Sepp Blatter s main rival for the FIFA presidency, Jerome Champagne, believes there are plenty of options for relocating the 2022 World Cup.

Champagne is the only person who has voiced their intent to stand against Blatter in 2015 in an attempt to deny him a fifth consecutive term.

One of the primary issues that still dogs the organisation is the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar with questions raised over the integrity of the bidding process, worker conditions on stadiums and the practicalities of holding the tournament in the scorching heat of the Arab summer.

With investigations currently being carried out by the FIFA Ethics Committee investigatory head Michael Garcia, Champagne says there are a number of options if the World Cup is taken away from Qatar.

Phil Foden scored a brilliant hat-trick as Manchester City kept the pressure on in the Premier League title race with a 4-1 win over Champions League-chasing Aston Villa.

A day after defending his star striker against criticism from Roy Keane, Pep Guardiola left Erling Haaland on the bench alongside Kevin De Bruyne, clearing the stage for Foden to grab the spotlight with an outstanding performance and his second hat-trick of the campaign.

After Jhon Duran cancelled out Rodri’s opener, the 23-year-old put City back in front with a free-kick late in the first half before two excellent strikes settled it just after the hour mark, taking Foden to 21 City goals for the season.

Simply sensational!

Phil Foden wins the ball back in Villa s final third and rock…

Emma Hayes is eyeing gold in her first tournament in charge of the USWNT, labelling their journey to the Olympics final as the stuff dreams are made of .

The United States face Brazil in Saturday s showpiece match at the Parc des Princes in a repeat of the 2004 and 2008 finals, fixtures the US won on both occasions.

Hayes, who was appointed as Vlatko Andonovski s successor in May, has won eight of her nine games in charge (D1), scoring 19 goals and conceding just twice.

The former Chelsea head coach won her seventh WSL title in her final season with the Blues, saying her rapid transition to the international stage has been a whirlwind .

Going from my beloved Chelsea to the US women’s national team what a whirlwind and what a dream all at once, Haye…

The 2014 World Cup will take place in twelve different Brazilian towns. This was revealed by a spokesman of Brazil s FA (CBF) in an interview with newspaper O Globo.

Initially it was expected that the tournament would make use of ten cities but another two have now been added. The names of those cities, and of five others, haven t been revealed yet.

The five that are already certain of hosting games are Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte and capital city Brasilia.

World governing body FIFA has given its go-ahead for the adjustment, according to the spokesman. It is not the first time that the world s most prestigious football tournament uses this amount of cities as Germany 2006 had its matches played in twelve different towns as well.

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The final play-off draw for the 2022 World Cup has taken place, with four teams to compete for two places in Qatar.

On Friday, following the draw for the European play-offs – in which Italy and Portugal were drawn in the same path – FIFA also completed the draw for the inter-confederation games.

These matches will take place in Qatar in June 2022.

One team from each of the federations of Asia (AFC), South America (CONMEBOL), the Caribbean, North and Central America (CONCACAF) and Oceania (OFC) will compete in the single-leg fixtures to settle the final two places in the 32-team tournament.

The AFC side, which will be the winner of the fourth-round play-off in the Asian zone, were drawn against the CONMEBOL team, which will be the fifth-ranked side…

Greece coach Otto Rehhagel has unveiled his 23-man selection for the upcoming European Championships, where his team will be trying to defend their title.

Of the 23 players selected by the German manager, ten already represented the Greek team at Euro 2004, where Greece surprised all of Europe by taking the trophy.

Goalkeepers

Antonis Nikopolidis
Konstantinos Chalkias
Alexandros Tzorvas

Defenders

Giourkas Seitardis
Christos Patsatzoglou
Nikos Spyropoulos
Traianos Dellas
Loukas Vyntra
Vassilios Torosidis
Sotirios Kyrgiakos
Ioannis Goumas
Paraskevas Antzas

Midfielders

Angelos Basinas
Stylianos Giannakopoulos
Georgios Karagounis
Ioannis Amanatidis
Konstantinos Katsouranis
Alexandros Tziolis

Attackers

Ge…

Alexis Sanchez will lead Chile on their quest for the 2017 Confederations Cup title Credit: La Nacion

The 2017 Confederations Cup is right around the corner.

The pre-tournament before the 2018 World Cup will feature some of the best teams in the world. Here we present you a comprehensive preview of Group B, which features Germany, Chile, Australia, and Cameroon. The reigning World Cup holders are slight favourites on paper. However, Chile are a darkhorse to win the tournament based on their recent international results.

Germany

There has been a lot of talk regarding Germany and their participation in the Confederations Cup. Die Mannschaft arrived at the tournament as the reigning World Cup holders, and they were massive favourites to win the Cup until Joachim …

Mikel Arteta is hoping for a fast start as Arsenal begin their quest for the Premier League title when they welcome Wolves to the Emirates on Saturday.

Arteta s side concluded their pre-season preparations with a comfortable 2-0 win over Lyon last week, with William Saliba and Gabriel on target in the first half.

And the Gunners head coach explained that his side must set the tone in the opening exchanges against Gary O Neil s side in North London.

Look at today with the way we started, for sure. It’s about maintaining that for 95 minutes and that’s the target and objectives that we need to have, Arteta said after the win over the French side.

There’s a lot of positives to take from today’s performance again.

I think overall it s be…

With comprehensive wins against the two world cup finalists, France and Italy, together with a fine victory by their reserve side against Romania, Holland had become many people s favourites to win the tournament.

The style of football they have produced, particularly on the counter attack, has endeared them to nearly everyone who has watched them.

Russia started the tournament slowly but in their must win game against Sweden in the final group match they produced a performance of fast flowing football that made most observers sit up and take notice.

It was against that background that this particular quarter-final promised to be a classic. So the world sat down with great anticipation to watch the game. It did not disappoint but in truth, the Dutch did. Russia …

You could be forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu when Liverpool take on Real Madrid in the Champions League final at the Stade de France on Saturday.

The two European giants faced off in 2018 in Kyiv, with Los Blancos running out 3-1 winners thanks to, among other things, a sensational Gareth Bale overhead kick.

Four years later Liverpool and Madrid ready to battle it out to be crowned kings of the continent, with 19 European Cups/Champions Leagues already between them.

Just how much have the two teams changed since then, though? Stats Perform has taken a look at both to see if there are any similarities and marked differences to expect in Paris.

From nearly men to trophy collectors

One of the many reasons defeat in Kyiv hurt for Liverpool …