Unable to drink and hazy with painkillers, my six visits to the dentist started in a deserted Moscow mall and ended in Berlin, via diarrhoea in Barcelona I arrived in Europe with a sore tooth and World Cup fever. I left with a half-completed root canal and the unpleasant memory of shitting myself in a Barcelona club. The holiday had been planned for months: my family’s “boys tour” through Russia for the 2018 World Cup, followed by a wedding in the sunny south of France ..read more

Hannes Halldorsson helped Iceland beat England at Euro 2016. Now he is in London to release Cop Secret, his first feature film By Chris Evans for The Set Pieces It’s a storyline that would not look out of place on the big screen. The down-on-his-luck goalkeeper who could not play the sport he loves during his younger years due to persistent injuries suddenly finds himself going head-to-head with a global icon. But when Iceland goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson clapped his gloves together in preparation to face a penalty from Lionel Messi, this was not a plot dreamed up by a bigwig director. It was ..read more

Former Conmebol president among executives named Jack Warner allegedly received $5m to back Russia 2018 Prosecutors in New York have revealed new details of alleged bribes paid to Fifa executive committee members to gain their votes for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. An indictment unsealed on Monday in the US District Court in Brooklyn says Nicolás Leoz, the Paraguayan then president of the South American governing body, Conmebol, and the former Brazil federation president Ricardo Teixeira received bribes to vote for Qatar at the 2010 Fifa executive committee meeting. Related: Former Fox e ..read more

Multimillion-dollar scheme involved kickbacks to Fifa officials for broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup Two former senior executives at Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to Fifa officials in exchange for broadcast and marketing rights to some of the world’s biggest football tournaments. The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels and Carlos Martinez, the former president of Fox Latin Ameri ..read more

Ryan Pierse is a Sydney-based sports photographer for Getty Images. He talks through some of the most memorable frames from his 20-year careerThe art of sport photography with Ryan Pierse – video ..read more