Germany is to receive a cool $35 million for defeating Argentina in extra time on Sunday, which is touted to be the biggest prize in World Cup history. Germany's cash prize easily toppled the prize received by the previous world cup champs, Spain, back in 2010.
Polygon, on a tip by NeoGAF user WarpathDC, the playable demo content for FIFA 14 showed a price listing of $6.65 for Australian accounts upon checking and $4.99 for North American users. The demo, along with the one for EA Sports UFC, should have been playable for free.
Medical experts in the mainland have blamed the increasing number of deaths to this year's World Cup. Moreover, the experts also said that the country, sadly, has not done enough progress on the mental illness field, which is also seen as a contributing factor to the suicide number.
On Tuesday, FIFA Secretary General Jerome Valcke expressed his concerns in a televised interview about the level of drunkenness in Brazil following the world soccer body's special consideration to sell alcohol at World Cup venues. Valcke also pointed the link between inebriation and violence.
It was natural of Donovan to do so despite being largely identified to US soccer, as it was obvious that he is not in any of the main lineup or reserves head coach Jurgen Klinsmann has picked to represent the US at the tournament in Brazil. As a former national captain, Donovan was emotional at the time that Klinsmann had overlooked him in spite of an impressive resume, the Bleacher Report noted.
Although statistics will not be out until the next few months, majority of the embassies, including the US, has issued a travel advisory warning their citizens to be wary on robberies on city buses, cash machines and in banks, Fox News reported.
When a press question aimed at Brazil coach Luiz Felipe Scolari regarding his comments on the Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez's allegations, Brazilian Football Federation senior press officer Rodrigo Paiva cut through the question and urge media present to stop insulting the team's capability to win its match against Chile.
In her latest column for The Clarion-Ledger, the political commentator and writer said that the enthusiastic response of the Americans to the tournament is a "sign of the nation's moral decay."
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Brazilians emerged as the top scorers in this year's World Cup, but for a different reason. In the 32 games the paper has studied, it has observed that there were 302 players who, at one point, went down in apparent pain, or ball up in a fetal position or lie down on the ground lifeless. Due to these dramatic episodes, it has cost the tournament a total of 132 minutes of game clock. But after sorting through those that were legitimate falls, the numbers are still significant at 293 cases at 118 minutes and 21 seconds.
The New York Times said the observance of Ramadan is a religious obligations for Muslims, who fast and forgo liquids from dawn until dusk for about a month. As Muslims all over the world prepare for the beginning of Ramadan, which will be on Saturday night, it would be curious to know how Muslim players set to play for their home teams in their upcoming knockout matches prepare for their games and at the same time follow their religious obligations.
In the new scam, Malwarebytes discovered that a fake Instagram account @easportsut2014 has been claiming to be an official account and channel of Electronic Arts, the makers of FIFA Ultimate Team. The account posts images that promotes Ultimate Team content with a link that when unsuspecting users click, would lead them to a phishing URL that would ask them to log in using their Origin or Xbox Live accounts.
Yahoo Sports said that FIFA has earlier imposed a new set of measures in the hopes of curbing such behavior at least during the World Cup tournament. The sports blog observed that the new rules could be viewed as cruel, even to players, who are usually targets of such acts.
An ambulance service assistant area manager Rob Marsh said that while emergency services personnel do understand the severity of England's loss to Uruguay in the World Cup, they do not condone the type of behavior made towards them, especially at the time when they are just doing their jobs.
Police believed that some of the fans who have purchased the hard-to-get-by tickets on the black market tried to pass them off as legitimate purchases by coming into matches supposedly disabled and in wheelchairs. The news report said that many of the concession tickets reserved for the disabled had fallen into unscrupulous individuals.
The sports blog said the US' next match against Portugal would be more grueling than Ghana, for several reasons. The match, which is scheduled for Sunday, will be held in the remote heart of the Amazon rainforest, Manaus. The stadium in the area, which is just 214 miles south of the equator, had earned condemnation from both Italy and England, who first played in the stadium.
Daily Mail said a total of 15 people were arrested following the attack, after the group had ripped up the fans' flags and attempted to fled and get on a bus. There were six rockets, one brass knuckles, a dagger, a mouth guard for fighting and fireworks seized from the police from the group.
Upon a review of a footage of the incident by Yahoo Sports, might have been pissed when Mandzukic appeared to be going the wrong way and bumping the former in the process. The match referee had awarded Song a red card for the act.
Although there are several legal sports betting outfits in a handful of Asian cities including mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the attractiveness of illegal online bookmaking outfits to individuals is reportedly due to the latter's offer of better prices, odds, wider variety of bet types and credit.
Set up as a not-for-profit association in Switzerland, FIFA does not pay any taxes from revenues it gains from every World Cup tournament, the Forbes report wrote. It has also been observed that the organization has also managed to wrangled itself from laws in Brazil that would have required the organization to pay tax money.
Even if authorities have said that the stadium could be put to use for local games after the World Cup, football matches in Manaus could attract a thousand people at most, which would not make it an economical decision to host a local match there, the Guardian said.
