FIFA President Gianni Infantino has withdrawn his controversial plan to sell a stake in World Cup rights to private investors. Following fierce opposition from the European soccer community, threats of a boycott, and resignations among his own leadership, the FIFA president admitted: “The project has caused divisions that are no longer in the interest of the original goal.”
A 52-year-old Belgian woman died on Thursday afternoon in an accident during a canyoning trip in Claro, in the Swiss canton of Ticino. The victim was part of a group navigating the Censo River Gorge when she fell approximately ten meters. Fellow participants immediately called for help and attempted to resuscitate her.
Mountaineer and Netflix star Nirmal “Nims” Purja is missing after an avalanche on Broad Peak.
Several influential figures in European soccer are trying to promote Nasser Al-Khelaifi, owner of PSG and chairman of the European Football Clubs (EFC), as a potential challenger to FIFA President Gianni Infantino in the next elections in 2027. This comes in response to Infantino’s controversial plan to sell shares in the World Cup to private investors—a multibillion-dollar deal that has drawn fierce criticism worldwide.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has launched a controversial plan to establish a new company that will commercially manage the World Cup tournaments—for men, women, and clubs. The project, called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), is expected to be valued at $20 billion and is attracting private investors, including Thrive Eternal, led by Joshua Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Eddy Merckx looks on with admiration at Tadej Pogačar and doesn’t even rule out the possibility that the Slovenian will soon hold the Tour record all to himself. In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, the Belgian cycling legend says he expects Pogačar to “break our record soon.”
Belgian cyclist Oliver Naesen responded bluntly on the HLN Cycling Podcast to the late-night doping tests conducted on Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard. According to the Decathlon-CMA CGM rider, a teammate of Paul Seixas, such tests are aimed at detecting a substance that is detectable in the blood for only a very short time. “They’re looking for something that’s only in your blood for three hours,” Naesen said. He was referring to substances such as growth hormone.
The bromance between the U.S. president and the FIFA president seems to be continuing even after the World Cup.
The U.S. Department of Justice has taken down or blocked nearly 3,000 websites and domains for illegally live-streaming World Cup matches. In the U.S. alone, more than 1,000 domains were targeted during the tournament. In Colombia, a similar situation occurred, with a comparable number of illegal streams being blocked.
For the time being, Hungary will not have a “chess master” as a resident of the presidential palace. World-renowned grandmaster Judit Polgár has declined Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s offer to assume the largely ceremonial presidency.