Doha - players.bio

Immobile 'scapegoat' for Italy's World Cup flop, says Lazio coach Sarri

Lazio coach Maurizio Sarri said Friday that striker Ciro Immobile has become the "scapegoat" for Italy's failure to qualify for a second consecutive World Cup finals and claimed Serie A is "30 or 40 years behind" continental rivals. "He is becoming the scapegoat for this situation. If I were him, I know what I'd do," Sarri said, seeming to suggest the international should quit the national side.

Eyes of football world on Doha for World Cup draw

DOHA: The draw for this year's World Cup takes place in the shadow of Doha's skyscrapers on Friday (Apr 1), with the focus for the evening on the actual football after a build-up dominated by the many off-field issues surrounding the awarding of the tournament.

All eyes on Doha as World Cup fates set to be revealed

DOHA : The football world gathered in the Qatari capital on Friday in expectant anticipation of the draw for the World Cup finals which will begin at 1600 GMT.

A deliberate act of tea-timely, spiteful and bureaucratic sabotage

It has been a busy couple of days in Doha, where Fifa president Gianni Infantino has had to field no end of awkward questions about the upcoming Human Rights World Cup in Qatar. However, one particularly tricky question The Fiver can’t help but feel has gone unasked regards the timing of Friday’s draw. Scheduled for 5pm BST, it hasn’t gone unnoticed here in Fiver Towers that world football’s governing body has pointedly timed it to coincide with the arrival of the world’s most daily email in the spam folders of our subscribers, meaning we’re unable to provide any pithy commentary here. What’s more, this deliberate act of spiteful, bureaucratic sabotage means that, in terms of piping-hot takes on high-profile match-ups, it behoves us to scrabble around closer to home.