Guatemala 0-1 Panama:
June 20 – Friday night at Q2 Stadium bore no resemblance to the venue that hosted football just 24 hours earlier. The transformation was complete, and the catalyst was simple: unbridled passion provided by the hordes of Guatemala supporters who descended on Austin. Stark contrast to the lack of interest shown by US fans on Thursday.
By Paul Nicholson
July 7 – TV viewing figures from the US for Sunday’s Women’s World Cup final are reporting a stunning picture for soccer in the country and for the women’s game in general.
By Mark Baber
July 7 – CONCACAF have announced that all tickets have been sold for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup doubleheader in Dallas this evening which kicks off at the 20,500 capacity Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
July 7 – The money gap when compared to the men may still be huge but FIFA’s decision to stage the women’s World Cup in Canada and increase the finalists to 24 teams certainly paid off in terms of crowds and global interest – and, on the field, in terms of excitement.
July 7 – FIFA has ordered Yemen to default a World Cup qualifying match against North Korea for fielding a player who was technically banned. Yemen, officially the home side for the match that was played in Qatar, lost 1-0 on June 11.
Few deals tell us as much about what football was, and what it is becoming, as the recent transaction that has seen a second division club based in the Eastern French town of Montbéliard (population: about 26,000) change hands for a reported €7 million.
By Paul Nicholson
July 7 – CONCACAF has published a ‘Reform Framework’ as the confederation covering North and Central America and the Caribbean seeks for the second time in four years to put in a place a robust governance and management structure that will take football in the region forward.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 6 – Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who led the FIFA technical inspection team that evaluated the credentials of all nine candidates for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, has been banned from all football activities for seven years in what many will construe as the start of a new crackdown by world football’s governing body in the light of the corruption scandal that has rocked the organisation and led to Sepp Blatter’s decision to stand down as president.
July 6 – As the United States celebrated their first women’s World Cup triumph since 1999 amid euphoric scenes in Vancouver following their 5-2 thrashing of Japan, attention immediately turned to the 2026 men’s version which is due to be CONCACAF’s turn.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 6 – In a break with 50 years of tradition, football’s international players’ union FIFPro is opening its doors to female members to give women players a stronger voice.
By Martin Volkmar
July 6 – Ex-German President Christian Wulff, speaking to SPORT1 in Germany, has rebutted the allegations of FIFA president Sepp Blatter that he had significantly influenced the controversial 2022 World Cup award to Qatar.
By Paul Nicholson
July 6 – FIFA vice-president and CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb (pictured), currently being held in a Zurich jail awaiting an extradition hearing to the US on charges of corruption, has been hit by another arrest warrant, this time issued by the Cayman Island authorities relating to a healthcare fraud case on his home island.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
July 6 – Czech betting operator Synot Tip has signed a sponsorship deal with Sparta Prague. The company will become the club’s main sponsor until at least 2017.
July 6 – Two senior officials with Dinamo Zagreb, Croatia’s leading club, have been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement and tax evasion.
By Mark Baber
July 6 – The current NFF leadership finally terminated Stephen Keshi’s (pictured) contract as national team coach, following their probe into how his name came up in a list of prospects to coach the Ivory Coast.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 6 – Sepp Blatter has long maintained that politics played a part in the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. But now he has named names in terms of the supposed guilty governments: France and Germany.