By Paul Nicholson in Houston
June 28 – With the first 12 days of Gold Cup double header group games finished, Concacaf is reporting four of the stadia as sell outs and three near sell outs. Tickets for the knock out rounds disappearing fast.
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 – A free scoring Mexico head into Saturdays’ quarter finals at the NRG Stadium Houston as match and tournament favourites.
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 28 – Opening Gold Cup quarter final play in Houston, Texas, are Canada and Haiti, an intriguing fixture between two aspiring Concacaf nations who have both made their mark in different ways so far in this tournament.
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.
USA 1 Panama 0
By Andrew Warshaw at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City
June 26 – They banged their drums, sung their songs and waved their flags in a sea of patriotic fervour.
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.
By Andrew Warshaw at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City
June 26 – Guyana were 10 minutes away from departing their first ever Gold Cup with a priceless three-points tonight, only to concede an equaliser to Trinidad and Tobago in a 1-1 draw that sent the Caribbean rivals home winless.