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Good morning football fans. It’s Friday, June. 26 - The Club World Cup will likely be expanded, next season’s EFL Championship fixtures have been released, and everything else you need to know. Forwarded this email? Sign up here.
KEY FIXTURES
2026 World Cup (June 26): Norway vs France, Group I, 15:00 ET / 20:00 BST. Although they have won both their opening matches, Norway sit second behind France due to Les Bleus’ superior goal difference. A win for France would give them a clean sweep in Group I, a feat that they last achieved in the 1998 World Cup, where they won the first of their two titles. Senegal vs Iraq, Group I, 15:00 ET / 20:00 BST. Senegal have lost both their opening fixtures at the World Cup, with a win being necessary to keep their chances of advancing alive. Meanwhile, Iraq have lost their first five World Cup matches and could become just the second nation from the AFC confederation to fail to win their opening six games across the competition. See every upcoming World Cup fixture here and group standings here.
Results…
World Cup: Curacao 0-2 Ivory Coast | Ecuador 2-1 Germany
Japan vs Sweden, Tunisia vs Netherlands, Paraguay vs Australia, and Turkey vs the United States to conclude shortly after publication (Live Results)
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TOP TALKING POINTS
Club World Cup Expansion
A joint venture between Fifa and the European Football Clubs (EFC), the organisation that lobbies for hundreds of European clubs, has been agreed to operate the Club World Cup. This will give the two organisations joint control over the competition's business, including broadcasting and commercial strategy. The move is likely to accelerate plans to expand the Club World Cup from 32 to 48 teams for the next edition in 2029, reports The Guardian.
Last year, 12 clubs from Europe took part in the competition, with places awarded to the Champions League winners from the previous four seasons and the remaining berths going to the highest-ranked clubs in Uefa’s four-year coefficient. With the winners, Chelsea, earning around £84m ($111m) from the tournament, clubs lobbied Fifa to expand the lucrative competition to increase their chances of qualification. The EFC also aims to remove caps on two clubs per country, meaning more Premier League clubs will likely qualify for the tournament.
EFC is likely to argue that increasing the number of European clubs would increase the Club World Cup’s commercial value to broadcasters. Fifa, which is understood to be impressed by the EFC’s commercial work on behalf of Uefa, struggled to sell broadcast rights ahead of last year’s competition. It eventually negotiated a $1bn global TV deal, despite the governing body reportedly aiming for $4bn.
Championship Fixtures Released
The Championship fixtures for the 2026-27 season have been released, with the season set to kick off on Friday, August 14 — see the full list of fixtures here. The season starts one week after the first round of the Carabao Cup and one week before the Premier League’s season opener (see fixtures).
Relegated Burnley and West Ham will meet on the opening weekend of the season, while fellow relegated side Wolves will play the opening game of the season at home against Blackburn.
Elsewhere, Southampton will start their season on -4 points after the Spygate scandal, and they travel to Watford, who finished 16th in the Championship last season. Meanwhile, Middlesbrough, who took Southampton’s spot in the play-off final and lost to Hull City, begin their new season against Lincoln City, who are back in the second tier for the first time in 65 years. Wrexham, who narrowly missed out on a place in last season’s Championship play-offs, begin their campaign with a Welsh derby against Cardiff.
League One fixtures (see here) and League Two fixtures (see here) have also been released. Dive deeper into the English pyramid system here (video).
Pride Match Controversy
The Iranian FA has asked Fifa to stop any ceremonies in support of the LGBTQ+ community at the ‘Pride Match’ between Egypt and Iran on Friday (June 26) in Seattle. The fixture, which will be played between two countries where homosexuality is outlawed, was pencilled in before it was known which teams would be involved. The Pride Match coincides with Seattle’s annual Pride Weekend.
Fifa has said it will not stop fans from bringing rainbow flags into the stadium, despite Iran arguing that rainbow flags violate the governing body’s rules that prohibit political, religious or ideological messaging inside stadiums. In a statement, a Fifa spokesperson said this did not breach its rules, stating that “general statements of human rights, including rainbow flags”, are permitted under the tournament’s Stadium Code of Conduct. Despite this, sources have told The Athletic that both the Egyptian and Iranian federations have been working to remove all Pride-related branding around the game.
Fifa did not have a role in organising the Pride initiative, and it was largely a result of planning from the Seattle host committee, which does not control activity inside the stadium. At the time of writing, there has been no indication of in-stadium activation, with most of the activity likely to take place outside the stadium perimeter.
POLL
Who do you think will be the Golden Boot winner at the 2026 World Cup?
ON THE BALL
Europe
> Manchester City have agreed a deal with Nottingham Forest worth up to a British record £130m to sign Elliot Anderson (More) | Arsenal have signed Piero Hincapie on a permanent deal following his loan spell from Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen (More) | Tottenham are close to an agreement with goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky over a new five-year contract that includes an option for a further year to 2032 (More); the Lewis family are understood to have injected another £100m of working capital into Tottenham (More)
> Real Madrid has officially informed Como that they have activated the €9m buy-back clause for Nico Paz (More) | Real Madrid Women have signed 19-year-old Sweden forward Felicia Schroder from BK Hacken in a deal worth more than $1.5m (More); dive deeper into why they spent so much to acquire Schroder (More)
> Scottish Premiership side Hearts have appointed Wouter Vrancken as their new head coach, replacing Derek McInnes, who left to join Rangers earlier this month (More)
> Alexia Putellas has decided to join London City Lionesses as she prefers to stay in Europe (More)
Americas
> The first 2026 World Cup knock-out match — South Africa vs Canada — will take place on Sunday (June 28) at 15:00 ET (20:00 BST) (More); see the World Cup bracket (More) | Mexico secured maximum points in the World Cup group stage after eliminating the Czech Republic 3-0 (More); Goalkeeper Memo Ochoa was substituted into the match to mark the 6th different World Cup he has appeared in (Watch)
> Canada rejected more than half of the visa applications submitted ahead of the 2026 World Cup (More)
> Neymar has pulled out of talks with FC Cincinnati due to the player’s frustration over slow progress on a potential move (More)
> The NWSL has made several changes to its competition, including simplifying its hydration break policy (More)
Rest of the World
> The oldest professional footballer in the world, Kazuyoshi Miura, aged 59, will play his 42nd season as a professional player after extending his loan deal with third-tier Japanese side Fukushima United until June 2027 (More)
> City Football Group, owner of 10 football clubs including Manchester City, has divested its minority stake in Japanese side Yokohama F Marinos to carmaker Nissan (More)
ROUTERS’ VOICE
Yesterday’s Poll: Should hydration breaks at the World Cup be applied consistently in every match, regardless of weather?
🟨 🟨 🟨 ⬜️ ⬜️ ⬜️ 👍 Yes (37%)
🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🙅♂️ Nope (61%)
🟨 ⬜️ ⬜️ ⬜️ ⬜️ ⬜️ ✍️ Other (2%)
Your punditry takes:
👍 J.W.F: “Yes, but only because it's right that disrupting the flow of each half should apply to every team in the tournament so that all teams suffer under the same handicap. In addition, anyone who thinks Fifa didn't introduce these hydration breaks to make money is just kidding themselves.”
🙅♂️ M.K: “Football has managed without hydration breaks since the outset, so it doesn’t need them now. If it is genuinely for hydration, not advertising, then make it so that they only have them if the temperature is over, say, 24 degrees, and it’s not raining.”
🙅♂️ G.G: “The Law of the Game already allow a short break should a break be needed, so to have these mandatory 3 min breaks isn’t necessary. These fundamentally add a coaching break, and they’ve been added purely for advertising purposes.”
EXTRA TIME
What each team need to reach the World Cup knockouts.
World’s oldest football travels from Scotland to Miami.
Meet the fans being paid $50k to watch every World Cup game.
Why Saudi Arabia and Iraq flags are not laid down at the World Cup.
Which footballers have refused to celebrate a goal against another country?
Infantino racks up 24,135 air miles so far at the World Cup.
ESPN updates its World Cup power rankings.
GAME FACE ON
Who Am I:
I am the third-youngest scorer at a World Cup, doing so in November 2022
I wear the number 6 for my club
In November 2023, I suffered an injury which kept me out of action for 348 days
Scroll below for the answer.
Daily Wordle: Guess the football-related word, from player names to classic phrases, in six tries or fewer. Play it here.
You can be a top coach without being a top footballer. Why? Because you had more time than them to think, to study, to establish your own ideas, to study the game in a different way.
Answer
Gavi.
