Category World News

As soon as details of a $1 billion prize fund were finally revealed, the winners of FIFA’s first 32-team Club World Cup in the United States could win a football record $125 million.

FIFA stated that it had set aside $ 38.1 million to the top-ranked European team, likely Real Madrid, and $ 3.58 million to the Oceania representative Auckland City, for teams that would take part in the tournament between June 14 and July 13.

Results in the 63 games will contribute another $ 470 million, including $7.5 million for round-of-16 play, and $ 40 million for the team that wins the MetLife Stadium near New York, winning the championship game.

Following the delivery of the golden trophy to President Donald Trump by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, the trophy has been sitting in the White House’s Oval Office this month.

A delayed conclusion of a global broadcast agreement with streaming service DAZN, which received significant funding from a Saudi-backed sports agency, was the subject of the prize fund.

FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia to host the men’s 2034 World Cup in December.

Each of the 12 European clubs participating in the Club World Cup will be charged a fee of at least $12.81 million for entry. Without providing any further information, FIFA stated that “a ranking based on sporting and commercial criteria” would be used to determine payments.

Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, and Chelsea also qualified by holding the same four seasons’ champions league records as they did from 2021 to 2024.

If a nation didn’t have three Champions League winners, they could only have two entries. Due to the country cap, higher-ranked clubs like Liverpool and Barcelona being unable to advance past the round of 16, Salzburgburg of Austria qualified as the final European team.

A $15.21 million entry fee will be charged to each of the six South American teams.

Despite not winning the MLS Cup title last year, teams from Africa, Asia, and the CONCACAF region of North America will each receive $9.55 million for their contributions to the game.

Due to the fact that Pachuca and Leon of Mexico both received the same level of qualification, FIFA is currently challenging its removal from the competition.

FIFA wants to pay $250 million to organizations all over the world who did not make it to the tournament. How many clubs will receive no guarantees as to how much money will be made.

The Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land says he thought he was going to “die” at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers before his arrest this week in the occupied West Bank.

Hamdan Ballal was arrested on Monday by Israeli forces after he was beaten and injured three weeks after winning his Oscar in Hollywood. He was released on Tuesday from a police station in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.

The incident took place in the village of Susiya in the southern West Bank as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Ballal said he had gone to document a settler attack on his neighbour’s home in Susiya.

But as the situation escalated and Ballal realised it had “become more and more dangerous”, he said he decided to return home to his family.

However, a settler known to him, together with two Israeli soldiers, followed him to his house, Ballal said, adding that the assault took place just outside his home.

“They held the gun directly to me, the soldiers. … The settler went behind me and directly attacked me with his hands. I don’t know what he held in his hands,” he said.

Ballal fell to the ground as the attack continued.

“The soldiers kept on shouting at me, threatening me and putting the gun, one time at my neck. … They also put the gun on my cheek.”

Ballal recalled thinking he would not survive the attack.

“The soldiers let him [the settler] beat me, and the soldiers also beat me with a gun. I fell because it was a hard, hard attack,” he said. “They focused on my head. They kicked my head and also with a gun.

“I felt they were going to kill me, not just to punish me. … I felt I would die,” he told Al Jazeera.

‘Settlers do what they want’

The documentary No Other Land – directed by Ballal, another Palestinian and two Israelis – chronicles settler violence and Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta area. It won the Oscar for best documentary on March 2.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Ballal said the Israeli army “lets the settlers do what they want”.

“Because the army [is] here, they are settlers with uniforms,” he said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war started 17 months ago.

A court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don has convicted 23 Ukrainians on “terrorism” charges in a trial that Kyiv has denounced as a sham and a violation of international law.

The defendants include 12 captured members of Ukraine’s elite Azov Brigade, which led the defence of the city of Mariupol in the early months of Russia’s war.

The prisoners were found guilty on Wednesday on charges of trying to stage a violent coup and organising activities for a “terrorist” organisation. Some also faced charges of overseeing illegal military drills as part of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

They were given sentences ranging from 13 to 23 years in prison, to be served in penal colonies with the harshest regimes, the Prosecutor-General’s Office said.

Independent news outlet Mediazona said that besides the 12 Avoz members, 11 other people whom Russia had already returned to Ukraine in prisoner exchanges were sentenced in absentia. They included nine women who had worked as army cooks.

Mediazona said the Azov members would appeal the verdicts and that some of them had denied wrongdoing or had said that testimony they had given had been obtained under duress.

Wednesday’s verdict comes a day after Russia and Ukraine agreed to halt military strikes on vessels in the Black Sea with a view to ushering in a broader ceasefire that would bring an end to the three-year Russia-Ukraine war.

‘Sham trial’

Memorial, a prominent Russian rights group that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, has designated the Ukrainian defendants as political prisoners.

According to Memorial, some of them were captured in 2022 during fighting in Mariupol, where they held out at the Azovstal steel mill, besieged by Russian troops.

Others were detained as they tried to leave the city after it was overrun by Russian forces, the group said.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, denounced the proceedings when they began in June 2023 as “another sham trial” held for Russia’s “own amusement”.

“Russia and fair justice have nothing in common. The world must respond to such shameful sham trials of Ukrainian defenders,” Lubinets said.

He added: “It is obvious to everyone that those who should be in the dock are not those defending themselves but those who initiated the aggression, those who invaded foreign land with weapons and those who arrived with tanks on the territory of an independent state.”

The Azov Brigade is banned inside Russia and is characterised by Moscow as a fanatical grouping of Russia-hating neo-Nazis. Ukraine rejects Russia’s description of Azov as a “terrorist” organisation.

The regiment was founded by a hardline nationalist, Andriy Biletskiy, but subsequently dissociated itself from his politics. From 2014, it was folded into Ukraine’s National Guard.

Essential minerals are essential for the manufacture of defense and clean energy technologies. Their demand is growing quickly, as is the supply of rare earths from leading nations.

However, China is the country’s main supplier. The United States is trying to reduce its dependence on Beijing for crucial minerals.

From potential tariff threats against Canada and Greenland to potential agreements with Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Washington is accused of obtaining the elements through economic coercion. Additionally, the US wants to increase domestic production.

Could President Prabowo Subianto’s plans aid in the expansion of Indonesia’s economy?