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Daily Mirror
18-05-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Dean Henderson sends Thomas Tuchel clear England message after cup final heroics
Dean Henderson was the hero for Crystal Palace as he saved a penalty in their 1-0 FA Cup win over Manchester City, one of a number of saves in front of England boss Thomas Tuchel Dean Henderson said a penalty premonition from Crystal Palace's third-choice keeper inspired his Wembley heroics in front of England boss Thomas Tuchel. The Eagles 'keeper's save from Omar Marmoush's spot kick was the highlight of a stunning performance at Wembley. And the uber-confident Cumbrian said: 'I know what I'm capable of. Getting exposed to this stage, I knew today would have been a phenomenal day. Even sat in bed this morning, I was thinking about things, manifesting things. It's just phenomenal to be able to perform like that. 'Remi Matthews actually said to me in my room this morning, 'You're going to have a worldie today and you're going to save a penalty' and it came true. To be fair, I just said, 'Yeah, I will'. Obviously, when he got the ball, I thought, 'Yeah, it's right, it's happening'. 'We did our homework this morning. He hasn't actually taken a penalty for City but we know he needs to keep his pace at that side every time. We knew if I got a step in early I might have a chance of saving it, which I did. He hit it well and thankfully kept it out.' Henderson did not concede a goal in his three FA Cup appearances from the quarter-final stages - and Millwall were the only team to score against them in the fifth round when Matt Turner was between the sticks. And the former Manchester United 'keeper's superb save from Jeremy Doku just before the break caused Palace fans to chant 'England's No.1'. Henderson has won only two England caps but he is convinced he will become the Three Lions No.1. 'When I achieve it, I'll enjoy it a lot,' he said. And with German Tuchel in the Wembley stands, he boosted his chances of playing in the North American World Cup next summer. 'I would like to think so,' he said. 'Obviously, that's an aim of mine. I'm obviously getting my first taste of it. I want the next taste of it. That's something I've been working towards for many years now and fingers crossed I can get the opportunity soon.' Should Dean Henderson be England's No.1 goalkeeper? Have your say in the comments section. To prove it was Palace's day, Henderson escaped a red card shortly before his penalty save after handling outside his box. 'I actually genuinely thought it was inside the box,' he said. 'I was waiting for it to skip up off the turf because normally it's wet out there but obviously the sun dried it up. But obviously it was going away from goal anyway so I'm not so sure what the problem was.'
The Irish Sun
14-05-2025
- Sport
- The Irish Sun
‘It's time' – England could host World Cup after seven decades as Fifa chief tells FA to ‘seriously think' about it
ENGLAND could host the World Cup after a SEVEN-DECADE wait following a top Fifa figure's encouragement to bid for the tournament. The nation hasn't bid for the tournament since the controversial 2010 vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in 4 England hasn't hosted the World Cup since lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy in 1966 Credit: GETTY 4 The FA failed to land the 2018 or 2022 World Cups Credit: GETTY 4 Fifa Vice-President Victor Montagliani believes it's time the tournament returns to Old Blighty Credit: GETTY And Fifa vice-president Victor Montagliani believes it's high time the tournament returns to these shores. During an interview with England but the United Kingdom shouldn't be hosting the World Cup. "I think it would be a fantastic World Cup and I think they should seriously think of putting their foot forward to host. READ MORE FOOTBALL NEWS "We all know what the game means in the UK and I think it's time.' The 2026 World Cup will be held in the United States , Canada and Mexico , while the 2030 tournament set to be split across Spain , Portugal , Morocco and South America. The Women's World Cup will take place in the UK in 2035 and could be a potential catalyst for the men's tournament to return to these shores in 2038 or 2042. Most read in Football JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS 4 England could bid to host the 2038 or 2042 World Cups Credit: Getty Speaking on Fifa's rotation model, Montagliani said: "I support what we have done in recent history , I think it's the only way. "Now it shouldn't be the Fifa president's decision alone, he has a board, he has a council. Major change to World Cup final confirmed by Fifa chief Gianni Infantino with Coldplay to perform half-time show 'But I think the old way we used to do it where people just waste their money and then all these shenanigans happen. That's ridiculous. Let's get away from that. 'Let's become a proper business . Let's have an event management strategy so that we're properly rotating it, everybody gets a crack at it. 'The reality is that the World Cup generates 80 to 90 per cent of Fifa's income, which then sends 80 per cent of that back to its members for the development of football. "And if Fifa doesn't generate that money there is a significant number of the 211 countries that do not have the funds to develop football.' Next year's North American World Cup will be the first tournament to include 48 teams. But South American footie chiefs have called for future tournaments to be expanded to an incredible 64 TEAMS , a total Montagliani believes would devalue the prestige which comes with qualifying for the competition He said: "Sixty-four teams is just too much in my opinion . We still haven't kicked the ball for 48 teams, although I think we'll be fine. 'We're OK where we are and I'm not comfortable with any more — scarcity is still important. "It still needs to be difficult to get to a World Cup and I think at 48 you're still going to have some nations you may think should be at a World Cup but fail to qualify.'
New York Times
20-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
2034 World Cup: Saudi Arabia ‘more than happy' to host expanded 64-team tournament
Saudi Arabia would be 'more than happy' to host an expanded 64-team men's World Cup in 2034. In December, the Gulf state was confirmed as host for the 2034 edition of the competition following an unopposed bid. Saudi Arabia's sports minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki bin Faisal, said his country would be able to 'deliver' a bigger tournament. Next year's North American World Cup will be the first 48-team edition, an increase from the 32-team format that ran from 1998 to 2022. Advertisement 'I mean we're ready, and or we will be ready, inshallah,' Prince Abdulaziz told reporters ahead of Sunday's Formula One race in Jeddah. 'If that's a decision that FIFA takes and thinks that that's a good decision for everyone, then we're more than happy to deliver on it.' The calls to expand the 2030 version to 64 nations have predominantly come from South America, with Alejandro Dominguez — president of CONMEBOL, which governs soccer in the continent — supporting the idea earlier this month, after Uruguayan official Ignacio Alonso raised the proposal at a FIFA Council meeting in March. Dominguez's argument was that, as the 2030 World Cup will respresent the 100-year anniversary since the first tournament was held in Uruguay, it should be a celebratory, further expanded edition. Uruguay, 2022 winners Argentina and Paraguay — the home of CONMEBOL's offices — are scheduled to host one match each at the start of the 2030 tournament, with the remaining 101 games in the 48-team tournament split between Morocco, Portugal and Spain. The proposed expansion has also provoked criticism, with Aleksander Ceferin, president of UEFA — European soccer's governing body — dismissing the proposal as a 'bad idea' earlier this month. Last week, Concacaf president Victor Montagliani spoke out against the idea. Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim — president of the Asian Football Confederation, of which Saudi Arabia is a part of — also rejected the proposal, telling the Agence France-Presse that it would cause 'chaos'. A 48-team tournament sees a 40-match increase from 64 to 104 games, with the addition of a further 16 nations likely to see a similar uptick. A further expansion of the World Cup would have to be voted through at the FIFA Council, the 37-person strong decision-making arm of world soccer's governing body. The 48-team expansion was previously voted through unanimously in 2017. One unanswered question ahead of the 2034 World Cup is whether Saudi Arabia will follow the 2022 World Cup in neighbouring Qatar in hosting the tournament during winter to minimise worries over high temperatures. Prince Abdulaziz said that no decision has yet been reached but that there was 'ongoing' dialogue with FIFA. 'It is their decision to allocate the right timing,' he added. Advertisement 'We are preparing everything to host it at the right time to make sure that the most important thing for us is the fan experience and to have everyone enjoy coming at the right time, at the right weather and so on. 'So yes, it's going to be a challenge with hosting two big events (the World Cup and the 2034 Asian Games) in the same year. But I think both parties, whether it was FIFA or the OCA (for the Asian Games), are open to see which is the best for the fans and for everyone to have a good discussion on that.' There are also concerns over the rights and potential exploitation of migrant workers in the Middle Eastern nation ahead of the tournament, again similar to the 2022 tournament in Qatar. In December, an international charity warned that workers' rights in Saudi Arabia were still an issue ahead of the 2034 World Cup. Major global human rights groups also urged FIFA to postpone the awarding of the tournament to Sauid Arabia until further reforms were introduced. But Prince Abdulaziz said Saudi Arabia has 'learned from Qatar' in the issues they had met in the lead-up to their tournament. 'We met with the Qataris, what they've been through, what they've gone through,' he said. 'We have ongoing communication with them, with FIFA as well, on what needs to be done, how do we make sure that, you know, workers' safety is a highest priority, and it's a mandate on us, and it's one of the most important things on us because we saw the impact that it had on Qatar.' Saudi officials have repeatedly talked about the progress the kingdom has made in recent years, including labour rights, and promised to comply with FIFA's rules. They also point to the glowing technical assessment FIFA gave its bid earlier in December. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
U.S. Soccer bid for 2031 Women's World Cup could bring games to Central America, Caribbean
LOS ANGELES — U.S. Soccer is formulating a bid for the 2031 Women's World Cup that could include proposals to stage some games in other countries throughout North, Central America and the Caribbean, three people familiar with the plans told Yahoo Sports this week. The United States will definitely bid to host the tournament; the question is whether it will do so alone or jointly with regional partners. Discussions remain ongoing ahead of upcoming deadlines to formally express and affirm interest to FIFA. But the increasingly likely answer, those three sources indicated, is that the U.S.-led bid will loop in multiple nations from CONCACAF, the soccer confederation that stretches from Canada down to Panama and out into the Caribbean. U.S. Soccer initially said that it would bid jointly with Mexico. The two North American neighbors had previously bid together for the 2027 Women's World Cup. They then withdrew that halfhearted bid and said they would "instead focus on bidding to host the tournament in 2031." But over the past year, plans have evolved. A traditional joint bid has morphed into novel proposals that would bring the vast majority of games to the States, but a small handful to smaller countries — such as, say, Costa Rica and Jamaica — as well. No matter the exact construction, the bid will be a heavy favorite after FIFA, soccer's global governing body, announced that only countries from CONCACAF and Africa would be eligible to host the 2031 Women's World Cup. That opaque decision — vaguely justified by continental rotation, and combined with a decision to restrict 2035 hosting rights to Europe and Africa — left the U.S. and its regional partners with only a few semi-realistic competitors in the seemingly rigged race to host the tournament. Two sources said they expect South Africa to launch a bid, but it's unclear if that would be for 2031 or the 2035 edition (for which a joint United Kingdom bid is heavily favored). FIFA leadership clearly prefers the U.S.-led bid for 2031, and there is a chance it will proceed unchallenged. That would leave months and years for FIFA, U.S. Soccer, U.S. cities, U.S. stadiums and their counterparts in other CONCACAF countries to iron out what, exactly, the tournament would look like; and where, exactly, it will be held. (Although formal expressions of interest are due within weeks, the belief is that the list of potential co-hosts could still evolve after that deadline.) CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani — who serves as a FIFA vice president and key powerbroker within global soccer's most powerful ruling body, the Bureau of the FIFA Council — confirmed the ongoing discussions Thursday. Speaking to Yahoo Sports and others at an industry conference here in Los Angeles, he also said he '100%' supported 'a regional bid.' 'I would like to see perhaps a potential Caribbean [host], a potential Central America [host],' Montagliani said. 'So, over and above just a North American World Cup.' 'Obviously, there's some realities with that, because not every country has the infrastructure to host a Women's World Cup,' he clarified. 'But, I think we're open minded on that. 'We all know the U.S. is a very strong candidate, even if they went on their own. But I think those discussions are being had by U.S. Soccer, by Mexico, and others as well. And CONCACAF is at that table. And obviously, whatever we decide, we're gonna support [the bid] 100%. And hopefully we can win it.'
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
MLS Year 30: A league at a philosophical crossroads as World Cups loom
Ever since its foundation in 1996, Major League Soccer has faced questions about its place within the world of American sports and global soccer. What is the relationship between MLS and the top football leagues of Europe? Is it a retirement league for aging superstars, a development league for those on their way to bigger things, or a home for the lateral career move, a kind of footballing purgatory? Where should it sit in the American sporting calendar, and what should be the competition's relationship to the surrounding culture: is MLS an American sporting league whose sport happens to be soccer, or a soccer league that happens to take place in America? There are questions of direction as well. What is the correct tempo for the competition's growth, and what kind of league should expansion aim to create? Is this a league that wants to compete with the best of the best, or simply seeks to serve a gap in the domestic market? Aspirationally, is MLS a 'world league' in the mold of the Premier League, a league that serves as a center of gravity for playing talent throughout the western hemisphere, or something more modest? As MLS begins its thirtieth season this weekend, these questions remain as pertinent and tantalizingly open as ever. But this season also promises some measure of clarification, an interim verdict of sorts: in June and July, as the league continues to weigh a schedule change that would bring its season in line with European club football's fall-to-spring calendar, MLS will pause for the Club World Cup taking place on American soil. This edition of Fifa's top club competition is, of course, a certified big deal. It will function both as the launch of an expanded 32-team format meant to give a competition once seen as an afterthought some real meaning, and as the curtain raiser for next year's North American World Cup – a critical juncture in soccer's ongoing effort to conquer the world's biggest media market. As big as this summer will be for Fifa, it will be even bigger for MLS: the participation of Seattle Sounders and Inter Miami in the Club World Cup – the former qualifying via their historic 2022 Concacaf Champions Cup title, the latter via an elaborate, Fifa-stamped approval process known as 'getting knocked out in the opening rounds of the MLS playoffs but having Lionel Messi on your team' – will offer a benchmark for MLS's progress against some of the world's best clubs. Inter Miami have been handed a relatively friendly group with Palmeiras, Porto, and Al Ahly, while Seattle face a sterner test, with PSG, Atlético Madrid, and Botafogo standing in the way of their progression to the knockout rounds. Since his arrival in Miami one and a half seasons ago, Messi's MLS appearances have inspired as much admiration for his on-field sorcery as they have derision for the quality of the defending he's faced; whether fairly or not, popular perceptions of MLS are that of a footballing backwater. The Club World Cup is the league's big chance to silence the doubters. Do the US's best clubs – however creatively defined – truly belong on the world stage? Is MLS, as it's sometimes claimed, the strongest and most competitive league outside Europe's Big Five? We are about to find out. MLS commissioner Don Garber, perhaps wary of how damaging a poor showing from the league's two representatives could be to MLS's reputation, is doing his best to keep expectations in check. 'Clearly, MLS teams are at the lower quadrant of transfer market value,' Garber told The Athletic after the Club World Cup draw last month. 'And that's something, over time, that I hope will continue to grow as our teams are investing more in players and hopefully generating more revenue to justify that expense.' Garber is right, of course. Even in European soccer's new age of financial controls and profitability rulings, salary cap-constrained MLS teams simply can't compete with the big clubs across the Atlantic. But his response was also uncharacteristically downbeat. Just a few weeks earlier, he told a sports investment conference that the top European leagues would be in 'much, much better shape' if they were more like MLS. That was a much more representative expression of his customary braggadocio, and it also captures some of the tensions and growing pains besetting the league on the eve of its thirtieth season. By most measures MLS has been a roaring success: average match attendance last season reached a record 23,234, and this year the league will welcome San Diego FC as its 30th franchise. On the field things are humming along nicely enough. Celebrity pre-retirees like Messi and Luis Suárez bring headline pizzazz, but the league has also provided fertile terrain for younger players looking for a mid-career reset (Evander, Denis Bouanga, Riqui Puig). Expansion has brought new investors and fans to the sport, while changing the very fabric of the US's built environment: soccer-specific stadiums are now a feature of most cities with MLS franchises, giving professional soccer a tangible presence in that it once lacked in the country. But in some ways the league has become a victim of this success; the mechanisms that have allowed it to expand so healthily over the past three decades now seem like obstacles to future development. Salary caps have helped keep the league even during the first decades of its growth, and aggressive expansion of the type Garber has pursued makes sense for a country with a population of 330 million and an insatiable appetite for professional sports. Why shouldn't North America's top soccer league have 30 teams? On the other hand: should it have 30 teams? And where do you draw the line? Culturally MLS remains a bit of a non-entity. This is a league that benefits from America's size, the country's undiminished capacity to absorb and finance myriad cultures and sporting enthusiasms, while barely making an impression on the national consciousness. Soccer, for all its local advances over the past few decades, still hovers beyond the mainstream. The Messi show might coax LeBron James and Serena Williams out to Chase Stadium on occasion, but the MLS playoffs command none of the attention and prestige of the post-seasons in baseball, football, basketball, or even hockey. MLS seems simultaneously too American for most international football fans (cue jokes about Dick's Sporting Goods Park and Field) and too international for the casual American sports lover; an import that's been tolerated but never truly embraced. The 18 months ahead, with World Cups at both club and national level to look forward to, will give soccer an unprecedented burst of exposure on these shores. These should be MLS's golden days. So why don't they feel like it? MLS is now at the point where the structures put in place to ensure equitable development of soccer in the US are starting to eat into each other: a salary cap and league expansion may make sense on their own, but a salary cap combined with an ongoing imperative of growth potentially limit the quality of play on the field, which is the most vital commodity of any professional sports competition. Meanwhile the fees to join the league have become so prohibitive – San Diego's owners paid MLS $500m to become the league's 30th team – that new franchises risk taking shape in a way that leaves them unconnected to the local communities they're designed to serve, further undermining one of the rationales for salary caps and other aspects of the league's institutional design. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion A multi-divisional system built on promotion and relegation could arguably fix most of these problems, allowing for healthy expansion of American professional soccer in a way that accommodates clubs of different sizes and means while maintaining a high standard of on-field quality at the very top of the sport. It would also inject professional soccer in this country with something that other US pro sports leagues lack: a real and dynamic sense of stakes, of permanent divisional jeopardy. Relegation and promotion battles would help MLS further stand out in a crowded domestic sporting landscape, giving soccer a point of differentiation over other sports reliant on the same post-season pop to generate mainstream interest. But MLS's design as a single legal entity that owns all the teams – a major point of contrast with the leagues of Europe, where clubs operate as separate legal bodies then own a stake in whichever league they operate in – prevents any kind of opening along these lines. And other aspects of the league's operational strategy militate against it: potential new team owners, for instance, will probably not want to invest millions into a team if there is a danger of relegation lurking on the horizon. With major structural reform unlikely, MLS could easily expand to 40 teams and beyond (though probably not in short order – Garber said last year that San Diego would be 'the end of expansion for a period of time until we're ready to expand again.') Ordinarily one might expect the United States' cult of competition to encourage rival leagues to emerge in the shadow of this bloat, but challenges to MLS's domestic supremacy pose little threat, for now at least. A jury recently dismissed an anti-trust action brought by the now defunct North American Soccer League over MLS's alleged strangling of lower league soccer; meanwhile United Soccer League, a would-be rival to MLS, has announced plans to launch a division one men's professional league in 2027. But that plan is only in its embryonic stage. MLS has the power of incumbency, with all its financial, physical and cultural assets: media and sponsorship deals, stadiums, fanbases. Moves from upstart leagues like USL seem unlikely to prompt much soul searching among Garber and his associates. Displays of short-term progress remain the league's priority over the more disruptive decisions needed to reform US professional soccer and put the domestic game on a sustainable long-term footing. Emblematic of this curiously dynamic stasis is MLS's 2023 decision to ink a ten-year, $2.5bn broadcast deal with Apple. Superficially this deal presents a real marker of progress. In 1999, the year Garber took over as commissioner the status of soccer in this country was so dire that the league eventually formed its own marketing company to produce and distribute the 2002 and 2006 World Cups. But in another sense the Apple deal, which makes all matches available on Apple TV via the $15 per month MLS Season Pass, limits the sport's potential audience. The league's reach on cable TV now barely extends beyond the one game a week shown on Fox Sports. Apple TV's live broadcasts may be high quality but the success of the streaming deal remains hard to gauge, since Apple and MLS refuse to disclose subscriber numbers. The arrangement boxes in the league in other ways. Apple TV is releasing an 'eight-part panoramic documentary event' based on the 2024 MLS season this week – but is there a point in evangelizing to existing subscribers? Drive to Survive did a lot to build Formula One's popularity in the US but it didn't do it from behind the same paywall; it was out there on Netflix with all the other slop. The Apple deal was designed, at least in part, as a sweetener to entice Messi to play out his career in America: Inter Miami's star attraction receives a cut of the MLS Season Pass subscription windfall as part of his pay package. In no other top professional football league would the administration have the centralized power to decree a deal of this nature; but in no other top league would it be deemed necessary to bet so heavily on a single player. This is the bind in which MLS finds itself as it enters its thirties: its greatest institutional strengths are also its biggest weaknesses. Efficiency has given way to rigidity, short-term gimmicks take precedence over long-term repairs, and expansion is transforming into stagnation. Garber's boundless rhetorical confidence in the destiny of the sport in this country seemingly belies some unresolved insecurity. Soccer wants America. But does America want soccer?
