The British summer is a confounding, elusive thing. Some years, it is long and warm and hazy, with endless months of blue skies and hosepipe bans, spent drinking in beer gardens and making sincere promises that, next year, we won’t need to bother going abroad. Some years, it is as though it does not come […] More
LONDON — By Saturday afternoon, after three weeks of impasse, after hearing their morals questioned by politicians and witnessing their clubs start to line up for government bailouts, the players of the Premier League decided to take matters into their own hands. The captains of the league’s 20 clubs, as well as many of its […] More
The first-year football coach at Mississippi State University has been reprimanded and must visit a civil rights museum after he recently shared a meme on Twitter of a woman knitting a noose, the university’s athletic director said this week. The coach, Mike Leach, 59, who has since apologized for the post, also must participate in […] More
Germany is ahead of the curve. While other European soccer leagues are engulfed in uncertainty and damaging pay disputes between clubs and player unions, in Germany there is order and a cleareyed strategy to restart its league, which like others around the world was brought to a halt by the coronavirus outbreak. This week, all […] More
After years of investigations and indictments, the United States Department of Justice on Monday said for the first time that representatives working for Russia and Qatar had bribed former FIFA officials to secure hosting rights for soccer’s World Cup. Prosecutors made the accusations in an indictment charging three media executives and a sports marketing company […] More
Bobby Mitchell, the Hall of Fame receiver and running back who in 1962 became the Washington Redskins’ first African-American star when the team yielded to pressure from the Kennedy administration and ended its resistance to signing black players, died on Sunday. He was 84. His death was announced by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, […] More
He was born without toes on his right foot, but spent 11 seasons in the N.F.L. and kicked 159 field goals. He died of complications of the coronavirus. More
Sign up for Rory Smith’s weekly newsletter on world soccer (and, for the foreseeable future, quite a few other topics) at nytimes.com/rory. At first glance, the problem is clear, and the problem is money. Soccer, at its rarefied heights, is awash with it: broadcasting deals and sponsorship agreements and corporate entertainment, all of it swilling […] More
