This is rough but I think it talks about a lot of what is missing from the Cunningham/WNBA discourse. Namely, that trans people are not hypothetical thought experiments. They are real people who are being genocided by our government & any coverage that doesn't center that reality misses the mark.

the answer is always to disavow it

Would you let the Proud Boys march in and sit courtside?

thefrankiedlc.news

More incendiary stuff. Prince Ali, the FA president from Jordan, who was a rival to Infantino in his first election in 2016, alleges FIFA attempted to effectively blackmail theJordanian FA, withholding funds until they had provided backing to Infantino for next year’s election.

Central Coast Mariners Women news: Holman Barnes Group, the owners of NRL club Wests Tigers and NPL club APIA Leichhardt, will be announced later this morning as the new operators of the former #ALeagueWomen champions. 2026/27 draw to be finalised and released later this month.

Yep, abundantly clear Cunningham is trying to turn a pretty middling basketball career into a post-sport media role on Fox News complete with merch on the back of transphobia and racism. www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/a...

Sophie Cunningham isn’t rejecting politics. She’s cashing in on them

Sophie Cunningham’s rise says less about basketball than the incentives of a sports culture where outrage, identity politics and attention have become lucrative commodities

theguardian.com

and people wonder why Australian football struggles to receive government funding or support… www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...

The football club that used taxpayer grant for coach and player wages, wine and pub meals

Financial documents reveal Macarthur FC spent hundreds of thousands of dollars intended for school sports clinics on commercial expenses, executive-linked companies and hospitality.

smh.com.au

There can be no let-up now. Infantino must stand down or be removed: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

There can be no letup. Humiliated Infantino must stand down at Fifa or be removed | Nick Ames

Uefa’s decisive call for a boycott and declaration of no confidence must be the opening salvos in a concerted push to dethrone the game’s global leader

theguardian.com

Silver Lake, anyone? www.smh.com.au/sport/the-ta...

The tax haven, the PO box, the tropical island: Who owns Australian soccer

The A-Leagues’ major shareholder owns its stake in Australian professional soccer via a series of offshore tax havens, including an infamous PO box in the Cayman Islands.

smh.com.au

Paul Brown@pbsportswriter.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Is football at the frontline of the next financial crisis? Private Equity firms are using complex offshore arrangements to channel insurance money into football. This Bermuda Triangle strategy ended badly for 777 Partners, but could be a preview of the future. www.playthegame.org/news/investm...

“The current FIFA leadership has not only lost UEFA’s confidence but also that of many other members of the football family.” Note the promise of money. Full statement: www.uefa.com/news-media/n...

I hope this whole saga reminds football that there is enormous power to be wielded through collaboration and agitation from below. it killed the Super League, it killed this. what else could change if we continued standing together and pushed in the same direction?

James Nalton@jdnalton.bsky.social · 5d ago

Statement from FIFA president Gianni Infantino, announcing that plans to introduce a commercial arm of FIFA with stakes for private equity has been scrapped.

I’m all for UEFA leading the charge in boycotting FIFA tournaments but I do worry that the first sacrifices will be women’s tournaments (U20 WWC this year, senior WWC next year). once again, the women’s game is at risk due decisions taken by & for the men’s game. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Football Australia have released a statement about FIFA's proposal to sell off stakes of the World Cup in exchange for giving Member Federations "optional" access to tens of millions of dollars. not sure anyone is surprised by the meekness of this given FA's own financial position at the moment.

who are the AFC kidding with this statement lol we all know the richest nations in this confederation - the same ones whose oil and tourism and public investment funds and airlines and tech companies are already major sponsors of World Cups - are gagging at the idea of owning a stake in it

Joey Lynch@joeylynchy.bsky.social · last wk.

AFC release on FIFA private investment plans: "...not consulted on the proposal... "Disappointed that a matter of such significance entered the public domain before... opportunity to examine and discuss it through the appropriate and established governance channels. @espnaustralia.bsky.social

the profit is the point. bigger is the point. more and more and more is the point. we are in the death-rattle stages of late capitalism. there is no logic; power and wealth simply accumulates for its own sake. the hunger for more is insatiable and will consume everything we love in the process.

Miguel Delaney@migueldelaney.bsky.social · last wk.

What rational or financial argument is there to sell off one of the most valuable "products" in the world - that you insist is only going to become more valuable? Why would you sell off ownership in the World Cup? It's not like there are debt issues www.independent.co.uk/sport/footba...

reminder that Australians are the biggest gambling losers per capita anywhere on earth. gambling is a cancer that does nothing for our individual or collective good. it is predatory capitalism at an extreme knife-edge. regulate it out of existence.

Wajahat Ali@wajali.bsky.social · last wk.

The self-destruction of America. fortune.com/2026/07/26/g...

25 minutes before kickoff at the first Sydney Super Cup game between Chelsea and Western Sydney Wanderers, and this is the crowd. unless tens of thousands pile in soon, the one remaining justification for these silly pre-season friendly tours will disappear.

Gianni Infantino isn't the first megalomaniac with a narcissistic personality to run a sporting organization, but he might be the pettiest. His Instagram rant symbolizes his inability to metabolize criticism. Today FIFA is a dictatorial entity that mirrors the despots to whom he shamelessly caters.

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · last wk.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has accused his critics of being 'consumed by hate' during the World Cup, and brushed aside complaints about the treatment of Iran’s team and the decision to lift a ban on a US player after pressure from President Trump. ft.trib.al/pTBKHt9

What a strange and angry post from the FIFA president. While preaching “love” he has come across extremely thin skinned and while at the same time attempted to downplay what has happened to Iran, fans denied visas, Omar Artan and the Balogun situations as normal. Like in a parallel universe.

As journalists we can’t just let athletes like Sophie Cunningham or Britta Curl drop transphobic talking points into our stories without pushing back. “Protecting girls from what? From who? Where is the evidence that this is occurring?” Make them say the quiet part out loud. Challenge them w/ facts

PSA on the Victoria Line tube in London. Phillipson and every other GC weirdo needs to take note.

This is why, speaking as a reporter who has covered a lot of this stuff, I find it bizarre that a lot of the commentariat don't see where anti-trans stuff is going. Gaines et al are pretty clear about how they see sports as a way to win battles that bathroom stuff didn't like a decade ago.

Jay Willis@jaywillis.net · 3w ago

I found this quote from Riley Gaines to be really striking. Straight-up conceding that the purpose of trans sports bans is to normalize transphobia, and to give "ordinary" people "more cover" expressing it in public. ballsandstrikes.substack.com/p/anti-trans...

German broadcast. Nailed it

This is unprecedented. Former Swiss president and current GenSec of the Council of Europe Alain Berset addresses an open letter to Fifa which will cause serious discomfort in Zurich.

Fifa gives fraud ‘an open door’ with betting, says Council of Europe chief

Alain Berset said Fifa’s deal with a prediction market company and Folarin Balogun’s reprieve meant urgent work was needed on ‘the integrity of the sport’

theguardian.com

To put that in perspective, FIFA’s $15 billion exceeds the GDP of ~70 countries, including two World Cup participants: Cape Verde & Curaçao

Nick Ames@nickames82.bsky.social · 3w ago

Exclusive – Fifa smash revenue projections with $15bn haul from World Cup, largely down to secondary ticket/hospitality markets: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

in some rare uplifting #ALeagues news: Canberra United finally have a new owner after two years of limbo!

Football Australia have released their women's domestic match calendar for the 2026/27 season, and uh... when exactly are #ALeagueWomen players who go back to NPL meant to get a break? the 3 weeks between Sept-Oct when ALW pre-season is meant to start? what are we doing

✍️ Megan Rapinoe, writing for Marie Claire “No girl deserves to be discriminated against. That’s why all girls, including trans girls, should be able to play with their classmates in the sports they love… girls who don’t fit someone else’s expectation of femininity, will face further harassment.”

Anti-Trans Legislation Isn't About "Protecting Girls"—It's About Distracting Us From What Matters

"If we really cared about safety and fairness in sports, we’d be breaking down barriers facing girls at every level," writes Megan Rapinoe.

marieclaire.com

JK Rowling offers to fund lawsuits against Amnesty is a headline that will cut through.

Miffythegamer@miffythegamer.bsky.social · 3w ago

In my opinion, this is litigious thuggery. Amnesty spoke their truth and it hurt the feelings of the anti-trans brigade. TERFs destroy everything they touch. I mean, imagine suing Amnesty, of all organisations?

Amnesty International put out a major report documenting the influence of UK based anti trans gender critical organizations and their funding. Within hours, GC groups threatened defamation lawsuits and Amnesty was forced to pull it down. Proving the point they're anti rights. Anyways, here it is.

W T F

Jerad Walker@jeradwalker.bsky.social · 4w ago

CABLEGATE. The ball hit a camera cable during the buildup to England’s goal and play should have been whistled dead.

the day after the #Socceroos were knocked out of the World Cup, FA's executive director said they were working on yet another strategy for Australian football to identify its "DNA". so I rage-wrote this about why the problem isn't strategy, it's the broken system. www.espn.com.au/soccer/story...

Football in Australia doesn't need another strategy, it needs a sledgehammer

As the reality of the Socceroos' exit from the World Cup sets in, Samantha Lewis takes a look at what course of action football needs to take in Australia.

espn.com.au