By Paul Nicholson
October 5 – One of the leaders of football’s brave new world, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, has suggested that Russia and Qatar hosting the 2018 and 2022 World Cups could be the best thing to have happened to football in that it provided an accelerant for the clean-up of the game globally, and particularly in his region.
September 30 – The third tier of US professional football is reporting an increase in attendances of 33% for the 2016. The figures show the boom in interest in the game is filtering through the whole football pyramid and is not confined to MLS teams or high-profile international friendlies between the world’s giant clubs.
September 14 – LigaMX clubs Cruz Azul and Club Atlas will play a friendly in San Antonio, Texas, at the Toyota Field October organised under the MoneyGram SocioMX banner.
By Paul Nicholson
September 8 – The Washington Spirit took the unusual step of playing the US national anthem before the players had entered the playing arena last night at the National Women’s Soccer League play-off match against the Seattle Reign.
September 7 – Guatemala’s Carlos Ruiz has become the highest scorer in World Cup qualifying history after bagging five goals in his final international appearance against St Vincent and the Grenadines.
September 8 – US women’s national team head coach Jill Ellis has spoken for the first time about the full reasons behind the decision to ban Hope Solo, the best-known goalkeeper in women’s football, for six months and terminate her contract.
August 30 -Toronto FC have apologised to rivals Montreal Impact after a “disgraceful” banner portraying a woman seemingly performing a sex act was displayed during Saturday’s Major League Soccer clash.
By Andrew Warshaw
August 25 – Hope Solo, the world’s best-known and most decorated women’s goalkeeper and a household name across the sport, has been suspended by US Soccer for six months for describing Olympic opponents Sweden as “a bunch of cowards”.
By Paul Nicholson
August 23 – The leading coaching body in the US is proposing a shake-up of the College calendar, turning it into a 10-month season rather than the currently compressed four month competition format.
August 17 – A US study into how fans rank their experiences at big league sports in the US has found that Major League Soccer teams rank no lower than second in each of America’s four largest markets of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston against the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA teams in those markets.
August 7 – More detail on one of the MLS expansion franchises looks to be announced in Minnesota later this month. Fans leaving the NASL game between Minnesota United and Miami FC were handed a save-the-date card for August 19 with ‘#NextStopMLS’ printed on it.
By Paul Nicholson
August 5 –David Beckham’s Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise option of $25 million looks very cheap with league officials indicating earlier this week that they were preparing to double franchise fees to $200 million.
August 2 – The fast expanding United Soccer League (USL), part of the professional tier of US football below the MLS, will play a longer season in 2017. The league that starts matches at the end of March will now run for 30 weeks with teams playing 32 games.
August 2 – With the first round of Scotiabank Champions League fixtures kicking off the 2016-17 season tonight with Trinidad’s Central at home to Canada’s Vancouver Whitecaps and Mexico’s Pachuca at home to Honduras’ Olympia, CONCACAF has announced a significantly expanded Spanish-language TV deal in the US with Univision.
July 26 – Panama will host the 2017 CONCACAF Under-17 Championship April-May next year. The competition is the regional qualifier for the U17 World Cup which will be held in India in 2017.