Archive October 1, 2025

A Thursday Fifa council meeting in Zurich did not include Israel’s participation in football on the agenda.

Following a UN commission of inquiry’s conclusion last month that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the main decision-making body of Fifa is convening.

Although it is not on the agenda, it might be brought up in the “miscellaneous” section.

Israel’s participation in international football will be a subject of discussion, according to BBC Sport’s contact.

Amnesty International recently urged the Israeli Football Association (IFA) to halt play at the World Cup and Uefa, which organizes European competitions.

Victor Montagliani, the vice president of FIFA, has suggested that Uefa should decide.

“First and foremost, I have to deal with a member of my region for whatever reason because Israel is a member of Uefa.” He said, “They have to deal with that.”

In their qualifying group for the World Cup, Israel is six points clear of Norway’s leaders in Uefa’s organization.

The winners of each group’s play-offs are automatically followed by the runners-up, with the top team from each group automatically qualifying for the tournament.

The US, Mexico, and Canada will host the 2026 World Cup on a co-hosted basis.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has vowed to stop any attempts to obstruct Israel’s participation.

According to the UN report, there are logical grounds to believe that four of the five genocidal crimes have been committed since the war’s start in 2023.

Following that, a panel of UN human rights experts demanded that Fifa and Uefa ban Israel’s national team from international competition, saying: “Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual.”

Israel has consistently disputed that the actions taken in Gaza constitute a genocide and that they are necessary as a means of self-defense. The UN report was deemed “distorted and false” by its foreign ministry.

Reebok, a sports brand, called it “simply not true” that it requested the IFA remove its logos from its team kits.

Reebok and the local franchisee, IFA president Moshe Zuares, and the company’s representatives exchanged the company’s statement, which read, “The company reversed its decision to end its contract with Israel national teams,” according to a statement released by the IFA.

Reebok “is proud of our record as a unifier of all cultures on and off the pitch,” according to a Reebok spokesman.

Hannah Cockroft, a Brit, won the women’s T34 100m in New Delhi, earning her second gold medal at the World Paralympics and her 18th career title.

The Indian champion won her eighth consecutive title in the event in 17.28 seconds.

With a season-best time of 18.08, British team-mate Kare Adenegan won silver, while China’s Lan Hanyu took bronze.

“It’s nice to get titles, but I’d like to be moving a little quicker, if I’m honest,” Cockroft said.

“I want those world records, but I haven’t broken them in a while.”

Cockroft, 33, won the T34 400m gold medal and set a championship record, while Adenegan also won silver in the same event.

On Wednesday, Victoria Levitt won the T44 100m gold medal on her first international appearance in a time of 13.22, and Bebe Jackson won the bronze medal in 13.63.

Levitt, 29, will return to her role at a Mansfield Tesco store in the lead up to Christmas after working two jobs to support her athletics career.

Levitt, being honest, described it as a “complete shock.”

I was like, “Oh, does this mean I’m first when I crossed the line and I didn’t see anyone else?” “, and then the shock struck my face.

It will take some time for the sinking. I’m shocked, I can’t believe what I left with.

Melanie Woods of Great Britain won her second championship medal with a bronze medal in the women’s T54 1500m race in three minutes, 19.75 seconds.

The 31-year-old Scot won a medal at a global games on Monday, joining her for the first time in the T54 800m.

Before Zhou Zhaoqian of China, Swiss-based Catherine Debrunner, a five-time paralympic champion, won 1500m gold.

It’s intimidating to line up on the start line with world records holders, including Catherine, who can command such a fast pace and lead from the beginning, Woods said.

However, you must “hype yourself up” and give yourself the assurance you deserve to be the first to go.

With that, I couldn’t be happier. The week started off well, and to top it off is a bonus.

Hannah Cockroft, a Brit, won the women’s T34 100m in New Delhi, earning her second gold medal at the World Paralympics and her 18th career title.

The Indian champion won her eighth consecutive title in the event in 17.28 seconds.

With a season-best time of 18.08, British team-mate Kare Adenegan won silver, while China’s Lan Hanyu took bronze.

“It’s nice to get titles, but I’d like to be moving a little quicker, if I’m honest,” Cockroft said.

“I want those world records, but I haven’t broken them in a while.”

Cockroft, 33, won the T34 400m gold medal and set a championship record, while Adenegan also won silver in the same event.

On Wednesday, Victoria Levitt won the T44 100m gold medal on her first international appearance in a time of 13.22, and Bebe Jackson won the bronze medal in 13.63.

Levitt, 29, will return to her role at a Mansfield Tesco store in the lead up to Christmas after working two jobs to support her athletics career.

Levitt, being honest, described it as a “complete shock.”

I was like, “Oh, does this mean I’m first when I crossed the line and I didn’t see anyone else?” “, and then the shock struck my face.

It will take some time for the sinking. I’m shocked, I can’t believe what I left with.

Melanie Woods of Great Britain won her second championship medal with a bronze medal in the women’s T54 1500m race in three minutes, 19.75 seconds.

The 31-year-old Scot won a medal at a global games on Monday, joining her for the first time in the T54 800m.

Before Zhou Zhaoqian of China, Swiss-based Catherine Debrunner, a five-time paralympic champion, won 1500m gold.

It’s intimidating to line up on the start line with world records holders, including Catherine, who can command such a fast pace and lead from the beginning, Woods said.

However, you must “hype yourself up” and give yourself the assurance you deserve to be the first to go.

With that, I couldn’t be happier. The week started off well, and to top it off is a bonus.

“Trying to reach the top means this,” says one person. You’ll always experience blips, but once you do, you’ll be invincible.

Morgan Gibbs-White’s oozing of confidence suggests that Nottingham Forest is not without its beliefs.

After winning his first five games, they are still waiting for their first victory against FC Midtjylland on Thursday in the Europa League.

Nuno took Forest back to Europe for the first time in 30 years, replacing Nuno Espirito Santo, with a stated goal of collecting trophys.

After winning the Europa League with Tottenham last year before being fired 16 days later, Postecoglou, 60, is aware that progress in football is not always linear, a sentiment shared by Gibbs-White.

“The path to the top is not always glorious and beautiful. You can tell from the England international that we have had a change of manager in the last month and a half here.

“The club has experienced a lot,” he said. Since there is still no win, there is no end to it. We’ve endured the relegation era, had a fantastic season last year, and are now in Europe.

The manager responded positively to the group by saying, “We applaud him.” We firmly believe in his ideas. You can see how well-regarded he is within the group, as can be seen from the way we play it.

It’s obvious that this has been a challenging time. However, we will be fine when that first win is achieved.

The City Ground has been home for the first European game since Jurgen Klinsmann, Oliver Kahn, and Lothar Matthaus defeated Bayern Munich 5-1 in March 1996.

Forest hasn’t played since that quarter-final, which Bayern won 7-2 on aggregate before moving on to win the competition.

Following Forest’s opening goalless draw against Real Betis last week, Midtjylland arrived.

Anthony levelled for the hosts with five minutes to go, demonstrating how far Forest has come in the 15 months since beating relegation on the final day of the campaign in 2023-24.

And Postecoglou will be in demand for European football after a generation, something that Postecoglou will not accept.

“I have a lot of privilege. That’s the result of the efforts of Coops (Steve Cooper) and Nuno, who have brought us to this point. He claimed that he is the victim of that and that he doesn’t take lightly.

“It’s a privilege, but it’s one I’m looking forward to,” says the club’s manager, who will travel back to Europe for the first time in 30 years, and who will hopefully help make it a memorable campaign. Importantly, this football team wants to do it consistently, every season.

The slow start is important in terms of context.

Following a full training session with the entire squad following the international break, Postecoglou lost to Arsenal 3-3 last month.

The free-flowing, high-tempo style he wants to play has already been exposed, with a 1-1 Premier League draw at Burnley coming after a late collapse in Swansea’s Carabao Cup.

Postecoglou has only been in charge for 22 days and has only had time on the training field, which means there are no internal concerns about the winless run and that they simply need more time.

The sooner the results will arrive, full-back Neco Williams stated last week to Sky Sports, “A key thing the manager said is, once everyone is on board with the style of play and the tactics.”

It’s just on us to get used to his tactics and the new play, which are obviously different from those of our previous manager. The results will be obtained the quicker that everything comes together.

After almost two years under Nuno, Postecoglou himself can be certain of those outcomes once the squad gets used to him.

Even though the team’s expansiveness is obvious, there is still little difference when looking at the statistics.

Forest had 57% possession of the league while Postecoglou had 58% while Nuno managed 3 league games this year.

Despite only scoring once in their three league games under Nuno, Forest have made 146 more passes and attempted 44 shots.

In Postecoglou’s games, they have faced more shots (39) than Nuno (30), but the expected goals (xG) against have decreased from 5.0% to 3.9%.

There are some significant differences between Postecoglou’s Tottenham and Nuno’s Forest last season.

Spurs committed 11 errors in front of goals, compared to Forest’s four, and finished second overall in the league with a score of 49.6.

Forest made 12, 956 passes in 2024-25, a league low, while Spurs were sixth with 18, 248.

Spurs also had more possession, more expected goals, and more crosses, which demonstrates Postecoglou’s attacking style, but Forest came in seventh place, 27 points clear of 17th-placed Tottenham.

“We need to keep improving our football,” Postecoglou remarked. Although it may relieve some degree of pressure, I really believe that when everything works out and we’re up and running, we’ll be a top team and the results will flow.

“I would hate it when we reach the year’s business end and look at this stage and wish we had had a few more victories,” she said. I don’t want to chase after ourselves.

I have no doubt that the results will be forthcoming, that our football team will be interesting to watch, and that our footballing style will be followed.