By Paul Nicholson
July 9 – Disaster has struck the Curacao team before a ball has been kicked in the Gold Cup group stages that start tomorrow (Saturday). Escalating numbers of positive cases within the team and the management have forced them to withdraw from the tournament with their first match scheduled to be played in Frisco, Texas, against El Salvador.
July 9 – Saturday night will see reigning champions Mexico open the 2021 Gold Cup and the defence of their title in front of more than 60,000 fans at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
July 9 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has staged the draw for the U-23 Asian Cup 2022 qualifiers, reaffirming the ruling body’s commitment to the youth game after the Covid-19 pandemic has forced tweaks and cancellations across the board in other competitions.
July 9 – Cuba, who failed to turn up for their Concacaf Gold Cup Preliminary Qualifier against French Guiana last week, now face disciplinary proceedings by governing body Concacaf as new information has arisen regarding their failure to travel.
July 9 -Russia have parted company with head coach Stanislav Cherchesov after the team’s disappointing first-round exit from Euro 2020.
July 9 – Kylian Mbappé may have missed a penalty at the Euros, but he is still the world’s most valuable player at €175 million, according to updated player market value estimates by KPMG Football Benchmark.
July 9 – Premier League Norwich City, who in the last 10 days have announced Lotus as their new shirt sponsor and Joma as their new kit supplier, have now added sports and leisure retailer JD as their shirt sleeve partner for the 2021-22 season.
July 9 – Fans of Scottish Premiership side Motherwell have raised £60,000 to buy season tickets for unemployed and low-income families this season, with the club matching that figure.
By David Owen
July 8 – Irish playwright Samuel Beckett might have called it Waiting for Newcastle.
July 8 – UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against England following the Euro 2020 semi-final match between England and Denmark at Wembley last night.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 8 – While Danish coach Kasper Hjulmand was understandably bitter at the way his battling team went out of Euro 2020 following the award of a highly dubious extra time penalty, playing to survive – as his team had been forced to do – can come at a cost.
By Samindra Kunti in London
July 8 – And so, in the end there will be no Danish fairytale. Kasper Hjulmand’s brave and battling team exited the finals in the most dramatic fashion following Harry Kane’s controversial 104th minute penalty goal, which left the Danish coach “bitter”.
July 7 – Concacaf president and FIFA Vice President Victor Montagliani told his member associations that he was both “positive” and “reflective” about what they have achieved, emphasising his “putting football first” message that was the key pillar of his election manifesto when he first took the presidency in 2016.
July 8 – In a move that has rocked Portuguese football, Luis Filipe Vieira, president of Benfica, the country’s biggest club, has been detained as part of an investigation into alleged tax fraud and money laundering and forgery.
July 8 – German authorities have green lighted the return of fans to next’s season Bundesliga with the total number of supporters per match capped at 25,000.