Messi Considers Retiring Soon

Good morning football fans. It’s Thursday, August 13 - Lionel Messi considers retirement following his father’s death, the Bundesliga ownership model has been deemed permissible, and everything else you need to know. Forwarded this email? Sign up here.

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Lionel Messi says he is unsure if he will continue playing football “for much longer” following the death of his father, Jorge, last week. There was speculation about Messi’s 68-year-old father’s health during the World Cup, which had worsened just before the start of the tournament.

“All I ever did was play football, and now I have a fair few doubts as to whether I’ll carry on doing it for much longer,” Messi said in a statement mourning his father’s death on Instagram. “You were by my side from the start, we were so close to the end [of his career]. Why didn’t you hang on just that little bit longer so we could finish it together?” Jorge acted as his son’s agent throughout his career and attended every tournament his son played in up until the 2026 World Cup. Read Messi’s heartfelt statement in full here.

In the statement, Messi also described the difficulties of playing at the tournament, aged 39, as his “legs couldn’t go on any more" and that he “never felt well”. He added: “We weren’t champions, but you don’t know how much we enjoyed every match. Once again, you were right: I had to be there and play it.”

The Bundesliga’s 50+1 ownership rule remains compatible with German and EU competition law, the country’s federal competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, has found. The 50+1 rule requires club members to own a majority of voting rights, protecting against single investors buying controlling stakes in clubs. Learn more about the 50+1 rule here.

Critics of the ownership structure argue that it limits investment and makes it harder for German clubs to compete with their continental counterparts. Seeking greater legal certainty, however, the Bundesliga, which oversees Germany’s top two men’s leagues, requested proceedings before the Bundeskartellamt to bolster the rule against any future antitrust law challenges. "The Executive Board is convinced that the 50+1 rule ​must remain a fundamental ​principle of German football ⁠in the future and will continue to advocate for its preservation,” the DFL said in a statement.

There are rare exceptions to the 50+1 rule, including factory-owned clubs like Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg. Investors who are the single biggest financial contributors over 20 consecutive years can also apply for exemption, as Hannover 96 president Martin Kind did in 2018, but his request was ultimately denied. Those exceptions are now the pressure point. The Bundeskartellamt said 50+1 is only lawful if exceptions are granted on grounds that apply equally to everyone, and it faulted the league over its handling of Leverkusen, Wolfsburg, RB Leipzig and Hannover.

The South Korean football governing body has apologised after a report alleged that it had funded sexual services for foreign referees before or after games in the early 2010s. The report found that the KFA paid for "sexual entertainment" for foreign referees and officials on at least eight occasions from 2011 to 2012, three of which involved World Cup and Olympic qualifiers. In total, the KFA spent nearly 5.6 million Korean won ($3,950) over that one-year period.

One example highlighted followed South Korea’s match against Oman on September 21, 2011, when the national team was competing for a spot in the 2012 London Olympics. Four foreign referees were allegedly taken to a massage parlour, where the KFA spent 760,000 Korean won ($536), but later expensed the payment as post-match drinking. A similar situation was outlined in the report before South Korea played Kuwait in a qualifying match for the 2014 Brazil World Cup.

The report also referred to payments for sexual services for three representatives of the Chinese Football Association who were visiting South Korea under a referee exchange programme. In a statement, the KFA didn’t confirm or deny the allegations directly, but said that “such inappropriate conduct or misuse of corporate cards are absolutely not occurring at present.”

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Question: Petr Cech and which other goalkeeper hold the record for the most Premier League Golden Glove awards, with four?

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.

Answer

Joe Hart (see the players with multiple Golden Gloves here).