“An MP is calling for legal safeguards to limit repetitive heading in football training, amid growing concerns about the risk of brain injury. Grahame Morris, the Labour MP for Easington, submitted a parliamentary motion on Tuesday urging the government to take action to reduce the number of times a player can head the ball in training. Researchers have found footballers are three and a half times more likely to die from a neurodegenerative disease than the general population. …”
BBC
Hear the goals during the afterlife’: Barça fans get to inter ashes at club’s new memorial
“Lifelong supporters of Barcelona football club will soon be able to cheer on the club from beyond the grave – but, like everything else at Barça, eternal devotion comes at a price. As part of an upgrade to the Camp Nou, the club has inaugurated the Memorial FC Barcelona, consisting of 26,000 niches where fans can deposit their ashes after their own final whistle has blown. Supporting the team from the afterlife will cost €2,490 (£2,082) for 10 years or €6,000 for 50 years, with an annual maintenance fee of €70. Guaranteeing your niche for eternity will set you back €10,000, with a further €490 for a memorial plaque. …”
Guardian
The hallowed treble – who’s next?
“NEXT year will be the 60th anniversary of the first ‘treble’ – European Cup, domestic league and cup – won by a club in a single season. Celtic’s remarkable triumph set a new benchmark for European football and since then, it has been achieved 10 times. …”
Game of the People
Mancini on unexpected Italy success, France test and ‘giving fans something to cheer’”
“Roberto Mancini admits few expected Italy to challenge France for top spot in the Nations League group tomorrow, but they hope to ‘give the fans something to cheer’ and break their San Siro hoodoo. … Italy are currently second in the Nations League Group 1 on seven points, as France are on top with 10, while Belgium follow behind on six. …”
Yahoo
An eternal shame’: Bilic and Croatia aim to use 7-0 humbling as fuel against England
“As Croatia prepare to face England at Wembley on Thursday in the Nations League, wounds from a humiliating defeat by the same opponents last month are fresh and there is a lingering feeling of unease. No one will say it – certainly not Slaven Bilic, who always believes in achieving goals that may seem unreachable to most others – but the impression is that Croatia would be satisfied to accept another defeat, provided it was gentle enough by score and hard‑fought by approach; that this game is not so much about the points as the (self-)respect they can regain. …”
Guardian
Miroslav Klose’s FC Nuremberg side sit second in the 2. Bundesliga
“‘A bad system will beat a good person every time.’ The words of Dr. Deming, a pioneer of systems thinking, perfectly encapsulate the problems faced by Moroccan football throughout the 2000s. At the turn of the century, on paper, it seemed like Moroccan football was in a pretty good place. In 1998, it was ranked 13th globally by FIFA. The team’s performance at the 1986 World Cup, when Morocco became the first African and Arab country to advance to the knockout rounds, was monumental. Despite these early successes, Morocco would subsequently not qualify for a World Cup for the next 20 years. By 2014, Moroccan football would hit rock bottom, with FIFA ranking it 81st in the world—a precipitous decline. …”
“Where do you start with trying to pick a favourite Lionel Messi moment from his Argentina years? From Copa America and World Cup brilliance to qualifiers and even going back as far as under-20s matches, a selection of our writers have chosen theirs. With Messi’s 208th and final senior appearance for his country coming up in a Buenos Aires friendly against Benin on Tuesday (early Wednesday UK time), enjoy these memories, then let us know in the comments below about your number one. …”
“Thomas Tuchel has admitted there are times when he craves greater control in matches. But the England head coach feels the more chaotic, adrenaline-fuelled nature of the Premier League will remain his template as he targets glory at Euro 2028. Tuchel described his team as ‘maybe not the most economical to play football’ in terms of their habit of constantly playing at full throttle. They 
“As Barcelona have 
“Friday evening brings the return of the Premier League and, with it, nine more months of twists and turns, quality and controversy, and, for fans of the 20 clubs involved, more ups and downs than a FIFA president’s private jet during a World Cup. Eyes will be focused on the pitch but plenty of attention will be spared for matters off it too, and not only because there’s a summer transfer window with a week and a half left to run. Football’s richest, most-watched league will resume proceedings with its clubs subject to new financial rules, ones set to shape events in the 2026-27 season — and well beyond. Profit and sustainability rules (PSR), first introduced in 2013, are out; squad cost ratio (SCR) rules are in. So too, to less fanfare, are sustainability and systemic resilience (SSR) rules. At a vote by Premier League clubs in November 2025, the shift to an SCR regime was passed — barely. Fourteen clubs, the minimum needed to approve rule changes, voted in favour: Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion, Brentford, Crystal Palace, Fulham and Leeds United were the dissenting six. …”
Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish thinks the rules impede aspirational clubs
“It has been a busy few days for World Cup conspiracy theorists. First came the decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s red-card ban for USMNT’s round-of-16 match against Belgium. That unprecedented act would inevitably have attracted raised eyebrows, but the fact that U.S. President Donald Trump telephoned FIFA president Gianni Infantino to raise objections to the red card immediately sparked speculation about nefarious motives. … This is, however, typical for football’s biggest tournament, where the high stakes, global audience and potential for political interference all offer the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish. We’ve put on our tin foil hats and discovered some declassified documents to bring you the best of the World Cup conspiracy theory, past and present. …”
“Omar Artan was already a hero before he came back to Somalia this week after being denied entry to the United States for the World Cup. Long before the controversy, he had become a household name in the country. As one former sports official told me, a warm welcome was guaranteed whenever he eventually returned to Mogadishu. But the decision by US immigration authorities to turn him away transformed the meaning of his homecoming. Somali journalists had spent the morning waiting for his flight from Istanbul to land. On the tarmac, a delegation of senior government officials waited patiently alongside us, flags in hand and many already cheering. Anticipating that he might return disappointed and disheartened, preparations had been made to roll out the red carpet and turn what could have been seen as a setback into a triumph. Participating in the World Cup, he said in a rare 2018 interview, had always been his dream. …”
“Let’s get something clear from the start: ranking the best and worst World Cup kits of all time is an impossible task. The 2026 World Cup marks the 23rd edition of the tournament over a span of 96 years of ever-changing fashion trends. There have been so many well-executed and just plain lovely kits representing a variety of countries over that span, as well as a considerable number of nightmarishly eye-melting ones, too. There are also a whole bunch that we remember as better or worse than the designs themselves because they were wrapped around indelible players, moments and memories. …”
“When an estimated 400 million people tuned in to the 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany at Wembley, many of them watching a game live on television for the first time, it changed the way we remember football. Before the 1954 tournament, World Cups weren’t televised at all. If you wanted to know how teams played, you bought a newspaper the next day and read a column about it by some cigar-chomping sportswriter in a three-piece suit. Now fans could follow along for themselves in fuzzy black and white: And here comes Hurst, he’s got — some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over… It is now! …”
“King Charles III is pondering a tactical dilemma. His best player, Harry Kane, hasn’t turned up to the tournament because he didn’t deem it important enough to make the two-week voyage. … Sound familiar? Well, the names have been changed but all these things once happened in the biggest tournament that football has to offer. Welcome to the wild and wonderful story of the 1930 World Cup. There were only 13 teams in the first World Cup, or as the United States team manager called it at the time, the World’s Championship of Soccer Football….”
France’s players aboard the ship taking them to the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay.
“There have been 2,548 goals scored at men’s World Cups since the first tournament in 1930. Trying to select five as the greatest in the history of the competition is perhaps a foolish task. But the nice thing about great goals in football is that there are so many different types. Some are individual dribbles, some are one-off strikes out of nowhere, some are flowing team moves, some are about outrageous close control, and some are largely about emotion. Here, then, is an attempt at working out the World Cup’s greatest goal in each of those categories. …”
“The headline attraction for a section of fans when England meet Uruguay at Wembley on Friday will not be the players on the pitch, but the head coach in the away dugout. Because this international friendly marks the return to British shores for Marcelo Bielsa. Leeds United supporters who idolised the Argentinian during his 44 months in charge at Elland Road are taking this long-awaited opportunity to acknowledge the impact he had on their lives before his sacking in February 2022. While there will be 90,000 in attendance at England’s national stadium in north London, the pockets of Leeds fans in every corner of the place will hope to use the time to properly say goodbye to an icon of their club. …”
“… Italy’s fourth World Cup was won in typical Italian fashion — they rarely win international trophies in great style, but there’s always great drama involved. This success played out with Serie A, their domestic top flight, in a crisis. The Calciopoli scandal revealed that various club executives had been effectively choosing favourable referees for their teams’ matches. A complex storyline that was unfolding throughout the tournament, the main sporting consequence was that Juventus were stripped of the previous two years’ Serie A titles and relegated to the second division. …”
“The 
Didier Drogba leaves the presidential palace in October 2005 after a ceremony to celebrate World Cup qualification
“This time, it’s West Germany in 1990. This is remembered as the most negative, defensive World Cup, supported by the lowest goals-per-game figure on record, 2.21. It was so disastrous that FIFA and IFAB felt compelled to improve the spectacle afterwards, largely by clamping down on dangerous tackles and introducing the backpass law — although not, as was floated by some, by increasing the size of the goals. West Germany won the competition in somewhat unglamorous fashion, as their key matches were dominated by penalties and opposition red cards. But in the group stage, they played some good football, and in the knockout stage, they at least attempted to, which was more than most of their opponents could claim. …”
“In 2000, World Soccer magazine commemorated the new century by interviewing FIFA president Sepp Blatter. One of the questions forced him to reach for his crystal ball: ‘What will the next 100 years bring? I cannot look that far ahead,’ Blatter replied. ‘I will go as far as 25 years, however.’ So what did Blatter predict? ‘I will forecast no radical changes in that time,’ he said. Oh well. …”
“… Forty eight years after they were defeated in 
“… In a tournament compromised by wet weather and therefore boggy pitches, hosts West Germany were not overwhelmingly popular winners. 
“In 1991, England travelled to Poland for their final qualification match for Euro 92. It was a crucial contest: the winners would qualify for the tournament, with a draw favouring England. Considering the importance of the game, it was a surprise that England manager Graham Taylor handed debuts to two players: Queens Park Rangers winger Andy Sinton and Crystal Palace midfielder Andy Gray. The latter was given an unusual role for the game’s opening moments. With David Platt and Gary Lineker taking the kick-off, Gray was instructed to stand just behind them and launch a diagonal ball downfield towards the corner flag, and out for a Poland throw-in. …”
“World Cup 1962, hosted in Chile, is up there with World Cup 1938 as the least fabled editions of the tournament. There’s a common link between them: they’re the only two World Cups where the defending champion has triumphed. And this one came as little surprise — it was almost impossible to find a tournament preview that didn’t imply that Brazil were strong favourites. …”
Larbi Ben Barek of Marseille and Eloy of Sedan during a French Cup quarterfinals match in 1954.
“The showpiece final of this summer’s 
“The 
