The NWSL is preparing for its Challenge Cup beginning on Saturday, June 27 at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, Utah. The nine teams participating in the 25-game tournament have been back training, but with the time-crunched preseason, not all the big names will be making an appearance.
Several USWNT players will not be joining their respective teams due to injury or concern over the possible spread of the coronavirus.
Former United States soccer coach Bruce Arena questioned the relevance of playing the country's national anthem before matches in professional sports leagues, saying it was inappropriate.
Arena said he understood why some athletes take a knee to protest racial discrimination during pre-match renditions of "The Star-Spangled Banner," saying it was appropriate as long as it was respectful.
Colombia's soccer chief and the head of South American football confederation CONMEBOL have written to FIFA complaining of "erroneous and discriminatory conclusions" in the assessment of the country's bid to host the 2023 Women's World Cup.
The Colombian proposal to bring the tournament to South America for the first time received the lowest score in an evaluation of three bids to host the tournament carried out by world soccer's governing body ahead of next Friday's vote.
The United Women's Soccer league is a national second-tier league with regional conferences in the United States and Canada. The league was created to provide high-level competition for top current/post collegiate players, aspiring/former professionals and international stars. The season is usually played from May through July, but due to COVID-19 the season was suspended.
Diego Costa scored an equalizer to give Atlético Madrid a 1-1 draw with Athletic Bilbao as both teams returned to play for the first time in three months on Sunday. More importantly, Costa paid a special tribute to a player on the Atleti women’s team, Virginia Torrecilla.
Atlético went behind in the 37th minute to a well-taken shot from Iker Muniain but didn’t trail long. Two minutes later, Costa kept his composure in the box to fire past Unai Símon to even things up at 1-1.
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) announced he is drafting legislation to force U.S. Soccer players to stand for the national anthem or “face financial repercussions.”
A day after the U.S. Soccer announced that it had overturned its ban on protests during the national anthem, federation president Cindy Parlow Cone apologized to women's national team star Megan Rapinoe for the policy being instituted originally.
U.S. Soccer added the rule to its bylaws in 2017 after Rapinoe began kneeling for the anthem to protest racism and police abuses. Rapinoe was following the lead of then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began the same protests in 2016 and hasn't played in the NFL since that year.
CNBC released an article June 11 at 8 a.m. EST with the headline “Major League Soccer will be the first contact sport to return, giving it a chance to outshine rivals.”
Now I don’t know about you guys, but that headline sure doesn’t seem accurate. MLS is said to return July 8, while the NWSL Challenge Cup is said to return June 27.
In an era of fast-paced media consumption and Google at our fingertips, a slew of responses flooded Twitter and said all the right things. (CNBC since took down the original tweet publicizing the article.)
And then there were three. On Monday, Brazil withdrew its candidacy to host the 2023 Women’s World Cup, leaving Colombia, Japan and a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand as the remaining contenders before the final FIFA Council vote on June 25.
The United States Soccer Federation (USSF) has begun to consider repealing its ban on players kneeling during the national anthem. The board of directors plans to meet on Tuesday, June 9 to discuss the policy.
This comes in the wake of outrage and resulting protests over the murder of George Floyd while in police custody. Protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and against police brutality have sprung up across the nation and are now drawing global attention.