Charlotte FC, the club with a shit name and shitter logo, is set to become Major League Soccer’s 28th club in 2022. On Friday, the club announced even shittier news: absurd Charlotte FC season ticket prices for its inaugural season.
Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur had Europa League last-32 games moved to different venues on Friday after COVID-19 regulations made travelling to and from their opponents' countries impossible to manage.
Both legs of Arsenal's tie against Benfica have been moved to neutral venues due to travel restrictions in the United Kingdom with respect to arrivals from Portugal.
The first leg, which was due to be played at the Estadio Da Luz on Feb. 18, has been moved to Rome while the second leg will be played in Athens at Olympiakos Piraeus' ground a week later.
Major League Soccer's 26th season will kick off on April 17 following the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement but it remains to be decided where its Canadian teams will play, Commissioner Don Garber said on Wednesday.
The three Canadian sides — Toronto FC, Vancouver Whitecaps and CF Montreal — finished last season playing in adopted home stadiums in the United States due to strict border crossing rules brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
FIFA will aim to announce in the last quarter of 2021 the host cities for the 2026 World Cup being jointly staged by the United States, Canada and Mexico, soccer's world governing body said in a statement on Tuesday.
Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has said UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin is weighing up whether to stage the European Championship in one country this year rather than across the continent as planned due to COVID-19 concerns.
However, UEFA responded by saying it was continuing to work on existing plans for 12 countries to host the tournament. The 24-nation event, a major revenue generator for European football's governing body and the national federations, was postponed by 12 months due to the pandemic.
BARCELONA — Barcelona's coach Ronald Koeman is not happy that they are playing Thursday's Copa del Rey last-32 tie away to third division Cornella on an astroturf pitch but said he will not make excuses should his side suffer a shock defeat.
Cornella knocked out LaLiga leaders Atletico Madrid in the last round with a 1-0 win and Cup shocks are becoming much more common in Spain since the competition format changed last year, eliminating two-legged ties.
Brazilians Leandro and Adaílton fired FC Tokyo to a 2-1 victory over Kashiwa Reysol in the final of the Levain Cup on Monday in front of more than 24,000 fans at Tokyo's National Stadium.
Over the years, I have found that there is an inverse relationship between a club's place in the footballing pyramid and the likelihood of something absurd happening at a match. Only in non-league football can you have a goalkeeper having a beer with fans while in full uniform or a player threatening a supporter with a knife.
Football without fans has hurt clubs throughout the footballing pyramid, but the pandemic has hit non-league sides especially hard. These clubs depend on ticket sales as a primary source of revenue, and with empty stadiums across England, many local teams have been pushed to the brink financially.
These semi-pro and amateur sides also provide a helpful reminder of what true football fandom entails.