Category: Section 2 Around the Net

Just so there”s no ambiguity, FIFA has reminded clubs of their obligation to release players aged under 23 for the Beijing Olympics.

Frankie Hejduk bares his soul to Shawn Mitchell on the subjects of beer, kids, fatty foods and skateboarding.

Hold the front page — Arsenal has signed a Frenchman! Midfielder Samir Nasri has, after the customary protracted talks, signed a four-year contract with the north London club.

The English Premier League’s Tottenham Hotspur has signed Crystal Palace prodigy John Bostock, aged 16, for $1.5 million, with a further $1.1 million to be paid depending on the number of times he plays for his new team. The price was the ruling of a Football League tribunal, and it has left Palace infuriated at […]

Soccer’s world governing body FIFA announced that it is to allocate more tickets to the supporters of individual countries in World Cup first-round games. The amount will increase from the current eight per cent of total stadium capacity to 12 per cent.   “We have always been criticized for too many tickets going to the […]

Bob Cohn profiles and interviews D.C. United’s industrious coach Tom Soehn.

Maria Burns Ortiz recalls Jay Heaps’ college career — as a basketball player.

Top Belarusian referee Sergei Shmolik has been suspended after he was helped from the field at the end of a weekend game, apparently in a state of inebriation.

The U.S. Soccer Federation will review tape of a skirmish in Tuesday night’s Open Cup game between D.C. United and Chicago involving the Fire’s Cuauhtemoc Blanco and United’s Marc Burch and Clyde Simms. Both Blanco and Burch received red cards in the first period of overtime after Blanco attempted to punch the ball out of […]

American soccer’s most expensive export, $10 million Jozy Altidore, is due to start pre-season training with his new Spanish club Villarreal on Monday. He told Grant Wahl that he’s “just excited, man” and that he “can’t wait to have my first training session and see what it’s like playing European soccer.”   Despite sounding like […]

The San Jose Quakes have joined Toronto FC in the quest to sign former Norwich City, Leeds United and Manchester City forward Darren Huckerby in an attempt to solve its striking woes. Coach Frank Yallop doesn’t want to panic (which is good, because panic doesn’t tend to win games), but said: “We want to get […]

FIFA President Sepp Blatter insisted up until last week that there was no alternative to staging the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Then he conceded that he would not be doing his job properly if he didn’t have a Plan B at the back of his drawer. Mark Zeigler has worked out that only […]

The 103-member European Club Association used its first meeting to tell FIFA that it opposes the soccer world governing body’s goal of restricting the number of foreign-born players in a club team’s line-up. The organization sees no need for FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s proposed “6+5 rule” that would stipulate at least six home-grown players and […]

New FC Dallas coach Schellas Hyndman is taking a while to adjust from college to men’s pro soccer. At the weekend he told his players that no one’s place was guaranteed. After Tuesday’s Open Cup quarterfinal 3-1 loss at home to second-tier Charleston Battery, he vented again about his shattered game plan and why he […]

Next year’s big thing in Major League Soccer, the Seattle Sounders, served notice on what’s in store by dumping an MLS team out of the U.S. Open Cup for the second successive week. They beat Kansas City on penalty kicks after what Matthew Gaschk describes as “an action-packed, competitive game” at Qwest Field Tuesday.   […]

New England coach Steve Nicol sent out a team largely made up of reserves to face USL-2’s Crystal Palace Baltimore, and though his team won on penalty kicks after a 1-1tie, some of his players found it tough going.   “Their center backs made it difficult,” said the Revs midfield rookie Chris Tierney. “It’s tough […]

Dan Leo takes aim at the mediocre standards of the U.S. national team, its coach Bob Bradley and above all, the U.S. Soccer Federation.

Michael Lewis reveals that Salt Lake will host next year’s All-Star junket (sorry, “showcase”) at the city’s new soccer stadium, due to open in October.

The Chinese Football Association suspended eight players from its U-18 women’s league who were involved in a 40-player melee.

A player at second-tier English team Crystal Palace revealed to the world that he was planning to leave the club for the Premier League’s Fulham by announcing the news on his Facebook page.   Ashley-Paul Robinson, 19, posted a message on the social networking site that could be read  by 2.7 million members to say […]

Kristian Dyer looks at the sorry state of the New York Red Bulls, and how Coach Juan Carlos Osorio’s roster decisions have led them down the Eastern Conference.

Manchester City’s owner and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is on trial in his native land on corruption charges related to a Bangkok real estate deal.

Benjie Goodhart profiles the soccer chops of Bolivia’s President Evo Morales.

In the past 15 years, little has been safe from the rebranding zeal of soccer’s purported modernizers. Europe’s soccer governing body has now tabled a proposal to re-christen its UEFA Cup competition as the UEFA Europa League.   “The hope is that a refreshment of the name and brand can help achieve better results than […]

At the end of last season, German champion Bayern Munich played an exhibition game in India against Mohun Bagan in front of 125,000 fans, pocketing around $3 million for its troubles. But that money, which was put up by a private Indian company, could surely have been better invested to the benefit of Indian soccer, […]