Europe tightens grip on tournament
Explaining Europe’s stranglehold on the World Cup requires delving into a thick handbook of seemingly mindnumbing regulations.
The eligibility requirements for clubs playing in Europe’s elite club competitions go far beyond guidelines for stadiums, spectators and players at Champions League and Europa League matches.
Move past finance and governance rules and stop at the section on youth teams.
Since 2004, European football’s governing body has required all leading clubs to operate youth teams at various age groups. Playing at the highest level of the game means also operating at least one team for under-10s, another in the 10-14 bracket and at least two in the 15-21 range.
The revolution, overseen by then-UEFA President Lennart Johansson, ensures a pipeline of technically gifted players is coming into the European soccer system. National teams are also beneficiaries.
Dominating this World Cup has not relied on the heavyweights of Europe. The Netherlands and Italy didn’t qualify. Germany’s title defense ended in group stage, and 2010 winner Spain and European champion Portugal fell in the round of 16.
The last four teams feature two former champions — France and England — along with Croatia and Belgium.
Ten of Europe’s 14 participants in Russia made it to the round of 16, and of those, six progressed to the quarterfinals.
Tottenham is the best-represented club in the semifinals, with nine players, including France captain Hugo Lloris. It’s a sign of the north London team’s growing status in European football after three consecutive top-three finishes in the Premier League securing spots in the Champions League.
The World Cup reinforces the status of the Champions League and Europe’s top leagues. Those leagues account for 81 of the 92 players on squads of the semifinalists in Russia: England (40), Spain (12), France (12), Germany (nine) and Italy (eight). The wealth generated by the continent’s club competitions allows UEFA to raise standards throughout the region. Rescued team can’t make final: The youth soccer team rescued from a cave in Thailand will be unable to accept FIFA’s invitation to attend the World Cup final.
The last four of the boys and the team’s 25-year-old coach were rescued Tuesday from a flooded cave in northern Thailand, ending an ordeal that lasted more than two weeks.
“We have been informed by the Football Association of Thailand that due to medical reasons, the boys will not be in a position to travel to Moscow for the FIFA World Cup final,” the sport’s governing body said. U.S. English viewers down: World Cup English-language ratings in the United States remained down from 2014 through the quarterfinals, but improved from earlier in the tournament.
Coverage of this year’s tournament on Fox and FS1 has averaged 2,716,000 viewers for 60 games through the quarterfinals.
That is down 35 percent from the 2014 average of 4,193,000 on ESPN, ABC and ESPN2 and down 8 percent from the 2010 average of 2,947,000 on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2.
Spanish company fined: A Spanish sports-media company must pay a hefty penalty after its affiliate in the U.S. pleaded guilty to charges it bribed Latin American soccer officials.
A New York City judge ordered the company Imagina to pay more than $24 million in fines and restitution on charges stemming from the U.S. corruption investigation of FIFA.