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TEN THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT LUIS SUAREZ 1. Luis Suarez’s overall 2016/2017 season statistics separate him from the rest. The Uruguayan made 40 appearances for Barcelona and scored 28 La Liga goals, he also owned a 58% shot accuracy and 75% passing accuracy.

2. During his tenure in England, he became the only player to net a hat trick or more every 18 games, making him the most frequent hat-trick scorer ever in league history.

3. The Uruguayan is the country’s top goal scorer with a tally of 43 goals. His tally overtakes fellow countrymen Diego Forlan, Enzo Francescoli and Edison Cavani.

4. Suarez’s 2014 departure from Liverpool was a bittersweet one. However, it’s clear that his heart will remain at the club since his beloved daughter Delfina’s name is an anagram for Anfield.

5. Suarez may not look it, but he has previously sourced income from modeling. While at Ajax, the deadly striker once appeared in a Dutch advertisement for hearing aids.

6. The Barcelona man shares his name with a former Spanish legend that played between 1953- 1973. The ‘other’ Luis Suarez played for Spain, Inter Milan, and Barcelona.

7. In 2016 Suarez racked up more goals and assists than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues making him the most effective attacking player in the continent that year.

8. At the turn of 2017, Suarez became the third fastest to reach 100 goals for Barcelona. He reached the 100 mark after only 120 appearances.

9. Suarez has been in the international sector with Uruguay for over a decade and has thus far amassed 95 appearances for the senior team.

10. Since beginning his senior career, Suarez has won 14 trophies including four league titles, one Champions League and one Copa America title.

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ROUND-UP PART 3 ONE FOR MILAN Sevilla striker Wissam Ben Yedder had Milan in mind when he equalised for his side against Liverpool. The Reds had taken a three-goal lead at Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan only for Sevilla to fight back in an echo of the 2005 Champions League Final.

“Hope @ACMilan watched it,” Ben Yedder wrote, as Liverpool found out what it was like to be on the receiving end. Luckily for Jurgen Klopp’s side, there was no penalty shootout to compound their humiliation.

GIF WARS Borussia Dortmund paid for their hubris when four goals up at half time against rivals Schalke in the Ruhr derby. The points appeared in the bag when Dortmund’s Twitter account posted a GIF of defender Omer Toprak sipping from a coffee mug.

When Schalke completed an extraordinary comeback to level the scores at 4-4 and replied with a GIF of their own, Dortmund could hardly complain.

JONES TRIBUTE Fans of Eriedivisie club Feyenoord put on a spectacular tribute for goalkeeper Brad Jones, who lost his six-year-old son to leukaemia six years ago, lighting up the De Kuip stadium and singing You’ll Never Walk Alone in the 12th minute of the game against VVV-Venlo. The tribute to the former Liverpool goalkeeper was widely shared across social media.

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WORLD CUP 2026

It’s a two-horse race and a short odds bet that the 2026 FIFA WORLD CUP WILL BE HELD IN CANADA. While this prospect was once a far-fetched dream, it is suddenly and surprisingly, close to reality. The tournament may be over 8 years away but top soccer officials in North America are quietly confident of the outcome - although, of course, they won’t come out and say so directly.

The only 2 bids to host the 2026 World Cup are from Morocco and a Canada, Mexico & USA combination. The CONCACAF nations are presenting a United Bid with 60 matches earmarked for the US and 10 each for Mexico and Canada. Canada might have expected more games, given it is the only one of the 3 nations never to have hosted the tournament, but it is limited by the availability of the minimum 40,000-seater stadiums, required by FIFA. At least a dozen stadiums will be involved but decisions about venues, schedules and group formats are far off. Only the Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton stadiums are now in the running as Canada’s venues. Currently, fields have to be natural grass but, it is possible that this could change as artificial turf continues to improve and regulations reviewed Why so few applicants to host this World Cup? Because FIFA is determined to spread World Cup venues around the world, to help build the sport globally, and therefore excludes regions from bidding that have recently hosted the tournament. Perennial bidder, Morocco, was a last minute entrant for 2026 and there are concerns here that it will attract a block vote from African and possibly, near east, nations. However, Sunil Gulati, retiring as President of the United States Soccer Federation in February, is confident of the United Bid’s prospects: In Toronto for the MLS CUP final, he pointed out a number of significant advantages: All 3 countries have very successfully staged major tournaments in the past, providing credibility. And all have the necessary infrastructure already in place, minimizing expenditures and worries about construction delays, potential ‘white elephants’ and the negative publicity they produce. (Past World Cup & Olympic tournaments have produced magnificent, expensive stadiums, unsuited

to local post-tournament use, which end up neglected or abandoned, Brazil being just the most recent example.)

Perhaps most important to FIFA, given its present financial concerns, is that is strongly expected that the United Bid will generate far more income from sponsorships and other commercial opportunities, ticket & merchandise sales and broadcasting/social media revenues, than the competitive bid and than all previous tournaments. It is worth noting that the World Cup is FIFA’s only significant income generator.

With FIFA under an intense spotlight over charges of corruption & vote buying relating to the 2018 & 2022 World Cups, the 2026 contest will be closely watched to ensure that the best bid is duly selected.

Compliance will be closely monitored and transparency is all but guaranteed while new FIFA President Gianni Infantino has declared that the bidding process has to be ‘absolutely bullet-proof”.

The United 2026 bid will not be submitted until March but keep June 13 2018 in your diary, the day before the opening game of the upcoming World Cup. That’s when the 2026 host decision will be made by FIFA, following a spring check-up visit by a team of FIFA observers, having been brought forward from 2020.

The 2026 World Cup will be the first to expand to 48 teams from the existing 32.

There will be 16 groups each of 3 teams with the top two in each progressing to the knock-out round. This means that while 16 teams will go home after just 2 games, 32 teams will play a minimum of 3 games, as with existing tournaments. The new format does however raise concerns about possible collusion/match-fixing in the final game of each group when exactly what result is needed to progress is known by both teams.

Six 6 teams from CONCACAF will participate, including the 3 hosts, if the CONCACAF bid is successful. This will definitely ensure that Canada appears in another World Cup, 40 years after its first.

With 2026 also being the Chinese “Year of the Horse”, you may not want to bet against the favourite winning the hosting stakes.

BOND OF SOCCER

SOCCER BONDS ARE BACK, WITH INTER MILAN AIMING TO OUTSCORE PAST DEALS; ITALIAN TEAM IS LOOKING TO SELL A FIVE-YEAR SECURED BOND, DESPITE A CHECKERED HISTORY FOR SUCH MOVES FROM SPORTS ENTERPRISES

BY CHRISTOPHER WHITTALL AND SAM GOLDFARB

Italian soccer giant Inter Milan is set to become the latest major sports team to rely on financial engineering—along with its performance on the field—to raise money in debt markets, despite an uneven record for sport-related investments in the past.The current leader of Italy's Serie A soccer league is looking to sell a five-year €300 million ($354 million) secured bond Thursday at an interest rate of around 5%, according to a deal notice sent to investors.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is arranging the sale. The bond will be issued by a specialpurpose vehicle that receives revenue from Inter's broadcasting and sponsorship rights.

That means that Inter is effectively asking lenders to take a view that the 18-time Italian league winner will continue to perform well on the field of play. If Inter's results dip materially, those rights—and by extension the bonds—would likely suffer.Around the turn of the century, many English soccer teams issued debt backed by future revenue

from ticket sales or other sources of income such as media rights. That ended badly for both borrowers and investors in some cases, serving as a reminder of the potential risks of such deals.Analysts at S&P Global Ratings rated the Inter bond double-Bminus, highlighting the SPV's "materially volatile cash flow available to service the debt." But the analysts still assigned the notes a "stable outlook" to reflect its longterm expectation that Inter will rank no worse than seventh out of the 20 teams in Serie A. Salvatore Galatioto, president of Galatioto Sports Partners, a sports finance and advisory business based in New York, said the deal carries risks that don't exist in the U.S. because of the promotion and relegation system in Serie A, whereby Inter could drop to a lower division if it performed poorly."You'd have to be pretty sure that Inter is not going to be relegated" to buy the bonds, Mr. Galatioto said.Some investors

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