Paramount takeover of UK sport cools despite Champions League grab December 10, 2025 Paramount Skydance has no plans to launch a UK sports channel after acquiring Champions League rights from 2027 onwards in an indication that a major expansion into sport from the global streaming platform is unlikely. As it stands the Champions League is likely to be broadcast in this country on Paramount+, while the entertainment network [...]
Salah’s Egypt and Iran will contest a ‘pride match’ at 2026 Fifa World Cup December 8, 2025 The 2026 Fifa World Cup match between Egypt and Iran has been designated as host city Seattle’s “pride match”. Homosexuality is illegal in both Egypt and Iran but the local organising committee in host city Seattle – the Seattle Pride Match Advisory Committee, which is not affiliated with Fifa – has said the match on [...]
World Cup has found ‘right number’ by expanding to 48 teams, says Wenger December 5, 2025 Arsene Wenger insists that Fifa has found the “right number” by expanding the World Cup to 48 teams for the first time in 2026. The former Arsenal manager, now Fifa’s chief of global football development, has long been among the most vocal supporters for the expansion. Critics argue that the move makes the tournament too [...]
2026 World Cup: SoFi boss dismisses Trump threat to move games from LA November 14, 2025 The boss of the SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles says he expects the £4bn venue to play a key role in staging next summer’s 2026 World Cup despite US President Trump threatening to move games from the city. Trump has raised the prospect of stripping LA, San Francisco and Seattle of their scheduled fixtures if [...]
Justice for Players: Multi-billion-pound class action lawsuit against Fifa bolstered by Dutch union November 13, 2025 The class action lawsuit being brought against football’s world governing body Fifa and backed by the lawyers who achieved the landmark Bosman and Diarra rulings has been bolstered by support from another national player union. The Association of Contract Players (VVCS), which represents male and female professional footballers in the Netherlands, has joined the legal [...]
Fifa casts net as Budweiser Uefa talks throw World Cup contract into doubt November 5, 2025 Fifa has begun exploratory talks with other alcohol companies as a contingency measure in case long-term partner AB InBev, maker of Budweiser, opts against extending its contract as the world governing body’s official beer supplier after next year’s World Cup. AB InBev’s flagship brand Budweiser has been the official World Cup beer since the 1986 [...]
Investigation finds 150 referees with betting accounts, one individual placed 18,000 bets October 28, 2025 A five-year investigation into referees found that over 150 were actively gambling, with one individual allegedly placing over 18,000 bets. Turkey’s football federation chief Ibrahim Ethem Haciosmanoglu claimed the half-decade investigation into officials in the country found that 371 of 571 match officials have gambling accounts with 152 of those currently active. He revealed at [...]
Criminal complaint filed against Fifa over NFTs ahead of World Cup October 23, 2025 Fifa has been referred to prosecutors after Switzerland’s gambling regulator filed a criminal complaint against football’s world governing body over NFTs. The complaint was launched by Gespa, the Swiss Gambling Supervisory Authority, and relates to the “Fifa Collect” platform and the NFTs hosted on the site. It marks an escalation against the body over its [...]
Here’s what the NFL can teach football about global expansion October 16, 2025 It had taken me 18 years and 40 missed opportunities in London before I got round to seeing my first NFL game in the flesh on Sunday: an attritional contest edged by the Denver Broncos at a packed Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that looked for all intents and purposes as though it had been flown from [...]
Barcelona and Milan plans for overseas games get green light from Uefa October 6, 2025 Uefa has “reluctantly” approved plans for LaLiga and Serie A to stage one-off overseas games this season, blaming Fifa for lacking a clear regulatory framework. LaLiga has announced plans to play a match between Barcelona and Villarreal in Miami in December, while Serie A is moving AC Milan’s contest with Como to Perth in February. [...]