The politics behind the 2026 Fifa World Cup draw and schedule December 9, 2025 By the time the Village People walked out on stage to close the 2026 Fifa World Cup draw, to the delight of US President Donald Trump and Fifa chief Gianni Infantino, many fans’ thoughts had already turned to who their team would be playing and when. And when the full schedule was confirmed 24 hours [...]
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 [...]
2026 World Cup: San Francisco and Seattle could lose games, says Trump September 26, 2025 US President Donald Trump has floated the possibility of moving 2026 World Cup games away from San Francisco and Seattle if the host cities are deemed to be unsafe. The first 48-team World Cup is being co-hosted with Canada and Mexico but will be held mostly in the US, with San Francisco and Seattle currently [...]
Non-league football clubs set for World Cup windfall from Fifa September 16, 2025 Non-league football clubs are set for financial windfalls after changes were made to the way Fifa distributes its compensation for the release of international players for the World Cup. The changes, agreed by Fifa and the European Club Association, mean that all teams who release players for the 2026 World Cup or its qualifiers will [...]
Swiss officials call for Fifa chief Infantino to soften Trump tariff blow August 7, 2025 Fifa president Gianni Infantino has been called upon by political figures in Switzerland to help persuade Donald Trump to lower tariffs on the landlocked nation. The US President has announced that Switzerland is in line to be slapped with 39 per cent tariffs as part of his sweeping economic policies that have seen countries rush [...]
Gianni Infantino, Jay Shah and the rise of sport’s super-execs August 5, 2025 Infantino at Fifa and Shah at the ICC are styling themselves as super-execs like Musk and Zuckerberg but it won’t end well, warns Matt Readman. In sport, the best referees go unnoticed. They quietly manage the game, letting play flow and leaving the athletes to shine. Occasionally they must enforce the law, but they are [...]
Does NFL hold key to resolving football’s bitter welfare row? July 17, 2025 A bitter row between Fifa and players’ union Fifpro escalated at the recent Club World Cup in the US, but looking across the pond could provide the solution. Fifa president Gianni Infantino may be fond of his slogan “football unites the world” but the recent Club World Cup only appeared to drive a wedge even [...]
Chelsea’s Club World Cup winners’ prize? A £10m US tax bill July 16, 2025 Chelsea will be hit with a US tax bill of around £10m as a result of winning the Club World Cup on Sunday. The stunning 3-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in New York last weekend ensured Chelsea will receive £85m in prize money from competition organiser Fifa. Some £39.7m is to be paid immediately and [...]
Fifa opens office in Trump Tower, deepening ties with US President July 8, 2025 Fifa has opened an office at Trump Tower in New York in the latest evidence of an increasingly close relationship between football’s world governing body and the US president. The move follows the relocation of Fifa’s legal department to Miami last year and comes ahead of the US hosting the majority of the men’s World [...]
Fifa ignoring 2026 World Cup human rights concerns, say groups July 3, 2025 Fifa, football’s world governing body, has been accused of failing to “meaningfully address” concerns raised by human rights groups about US immigration policy ahead of next summer’s men’s World Cup. A letter signed by 90 groups urges Fifa president Gianni Infantino, who has adopted the slogan “football unites the world”, to publicly press the Trump [...]