A political cartoon depicting slave labour in the construction of the stadiums
“From corruption to human rights abuses, go deeper into 12 years of reporting on the issues around the Qatar World Cup”
Guardian
W – 2022 FIFA World Cup controversies
“Novice fans don’t understand it. Longtime fans claim to understand it, but then openly disagree about it. Referees and their assistants are trained to spot it, but often have to turn to replays to make sure they’ve got it right. The actor Ryan Reynolds — who, remember, owns a soccer team — admits he doesn’t understand it but has sought cover by saying, ‘in fairness, nobody understands the offside rule.’ But now you will understand it. …”
NY Times
“Qatar is a player. In the Middle East and across the world, the petrostate of fewer than 3 million people plays an outsized role in geopolitics, media, and art. Its cultural diplomacy has established the country’s influence — and now it’s doing the same with sport. The country’s absurd wealth is on display this month: It spent about $300 billion on stadiums and groundwork to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off Sunday. That money totaled more than all previous World Cups and Olympics combined. …”
Vox
“It’s been an eventful couple of days in the World Cup, to the extent that this isn’t even the most notable example so far of an Asian side turning a 1-0 half-time deficit against a strong favourite into a famous 2-1 victory. But in a purely tactical sense, Japan’s win over Germany was the most fascinating contest of the World Cup so far, a classic game of two halves. Germany ran riot in the opening 45 minutes, prompting Japan to dramatically change their shape at the interval before launching their astonishing comeback. …”
The Athletic
Guardian: Germany’s protest will reverberate down the years and generations
NY Times: Germany Protests FIFA Decision That Blocked Rainbow Armbands
The Athletic: Germany chose to be an ally and take on FIFA. It was a powerful, meaningful gesture
Adrien Rabiot of France scores their team’s first goal during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group D match between France and Australia at Al Janoub Stadium on November 22, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar.
“In 1986, the International Olympic Committee voted to split the Winter and Summer Olympics so they would alternate every two years instead of occurring together every four years. The new tradition began in 1994 with the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, site of the infamous showdown between figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. The IOC initiated the split schedule in part to bring greater attention to the winter events, and while this move did bring them out from the shadow of the more popular summer games, it also locked the Winter Olympics into permanent competition with an even bigger quadrennial athletic spectacle: the World Cup. …”
The Bulwark
“As the prospect of the FIFA ban on Kenyan football being lifted improves, it might be a good time to look at the example of neighboring Uganda, and how the football sector in that country managed to pull itself out of a deep crisis. A decade ago, the state of Ugandan football looked highly discouraging: after years of internal wrangles and conflicts between the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) and some of the country’s powerful clubs, as well as match manipulation, and financial accountability problems, many fans and sponsors turned their backs on the sector. The public image of both FUFA and club football was poor, and public trust and confidence were low. Meanwhile, the popularity of the English Premier League (EPL) among Ugandan football enthusiasts was on a steady rise. …”
Africa Is a Country
“Whenever the draw for the World Cup is completed, the immediate task is figuring out which is the ‘group of death’. But the boring answer is that there generally isn’t one these days. Changes to the structure of the tournament mean four genuine contenders are less likely to be grouped together. This World Cup, however, is a slight exception. To explain why, here is a brief history of how the group of death gradually faded away. …”
The Athletic
W – Group of death
While many protests were shut down by World Cup organizers, two people in attendance held signs protesting the Iranian government’s treatment of women.
“Well, that was unexpected. After the cold, cold theatre of Qatar 2022’s opening game, elite sport reimagined as a despot’s light-show, something remarkable happened on Monday afternoon in Doha. As night fell over the vast, swooping Khalifa International Stadium (all these World Cup structures are vast and swooping; unless specifically told otherwise, assume vast and swooping) England and Iran produced something that felt jarringly real, oddly warm, suspiciously authentic. Against all odds at this dislocated World Cup, a football match broke out. Albeit one shot through with its own layers of intrigue, and indeed pathos and horror. …”
Guardian
NY Times: Amid Disruptions, England’s Win Over Iran Was the Easy Part
****The Athletic – Cox: England dragged Iran apart thanks to ambition of full-backs Trippier and Shaw
“Who first came up with the concept of an opening ceremony to a sports tournament? It’s so normalised now that we just accept it, that the first thing we’ll see of a World Cup, Olympics or whatever is a souped-up performance-art event with dancers and a famous-ish pop star singing a confected anthem. It would now feel weird not to have one, like we’re missing out on something important somehow. Could we really enjoy a month of football without it being introduced to us by a rhythmic gymnastic demonstration and Jennifer Lopez? It’s too late now, we’ve been brainwashed. Plus, they’re essentially harmless, aren’t they? …”
The Athletic
“The Qatar World Cup has provoked strong and sometimes conflicting, reactions in many people. In this series of videos, written by James Montague and illustrated by Alice Devine, Tifo explains why the World Cup in the Gulf State is so controversial. The contest in Qatar is beset by controversy and human rights concerns, most notably the reported deaths of migrant workers. A staggering 90% of the population of Qatar are migrant workers. Why is this number so high? In order for Qatar to host this tournament they’ve had to build stadia, build infrastructure, build a team, and build a reputation.”
YouTube
“The selection of Qatar to host this year’s FIFA World Cup brought cheers to the streets of Doha in a celebration of the first edition of the tournament to be held in the Arab world. But the choice, made in 2010, also sparked instant criticism – over the logistics of holding a sporting event in a country where summertime temperatures regularly top 100 degrees; over allegations of bribery and corruption among FIFA officials who voted for Qatar; and over concerns about human rights abuses that have persisted in the years since. Now, with the World Cup days away, the Gulf country is expecting the arrival of more than a million fans. And billions more will tune in to watch the tournament’s 64 games. Yet the controversies have not subsided. …”
NPR
Vox: The many, many controversies surrounding the 2022 World Cup, explained
“We watch because of Alphonso Davies, Kylian Mbappe and the rest of the planet’s magicians. The World Cup is a beautiful amalgamation of the best of sport, a global gathering of artistry and athletic hope. It’s also a moral quagmire, and no more so than this year’s tournament in Qatar. When Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA president and a high priest of oleaginous behavior, questions the location of a World Cup, we’re all deep in the muck. …”
The Athletic
Hardly a bare head to be seen as Billy the white police horse helps hold back the crowd spilling on to the pitch at the 1923 FA Cup final.
“Look at a photograph of the crowd at the 1923 FA Cup final and pretty much everybody is wearing a hat. Fast-forward a quarter of a century and a rough estimate would be that a little under half the crowd at the 1948 final are similarly clad. Go forward another 25 years to 1973 and although Bob Stokoe, the Sunderland manager, topped off his tracksuit-and-mac look with a trilby, almost nobody in the stands at Wembley has their head covered. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“The message came from the highest levels of the Qatari state: The beer tents must be moved, and there would be no discussion about it. With the opening game of the World Cup only days away, Qatari organizers have been working hurriedly in recent days to relocate Budweiser-branded beer stations at eight stadiums after a sudden demand that three people with knowledge of the belated change said had come from inside the country’s royal family. …”
NY Times (Video)
A worker on a construction site in Lusail City tries to stay hydrated.
“As the world’s media and teams start to arrive the facts and figures behind workers’ and human rights in Qatar remain hard to uncover. As 32 teams gather in Qatar for this most unsettling of World Cups, the following numbers serve as a stark reminder of the human cost of the tournament, as well as the ongoing suffering among migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ+ community in the country. …”
Guardian
Thousands of Migrant Workers Died in Qatar’s Extreme Heat. The World Cup Forced a Reckoning
‘A World Cup Built on Modern Slavery’: Stadium Workers Blow the Whistle on Qatar’s ‘Coverup’ of Migrant Deaths and Suffering
“The World Cup in Qatar is a controversial sporting mega-event. There’s no getting around it. From allegations of corruption around the bidding process, to the highlighting of migrant worker abuses in Qatar and the country’s poor human rights record, the tournament is plagued with issues that complicate direct audience engagement. But there are very few simple answers here. Qatar 2022 isn’t a one-off. It has come to represent a confusing reality; football is not and never has been separate from global politics. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“The FA Cup – the oldest football tournament in the world – begins its 142nd edition on Friday the 4th of November 2022. Of the 40 matches to be played in the First Round Proper, there are: 2 games on Friday the 4th, 33 games on Saturday the 5th, 4 games on Sunday the 6th, and 1 game on Monday the 7th. Televised matches are (with clubs’ league-levels noted)…Friday: Hereford (6) v Portsmouth (3); Saturday: South Shields (7) v Forest Green Rovers (3); Sunday [early]: Wrexham (5) v Oldham Athletic (5), and Sunday [late]: Torquay United (5) v Derby County (3); Monday: Bracknell Town (7) v Ipswich Town (3). …”
billsportsmaps
“A letter which FIFA sent to every World Cup nation asking them to ‘focus on the football’ in Qatar rather than ‘every ideological and political battle that exists’ has been criticised by several recipients. The build-up to the tournament has been overshadowed by allegations of serious human rights abuses, including Qatar’s criminalisation of homosexuality, the widespread death of migrant workers, and the limited rights of women in the country. …”
The Athletic
“’The promise given was a necessity of the past; the word broken is a necessity of the present.’ Florentine diplomat, historian and philosopher (a genuine Renaissance man) Niccolo Machiavelli would have been good at winning bids for major sporting events. A World Cup for all of Italy? Sure. Us, the Duchy of Milan, Papal States, Venetian Republic, we’re all Italian brothers. A dozen new stadiums? Absolutely — why not 15? New roads? Of course, we’ll pave them with gold! …”
The Athletic
NY Times: The World Cup is Weeks Away. Will Qatar Be Ready?
NY Times: Qatar Offered Fans Free World Cup Trips, but Only on Its Terms (Video)
“On August 23, 1997, Uriah Rennie became the first black man to referee a Premier League match. Rennie, who made his bow overseeing a game between Leeds United and Crystal Palace, had a career that lasted 11 seasons and more than 170 games, until his final game on May 11, 2008, where he officiated a 2-0 victory for Liverpool over Tottenham. Rennie’s final appearance remains the last time a black man was the lead match official in a Premier League fixture. …”
The Athletic
“There is an exclusive group called the Ninety-Two Club, whose members have watched a competitive first-team match at every Premier League and EFL stadium. Our Richard Sutcliffe has wanted to join for 40 years but his quest has proved less than straightforward. He started 2022-23 with eight grounds to tick off. After visiting AFC Wimbledon and Oxford United during the opening 10 days of the new season, making two trips to Forest Green Rovers and taking in a midweek journey to Salford, he is ready to cross the finish line…”
The Athletic
“Mary Anne Kinloch was a Beatles fan, and when she visited Liverpool from Canada in 1970, the place she really wanted to see was Mathew Street’s Cavern nightclub. Yet she also had family connections with the city. One-hundred and thirty years earlier, John Bramley-Moore, her great, great grandfather, was a major player in Liverpool politics. He became the Lord Mayor after campaigning for the northward extension of the docks, a decision which ensured Liverpool remained a global port for more than a century. …”
The Athletic
“A month from today, it all begins. The World Cup in Qatar looms ever larger on the horizon and the countdown is on to the first of 64 games that will crown a winner at the Lusail Stadium on Sunday, December 18. Doubts persist over the suitability of Qatar to host this World Cup, as well as its readiness to welcome more than one million visitors, but the biggest names in football are about to descend on a tiny Gulf nation that’s half the size of Wales and roughly as big as the US state of Connecticut. …”
The Athletic
The Analyst: World Cup 2022 Guide to Each Group
“In 2010, Qatar was awarded the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The country would become the first in the Middle East to host the world’s biggest sporting event, beating stiff competition from the United States and Australia. Since then, a flurry of corruption allegations and claims of Qatar ‘buying the World Cup’ have surfaced while the country’s treatment of migrant workers has also been in the spotlight. Here is a timeline of events and landmarks since Qatar won the World Cup bid. …”
Al jazeera
“The Ballon d’Or is one of the oldest awards in football and is generally regarded as the most prestigious individual award for football players. But what are its origins? Can any player win the Ballon d’Or? Who decides the winners? Written by Jon Mackenzie, illustrated by Henry Cooke.”
YouTube
W – Ballon d’Or
“Nearly two years before the U.S. men’s national team took the field for its first World Cup qualifier, officials at U.S. Soccer began planning for a tournament in Qatar they knew would bring significant challenges, and raise important issues, should the U.S. make it there. FIFA’s decision to select Qatar as a World Cup host has been under great scrutiny due to several issues regarding the country’s human rights record, including: workers’ rights and the country’s use of the kafala system for migrant workers; the reported deaths of hundreds of migrant workers tied to the building of soccer stadiums; women’s rights; and laws that criminalize homosexuality. …”
The Athletic
Guardian – Forget ‘sportswashing’: Qatar 2022 is about military might and hard sports power
“For months, it seemed, the feud between the leader of Spain’s top soccer league and the president of the Qatar-owned French team Paris St.-Germain has played out noisily, and in public. Javier Tebas, the outspoken president of La Liga, would regularly criticize Paris St.-Germain and its Qatari leaders, accusing them of flagrantly breaking European soccer’s financial rules. And occasionally, the P.S.G. president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, would respond to Tebas with his own accusations, questioning the health of Spanish soccer, or trade barbs with him in the news media and in speeches. The more high-stakes fight, it turns out, was taking place behind the scenes. …”
NY Times
“With the surrounding noise on human rights, worker deaths, image laundering and the rest, it is easy to forget what Qatar 2022 is really all about, the founding message at the very heart of this global festival of football. Which is, of course, corruption. Committee members living high on someone else’s hog. Development money that never developed. The fat, wet handshake wrapped up in a TV rights deal. It is time, six weeks away from Fifa’s winter World Cup, to consider the base note of this thing. …”
Guardian
“Mexico lost to Colombia 3-2 in their second of two World Cup friendlies during the September FIFA window. Injuries to several key starters and the continued embattlement of manager Gerardo Martino dominated the headlines in Mexico. The Mexicans have one final World Cup tune-up against Sweden in Girona, Spain on November 16 before their opening match of the tournament against Poland. But this window left plenty to analyze. …”
The Athletic
“The good news is that it’s a yes from the gigantic, fire-breathing spider. It is hard, after all, to imagine a World Cup without its finest tradition: 50 tons of decommissioned crane arranged into the shape of a monstrous arachnid, pumped full of highly flammable fuel and then stocked with hopefully less flammable D.J.s. The spider will form the centerpiece of one of the cultural highlights of this winter’s World Cup in Qatar: a monthlong electronic music festival called the Arcadia Spectacular, staged just south of Doha and boasting what the promotional material calls an ‘electrifying atmosphere, extraordinary sculpted stages and the most immersive shows on earth.’ …”
NY Times
Guardian: What do Qatar’s World Cup workers fear most? Being sent home
Guardian: Migrant workers in Qatar left in debt after being ordered home before World Cup starts
Athletes, Fans Demand Remedy for Migrant Worker Abuses in Qatar
“The September international break is normally relatively relaxed — a chance to tweak tactics and focus on formations. Not this time. For almost all 32 competing nations, this is the final set of international fixtures before the World Cup begins in Qatar on November 20. So that you can go into the break feeling prepared, The Athletic has identified one issue every team need to try to fix this break…”
The Athletic (Video)
“Robert Lewandowski received a captain’s armband in Ukrainian yellow and blue from Andriy Shevchenko. The Poland striker promised to ‘carry the colours of Ukraine to the World Cup.’ Lewandowski was one of the first elite athletes to rally to Ukraine’s cause back in February, days after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, when he lobbied for the postponement of Poland’s international fixture against Russia. When he next took the field for Bayern Munich, his teammates wore black armbands to honour the victims of the invasion, while Lewandowski, the Bayern captain at the time, wore an armband in the colours of Ukraine. …”
Guardian (Video)
Guardian: Russia demands Uefa ban Ukraine’s manager for remarks about war
“Chile failed Friday in its latest attempt to have its South American rival Ecuador thrown out of soccer’s World Cup, another setback in a high-stakes campaign that threatened to alter the field for the sport’s showcase championship only two months before the tournament’s opening match. An appeals committee at soccer’s governing body, FIFA, rejected Chile’s newest claim, agreeing with an earlier decision by a disciplinary panel to reject the contention that Ecuador had fielded an ineligible player in several qualification matches. …”
NY Times
“2022-23 Premier League – Location-map, with 3 charts. The map is a basic location-map, with an inset map of Greater London. Also shown are small labels which point out the three promoted clubs (Fulham, Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest). And there are three charts. The Attendance chart, at top-centre of the map page, shows 4 things for each of the 20 current Premier League clubs…A) 2021-22 finish (with promotions noted). B) 2021-22 average attendance [from home league matches]. C) Stadium capacity [2021-22]. D) Percent-capacity [2021-22]. At the right-hand side of the map page are two more charts. …”
billsportsmaps
“The only players to score nine or more goals in a single FIFA World Cup did so between 1950 and 1970 – a competition with nearly a century of history cramming its one-tournament stars into two decades. It seems the game’s defensive focus and organisation had yet to catch up to its emerging individual attacking skill. It was a time of free goals, and in some places free love, and if you weren’t around to experience it in person, you’re left with grainy video – and of course the numbers. None of the five players to score that many did it in more than six games while the modern-day format for World Cup tournaments has made it possible for top goalscorers to get seven in should they reach the last four. …”
The Analyst
“The Ringer’s 22 Goals: The Story of the World Cup, a podcast by Brian Phillips, tells the story of some of the most iconic goals and players in the history of the men’s FIFA World Cup. Every Wednesday, until the end of Qatar 2022, we’ll publish an adapted version of each 22 Goals episode. Today’s story involves Dennis Bergkamp at the 1998 World Cup in France. …”
The Ringer (Audio/Video)
“As the football season kicks off around Europe, the Greek Super League may fly under the radar for many fans of the game. We explore the history of Greece’s top teams and interview experts, fans, and writers to determine each side’s chances of success. If you want passion, flairs, a rocking atmosphere, chanting from before to after a match and the occasional law informant intervention look no further than Greek football. The sport in Greece has suffered over the last decade or so, both financially and in its reputation. But one thing that cannot be denied is that the country holds some of the most vocal, passionate and football-crazy supporters in Europe. …”
Football Paradise
W – Greece national football team
“… The map here is a new template, one which I will have for the top 4 divisions in England this year. The map is a basic location-map, with inset maps of both Greater London and Greater Manchester. Also shown are small labels which point out the four promoted clubs (Forest Green Rovers, Exeter City, Bristol Rovers, Port Vale). And there is an attendance chart. The attendance chart shows 5 things for each of the 24 current League One clubs. …”
billsportsmaps
Guardian – League One 2022-23 preview: the contenders, hopefuls and strugglers
W – 2022–23 EFL League One
“… The World Cup is just months away and the Al Janoub Stadium manager is showing a group of reporters around his pride and joy, the air-conditioned venue that will host seven games, including the holders France’s opening game against Australia on November 22. The Athletic asked the question which, to a Brit visiting Qatar for the first time, feels like the elephant in the room. This tournament has been relentlessly condemned by human rights groups for the circumstances in which these stadiums were built. How do tournament organisers respond to that? It’s not what they want to talk about now the football is about to begin. …”
The Athletic
“The start date of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar is set to be changed. FIFA is likely to move the start date from the 21st November to the 20th November. But why? What difference will it make? Matt Slater, Jacob Whitehead and Seb Stafford-Bloor explain.”
YouTube
“At a flashy ceremony on Nov. 21 last year, some of Qatar’s most senior officials, including the Gulf nation’s prime minister, joined the FIFA president Gianni Infantino, top soccer executives and invited guests for a celebration. They gathered on Doha’s corniche, the sweeping promenade that hugs the city’s shimmering waterfront, to unveil an ornate countdown clock and to mark a milestone: the day they were celebrating was precisely one year before the opening of the 2022 World Cup. …”
NY Times
“Looking back, football finance expert Dr Rob Wilson knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘This is last roll of the dice sort of stuff,’ he told BBC Sport before the 2019 Championship play-off final between Aston Villa and Derby County. ‘It’s winner takes all and loser loses pretty much everything.’ Villa won that day at Wembley. Three years on, they spent pre-season on tour in Australia, preparing for a new Premier League campaign with Brazil star Philippe Coutinho in their ranks. Derby have just begun their first third-tier campaign since 1986, and only the fifth in their history, after local businessman and lifelong supporter David Clowes stepped in to save the club. …”
BBC
“Last November, on an early-morning train from London to Newcastle, in the north of England, I saw a drunk fellow in a white robe. The outfit, I knew, was supposed to simulate the attire of a traditional Saudi Arabian man. It was not a breathable material, this cheap polyester ordered off the internet. It was absolutely roasting him. He was red-faced with the booze and the shame, but mostly the booze. His friends, all around him, were exuding the very specific aura generated by drinking bottles of Stella plucked out of plastic takeaway bags. They called him by his nickname, which also happened to be the name of a classic Disney character. Let’s say Cinderella. …”
The Ringer (Video)
“A little over 10 years ago, 10 miles north of Qatar would have been a sleepy fishing village, and not much else. This place would become the location for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Fast forward to today and a futuristic metropolis filled with the latest technology and engineering practices is nearing completion. Did Qatar build this city just for a World Cup? David Goldblatt reveals what this new city will be like. Illustrated by Philippe Fenner.”
YouTube
“When you are not thriving at one place, you try to rediscover yourself by moving to another. Even after winning a Bundesliga and Champions League double in 2020 when on loan at Bayern Munich, ironically scoring against Barcelona en route to the final of the latter, Philippe Coutinho only reverted to the stagnancy he had undergone in Spain that made him transfer to begin with. Aston Villa have given the Brazilian a chance to rekindle past form and in doing so, add a further dimension to Villa’s creativity, and perhaps also boost Coutinho’s sense of importance to his team. …”
Football Paradise
“STOKE CITY have been in a better place than they are today and not many people are predicting they will win promotion from the Championship in 2022-23. The “experts” believe Stoke will finish just above mid-table, which will be progress on the past four seasons and the best placing since they were relegated from the Premier League in 2018. …”
Game of People
“… The map here is a new template, one which I will have for the top 4 divisions in England this year. The map is a basic location-map, with inset maps of both Greater London and Greater Manchester. Also shown are small labels which point out the two promoted clubs (Stockport County, and Grimsby Town). And here is the part that makes this a new template: there is an attendance chart. The attendance chart shows 5 things for each of the 24 current League Two clubs. …”
billsportsmaps
W – 2022–23 EFL League Two
“‘Azmoun and Taremi get Iranians dreaming,’ was the headline for an article on Fifa’s website after ‘Team Melli’ were drawn to face England in their first match of the 2022 World Cup. Just a few months on and with the team’s star strikers at loggerheads over the future of coach, Dragan Skocic, however, it’s not exactly been the preparation Iran supporters had hoped for as the squad attempt to make history by progressing past the group stage in Qatar. …”
Guardian
W – Dragan Skočić
“… This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the backpass law being introduced, following FIFA’s successful experiment in Italy a year earlier. It is arguably the most significant — and the best — rule change in the modern game. The mindnumbing sight of goalkeepers rolling the ball out to defenders, receiving it back, picking it up and holding it in their hands to kill games, was gone. …”
The Athletic
W – Back-pass rule
Shakhtar’s chief executive Sergei Palkin is scathing of FIFA’s conduct
“Ukrainian football club Shakhtar Donetsk are seeking €50million worth of damages from football’s world governing body and the club has filed papers in the Court of Arbitration for Sport appealing against a ruling by FIFA that allows foreign players to unilaterally suspend their contracts in the war-torn country. The Athletic can exclusively reveal that Shakhtar, who have won the Ukrainian championship 13 times in the post-Soviet independence era since 1992, filed the documents to Matthieu Reeb, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) director general in Switzerland, in July. …”
The Athletic
“It’s hard to picture a time when being a professional footballer at the highest level did not mean astronomical wealth and lavish lifestyles. Yet, that was the reality for many of the world’s biggest stars in the early days of organised, professional football. There are bountiful stories of some of England’s biggest stars having to take summer jobs just to pay their bills in the early days as the Football Association and FIFA kept a tight lid on pay. Disgruntlement over finances was a common theme amongst players. It wasn’t exclusive to England either as Argentina was having its own issues with player wages in 1949. … They would soon find a home in, of all places, Colombia. …”
Longball Football
“In his 1928 novel Nadja, French surrealism ace Andre Breton described the city of Nantes as ‘perhaps with Paris the only city in France where I have the impression that something worthwhile may happen to me’. To think that he was still a good 94 years away from having the chance to wander around the bowels of his local sports arena in a vain attempt to track down the anti-doping officials at the foosball World Cup. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Sepp Blatter, the former president of FIFA, and his onetime ally Michel Platini were acquitted of fraud on Friday in the latest attempt by Swiss prosecutors to win a conviction in a sprawling, seven-year investigation into corruption at the highest levels of world soccer. The trial, held in the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona, was related to a $2 million payment arranged in 2011 by Blatter, who led world soccer’s governing body for 17 years, to Platini, a former France player who was at the time the president of European soccer’s governing body and a potential heir to Blatter as the most powerful executive in the sport. …”
NY Times
“This past FIFA window for Mexico was replete with many of the same narratives that dominated their World Cup qualifying campaign. Goals were scarce, the team’s supposed stars underperformed and the Fuera Tata chants were heard in matches that were played both in the United States and in Mexico. Each one of those realities will shape Mexico’s run up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Head coach Tata Martino must solve El Tri’s goal drought, and perhaps recall Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernadez, Mexico’s all-time leading scorer, in order to do so. …”
The Athletic
“Recent contests over the presidency of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) have been keenly contested, with good reason. Nigeria’s size and football pedigree (the Nigerian men’s national team has qualified for the World Cup six times and won the African Cup of Nations three times) mean occupants of the NFF presidency have frequently used this position as a launch pad for more senior positions in both the continental (CAF) and global (FIFA) football governing bodies. Amaju Pinnick, the current president, is no exception. …”
Africa Is a Country
“DOHA, Qatar — The sun comes up before 5 a.m. and immediately puts the entire city on convection bake. By lunchtime, the temperature has finished its methodical climb up the scale, from unusual through uncomfortable to unbearable and then, finally, to unhealthy. The wind off the bay offers no relief; in June in Doha, even the summer breeze blows hot. This was to be the summer the World Cup came to Qatar, an idea that seems as preposterous now as it did a dozen years ago, when the tiny Gulf country, let’s just say, acquired the hosting rights to soccer’s biggest championship. …”
NY Times
“Chile’s bid to have its South American rival Ecuador thrown out of soccer’s World Cup failed on Friday when a disciplinary panel at soccer’s global governing body rejected a claim that Ecuador had fielded an ineligible player in several qualification matches. The case involved the defender Byron Castillo, who Chile contended was not only born in Colombia but also three years older than is stated on the documents used to identify him as Ecuadorean. Chile’s soccer federation produced registry documents, including birth certificates, that it said supported its claim. …”
NY Times
“Once Gazprom were cut as UEFA partners and Aeroflot was jettisoned as a blue chip Manchester United sponsor, an isolated discussion returned to the Russian football sphere – Europe can go get stuffed. And once clubs and national teams were banned from UEFA competitions on may We’re off to join Asia! …”
Backpage Football
“On another day, in some other timeline, maybe Real Madrid could have won the 2021-22 Champions League final. It would have been improbable in any universe, with the way Carlo Ancelotti’s team played, but you can imagine some alternate reality where the movements of bodies and balls are just a little less orderly, where football is a little less fair — who knows, maybe stranger things have happened in a world like that than a smash-and-grab 1-0 win. But yesterday was not that day, and this is not that timeline. Of course Liverpool are champions. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic – Liverpool 0-1 Real Madrid analysis: Courtois’ saves and Klopp’s goalless finals
Guardian – ‘Don’t be sad’: Liverpool fans pack city streets to welcome heroes home
BBC – Liverpool 0-1 Real Madrid: Champions League defeat caps miserable end to magnificent season amid Paris chaos (Video)
NY Times: UEFA Blames Delay at Champions League Final on ‘Fake Tickets’
“The new collective bargaining agreements approved this week by the United States Soccer Federation and its men’s and women’s national teams will, at last, bring an end to a decades-long, emotionally exhausting and wildly expensive fight over equal pay. For the first time, the women’s team, which has won the last two Women’s World Cups and four overall, will be paid at the same rate for game appearances and tournament victories as the men’s team, which has historically (and persistently) failed to even sniff that kind of success. In addition to those new (and higher) per-game payments, the new contracts also include an unprecedented redistribution of the millions of dollars in World Cup prize money the men’s and women’s teams can earn by playing in the tournament every four years. …”
NY Times
The Athletic – USWNT, USMNT achieve equal pay: How they reached a historic benchmark
NY Times: U.S. Soccer and Top Players Agree to Guarantee Equal Pay
Scissors Kick 