Split soccer loyalties?
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As the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, a scholar probes questions of identity in the American game. Is Mexico really the US’s ‘other team’?
Companies like Puma continue to sponsor the Israeli Football Association despite some of its teams operating on illegally occupied Palestinian territory.
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Puma’s support for Israeli football teams in the occupied Palestinian territories goes against FIFA’s rules.
The Al Janoub Stadium in Doha.
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The stakes are high.
Facing penalties.
AP Photo/Petr David Josek
Soccer’s governing body has long sheltered behind a view that the game is apolitical. Sanctioning Russia over invasion exposes why that doesn’t hold.
A prize for the taking.
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It’s the most expensive FIFA World Cup in history.
The England team’s Euro 2020 was full of moments the country should be proud of.
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Euro 2020 was full of successes for this team, we shouldn’t forget that.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino is engaged in heavy diplomacy to sell his plans to expend the 2022 World Cup.
EPA-EFE/Claudio Peri
FIFA boss Gianni Infantino wants to bring forward plans to expend the tournament from 32 to 48 countries. But it’s not going to be easy.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin
New! Mega sports events wash your government’s tarnished reputation whiter-than-white.
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It seems likely that football will remain a pawn in an intensifying proxy war.
The Luzhniki stadium will host the World Cup final on Sunday July 15.
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The Russia and Qatar World Cups are backward steps for LGBT rights – unless FIFA can use the tournaments to achieve change.
How much longer will Polish migrants be picking English apples?
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Comparisons with other immigration systems that deny rights to temporary workers raise questions over Britain’s post-Brexit future.
EPA/Fernando Bizerra Jr
It’s all to do with PSG’s Qatari owners.
Billionaire Frank Lowy was done like a dinner in the shark-infested waters of international football, led by Sepp Blatter (right).
EPA/Walter Bierri
Despite Australia squandering $43 million on a failed bid for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the Lowy football dynasty lives on.
Jack Warner: under arrest.
EPA/Alva Viarruel
Reform of FIFA is clearly needed, but it must accommodate dissent of the anglo-centric world view.
No really, don’t get up.
EPA/Walter Bieri
Blatter’s re-election reflects the powerful rejoinder he’s made to the Eurocentric view of football. But he’ll be hard pressed to outlive the latest crisis.
Product placement looming large.
EPA/Ennio Leanza
There is a growing business risk for sponsors from being associated with FIFA and they are better placed than UEFA even to push for reform.
Pitching to FIFA. One of Qatar’s planned stadia.
Ali Haider/EPA
The big beasts of European club football have missed a chance to make a Champions League style land grab from the sport’s governing body.
Hurrah?
EPA/Walter Bieri
A winter World Cup in Qatar is no one-off inconvenience, it’s football’s new normal.
It was a victorious year for the German football team.
EPA/Andreas Gebert
It was a massive year for sport – a winter Olympics, a summer World Cup, the FIFA World Cup scandal that won’t die, and reforms afoot at the International Olympic Committee. Here are some of my highlights…
Corruption thrives in environments that have poor oversight and big money.
EPA/Steffen Schmidt
The limited release of FIFA’s investigation into corruption allegations surrounding the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup was supposed to allay the ever-increasing perception that corruption…