July 4 – With just three days to go before the final of the 2025 Gold Cup in the NRG Stadium in Houston, Concacaf is reporting that there are less than 4,000 tickets left for the 72,200 capacity stadium that will host Mexico and the USA.
Germany 2 Poland 0
July 4 – With second-half goals, Germany laboured to a 2-0 victory against debutants Poland in Group C in St Gallen, but lost their captain Gulia Gwinn to injury.
May 29 – The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) in the USA has struck a deal with ESPN to televise nine matches televised this year. Six regular season games are scheduled to be televised on either ESPN 2 or ESPN 3, whilst both playoff semifinals and the championship game will be shown on ESPN 2.
May 29 – American billionaire entrepreneur Malcolm Glazer, head of the family that runs Manchester United and arguably the most controversial of all foreign owners in English football, has died aged 85.
By Alexander Krassimirov
May 29 – The Bulgarian Football Union has signed a new multi-year contract with the Spanish sports appareil firm Joma. The company will kit out all of Bulgaria’s national teams and replaces Italian sportswear brand Kappa, whose contract was terminated terminated by mutual consent.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 29 – Almost two years after the original sanction, former Malta midfielder Kevin Sammut has had his life ban reduced to 10 years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but his career is still effectively over.
By Ben Nicholson
May 29 – International footballers’ association FIFPro and UEFA and Birkbeck, University of London, have combined to produce a ‘Good Practice Guide’ which will be presented at the closing conference of Don’t Fix it in Slovenia next week.
Much has been made about how Mauricio Pochettino is the ninth permanent manager Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has appointed since he took charge of the club back in 2001. And the scribes have not failed to rub in the fact that, despite all these comings and goings, Spurs have singularly failed to achieve the status that they feel is their due, at least a top four finish in the Premier League every season, garnered with the odd trophy as well.
May 28 – UEFA’s relentless crackdown on match manipulation has seemingly gone one step too far after the organisation itself was sanctioned for wrongly accusing a Croatian referee. But whether Europe’s governing body rules the punishment binding and pays up is a different matter.
By Tom Parsons
May 28 – Adidas has launched its World Cup marketing and social media campaign, and in a breakaway from the traditional approach by brands to social media, the sportswear giant is allowing people to make the decision to be “all in” or “nothing” with Adidas during the world’s biggest football tournament.
May 28 – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has fired back at criticism voiced by Ronaldo, one of the country’s footballing icons, over preparations for the World Cup in the latest spat to undermine the tournament.
May 28 – The Central American Football Union (UNCAF) which is playing its Central American Cup 2014 in the USA later this year, has announced that the final will be played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 13. This is the first time the regional championship has been played outside the Central American region and the 13th time the Cup has been played, as UNCAF prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
If you want everyone to look at you, you had better be worth it.
Cristiano Ronaldo was adoring himself too much to consider his Champions League final goal from the penalty spot was mere icing on the cake. But while this chapter of club success was complete, his season is not. The World Cup could still bring him down if he’s not careful.
In behaving like that in Lisbon, shirt off,
By Andrew Warshaw
May 28 – Twenty-four hours after UEFA and Europol signed a key agreement to tackle match-fixing head-on, the spotlight has immediately fallen on tonight’s friendly between Scotland and Nigeria, one of a string of World Cup warm-up games.
May 28 – INSIDEworldfootball (IWF) has won the Editor’s Choice Award in the Best On-line Coverage category of the World Soccer Talk Awards.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 28 – The match-fixing epidemic that has swept through world football has been underlined by UEFA teaming up with Europol to combat organised crime. The European Union’s police agency says it is involved in nine separate investigations linked to match-fixing and will share information with UEFA on suspected rigging and illegal betting within Europe’s 54 national federations.
Football, as we know, is often all about fine margins. Just ask Atletico Madrid. Whilst no-one can possibly condone the ridiculous behaviour of their otherwise admirable coach Diego Simeone when he lost his cool as victory slipped agonisingly away in Lisbon’s Stadium of Light last weekend, let’s not underestimate what the Spanish capital’s so-called poorer sister achieved over the season as a whole.
Real Madrid finally collected their 10th European crown after 12 years of pain –