Free Republic

1. Croatian team shares the importance of their Catholic faith 2. Players from Curaçao and Germany join in prayer after competing against one another 3. Lionel Messi thanks God after making history. 4. Team USA shares a moment of prayer after historic win against Paraguay - After the game, defender Mark McKenzie led the team in a moment of prayer on the field.- Star winger Christian Pulisic is known for leading several of his teammates in a Bible study he calls “Bible Time."- Goalkeeper Matt Freese recently spoke to Sports Spectrum’s “What’s Up” podcast: “Right now I’m listening to ‘Bible...

Mustafa Al-Muizzawi made antisemitic remarks on live television after Lionel Messi avoided punishment for a controversial tackle in Argentina’s win over Algeria, claiming ‘the Jewish lobby controls the world’.

FIFA has left hotels across the US in the lurch after mass booking rooms in host cities before cancelling the majority of them.One host city hit particularly hard by Fifa’s movements ahead of the World Cup has been Kansas City, Missouri.Per the Kansas City Star, Fifa reserved up to 5000 rooms per night for many of the evenings that its officials and business partners would be in town.That means that Fifa will have reserved tens of thousands of rooms across the month-long tournament in the city alone.But as soccer’s greatest international tournament drew closer, the governing body canceled the majority...

The World Cup was supposed to provide a tourism boom for the US, but now the fear is it may never materialise. A report, external produced by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has found that bookings are well below expectations in almost every host city. The AHLA said this does not align with Fifa's statement that more than five million tickets have been sold,, external and it creates a risk that "the anticipated economic lift may fall short". The AHLA is the largest hotel association in the US, representing more than 32,000 properties and over 80% of all...

Iran announced its 26-man roster for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Monday, and Sardar Azmoun, nicknamed the "Iranian Messi," was not on it. Coach Amir Ghalenoei had Azmoun dropped from Iran’s national soccer squad in March, and it was reportedly due to a social media post that angered Iranian authorities. Azmoun, a 31-year-old striker who is well known for his time playing for Bayer Leverkusen and AS Roma, posted a photo alongside the Emir of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is a known U.S. ally and has shown support for President Donald Trump’s involvement in the war...

Iran will play all three of its Group G matches on American soil yet base its operations across the border in Mexico... Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, announced Saturday that the team's training base would relocate from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, a border city in Baja California. He cited visa complications and security concerns stemming from the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran that began on February 28. "We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States," Taj said in a video posted...

World Cup fans are banned from bringing in pre-revolutionary Iran flags and apparel to stadiums this summer — while the controversial Palestinian flag will be allowed. FIFA has ruled items with the symbolism will not be permitted at this year’s iteration of the globe’s most-famous soccer tournament, The Athletic reported on Tuesday. FIFA says the flag violates their code of conduct, which states “banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia, that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature” will not be allowed at event venues. The Palestinian flag is an “officially approved flag of a member association of FIFA,”...

The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from certain countries pay as much as $15,000 in bonds as long as they are confirmed FIFA World Cup ticket holders, the State Department told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration's broader crackdown on immigration. Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World...

Iran’s football federation has shared a list of conditions with FIFA surrounding the country’s participation in the upcoming 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, including a ban on LGBTQ+ pride flags. The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) told FIFA that it would compete in the competition “without any retreat from our beliefs, culture and convictions” and insisted that the hosts “must take our concerns into account”, as per Out Sports. The list of 10 demands for Iran’s participation comes after the FFIRI’s president, Mehdi Taj, was denied entry to Canada before the FIFA...

Soccer fans are not happy after Katy Perry was announced as the headliner for the 2026 FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony. The 41-year-old singer was announced as the headliner on Friday, May 8, and many in the soccer community had strong opinions on the choice. Pop Crave shared the announcement on their X account and the comments section featured a mixed bag of reactions. Many were against the organization's decision to sign her as the headliner, with one commenter writing, "I honestly think they could've picked someone better." "On behalf of the football community we don’t know Katy Perry," another...

The man who ran security at 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Games — where a bomber killed two and wounded more than 100 — warns that Iranian “sleeper cells” are likely plotting attacks during next month’s World Cup, as federal officials race to secure the 39-day competition. “I’m fairly confident there are Iranian sleeper cells or surrogate sleeper cells, and this would be an incredible opportunity for sleeper cells to attack,” Former LAPD Deputy Chief Bill Rathburn told The Post. His comments came after the feds warned about Iranian “prepositioned sleeper assets” in the US while the...

Patient Zero in the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak has been identified as ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose passion for birds may have cost him his life. The 70-year-old man and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, were on a five-month trip to South America. They first landed in Argentina on Nov. 27, and traveling through Chile, Uruguay and then back to Argentina in late March, where they went on a fateful birdwatching adventure. The couple — from Haulerwijk, a small village of 3,000 people in the Netherlands — were identified in obituaries published in their monthly village magazine. They co-authored a study...

The US government is moving to evacuate American passengers from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with plans to transport them to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring, federal health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the American public remains extremely low as officials move forward with a medical repatriation flight for passengers aboard the M/V Hondius. President Trump said earlier Friday that the situation appears to be under control, pointing to the virus being difficult to transmit. “We have very good people looking at it....

Four states are monitoring Americans who returned from a cruise ship where three passengers died during an outbreak of hantavirus. Virginia, Georgia, California, and Arizona all reported that residents of those states were on the MV Hondius, have returned home, but are not showing symptoms of the illness, according to Newsweek. The Virginia passenger “is currently in good health, not showing any signs of infection, and is under public health monitoring,” the state’s Department of Health said. “Generally speaking, we believe the risk to the general public to be low,” a representative of the department added. An Arizona Department of...

・Bloomberg reported on Friday that Moderna’s hantavirus research is “early-stage and ongoing” and began well before the cruise-ship cluster was identified.・No hantavirus vaccine is currently approved anywhere in the world, and human clinical trials for Moderna’s candidates have not yet begun.・Moderna’s vaccine sales have undergone a dramatic post-pandemic decline.Shares of Moderna Inc. (MRNA) closed 12% higher on Friday, clocking its best day in over two months, after the company confirmed it has been pursuing early-stage research into mRNA-based vaccines against hantaviruses.Moderna’s ongoing hantavirus efforts, reported by Bloomberg, coincide with heightened public attention on a rare outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged...

Liberals are getting their masks back out ... or maybe they still have them on because Covid killed us all and this is the afterlife, but we can't be sure it's the afterlife, so they're still wearing them to be safe. Here's the new trend in Libtardville now that hantavirus is trending. [Warning: Three F-bombs 1 minute in] She literally admitted that she's been wearing her mask since 2020.

Despite a stream of alarmist headlines, the World Health Organization is emphasizing that the risk to the general public is very low. "This is not the start of a COVID pandemic," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO, speaking at a press conference on Thursday. "This is not COVID, this is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently." There are not many cases of human-to-human transmission, so medical professionals and scientists ... believe that hantavirus spreads primarily between people who are showing symptoms and in close contact. between people who are showing symptoms...

An update, for those of you who are Monitoring the Situation™. About 40 passengers from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak disembarked on St. Helena, according to Dutch officials. Authorities did not confirm where they are now. https://t.co/LMn08mkjsG— The Associated Press (@AP) May 7, 2026More than two dozen passengers left a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak on April 24 without contact tracing, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on board, the ship operator and Dutch officials said Thursday. ... The company said Thursday 29 passengers left the vessel at St. Helena, while...

A hantavirus outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship that has left three people dead is veering into the fringe. Online, a growing number of social media users are floating ivermectin as a possible treatment for the rare infectious disease, which can cause life-threatening heart and lung complications. Yes, you read that right — the antiparasitic drug used in livestock that became a pandemic-era flashpoint after being touted by media figures, politicians and even some doctors as a Covid cure is back in the spotlight. “Hantavirus is a RNA virus, and ivermectin should work against it,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a...

A leading expert has warned that masks might need to return to stem the deadly outbreak of Hantavirus. The world is currently watching as the outbreak originating from a luxury cruise ship in the South Atlantic has claimed three lives and left several others fighting for survival. Health officials have issued urgent “mask up” warnings for those in close contact with potential cases, as fears grow over the potential for human-to-human transmission of a strain typically found in South America, as a result. The crisis began aboard the Dutch-flagged polar expedition vessel MV Hondius, which departed Argentina last month. What...