Governing Bodies
INTERNATIONAL MATCHES RETURN AT LAST AS UEFA NATIONS LEAGUE STARTS
After the postponement of Euro 2020 by a year, international football comes out of a long hibernation this week in Europe with the start of the latest UEFA Nations League, which is being crammed into the autumn despite the ongoing coronavirus concerns and will see Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal defend their title.
In normal times, the continent’s leading international teams would have been returning to action less than eight weeks after the final of the European Championship, but instead they will be playing for the first time since completing Euro qualifying last November, a hiatus of 10 months.
“We are delighted to have our team back out on the pitch, and to be able to play international matches again,” said Germany coach Joachim Loew. “The past few months have been difficult for everybody.”
While such a long break is unheard of in the modern era, this is also confirmation of how crammed the calendar will be in the year ahead, with almost all nations playing back-to-back fixtures this month just before Europe’s major leagues start the 2020/21 season.
“I think across the board there’s got to be a look at the football calendar, and that’s everyone’s responsibility,” warned England manager Gareth Southgate last week.
“Everybody is trying to put their competitions in and the calendar is growing and the spaces are getting smaller.”
The demands on the players will be enormous. Six rounds of Nations League matches will take place in total between September and November, with the top four nations coming together for the finals.
Initially planned for June 2021, these are now set to go ahead later in the year, once the European Championship has finally been completed.
In the meantime, this Nations League will start with all games behind closed doors, a sad new reality for football in a pandemic and which already applied to the latter stages of the Champions League and Europa League last month.
Another reality of the health crisis is that coaches must be prepared for the possibility of losing players to positive Covid-19 tests, and so France have lost midfield duo Paul Pogba and Houssem Aouar for their matches against Sweden and Croatia.
Similarly, Spain have seen Real Sociedad striker Mikel Oyarzabal withdraw from their squad to face Germany and Ukraine.
With no fans allowed in, that latter fixture will be played at the Alfredo Di Stefano stadium in Real Madrid’s training complex.
Aside from the complications caused by the pandemic, there is another major difference to the last, inaugural Nations League.
Whereas it offered four qualifying berths for Euro 2020 – in delayed play-offs which are now due to go ahead in October and November – there is no such incentive this time.
Nevertheless, ahead of 2022 World Cup qualifying starting early next year, the two best Nations League group winners who do not qualify for the finals in Qatar via that route will be parachuted into the 12-team play-offs for a second chance at securing a place.
It all sounds complicated, but in simpler times the tournament was a breath of fresh air, replacing as it did the monotony of truly meaningless international friendlies.
Portugal beat the Netherlands 1-0 in the inaugural final in Porto, with England and Switzerland also having reached the finals.
And there are plenty of enticing fixtures to look forward to among the first batch of games this time, including Germany hosting a new-look Spain, featuring 17-year-old Ansu Fati, in Stuttgart on Thursday.
That will be Luis Enrique’s first game of his second spell as Spain coach, despite him being re-appointed more than nine months ago.
Gareth Southgate’s England play away in Iceland and Denmark, while there will be a repeat of the 2018 World Cup final when France host Croatia at an empty Stade de France.
It will be strange, but at least it is further confirmation that football is very much back in Europe, while FIFA cancelled all internationals on other continents that were previously planned for this month.
-AFP
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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