June 17 – The 2026 World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico is beginning to take shape after FIFA announced the 16 host cities for the tournament on Thursday. The American capital Washington, D.C./Baltimore and Edmonton didn’t make the cut, reducing Canada very much to a junior partner with just two host cities.
By Andrew Warshaw
June 17 – Spanish football boss Javier Tebas (pictured) has lashed out yet again at what he describes as cash-rich “state-owned” clubs endangering the entire landscape of elite football competition.
June 17 – The former captain of Russia’s national team has taken the bold and courageous step of publicly condemning Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, risking the wrath of the Kremlin and potentially a lengthy jail term.
June 17 – New Chelsea owner Todd Boehly says UEFA’s financial fair play rules are starting to bite and that clubs will no longer be able to sign players “at any price” due to the risks of sanctions.
June 17 – Online bookmaker and gaming site Betano has expanded its sponsorship of Portuguese SuperLiga champions FC Porto to becoming the club’s main partner.
June 17 – The European Club Association and the UEFA Foundation for Children are inviting clubs to apply for a €25,000 and €50,000 grant to support efforts with humanitarian initiatives to assist the Ukrainian people.
June 17 – Ehab Galal has been dismissed as the head coach of the Egyptian national team after just three matches in charge, the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) have confirmed.
June 17 – With a summer of confederation women’s championship about to begin – Concacaf, CAF and UEFA are all kicking off significantly expanded competitions in July – FIFA has released its biggest Women’s World Rankings to date with 181 nations included.
June 16 – Prosecutors in the criminal trial of former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and ex-Uefa boss Michel Platini have demanded both men be handed 20-month suspended prison sentences, accusing them of defrauding FIFA.
June 16 – World federation FIFA will announce the host cities for the 2026 World Cup today, Thursday, bringing to an end a four-year bidding war among 17 US finalists.
June 16 – English Premier League clubs must present “truly exceptional” reasons to have requests for match postponements granted next season.
June 16 – Accepted natural order is that in Concacaf Mexico and the USA dominate, newly re-emerged Canada are now neck and neck with them, and Costa Rica lead the Central American challenge.
June 16 – Indian head coach Igor Stimac has told Indian football to “wake up”, criticising how the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is being run.
June 15 – LaLiga’s war on what it sees as state-owned clubs financially unbalancing the European club eco-system has been taken a step further with the Spanish League filing acomplaint with UEFA against PSG who LaLiga maintains is “in continuous breach of the current financial fair play rules”.
June 16 – Organisers of the Qatar World Cup have ceded to a request from Taiwan to alter a ticketing system that had wrongly identified Taiwanese attending the tournament as hailing from China.