Costa Rica 4 Suriname 3
June 15 – With the baking sun of a sweltering San Diego day in Southern California giving way to a cool evening, Costa Rica went from red hot to freezing cold as they threw away their lead and had to battle back to win with 10 men and a penalty more than 10 minutes into added time.
October 1 – In what will be viewed in Israel as a major slight and by Palestinians as an endorsement of their cause, Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, whose arrest last year drew international condemnation, has been honoured by Real Madrid.
By Andrew Warshaw in Nyon
September 28 – By the time UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin proclaimed that Thursday’s vote for Euro 2024 was a “transparent, democratic decision” by his executive committee, Turkey’s vanquished bid team were already packing their bags en route to Geneva airport, stunned by the margin of defeat.
September 28 – The controversial proposed £600m sale of English football’s national Wembley Stadium has moved a step forward after being discussed by the Football Association’s board.
September 28 – Pools betting was once a staple of football club finance. The low stakes, parimutuel results prediction ‘bet’ even eight years ago still saw 600,000 people a week in the UK fill in a pools coupon on paper.
September 28 – Sepp Blatter took advantage of the vote to hand Germany Euro 2024 to take a further pop against his old nemesis Michel Platini.
September 28 – Premier League Everton are launching two new social media platforms focused on content for American Evertonians. @EvertoninUSA will being posting content on both Twitter and Instagram starting today.
September 28 – This weekend Nepal’s A Division returns after a three-year absence of top level league football following a period of turmoil, dispute and uncertainty within the All Nepal Football Association (ANFA).
September 28 – The Chinese Football Association (CFA) are looking to Belgium’s Chris Van Puyvelde to help rejuvenate their international ambitions. The technical director of the Belgian Football Association (KBVB) has signed a four-year deal with the CFA joining former players Zhao Junzhe (pictured), Yang Che and Shao Jiayi among others in a bid to professionalise operations.
September 28 – UEFA have taken the plunge and will introduce video assistant referees (VAR) in the Champions League from the 2019-20 season.
September 28 – Chicago’s Soldier Field will be the venue for the final of the 2019 Gold Cup on July 7. The tournament, the blue riband national team competition in the Concacaf region, will be played in 15 venues across 13 cities in the US.
By Andrew Warshaw in Nyon
September 27 – Germany won the right to stage the 2024 European Championship today as Turkey’s dreams of taking the tournament to new frontiers were once again rejected by UEFA’s executive committee.
September 27 – The fast forward march of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system has reached Asia with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announcing that it it will be introduced “at some stage” in the Asian Cup UAE 2019 which kicks off January 5.
September 27 – Paris St Germain, under scrutiny by UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) for its financial year to the end of the 2018 season, looks to have moved to attempt to protect its position from UEFA sanction by arranging a capital injection of €316 million from the club’s Qatar Sports Investment owners.
September 27 – The United Soccer League (USL), the fast growing organiser of the second and third tiers of US professional football, has unveiled a new organisational structure and corporate rebranding of its top three leagues. The rejig also brings its PDL development league more identifiably under the USL corporate imprint.
September 27 – Premium Swiss watch brand TAG Heuer has extended its three-year partnership as the official timekeeper of Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 for a further season.