• Also: Follow the UAE's Road to Russia
GENEVA // Fifa President Gianni Infantino is open to a 40-team World Cup in 2026, with several countries serving as co-hosts.
Infantino’s comments on Tuesday show that Fifa will consider co-hosting by the United States, Canada and Mexico. They are expected bidders for 2026, with the Concacaf region favoured to host for the first time since 1994, when 24 teams played in the US.
In his presidential election campaign, Infantino supported expanding the tournament and hosting across a region.
“These two topics will certainly be on the table for discussion,” Infantino said, looking ahead to a meeting of the Fifa Council on October 13-14 in Zurich.
Asked about a potential US-Canada-Mexico project for 2026, the former Uefa general secretary said that his previous organisation chose to hold the 2020 European Championship in 13 different host nations.
“So, there is, I would say, no limit to whatever is good for football,” Infantino said on the sidelines of a meeting of European clubs. “We will see, but it’s true that Concacaf did not have the World Cup for a long time.”
The 2026 World Cup hosting vote is set for 2020, with Fifa member federations choosing from a shortlist drafted by the ruling council.
“For the moment I think everything is open,” Infantino said. “My opinion on the 40 teams has not changed.”
While at Uefa, Infantino also helped oversee an expanded Euro 2016 with 24 teams for the first time instead of the 16-team format
“We have seen it again at the Euro in France with eight more teams, what kind of enthusiasm this generated in many, many countries,” he said. “We need to realise that these kind of events are more than just a competition, they are real social events in the whole world.”
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Bharat
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Starring: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sunil Grover
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
MATCH INFO
Everton 2 (Tosun 9', Doucoure 93')
Rotherham United 1 (Olosunde 56')
Man of the Match Olosunde (Rotherham)
Lowest Test scores
26 - New Zealand v England at Auckland, March 1955
30 - South Africa v England at Port Elizabeth, Feb 1896
30 - South Africa v England at Birmingham, June 1924
35 - South Africa v England at Cape Town, April 1899
36 - South Africa v Australia at Melbourne, Feb. 1932
36 - Australia v England at Birmingham, May 1902
36 - India v Australia at Adelaide, Dec. 2020
38 - Ireland v England at Lord's, July 2019
42 - New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, March 1946
42 - Australia v England in Sydney, Feb. 1888
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
