WTF

NEW YORK — Two former 21st Century Fox executives and a South American sports marketing company pleaded not guilty on Thursday to criminal charges in New York in the long-running corruption probe surrounding FIFA, the world governing body for soccer.

The former Fox executives, Hernan Lopez and Carlos Martinez, and Full Play Group SA entered their pleas to crimes including wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy at an arraignment before U.S. District Judge Pamela Chen in Brooklyn.

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar has become the focus of fresh FIFA corruption allegations after the release of a new U.S. Department of Justice indictment which says bribes were paid to football officials to secure their votes for hosting rights.

Suspicion and rumours have long surrounded both the 2010 vote by FIFA's executive to hand the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. But on Monday, for the first time, prosecutors set direct, formal allegations down in print.

U.S. prosecutors on Monday announced new criminal charges against two former executives of 21st Century Fox Inc and others stemming from a long-running investigation of corruption surrounding FIFA, soccer's world governing body.

The former Fox executives, Hernan Lopez and Carlos Martinez, were indicted in Brooklyn federal court on wire fraud and money laundering along with Gerard Romy, former co-CEO of Spanish media company Imagina Media Audiovisual SL, and Full Play Group SA, a Uruguayan sports marketing company. Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be identified. 

Manchester City defender Kyle Walker faces disciplinary action from the Premier League champions after tabloid the Sun said he breached Britain's lockdown rules by hosting a party during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Two amateur Swedish soccer clubs felt forced to cancel a friendly and then play the game in secret due to fears of match-fixing after almost 150 bookmakers worldwide offered odds on the game in the absence of other live sport, the newspaper Sportbladet reported. 

Donald Trump’s feud with women’s soccer players continued on Saturday as he spoke with the commissioners of every major sports league in the U.S. with one exception: the NWSL.

To no one’s surprise, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and PGA commissioners were all invited. Somewhat surprisingly, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, LPGA’s Michael Whan and MLS’s Don Garber also got invites. Also included were UFC and NASCAR, which probably speak to Trump’s base, and WWE, which is more akin to Broadway than sport. 

But no National Women’s Soccer League. 

The domestic Tajikistan soccer season is kicking off on schedule despite almost every other soccer league around the globe having ground to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The clubs in the landlocked Central Asian country of nine million people are largely unknown, even among the world's most ardent football fans.

But the Super Cup clash between champions Istiklol and league runners-up Khujand on Saturday could bring some solace to soccer fanatics this weekend with bookmakers already offering a variety of bets and even live streams of the game.

It began simply enough. On Monday, former javelin thrower and Cheltenham Town youth footballer James Campbell — bored inside his house — sent out a simple photo of his modest backyard along with a promise that he’d run a marathon in it if he could get 10K retweets.

10,000 retweets & I’ll run a marathon in my back garden. It’s about 6 metres long pic.twitter.com/birrnVQ93Y