Archive November 12, 2025

England defender Reece James is hoping Fifa will consider moving kick-off times for next year’s World Cup to help players deal with potentially stifling summer temperatures.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are co-hosting the tournament, which starts 11 June, but concerns have been raised over the extreme heat conditions teams will likely face.

James, 25, captained Chelsea to victory in the Club World Cup this summer in the US but the competition faced criticism because of the severe conditions, with the defender’s team-mate Enzo Fernandez saying he felt “dizzy” while playing in “very dangerous” heat.

Research led by Queen’s University Belfast found the temperatures at 14 of the 16 stadiums being used for the 2026 World Cup could exceed potentially dangerous levels during the tournament.

Philadelphia, which is one of the US cities hosting matches, was under a severe heat warning during one of Chelsea’s training sessions this summer when temperatures reached 37C but because of the 45% humidity conditions felt more like 45C.

England, who have qualified for the tournament with two games to spare, would benefit from later kick-offs when temperatures have cooled, according to manager Thomas Tuchel.

“For sure, that would definitely help,” said James, “later kick-offs when it’s not so hot and humid. That would definitely help.”

England are planning a warm-weather training camp in Florida to help acclimatise for the tournament and will also build a “heat-proof” game plan, said assistant Anthony Barry.

Asked if football’s world governing body has contacted him for feedback after the Club World Cup, James added: “No, I haven’t been asked about my thoughts on kick-off times.

Fifa is likely to schedule World Cup matches involving major European nations after midnight UK time in an effort to combat heat issues.

It is anticipated these kick-off times will mirror those at the Club World Cup, when the earliest games started at 17:00 BST, followed by 20:00, 23:00 and 02:00.

“You feel the heat the minute you step outside the hotel. The conditions are super hot,” James continued.

“Once you are out there you adapt the longer you are there, when you are settled in once place and try to limit the things you can.

“The pitches when we were there weren’t the greatest either and made it a little bit harder but hopefully by the time the World Cup comes around hopefully it’s better.”

A year ago today, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay was “not in a great place”.

The night before, his team had suffered a “terrible loss” at home that left their NFL play-off hopes hanging by a thread.

Then he spoke with Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, whose team is another of those owned by the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) group.

Arteta happened to be at the Rams’ training facility as he and some Arsenal executives were visiting during football’s international break.

“Mikel went into Sean’s office and they spent two hours talking about player connections, ideas and things that Mikel had done,” the Rams’ president Kevin Demoff told BBC Sport.

“Sean took a step back from the day-to-day of ‘we just lost to Miami’ and into ‘this is what makes a great leader, this is how we do it’.

“We then had this amazing run, and I truly do believe that Sean was invigorated by that conversation with Mikel. I credit Mikel with some of our turnaround last year.”

McVay led the Rams to victory in six of their next seven games to clinch the NFC West divisional title before being halted in the post-season by the eventual Super Bowl winners, the Philadelphia Eagles.

Arteta and McVay have developed a bond that has proved mutually beneficial, helping Arsenal and the Rams become title contenders in the Premier League and NFL this season.

Stan Kroenke already owned the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and Major League Soccer side Colorado Rapids when he became the Rams’ full owner in 2010, followed by Arsenal’s majority shareholder in 2011.

McVay was just 30 when hired by the Rams in 2017, while Arsenal appointed a 37-year-old Arteta in 2019.

The pair have since discovered they are kindred spirits, always open to ways to improve and get the best out of themselves and their players.

McVay was a highly-rated footballer at high school before choosing to focus on American football but it was Arteta’s man-management and leadership style that really piqued his interest in Arsenal’s All Or Northing documentary from 2021-22.

“Sean watched it and said ‘I don’t know if I would have handled [Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang] the way Mikel did’,” said Demoff. “He took a lot of strength from how Mikel handled adversity, [and thought] ‘that’s something I want to be better at’.”

Arteta and McVay have forged a friendship over several meetings on each side of the Atlantic, during their off-season, football’s international breaks or when their team plays overseas.

They have spoken of their mutual admiration and how they learn from each other, despite coaching in different sports.

“It’s not only about the sport, it’s about the culture, about managing,” Arteta said before the Rams’ NFL game at Wembley last month. “It’s always that willingness to learn, that curiosity to learn.”

Arsenal’s chief executive Richard Garlick said they share “that energy, that passion, that affability. They are like sponges – they take stuff in and invite reflection. They are brave like that. They’ll ask the players what they think”.

According to Demoff, Stan Kroenke and his son Josh have a relatively hands-off approach with KSE. They are “very clear and intentional about laying out the brand values and ethos”, then “entrust you to go execute”.

“There’s a DNA that connects all of these franchises: you want to develop young players into stars, and then reward them,” added Demoff, who has also been KSE’s president of team and media operations since March 2024.

“That’s the mindset. There’s a similar DNA in terms of what they’re looking for in coaching.”

KSE gave McVay and Arteta their first senior appointments, while Arsenal women’s coach Renee Slegers (34) and Nuggets head coach David Adelman (36) were both relatively young when they joined the organisation before being promoted from within.

Bukayo Saka is an Arsenal academy product and Arteta has ushered Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri and now Max Dowman into the Gunners’ first team.

Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner and Jared Verse soon established themselves with the Rams after being drafted over the past two years, while the Nuggets developed Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray into NBA championship winners.

Garlick added: “When I joined Arsenal (2021), you could see there was a clear plan as to how they were going to develop the team and that has played out to where it’s challenging on all fronts.”

Of course, being competitive is another of KSE’s values and under their ownership, all of their major league teams have won a championship, apart from Arsenal, who lead the Premier League by four points.

Arteta said last month: “We have to share the vision and especially the ambition, and the ambition is very clear – we are here to win major trophies.

Demoff said that Arteta and McVay’s competitive nature “is what drives them”. It is now driving the rest of the organisation too, as the working relationship between KSE’s most prominent coaches embodies how the group wants all of its staff to operate.

Besides KSE’s annual team summit, the cross-sport connections are more organic than prescriptive. But when those opportunities arise, such as the Rams’ recent London game, their staff are encouraged to share ideas and insights, to “think bigger picture and connect dots”.

Before the Rams’ first London game in 2012, they trained at Arsenal’s training base and saw their players wearing tracking devices. The Rams introduced them in 2013, allowing them to monitor player workload, and the team has since suffered the fewest injuries in the NFL.

Once when Arsenal trained at the Rams’ facility, Arteta noticed the number of cameras filming the players and said “this is the sort of thing that we need to do”.

Some of Demoff’s closest friends in the industry are at the San Francisco 49ers, who now own Leeds United and Rangers too, but “we’re all competitors. There’s only so much people are willing to share, whereas here, there is no limit. Everybody realises that being an open book makes us all better”.

In recent years, the vision of Stan and Josh Kroenke has been to bring KSE’s teams and entities closer together, in terms of both sport and commercially.

With the Rams playing international games this season and next, they have been working with Arsenal to see how they can grow their fanbase and brand globally.

And in January, KSE formed Kroenke Signature Properties (KSP), a division dedicated to sharing resources and making it easier for partners to connect if they wish to branch out from the UK market to the US, or vice-versa.

“It’s more joined up, it’s the ability to spread that reach,” said Garlick. “We can leverage those different areas we’ve got across the globe.”

Demoff added that “the goal is to grow revenue, to be helpful in the US and drive revenue into Arsenal, where obviously that’s valuable from a PSR (profit and sustainability rules) perspective.

A year ago today, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay was “not in a great place”.

The night before, his team had suffered a “terrible loss” at home that left their NFL play-off hopes hanging by a thread.

Then he spoke with Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, whose team is another of those owned by the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment (KSE) group.

Arteta happened to be at the Rams’ training facility as he and some Arsenal executives were visiting during football’s international break.

“Mikel went into Sean’s office and they spent two hours talking about player connections, ideas and things that Mikel had done,” the Rams’ president Kevin Demoff told BBC Sport.

“Sean took a step back from the day-to-day of ‘we just lost to Miami’ and into ‘this is what makes a great leader, this is how we do it’.

“We then had this amazing run, and I truly do believe that Sean was invigorated by that conversation with Mikel. I credit Mikel with some of our turnaround last year.”

McVay led the Rams to victory in six of their next seven games to clinch the NFC West divisional title before being halted in the post-season by the eventual Super Bowl winners, the Philadelphia Eagles.

Arteta and McVay have developed a bond that has proved mutually beneficial, helping Arsenal and the Rams become title contenders in the Premier League and NFL this season.

Stan Kroenke already owned the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and Major League Soccer side Colorado Rapids when he became the Rams’ full owner in 2010, followed by Arsenal’s majority shareholder in 2011.

McVay was just 30 when hired by the Rams in 2017, while Arsenal appointed a 37-year-old Arteta in 2019.

The pair have since discovered they are kindred spirits, always open to ways to improve and get the best out of themselves and their players.

McVay was a highly-rated footballer at high school before choosing to focus on American football but it was Arteta’s man-management and leadership style that really piqued his interest in Arsenal’s All Or Northing documentary from 2021-22.

“Sean watched it and said ‘I don’t know if I would have handled [Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang] the way Mikel did’,” said Demoff. “He took a lot of strength from how Mikel handled adversity, [and thought] ‘that’s something I want to be better at’.”

Arteta and McVay have forged a friendship over several meetings on each side of the Atlantic, during their off-season, football’s international breaks or when their team plays overseas.

They have spoken of their mutual admiration and how they learn from each other, despite coaching in different sports.

“It’s not only about the sport, it’s about the culture, about managing,” Arteta said before the Rams’ NFL game at Wembley last month. “It’s always that willingness to learn, that curiosity to learn.”

Arsenal’s chief executive Richard Garlick said they share “that energy, that passion, that affability. They are like sponges – they take stuff in and invite reflection. They are brave like that. They’ll ask the players what they think”.

According to Demoff, Stan Kroenke and his son Josh have a relatively hands-off approach with KSE. They are “very clear and intentional about laying out the brand values and ethos”, then “entrust you to go execute”.

“There’s a DNA that connects all of these franchises: you want to develop young players into stars, and then reward them,” added Demoff, who has also been KSE’s president of team and media operations since March 2024.

“That’s the mindset. There’s a similar DNA in terms of what they’re looking for in coaching.”

KSE gave McVay and Arteta their first senior appointments, while Arsenal women’s coach Renee Slegers (34) and Nuggets head coach David Adelman (36) were both relatively young when they joined the organisation before being promoted from within.

Bukayo Saka is an Arsenal academy product and Arteta has ushered Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri and now Max Dowman into the Gunners’ first team.

Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner and Jared Verse soon established themselves with the Rams after being drafted over the past two years, while the Nuggets developed Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray into NBA championship winners.

Garlick added: “When I joined Arsenal (2021), you could see there was a clear plan as to how they were going to develop the team and that has played out to where it’s challenging on all fronts.”

Of course, being competitive is another of KSE’s values and under their ownership, all of their major league teams have won a championship, apart from Arsenal, who lead the Premier League by four points.

Arteta said last month: “We have to share the vision and especially the ambition, and the ambition is very clear – we are here to win major trophies.

Demoff said that Arteta and McVay’s competitive nature “is what drives them”. It is now driving the rest of the organisation too, as the working relationship between KSE’s most prominent coaches embodies how the group wants all of its staff to operate.

Besides KSE’s annual team summit, the cross-sport connections are more organic than prescriptive. But when those opportunities arise, such as the Rams’ recent London game, their staff are encouraged to share ideas and insights, to “think bigger picture and connect dots”.

Before the Rams’ first London game in 2012, they trained at Arsenal’s training base and saw their players wearing tracking devices. The Rams introduced them in 2013, allowing them to monitor player workload, and the team has since suffered the fewest injuries in the NFL.

Once when Arsenal trained at the Rams’ facility, Arteta noticed the number of cameras filming the players and said “this is the sort of thing that we need to do”.

Some of Demoff’s closest friends in the industry are at the San Francisco 49ers, who now own Leeds United and Rangers too, but “we’re all competitors. There’s only so much people are willing to share, whereas here, there is no limit. Everybody realises that being an open book makes us all better”.

In recent years, the vision of Stan and Josh Kroenke has been to bring KSE’s teams and entities closer together, in terms of both sport and commercially.

With the Rams playing international games this season and next, they have been working with Arsenal to see how they can grow their fanbase and brand globally.

And in January, KSE formed Kroenke Signature Properties (KSP), a division dedicated to sharing resources and making it easier for partners to connect if they wish to branch out from the UK market to the US, or vice-versa.

“It’s more joined up, it’s the ability to spread that reach,” said Garlick. “We can leverage those different areas we’ve got across the globe.”

Demoff added that “the goal is to grow revenue, to be helpful in the US and drive revenue into Arsenal, where obviously that’s valuable from a PSR (profit and sustainability rules) perspective.