Tragedy struck the sport of skiing, the realm of athletics and the world at large when Canadian racer Nik Zoricic died during a World Cup event in Switzerland today. Nik was 29. For those who are interested, we have video of the crash after the jump.

It would appear that if anyone needs to “man up” on the soccer field it’s, well, men.

A study conducted at Wake Forest University found that women soccer players are less likely than their male counterparts to dive and fake injuries in a deceptive effort to draw fouls on their opponents, kill time or otherwise just catch their breath.

Some rules in soccer are hard to understands. This is not an example of one of those rules.

For all the consternation over Qatar’s winning 2022 World Cup bid, if some of the technology being proposed for the tournament comes to fruition…wow.

Courtesy of Sportress of Blogitude by way of Jimmy Traina comes this YouTube re-imagining of Landon Donovan’s World Cup goal against Algeria. It features Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery calling the action. Enjoy.

Sepp Blatter hasn’t exactly been loved around some pockets of the world these last few months. Add the IOC to that list.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter, figuring there wasn’t enough negative buzz surrounding 2022, decided to generate more when he asked gay fans visiting Qatar not to have sex during the 2022 Cup.

An already bad week for FIFA and Russia just got worse, as a Champion’s League match between Spartak Moscow and Zilina had to be stopped for 20 minutes yesterday because of raucous Russian fans throwing flares on the pitch.

As it’s possible you’ve heard, Qatar won the right today to host the 2022 World Cup, beating out the United States to do it. Immediately, heads exploded. Here’s how a few people saw things.

Earlier today, FIFA president Sepp Blatter announced that Qatar (Qatar!) will host the 2022 World Cup. Simultaneously, everyone who watched the announcement asked: where and what is a Qatar?