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Fifa extends ban on man who secretly filmed female footballers in Austria

31 August 2026 at 19:06
  • Former SCR Altach employee now banned worldwide

  • Move follows pressure from players’ unions

Fifa has extended worldwide the ban on a former match official and SCR Altach employee found guilty of taking secret videos and photographs of members of the club’s women’s team.

In February, a regional court in Feldkirch, Austria, handed the man a seven-month suspended prison sentence, a €1,200 (£1,046) fine and ordered him to pay the victims €625 (£545) each in compensation after he was found guilty of filming and taking photographs of players, including minors, in the changing room, gym and showers of Altach’s women’s team between 2018 and 2025.

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© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

Women’s Super League 2026-27 preview No 10: London City Lionesses

31 August 2026 at 02:01

Ballon d’Or winner Putellas leads influx of superstar names at independent club aiming to bridge gap to very best

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 4th (NB: this is not necessarily Suzanne Wrack’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 6th

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© Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

© Photograph: Catherine Ivill/AMA/Getty Images

‘Now is a good time for players to speak up’: Lucy Bronze on Fifa and helping refugees

29 August 2026 at 10:00

Chelsea defender reflects on spending time with refugees in Colombia this summer and her passion for helping people on and off the pitch

Lucy Bronze does not stop. Her brain runs a hundred miles a minute. She does not need traditional entertainment. “I’m not good at watching TV – I can’t sit still,” Bronze says, sitting sort-of still, on a bench shielded from the wind, overlooking Chelsea’s training pitch at Cobham. “Someone recently asked me what I listen to in the car and someone else jumped in and was like: ‘Lucy has her own podcast going on in her own head.’ I don’t listen to music, I don’t listen to podcasts, I just have a million thoughts going on.”

Bronze’s late ADHD and autism diagnosis help it make sense, but her mum had always suspected she might have one of the conditions, so it wasn’t a surprise. “Naomi Girma said to me: ‘I’ve never met someone who trains so hard in the gym with zero music on; it does not make sense.’ I was like: ‘It’s literally in my head, I don’t need anything else.’”

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© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

© Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

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