July 1 – The eagerly awaited Women’s World Cup semi-final between favourites and defending champions United States and England, has been given extra spice by a new ‘spygate’ row that is reportedly infuriating English officials but has been played down as storm in a teacup by those across the pond.
June 28 – The 2034 World Cup might still be in the distant future with the bidding process for the 2030 iteration yet to be properly administered, but Australia and Indonesia are mulling over a joint bid for the tournament.
June 28 – Italian giants AC Milan will not play in Europe next season. The club and UEFA have struck a deal that will see the Milanese serve a one-year ban from European football for breaching financial fair play rules, CAS confirmed.
June 28 – FIFA have sanctioned the Macau Football Association for refusing to travel to Sri Lanka to play the second leg of their 2022 World Cup preliminary competition first-round match.
June 28 – The MLS has relaxed its commercial rules to allow betting companies to brand team shirts opening up jersey fronts and sleeve patches from the 2020 season.
June 28 – With the FIFA eWorld Cup now in full flow Electronic Arts and FIFA have released figures showing a huge mark-up in viewership for the early rounds.
June 28 – Liverpool are to show their six pre-season matches live on their own digital broadcast channels LFCTV and LFCTV GO.
June 28 – Conmebol has slapped the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) with a fine of $15,000 over homophobic chants at the Copa America’s curtain raiser between hosts Brazil and Bolivia.
June 27 – FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s participation in the ‘Peace to Prosperity’ workshop in Bahrain have raised plenty of eyebrows in the Middle East with his own personal history being that of aggressor rather than peacemaker.
In one picture, a cut-away from an Al Jazeera broadcast on Twitter, you see him sitting next to a UK war criminal has-been in Manama, where a laughably androgynous Kushner delivers a ludicrous proposal for Mid-East Peace. [THIS “Pax Americana” risks to be a still-birth similar to Infantino’s neo-colonial football proposal to “Save Africa” (from itself, I take it?). What Kushner and other far-right bozos are planning to do to the Palestinians (if the rest of the world lets them),
June 26 – Refereeing at the Women’s World Cup has been under severe scrutiny with VAR and other interventions wrecking the natural rhythm of the game, but FIFA’s head of referees Pierluigi Collina has shrugged off the storm of criticism, saying that the tournament is not “an experiment” for new rules using the VAR.
June 26 – US president Donald Trump hit back at US women’s team co-captain Megan Rapinoe, telling her in a tweet to “respect the flag” after Rapinoe said she would not visit the White House if they won the World Cup.
June 27 – LaLiga’s Sevilla have replaced social gaming firm Playtika with online bookmaker Marathonbet as their new shirt sponsor in a two-years deal.
June 27 – A study of shirt sponsorship within LaLiga by sponsorship consultancy Strock found Spain’s top clubs delivered a return on investment of €29 million last season via TV exposure.
June 26 – A Brooklyn court has awarded Concacaf potentially upwards of $20 million in damages against its former president Jack Warner.