Gold Cup 2025

Diaz hat-trick secures Panama progress, sending Jamaica home

June 24 – With the afternoon sun dropping in Austin, Texas, Panama put an end to Jamaica’s Gold Cup challenge with a composed performance and three goals from standout forward Ismael Diaz.

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Football centre-stage in 2020 Olympics race

Olympic vote

By David Owen in Buenos Aires
September 5 – The power of football is much in evidence as the high-stakes battle for the 2020 Olympics enters its eleventh hour in this elegant South American city beside the river Plate. In recent days, a string of leading football figures have played walk-on parts as the contest builds to its dramatic denouement on September 7, when 100 or so International Olympic Committee (IOC) members will choose between Istanbul,

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Mihir Bose: From Beckham to Bale, a tale of two transfer eras

Gareth Bale may be the first British galectico that Real Madrid have signed since David Beckham in 2003, but the differences between the two transfers shows how the world of football has moved on in the last decade. In a sense there has been a revolution in the way transfers are done and mega million transfers of high profile players have truly come of age.

It shows how much more skilful agents are,

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Football’s money-go-round is market driven, says Blatter

money go round

By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter says FIFA can do nothing to stop spiralling transfer fees following the world record €100 million sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. Meanwhile FIFA TMS (Transfer Matching System), which monitors the movement of players, is reporting $3.4 billion of player sales globally this year (to September 3), a 29% uplift on 2012.

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Matt Scott: Carved out transfer deals and the £630m mixed messages

Gareth Bale did not have to stand on an 8m-high temporary platform for his unveiling as a €100 million signing to recognise he had swapped Tottenham Hotspur for a truly global stage at Real Madrid. The 24-year-old was already well aware of his commercial appeal.

In March he registered a stylised rendering of his ‘trademark’ goal celebration, which creates a heart shape from the contact of his index fingers and thumbs, as exactly that: a trademark with the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office.

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Spend, spend, spend: English top Europe with record £630m outlay

money bag

By Andrew Warshaw
September 3 – Despite UEFA’s financial fair play regulations, English Premier League clubs spent a record £630 million in the summer transfer window that slammed shut on Monday, according to Deloitte’s Sports Business Group. The new tally easily beat the previous record of £500 million set back in 2008, with clubs able to take advantage of the Premier League’s massive television deal without which spending would have been far lower.

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