More than half of all players at the finals of last year's European Championship and Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) were subjected to some form of discriminatory abuse online, a report published by global soccer governing body FIFA has revealed.
The final major international window before the World Cup begins Monday and lasts through early next week with crucial matches being contested across UEFA, CONMEBOL, Concacaf, CAF, AFC and OFC. We'll know 29 of the 32 competing nations in Qatar after this period, with only the inter-confederation playoffs (two spots) and a delayed European playoff final (one spot) to go.
A triumphant Senegal team returned to the nation's capital of Dakar on Monday holding the trophy the country's populace has so long craved.
After a series of near misses dating back to 1965 — including runners-up finishes in both 2002 and 2019 — the Lions of Teranga are finally able to call themselves champions of Africa after defeating Egypt in the AFCON final on Sunday.
In the Africa Cup of Nations final billed as Sadio Mané versus Mohamed Salah, it was Mané's Senegal that ultimately triumphed in a shootout on Sunday to claim its first-ever AFCON title.
Salah individually outperformed Mané over 120 minutes of action, but two Egypt misses in the shootout denied Salah an opportunity in the fifth spot, whereas Mané made amends for an early penalty miss of his own by converting Senegal's all-important fifth attempt.
Defending champions Algeria were drawn with the Ivory Coast in a tough group for next January’s Africa Cup of Nations finals while hosts Cameroon will kick off the tournament against Burkina Faso.
The AFCON 2021 draw is complete. What are your thoughts? #TotalEnergiesAFCON pic.twitter.com/BpGScc0sJL
In football, as in life, sometimes it's better to be lucky than to be good. And if you were a decent French-speaking footballer in the first half of the 2010s, there was a chance that Newcastle United's bulging pocket book and obsession with Ligue 1 players would make you a very rich man.
The "French Revolution" began after Newcastle's Premier League promotion in 2010, as the club signed French winger Hatem Ben Arfa and Ivorian holding midfielder Cheick Tioté. Ben Arfa and Tioté were just two of the 20+ French-speaking players Newcastle signed over the next half-decade.
FIFA decided to postpone the qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup for the African teams, which were to take place from June to November of this year and March of next year, according to the organization's statement.
Breaking: CAF Emergency Committee FIFA World Cup African Qualifiers. Press release here pic.twitter.com/PYwh02YQUw
— Mpho Motaung (@Mph__Motaung) May 6, 2021
While there were no headlining matchups, the latest cycle of international qualifying across the globe provided us with some unexpected upsets — if you know where to look.
North Macedonia over Germany and Luxembourg beating the Republic of Ireland were tabbed as the biggest surprises of the international break, but there plenty more stunning results from across Europe and beyond.
These were the best of the bunch:
MANCHESTER - Next week's World Cup qualifying games in Europe and beyond are set to be heavily affected by clubs refusing to release players for international duty, COVID-19 quarantines and travel restrictions.
Inter Milan announced on Thursday that all of their players will be pulled out of international duty after two more positive COVID-19 cases at the club.