Is the World Cup bump real? MLS is going to find out

MLS stakeholders want to turn the interest in this summer’s North American World Cup into ‘rocket fuel’ for the league. Are those realistic expectations?

In 1988, a full eight years before Major League Soccer debuted, it got its first “World Cup bump”.

Fifa had just awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States, but there was a stipulation. The US could host the tournament, but only if there was a competitive club league in place by the time it rolled around, something that hadn’t been true since the North American Soccer League collapsed in 1985. Tournament organisers missed that 1994 deadline, but two years later, MLS became a reality. Thirty years on, it is still here.

Published: February 19, 2026, 11:00 am

MLBPA replaces chief Tony Clark after inappropriate relationship with sister-in-law

• Bruce Meyer promoted to interim executive director

• New labor deal negotiations with owners looming

Bruce Meyer was promoted to interim executive director of the baseball players’ association on Wednesday, a day after Tony Clark’s forced resignation. It was a move for continuity ahead of the likely start in April of what figures to be contentious collective bargaining with team owners.

Clark is a former All-Star first baseman who had headed the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) since 2013. He resigned on Tuesday, just months ahead of the expected start of bargaining for a new labor contract. The current deal expires on 1 December.

Published: February 19, 2026, 12:56 pm

Football Daily | Arsenal don’t just drop points, they perform theatrical acts of self-sabotage

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

Top of the league, Wembley trip booked, sweeping through Europe, and blessed with a cushty FA Cup draw – it’s fair to say the Arsenal garden is in full, radiant bloom. At least, it was until they travelled to a wet and windy Molineux to play a match the Premier League surreptitiously slipped into the schedule like a worm tablet hidden in a dog’s dinner. In Wolves, Mikel Arteta’s side were facing a team who are not only the worst in the top flight by some distance, but one who have only recently begun battling to avoid going down as the most awful of all time. Having taken a two-goal lead, the only logical question centred around how many more Arsenal would spank past their hapless hosts. Instead, logic gave way to the objective hilarity of a collective on and off-field meltdown as the Gunners managed to turn what should have been a stroll into an inexplicable 2-2 draw.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Published: February 19, 2026, 4:56 pm

Irate Wolff dimisses swirl around Mercedes’ fuel problem as ‘nonsense’

• Mercedes chief attacks backlash over engine loophole

• Vote on legality of power plant ‘a storm in a teacup’

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes principal, has snapped back at “utter bullshit” about a potential fuel problem a day after the FIA proposed a mid-season rule change over the team’s controversial engine.

It was announced on Wednesday that a vote will take place over whether a regulation change should be implemented from August onwards over the legality of Mercedes’ engine, after they were adjudged to have found a loophole that allowed them to deliver a higher limit when their engine is at operating temperature.

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:01 pm

I went back to my alma mater and saw how women’s sports have changed

There’s a basketball renaissance emerging at Columbia, and Megan Griffith’s women are leading it

I’ve been going to Columbia basketball games since I was an undergraduate in the 1960s. As a junior, I did some play-by-play for WKCR, the student-run radio station. There was a time long ago when I went to almost every Lions home game. I’m talking about the men. There wasn’t a women’s basketball team until 1984. For the past few decades, I’ve watched the men play once a year.

When I enrolled at Columbia in September 1963, the Lions’ home games were played in University Hall – an antiquated gym with structural columns that impeded fans’ views and looked as though it had been built during the Age of Pericles. Columbia had suffered through six straight losing seasons. Two more followed.

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. The audio version of his memoir – My Mother And Me – was recently released. The reading is by Hauser’s good friend, Jim Lampley. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:00 am

Winter Olympics 2026: speed skating, curling, ice hockey and more – live

• Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing

• Follow us over on Bluesky | And you can email Daniel

The cross-country bit gets going at 1pm, and I’m looking forward to that. It’s a scientific fact that here’s no kind of race a human can devise that is uncompelling.

In the Nordic, teams of two both have a go at ski jumping, and Germany have just leapt into the lead; they’ll start the cross-country portion with no time penalty, because Austria have just completed this part of things, and only landed far enough for fifth. Norway are second, Japan third and Finland fourth.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:19 pm

Mikaela Shiffrin overcame grief, crashes and her own self-doubt to win slalom gold again

The greatest American skier of all time won her first Olympic medal in 2014. The 12 years in between have been marked by brutal ups and downs

A lot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.

You can also lose your dad.

Published: February 18, 2026, 9:18 pm

Hosts Italy voice ‘absolute opposition’ to Russia flag flying at Winter Paralympics

• Italian government urges IPC to reconsider its stance

• Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under flags

Italy, the Winter Olympic hosts, has called for a reversal of the decision to let 10 Russian and Belarusian athletes compete with national flags and anthems at next month’s Paralympic Games.

The foreign minister Antonio Tajani and sports minister Andrea Abodi urged the International Paralympic Committee to reconsider its stance due to Russia’s four-year-old invasion of Ukraine, saying it contradicted the Olympic spirit.

Published: February 19, 2026, 4:17 pm

Winter Olympics: USA and Canada narrowly avoid shocks in men’s ice-hockey quarter-finals

• Americans rely on Quinn Hughes’s OT winner

• Mitch Marner seals Canada’s 4-3 overtime win

• Canadians lose star Sidney Crosby to injury

With NHL players returning to the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, these Games were expected to be a relative stroll for Canada and USA. However, both star-packed teams struggled in Wednesday’s men’s ice hockey quarter-finals.

Quinn Hughes scored in overtime to put the US past Sweden 2-1 after giving up the tying goal to Mika Zibanejad with 91 seconds left in the third period. Dylan Larkin deflected Jack Hughes’ shot in for the only US goal in regulation.

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:51 pm

Very good dog invades course but falls short of medal glory at Winter Olympics

• Nazgul makes unexpected entry in team sprint

• Owner says two-year old looking for company

A local dog has missed out on a historic cross-country medal at the Winter Olympics despite a lung-bursting surge in the homestretch.

Nazgul, who according to NPR lives at a nearby hotel in Tesero, broke on to the course on Wednesday morning and sprinted for the line behind Croatia’s Tena Hadzic as she came to the end of the qualifying race for the women’s team cross-country sprint. Even if he had completed the entire race, Nazgul’s time would not have counted as he is male. And a dog.

Published: February 18, 2026, 3:02 pm

Champions League review: Bodø shock again, PSG escape and Mourinho’s dismal comments

Racism allegations in Portugal overshadowed another fine result in the Arctic and the holders being pushed by their Ligue 1 rivals

Nothing should divert attention away from what happened after Vinícius Júnior’s goal for Real Madrid in their 1-0 victory at Benfica on Tuesday. It would be frivolous to do so. The Brazilian scored one of the finest goals of a career marked by spectacular strikes, but this week’s Champions League action will be remembered for the regrettable flashpoint that followed.

Published: February 19, 2026, 1:43 pm

Japan replace draws with shootouts and hope to avoid paying World Cup penalty

Move is a temporary measure as J.League transitions to European schedule but could benefit national team in US, Canada and Mexico this summer

Cynics may say it is no coincidence the J.League has introduced penalty shootouts to replace draws just before the World Cup. Japan have identified the quarter-finals as the target this summer after failing to progress past the last 16 on three of the past four occasions, with two of those disappointments coming after failures from the spot.

The 2022 tournament was the worst, with the Samurai Blue, who should have seen off Croatia during normal time, losing the shootout 3-1 in dismal fashion.

Published: February 19, 2026, 8:00 am

Chiefs' Rashee Rice accused of assault in civil lawsuit by mother of his children

• Woman says she was pregnant during alleged assaults

• Lawsuit seeks monetary damages of more than $1m

• Rice was suspended to start 2025 for role in car crash

A former girlfriend of Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice filed a civil lawsuit this week in Texas alleging he assaulted her during a span from December 2023 to July 2025.

Dacoda Jones, with whom Rice has two children, said she was pregnant during many of the alleged assaults. She filed the suit on Monday in Dallas County, Texas, and is seeking damages of more than $1m, according to attorney Ron Estefan.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:12 pm

Vinícius, Mourinho and treating racism as reputational risk rather than a lived reality | Jonathan Liew

The Brazilian has seen this before, football has seen this before, and yet why does it feel like nothing ever changes?

José Mourinho: against provoking opposition fans. José Mourinho: in favour of restrained celebrations. José Mourinho, once of the poke‑in‑the‑eye, sprint‑down‑the‑touchline, accost‑the‑referee-in-the-car-park school of footballing expression: now apparently very big on showing respect to the game. Well, it seems like we’ve all been on a journey here.

“I told him the biggest person in the history of this club was Black,” Mourinho recounted when asked about his conversation with Vinícius Júnior on Tuesday night. “This club, the last thing that it is, is racist.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 6:38 pm

Fenerbahce v Nottingham Forest: Europa League playoff, first leg – live

⚽ Europa League updates from the 5.45pm GMT kick-off
⚽ Live scores | Follow us on Bluesky | You can email Will

There’s nothing to fear except fear itself.

Around 1200 Forest fans have travelled to Istanbul, which is a great effort. A long way to go at relatively short notice.

Published: February 19, 2026, 5:11 pm

Clubs frustrated over wait for Fifa to share £185m of Club World Cup money

• Clubs who did not play are to get solidarity payments

• No formula determined for dividing the money

Frustration is growing among clubs globally at the extended wait for £185m of solidarity payments promised by Fifa on the back of last summer’s Club World Cup.

Clubs that did not participate in the tournament were promised a share of the sum, designed to ensure a proportion of the event’s funding was distributed throughout the football pyramid. If shared equally it would amount to about £50,000 for every top-flight club in the world but, more than seven months after the Club World Cup’s conclusion, there is no sign of the money and no timescale for its distribution. The Guardian understands Fifa is yet to determine how the money will be allocated.

Published: February 19, 2026, 2:42 pm

Leicester and Premier League appeal over club’s six-point deduction

• Club unhappy sanction applied in Championship

• Premier League seeking additional punishment

Leicester City’s legal battle with the Premier League continues to rumble on as both parties formally lodged appeals related to this month’s decision by an independent commission to deduct the club six points.

It is understood the league believes Leicester should be punished additionally for the late submission of their annual accounts for 2023-24, to avoid setting a precedent, and said an appeal board will “urgently” hear the case to ensure it is resolved before the end of the English Football League season in May.

Published: February 19, 2026, 11:35 am

Saka rejects talk of Arsenal wilting but scars of title near-misses run deep

Late Wolves leveller means seven dropped points from winning positions in 2026 – and Manchester City are lurking

It was left to Bukayo Saka to sum up the mood in Arsenal’s dressing room. “Very flat,” admitted the England forward after watching his side surrender a 2-0 lead at Wolves on Wednesday night.

A couple of hours earlier, Saka’s first goal in 15 games in all competitions – his longest drought since breaking into the first team as a fresh-faced teenager in 2018 – looked to have set up an easy victory against the Premier League’s bottom side to restore Arsenal’s seven-point cushion over Manchester City. Made captain for the night by Mikel Arteta in the continued absence of Martin Ødegaard, Saka celebrated his rare headed goal by mimicking signing the lucrative contract to 2030, worth more than £300,000 a week, that was announced by Arsenal on Thursday. But his broad smile had turned to a frown by the time he faced the television cameras in the tunnel at Molineux.

Published: February 19, 2026, 1:15 pm

Does the Premier League table get you down? Try one of our five alternatives

What if games ended at 90 minutes, set-pieces goals were scrapped, or shots that hit the woodwork counted?

By Opta Analyst

A league table is a pretty helpful barometer of each team’s fortunes. That’s why we use it to decide where teams finish at the end of the season. However, league tables do not tell us the whole story. Arsenal are top in reality (just about), but they might not be in all of our alternative Premier League tables.

Published: February 19, 2026, 3:14 pm

From Kerry Davis to Khadija Shaw: women’s footballers celebrated as part of Black in the Game

Timely and powerful exhibition in Manchester marks the achievements and exclusions of black players in England

Walking around the Score Gallery at the National Football Museum in Manchester, seeing exhibits celebrating everyone from Nikita Parris to Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Pelé, it quickly becomes clear this is a collection like no other. Among the items on display are an impressive number of match-worn shirts and a handmade banner celebrating Marcus Rashford pressuring Boris Johnson into a U-turn on free school meals for vulnerable children.

The Black in the Game exhibition aims to showcase not only sporting success but the cultural impact of key football figures from African and Caribbean communities, including administrators, officials and other non-playing staff. It celebrates some modern-day stars such as the Manchester City striker Khadija Shaw, the WSL’s current top scorer, and was curated across three years by a panel of footballers and academics.

Published: February 19, 2026, 1:33 pm

Alexander Isak should return from injury for Liverpool in April, says Arne Slot

• £125m summer signing broke a leg in December

• He should rejoin team training late March or early April

Arne Slot is expecting Alexander Isak to be available for a Liverpool return in April. The striker fractured his left leg and sustained an ankle injury against Tottenham in December and required surgery but is back in light training.

Isak started running this week as part of his rehabilitation and if he continues on the same path, he will join team training at the end of March. “It will be around that period of time – end of March, start of April – where he is hopefully back with the group,” the head coach said.

Published: February 19, 2026, 10:14 am

Townsend calls for Kinghorn and Van der Merwe to show ‘huge determination’ against Wales

• Five changes to the XV that stunned England

• Wales call up Bath-born Gabriel Hamer-Webb

Gregor Townsend expects Blair Kinghorn and Duhan van der Merwe to be fuelled by “huge determination” against Wales after they were restored to Scotland’s starting XV for Saturday’s Six Nations meeting in Cardiff.

The British & Irish Lions duo were high-profile omissions from the 23 for the first two championship matches against Italy and England amid question marks about their form. The Toulouse back Kinghorn will start at full-back in place of Tom Jordan, who drops to the bench, while Van der Merwe, Scotland’s record try-scorer, returns at wing to take over from Jamie Dobie, who is out due to injury.

Published: February 19, 2026, 3:12 pm

Australia beat India by 19 runs in second women’s T20 international – as it happened

Australia level the series with a strong win over India in Canberra.

3rd over: Australia 20-0 (Voll 13, Mooney 7)

Renuka resumes and immediately Voll finds the first boundary of the night, opening the face of the bat and working it to the boundary for four. A single next ball that she doesn’t quite middle, but it goes over the field and falls safely to bring Mooney back on strike. She gets in on the fun, coming down the pitch to meet the ball and driving it past long off for four. Next ball she pulls away aggressively, but there’s a fielder on the boundary to restrict her to a single. Voll flirts with the field again, but lifts it high enough to come away with two runs – a great over for Australia.

Published: February 19, 2026, 11:50 am

Arteta accepts Arsenal ‘have to blame ourselves’ after blowing lead at Wolves

• League leaders squander 2-0 lead at bottom side

• Arteta: ‘We didn’t perform at the level required’

Mikel Arteta admitted Arsenal “have to blame ourselves” after they surrendered a two-goal lead to draw at Wolves. A 94th-minute equaliser cost the Premier League leaders two points as they allowed their rock-bottom opponents back into the game, further calling into question their title credentials.

Arsenal are five points clear of Manchester City but have played a game more. The Gunners looked on their way to victory after goals from Bukayo Saka and Piero Hincapié, only to be pegged back by Hugo Bueno and Tom Edozie.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:21 pm

Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-2 Arsenal: Premier League – as it happened

Bottom-of-the-table Wolves came from two down to end a nine-game losing streak against leaders Arsenal, and throw the title race wide open

2 min: It’s not a pleasant evening weather-wise. It’s raining in the West Midlands, and that rain could turn to sleet or snow later. Slapstick entertainment not yet off the menu.

Wolves get the ball rolling. “A quiet night is wanted, I think, from all parties, at least in the sense of avoiding the ghastly shenanigans on view in the notorious match last night,” begins Charles Antaki, who speaks for us all. “Raucous is good, animated is fine, full bloodedness welcome, but none of the other stuff, please. British football has been pretty free of it these last years, for which we should all be grateful.”

Published: February 18, 2026, 10:52 pm

Winter Olympics 2026: USA defeat Sweden in men’s ice hockey and glory for Shiffrin on day 12 – as it happened

The USA and Canada both won in overtime to reach the men’s ice hockey last four, while Mikaela Shiffrin dominated the slalom

Women’s aerials: the qualifying rounds of accelerating down a ramp and flying through the air. Hanna Huskova, gold medallist in 2018, does a triple somersault, or the “the kiss arse blaster” in the commentator’s words, but it is only enough to leave her seventh.

Women’s curling: Back to the brushes, where Rebecca Morrison posts the final stone of the sixth end into perfect position, Team GB take two and go into a 4-3 lead against the USA with four ends left.

Published: February 18, 2026, 11:04 pm