Nick Ames

Infantino claims Russia’s global football ban has achieved nothing and should be reversed. But it has, hasn’t it? It is only nation banned from the world’s most-popular sport and that has to sting, it’s a very visible consequence of what’s happened. Reminder fifa largely forced into this ban

Passion, prospects and a thrilling title race: why Polish football is booming Four points separate first from eighth in the Ekstraklasa and the aim is to establish Europe’s most interesting league as its sixth biggest

Poland's fascinating, impossibly tight Ekstraklasa restarts tonight. The league is thriving, in line with the country's booming economy. It aims to crack Europe's top 10, maybe even top six – and isn't prepared to sit on elite football's sidelines for much longer. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

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Poland is European football's sleeping giant – it's taken time but now many of the ingredients are in place for it to wake up. Depth of competitive teams and some serious investment should get it that top 10 place soon. Conference League doing wonders for European presence but soon won't be enough.

Passion, prospects and a thrilling title race: why Polish football is booming Four points separate first from eighth in the Ekstraklasa and the aim is to establish Europe’s most interesting league as its sixth biggest

Poland's fascinating, impossibly tight Ekstraklasa restarts tonight. The league is thriving, in line with the country's booming economy. It aims to crack Europe's top 10, maybe even top six – and isn't prepared to sit on elite football's sidelines for much longer. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Dynamo Moscow claim their second team beat German club Rott-Weiss Wittlich in a friendly today – a game the latter don't seem in a rush to publicise. Hard to recall any/many similar match-ups involving Russian clubs over the past four years ...

😬 Newcastle pull off an impressive draw v PSG.

🧤 Benfica goalkeeper, Anatoliy Trubin, scored a towering header to secure a playoff position for José Mourinho's men.

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And in general, what a night’s drama - can hear the champagne corks popping in Nyon. Five English clubs in top eight is the blight.

Bodø/Glimt the single-handed saviours of European football.

‘We are fighters, it’s in our DNA’: Greenland find pride in rare tilt at futsal glory Buffeted by political storms and excluded from continental federations, Greenland find their chances are limited but a tournament in Croatia is a priceless opportunity

For Greenland, futsal offers a rare route to visual, powerful representation abroad. Spent a couple of days in Croatia with a team whose homeland had been threatened and demeaned all week. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

It’s not just a piece of ice, it’s a vibrant and diverse home for human beings, their lives and their stories. Being able to face established nations in futsal helps Greenland to tell them. Next step - will Uefa or Concacaf finally let them in?

‘We are fighters, it’s in our DNA’: Greenland find pride in rare tilt at futsal glory Buffeted by political storms and excluded from continental federations, Greenland find their chances are limited but a tournament in Croatia is a priceless opportunity

For Greenland, futsal offers a rare route to visual, powerful representation abroad. Spent a couple of days in Croatia with a team whose homeland had been threatened and demeaned all week. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

A World Cup boycott over Trump? Football’s hypotheticals cannot be dismissed any more | Nick Ames Unprecedented times call for previously unthinkable conversations when it comes to the US-shaped problem Could European countries really decide to boycott the World Cup this summer? It is an astonishing question to be asking in 2026 and an indictment of the bind in which, as Donald Trump sows confusion around a potential annexation of Greenland, the world’s most popular sport finds itself. But the idea is at least seeping into the mainstream and senior figures are asking what, in a worst-case scenario, it would take for football to meet the moment. Unprecedented times call for previously unthinkable conversations. As the Guardian reported this week, an anniversary party for the Hungarian FA on Monday became the forum for unofficial discussions among national association heads about how a unified approach to the US-shaped problem might take shape. Continue reading...

A World Cup boycott over Trump? Football’s hypotheticals cannot be dismissed any more | Nick Ames

Concerned European football chiefs discuss response to Trump over Greenland European football’s leaders are increasingly concerned about Donald Trump’s wish to annex Greenland and have held initial discussions about how the sport could respond

UEFA and European FAs deeply concerned about Greenland crisis. Informal talks held this week about what a response could look like if things escalate in fast-moving situation. Military aggression likely red line for serious World Cup boycott talk. Story: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Concerned European football chiefs discuss response to Trump over Greenland European football’s leaders are increasingly concerned about Donald Trump’s wish to annex Greenland and have held initial discussions about how the sport could respond

UEFA and European FAs deeply concerned about Greenland crisis. Informal talks held this week about what a response could look like if things escalate in fast-moving situation. Military aggression likely red line for serious World Cup boycott talk. Story: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

I take it all back, this is too good.

VAR the reason, mostly - just ruinous.

Scandalous, astonishing end to the AFCON final (if indeed it’s the end).

Levante 0-0 Villarreal: Post-match review, Stats, Key moments Bwin’s post-match review of Levante 0-0 Villarreal in the La Liga on Sunday, 14 December 2025, with stats, key moments and our take on the match.

What happens when you let AI write match reports? You end up with reports for games that never happened. Levante v Villarreal was postponed due to bad weather but according to this site it was played, finished 0-0 and was very dull. They even awarded a man of the match! www.bwin.com/en/news/post...

‘A group of people decided to kill me’: Michel Platini on Fifa, Uefa and the fight to clear his name The former Uefa president – caught between moving on and settling old scores – talks candidly about his downfall, Blatter, Infantino and the snakepit of the game’s governance

In case you missed it, yesterday's interview with Michel Platini: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Comment Gianni Infantino a vu ses rémunérations s’envoler en dix ans de règne à la FIFA D’après des documents fiscaux américains, dont « Le Monde » a pris connaissance, la Fédération internationale de football a payé en 2024, pour son patron, un peu plus de six millions de dollars annuel...

Not unrelated – Le Monde showing today that Infantino's pay has quadrupled in a decade: www.lemonde.fr/sport/articl...

‘A group of people decided to kill me’: Michel Platini on Fifa, Uefa and the fight to clear his name The former Uefa president – caught between moving on and settling old scores – talks candidly about his downfall, Blatter, Infantino and the snakepit of the game’s governance

Interview with Michel Platini – now in the clear but wanting to settle a few scores. On purported plot to "kill" him, Infantino's power lust, the need for Ceferin to face down Fifa, plans for a comeback behind the scenes and whether romantics can really win: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Platini on Infantino, who was once his No2: "He likes the rich and powerful people, the ones with money. It’s his character."

Platini convinced football needs more ex-players in key positions. "For democracy it would be better if there was good competition with new ideas. It’s not always a question of football, it’s a question of the people involved.”

‘A group of people decided to kill me’: Michel Platini on Fifa, Uefa and the fight to clear his name The former Uefa president – caught between moving on and settling old scores – talks candidly about his downfall, Blatter, Infantino and the snakepit of the game’s governance

Interview with Michel Platini – now in the clear but wanting to settle a few scores. On purported plot to "kill" him, Infantino's power lust, the need for Ceferin to face down Fifa, plans for a comeback behind the scenes and whether romantics can really win: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Utterly insane VAR offside there even by VAR standards. It’s so very, very boring.

The narrative about London crime is truly so BORING to Londoners.

Those of us who walk & travel around our city safely every day, every night.

The likeliest daily risk to Londoners is of being ripped off by our landlord or somewhere charging us £4.50 for a coffee. #r4today

The transfer of Liam Rosenior marks another humiliating step in Racing's subservience to Chelsea. For the past two and a half years, we, along with others, have tried to raise awareness about this issue. The problem goes far beyond the mid-season sporting impact and the ambitions of a young coach. It is structural; the future of French club football is at stake. Every additional move by [club president] Marc Keller, every extra minute spent at the helm of the club, is an insult to the tremendous work done before 2023. What was seen by many as an outrageous act last September increasingly looks like sound advice: he must leave. Now. The FSRCS will coordinate closely with the three other associations actively fighting against multiclub ownership, as well as all people of goodwill, to define the next steps. Go Racing! #Nonȧlamultipropriété #BlueCoOut

Statement from the RC Strasbourg Supporters' Federation (FSRCS) on Liam Rosenior's move to fellow BlueCo-owned club, Chelsea.

Chelsea dagger for Guardiola as Arsenal move six points clear – Football Weekly Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nick Ames and Seb Hutchinson to discuss a weekend of Premier League drama

Your portal to a time when Ruben Amorim was still Manchester United manager: www.theguardian.com/football/aud...

Any questions for the panel?

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Seb Hutchinson

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