By Andrew Warshaw
July 17 – UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has warned against expanding the World Cup to 48 teams in 2022 for fear of disrupting the mid-season European calendar.
July 17 – Croatia’s Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren has poured out his heart over their World Cup final defeat saying his side “played much better football” than France.
July 17 – Nigerian authorities are digging in their heels over who runs the national FA despite a warning from FIFA president Gianni Infantino that the country risks being thrown out of international competition.
July 17 – With the Russia 2018 World Cup ending and focus rapidly switching to Qatar 2022 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Shaikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa has promised “the football world a truly memorable Arabic welcome.”
July 17 – Four members of the Russian punk activist group Pussy Riot have been jailed for 15 days for disrupting the World Cup final by running on to the pitch.
July 17 – Twitter, which has ruthlessly axed hundreds of football accounts without explanation or recourse to appeal, has broadcast its first full match live with a team from Italy’s Serie A.
July 17 – Premier League Arsenal look set to lose their recently announced sponsorship by Chinese electric vehicle makers BYD. The club appear to have been caught in a suspected sponsorship fraud after the carmaker announced that a suspect had been arrested for securing fraudulent deals.
By Samindra Kunti in Moscow
July 16 – Qatar’s Deputy Secretary-General for Tournament Affairs Nasser Al Khater has repeated FIFA stance’s that the 2022 World Cup hosts will have the final decision-making power over the number of participants in four years time.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 16 – UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has issued a veiled swipe at FIFA for not sufficiently scrutinising how their development grants are being used by member federations.
By Paul Nicholson
July 16 – Saudi Arabia quickly responded to FIFA’s statement that it was to take legal action in Saudi Arabia against pirate television channel beoutQ that broadcast every match of the World Cup in Russia illegally to the kingdom, saying that it welcomed the FIFA action.
By Andrew Warshaw
July 16 – Long before the World Cup got under way, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was unequivocal. It was unthinkable, he said, for the destiny of the world’s greatest sporting occasion to be decided by a refereeing mistake.
July 16 – Nigeria will be kicked out of FIFA unless they comply with strict regulations over government interference in the affairs of their national association, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has confirmed.
July 16 – International Champions Cup organisers Relevant, has expanded its tournament footprint into youth competition with the ICC Futures event that kicks off today at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
July 16 – Premier League West Ham United is swapping its MRF Tires sleeve sponsor for financial services firm Bassett & Gold. No term or value was given for the deal that sees an expanded sponsorship package than the previous one-year deal with MRF.
By Samindra Kunti in Moscow
July 14 – Local organisers followed in the footsteps of FIFA president Gianni Infantino to heap praise on their own World Cup organisation and the results it has delivered. They said that the month-long event has changed Russia’s image and shown the true character of the nation – both to the football and the wider world.