s best shooters in Graham Burke and Patrick Hoban. They will join the 68 rated rare card in Michael Duffy who has had a lackluster season with Dundalk so far this season.

Bench: Mannus (65), Hoare (64), Bolger (64), Forrester (64), Mandroiu (64)

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Robert Lewandowski has been awarded Best Men’s Player of the Year by FIFA, beating Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in the process. 

The striker enjoyed an unprecedented year, winning a host of team and individual awards including; the UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga and Bundesliga Player of the Season. His performances over the past year meant he was favourite to win the award and rightly so.

He scored 34 goals in 31 Bundesliga games last season and has continued his form into this season, netting 15 times in just 11 games.

Footballers tend to decline into their 30’s but Lewandowski has shown no sign of slowing down. In fact, you could argue he’s only getting better. He’s in better shape than ever and his progress off the pitch is bearing results for his club and country. Much credit should go to Bayern Munich whose strength and conditioning programme has physically transformed several of their players.

The next step for Lewandowski is to enter 2021 in the same vain as he started and finished 2020. He will no doubt have his eyes on the 2021 Ballon d’Or, an award his missed out on this year due to cancellation owing to Covid-19.

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FIFA have announced that Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski will make up the final three players contesting for the title of Best Men’s Player 2020.

This marks the first inclusion as a finalist for Robert Lewandowski, while Cristiano Ronaldo (2) and Messi (1) have both won the award since it started in 2016.

Lewandowski is seen as the favourite for the award having enjoyed an unbelievable 2020. The Polish striker has averaged more than a goal a game this year while also helping his team win a multitude of honours including; UEFA Champions League, Bundesliga & DFB-Pokal.

Some football fans have also suggested that Lewandowski was “robbed” of a Ballon D’or, with the prestigious individual award being cancelled in 2020 due to Covid-19.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are both – for once – seen as outsiders for the award.

FIFA have also announced the finalists for their other categories:

The Best FIFA Women’s Player:

• Lucy Bronze (England / Olympique Lyonnais / Manchester City WFC)
• Pernille Harder (Denmark / VfL Wolfsburg / Chelsea FC Women)
• Wendie Renard (France / Olympique Lyonnais)

The Best FIFA Men’s Player:

• Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal / Juventus FC)
• Robert Lewandowski (Poland / FC Bayern München)
• Lionel Messi (Argentina / FC Barcelona)

The Best FIFA Women’s Goalkeeper

• Sarah Bouhaddi (France / Olympique Lyonnais)
• Christiane Endler (Chile / Paris Saint-Germain)
• Alyssa Naeher (USA / Chicago Red Stars)

The Best FIFA Men’s Goalkeeper:

• Alisson Becker (Brazil / Liverpool FC)
• Manuel Neuer (Germany / FC Bayern München)
• Jan Oblak (Slovenia / Atlético de Madrid)

The Best FIFA Women’s Coach:

• Emma Hayes (England / Chelsea FC Women)
• Jean-Luc Vasseur (France / Olympique Lyonnais)
• Sarina Wiegman (Netherlands / Dutch national team)

The Best FIFA Men’s Coach:

• Marcelo Bielsa (Argentina / Leeds United FC)
• Hans-Dieter Flick (Germany / FC Bayern München)
• Jürgen Klopp (Germany / Liverpool FC)

FIFA Puskás Award:

• Giorgian De Arrascaeta (URU) – Ceará SC v. CR Flamengo [Brasileirão – Brazil] (25 August 2019)
• Son Heung-min (KOR) – Tottenham Hotspur FC v. Burnley FC [Premier League – England] (7 December 2019)
• Luis Suárez (URU) – FC Barcelona v. RCD Mallorca [LaLiga] – Spain] (7 December 2019)

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The overall plan will see €1.28bn available to all of FIFA’s 211 member associations. It includes all confederations and looks at helping the different football associations with their financial situations due to the Covid 19 pandemic. A grant of 1 million dollars is available to each association, with 500,000 also allocated towards the women’s game in each country. RTE Sport that the money will be available from January 2021.

Details were also announced that could help Associations with loans. FIFA announced that member associations will be able to apply for loans amounting to 35% of audited annual revenues. However, this can only be up to €4.25 million. FIFA released a statement on Wednesday confirming the news and stating what the funds will be used for. They said, the funding is to help with “the restart of competitions, the implementation of return-to-play protocols, the participation of national teams in competitions, the hiring and re-hiring of staff, the maintenance of football infrastructure, and general administration and operating costs”.

Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA said, “This relief plan is a great example of football’s solidarity and commitment in such unprecedented times,”. Mr Infantino continued, “I would like to thank my colleagues of the Bureau of the Council for approving the decision to move forward with such an important initiative for the benefit of all member associations and confederations.”

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RTE report that proposals to allow an additional two substitutes which were put forward by FIFA in order protect player welfare owing to Covid 19. The International Football Association Board approved the new rules changes. FIFA released a statement with the news, “As football begins to consider resumption of competitions across the world following the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Football Association Board (The IFAB) has agreed to make a temporary amendment to the laws of the game based on a proposal received from FIFA seeking to protect player welfare”.

It continued, “For competitions which have either started or are intended to start, but are scheduled to be completed by 31 December 2020, the IFAB has approved FIFA’s proposal to introduce a temporary amendment to Law 3 – The Players, which will allow for a maximum of five substitutes to be made per team”.

“The decision on whether to apply this temporary amendment will remain at the discretion of each individual competition organiser, while The IFAB and FIFA will determine at a later stage whether this temporary amendment would need to be extended further (e.g. for competitions due to be completed in 2021).

In the closing of the statement, “In relation to competitions in which the video assistant referee (VAR) system is implemented, these competitions are permitted to cease its use upon restart at the discretion of each individual competition organiser. “However, where VAR is used, all aspects of the laws of the game and, by extension, the VAR protocol will remain in place.”

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RTE Sport report that the world soccer governing body will give each of it’s 211 members 500,000 dollars. This equates to about 462,000 euro. This will be paid in the coming days along with any entitlement under the Forward 2.0 development programme. The news comes as good news for the FAI who are currently in debts of around 45 million euro. Staff in the organisation have already had to take pay cuts of up to 50% due to the pandemic.

Gary Owens interim CEO of the FAI said. “We’ve reached out to FIFA… we can’t reach out to UEFA anymore… but we are reaching  out to FIFA and we will be there to try and support whatever way we can.”

The FIFA President Gianni Infantino has described the payment as the first step of helping the associations.  “The pandemic has caused unprecedented challenges for the entire football community and, as the world governing body, it is FIFA’s duty to be there and support the ones that are facing acute needs”.

RTE Sport report that FIFA said the funding came from 2019 and 2020 operational funding. Furthermore, FIFA have stated that the next stages of funding are currently been worked on. This will be communicated to the organisations in the coming weeks. FIFA have a lot of funding there, with cash reserves around 2.7 billion euros.

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