The road to the 2026 World Cup has been a bumpy ride for some players. This is because 15 star footballers are sitting out this year’s tournament due to injury. Their absence is shaking up teams and leaving coaches scrambling as the starry event looms closer.

These injuries aren’t limited to any one region or team. Both Arab and international sides are feeling the blow. Therefore, managers will be forced to find replacements for key players who have been pivotal to tactics and lineups.

Blows to Arab teams

The Jordanian national team is grappling with a major setback, as striker Yazan Al-Naimat is set to miss the World Cup after suffering a torn ligament. The recovery time makes it near impossible for him to return to the pitch in time. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s defence takes a hit after Walid Al-Ahmad sustained a serious knee injury while playing domestically. There is no one to fill the gaping hole in their backline.

International stars out of the running

The international stage is not without its losses either, with some big names now ruled out.

Brazil’s Rodrigo Goes will miss the tournament due to a severe knee injury. Meanwhile, Germany’s Serge Gnabry is sidelined with a muscle tear. England’s Jack Grealish will also be absent as he recovers from surgery for a stress fracture in his foot. Japan will likely have to forgo Takumi Minamino, currently grappling with a torn cruciate ligament.

The French national team has been rocked by the absence of Hugo Ekitiki, who has suffered an achilles tendon injury. Argentina, too, is feeling the sting as both Juan Foyth and Joaquín Panicelli, out with tendon and ligament injuries.

In Germany, Serge Gnabry’s muscle tear continues the injury woes. In addition, Spain loses Samo Omorodion to a cruciate ligament injury — a serious blow. Brazil is also hit hard with Eder Militao sidelined following surgery for a muscle injury. Ghana’s Mohamed Salisu faces the challenge of a severe knee injury.

American and Dutch losses

Other teams are feeling the impact too. The US will be without Jonathan Klinsmann after he broke his neck, while the Netherlands faces the absence of Xavi Simons, recovering from a ligament injury.

As the final rosters take shape, all eyes will be on how coaches navigate these hurdles in the run-up to the World Cup. These absences will undoubtedly shape the competition and, and could also provide an opportunity for fresh faces to step into the spotlight.

The 15 big-name players to miss the 2026 World Cup:

1. Rodrigo Goes (Brazil) — Cruciate ligament + cartilage
2. Serge Gnabry (Germany) — Muscle tear
3. Jack Grealish (England) — Stress fracture
4. Takumi Minamino (Japan) — Cruciate ligament
5. Hugo Ekitike (France) — Achilles tendon
6. Juan Foyth (Argentina — Achilles tendon
7. Joaquín Panicelli (Argentina — Cruciate ligament
8. Jonathan Klinsmann (US) — Broken neck
9. Eder Militao (Brazil) — Muscle injury
10. Samo Omorodion (Spain) — Cruciate ligament
11. Xavi Simons (Netherlands) — Cruciate ligament
12. Mohamed Salisu (Ghana) — Knee injury
13. Yazan Al-Naimat (Jordan) — Cruciate ligament
14. Walid Al-Ahmad (Saudi Arabia) — Cruciate ligament
15. Luis Malagon (Mexico) — Achilles tendon

Featured image via the Canary

By Alaa Shamali

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3 min read59 min

Exclusive: Donations to political parties made by people in the UK would be capped at £1m under plans being drawn up by a Labour MP.

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Alex Sobel, the MP for Leeds Central and Headingley, told PoliticsHome that he intends to amend the Representation of the People Bill in the hope that the government will agree to go further to tackle the influence of big money in British politics.

Last month, the government announced that it would cap political donations from individuals overseas at £100,000. It also announced an immediate and retrospective ban on political donations made via cryptocurrency, in a package of measures that Communities Secretary Steve Reed said would tackle “malign actors” funnelling “dark money” into UK democracy.

The policies were in response to an independent review by former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft, which warned that the “persistent problem” of foreign interests seeking to influence British political life had become “more acute” in recent years. 

Campaign groups like the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) and Transparency International UK welcomed the steps, but said ministers should have gone further by introducing restrictions on donations from individuals based in the UK.

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“This is widely supported by the public and would help prevent our politics from being swamped with massive donations, which now frequently reach into the multiple millions,” Dr Jess Garland, Director of Policy and Research at the ERS, said at the time.

This month, Ben Delo, billionaire co-founder of cryptocurrency trading platform BitMEX, wrote in The Telegraph that he was moving back to the UK from Hong Kong so that he could circumvent the new rules to continue donating to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Reform has also received around £12m from Thailand-based British businessman Christopher Harborne, and is the only UK political party to have received cryptocurrency donations.

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Sobel said he is tabling an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill at its report stage to prevent a “very small group of very wealthy individuals buying out our whole political system”.

While donations larger than £1m are rare, the Labour backbencher believes that this would “future-proof the system”.

“We need to have a culture where we don’t get bulldozed by the donations system,” he told PoliticsHome.

The amendment, if successfully added to the legislation, would exclude donations from organisations that have democratic internal structures, as well as donations that are made up of individual donations rather than one person’s money, like those from trade unions.

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Duncan Hames, Director of Policy at Transparency International UK and former Liberal Democrat MP, suggested last month that ministers should consider a £50,000 cap on donations by people in the UK. Writing in The House, he likened the current package of measures to “trying to secure a building while leaving the front door wide open”.

 

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How would you finish this sentence? “The current system isn’t working, so we should…”

1. “…deport immigrants.”
2. “…tax the rich.”

For millions, this sums up current British politics. There are quite a few who would choose both A and B.

Radical listening

On Thursday, I was one of the Majority team running our Radical Listening, Radical Persuasion session. Too much politics is “load, fire, aim”. People just shouting slogans or posting offensive memes without making the effort to understand where someone is coming from. It’s counterproductive – almost every neutral observer thinks worse of someone who is shouty, compared to someone who can articulate their point and back it up with evidence.

Part of listening is finding out what is behind the words used. Does “too much immigration” mean “I don’t like dark-skinned people”? Or does it mean, “I’m worried the public services have no money”? You have to get past the different use of terminology. No-one likes having their speech policed. Then, nine times out of ten, you can find some common ground.

Of course, some people think the system is fine. It just needs better managers. The reason our energy bills are too high is because of too much government interference. Either that or it’s because of people with blue hair eating avocado on toast.

The failures of managerialism

Belief in managerialism is declining. For obvious reasons. The Johnson, Truss and Sunak governments didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory. Nor the May and Cameron-Clegg governments before them. Even Labour MPs think the Starmer government is incompetent. U-turn after screeching U-turn.

Managerialism is driven much less by evidence than by the desire to be an insider. They use phrases like “grown-ups”, then jostle for ambassadorships or set up political consultancies, monetising their connections.

Paul Holden, author of The Fraud, explained it neatly in a podcast last week. He said that Starmer’s Labour faction:

present themselves as hyper-competent, ‘We can chair meetings’, ‘We can meet business leaders’, and actually, at a deep and fundamental level, they are threatened by competence. Really genuinely competent people are not allowed to be part of this political project because they are too threatening. The key examples for me are Faiza Shaheen and Jamie Driscoll.

Tax the rich

I’m an advocate of column B, tax the rich.

Those three words comprise a complete economic strategy. You need to blend tax with wider monetary policy. Any government with a sovereign currency can earn, borrow, tax or create money. Even then, money is only part of the equation. You need the real resources too. Skilled, healthy people. Transport and energy infrastructure. But “tax the rich” is three words that encapsulate the idea that wealth extraction is the root cause of people’s daily hardships.

I also think there should be some controls on borders and immigration. In a globally connected world, it is not unreasonable to want to know who is and isn’t in the country. Tax and law enforcement requires that information. Epidemic control and stopping people trafficking needs that infrastructure too.

But the UK and Ireland has had free movement for a century, and it works fine. I look at how 29 European countries work together within the Schengen area. Trade is higher and administration costs are lower. That seems like a workable system to me. You can retain your central bank and monetary sovereignty. You can still have a full English breakfast. In fact, the bacon is probably Dutch or Danish anyway.

Pressing the reset button

Radical Listening, Radical Persuasion isn’t just academic training. Those exact issues come up when we’re out canvassing in Newcastle.

“I’m thinking of voting Reform,” one bloke said after I’d introduced myself. He was maybe in his 50s. His small front garden was neat. He lives in an area of high deprivation. The media would label him “white working class”.

I asked him what he wanted Reform – or any government – to do. It came down to lower bills, cleaner streets, and reversing a general sense of decline. He basically wanted to press the reset button.

Did he want public ownership of water, I asked. Yep. Did he think we should invest in better skills training for young people? Yep. Did he think we should close tax loopholes for the rich? Damn right. Had Reform been round to talk to him? No. Who did he think would get stuff done? “You will,” he said. He’s voting Green.

By Jamie Driscoll

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Campaigners staged a mock state visit on 27 April, with people in giant masks of Charles and Donald Trump. Standing in front of the Buckingham Palace gates, they held a giant prop missile with the word ‘COMPLICIT’ on it.

Demanding an end to US use of UK military bases to conduct strikes in Iran, the Stop Trump Coalition is also calling on the government to stop cosying up to Trump. It cites the cost to ordinary UK citizens. And it points out that back-to-back state visits are emboldening the rogue president when what he needs most is accountability.

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Jake Atkinson, spokesperson for the Stop Trump Coalition, said:

Keir Starmer sending the king to wine and dine with the warmonger-in-chief signals we are happy to green-light Trump’s illegal actions around the world, no matter how much chaos they cause.

Ordinary people across the UK are struggling more and more with the cost of living whilst Trump’s war on Iran has driven up prices. Honouring Trump like this is a slap in the face to so many who are struggling, and suggests to the president he can continue violating international law and be rewarded with more pageantry.

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Being joined at the hip to Trump’s US is not just making us complicit in war crimes, but hurting the British people. From teaming up with Big Pharma to hike our medicine prices to pressuring us to drop our Digital Services Tax on the biggest tech companies, Donald Trump wants to extract as much as he can from us for the benefit of the super rich and mega-corporations in the US.

The King’s refusal to meet with Epstein victims further reinforces that this visit is not to the benefit of anyone but Trump and the political elites. It should never have gone ahead.

Featured image via Stop Trump Coalition

By The Canary

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Transport workers from across rail, bus and the ferry sector will take part in a day of action against assaults across the country on Tuesday 28 April.

RMT activists will leaflet train stations, bus depots and ports. They’ll be highlighting the union’s national campaign demands to curb the rise in assaults and abuse and to make public transport a safer place.

The demands include safe staffing levels and an end to lone working. The union also wants to see proper funding for British Transport Police and an increased presence of officers. And it’s calling for legislation to make it a specific offence to assault a transport worker. The campaign also wants an end to outsourcing of security and enforcement staff.

In Scotland, the union has secured manifesto commitments from the SNP, Labour and Scottish Greens, to legislate to protect public transport workers.

This stands in stark contrast to the continued failure of the Westminster government to introduce a standalone offence for assaults on transport workers. This is despite repeated calls from RMT and the wider industry.

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey who will be joining activists in Glasgow, said:

Our day of action against assaults is a major part of our campaign to put pressure on employers and politicians across the UK, to take concrete steps to deliver for transport workers on this vital issue.

Our members will be calling on the public to support them in this campaign as there is a shared interest to see assaults, abuse and harassment curbed, so we can have a safer environment for travel on public transport.

The action on Tuesday will be a launchpad for further political and industrial campaigning until we secure improvements for our members.

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By The Canary

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The following public letter to the Green Party comes from two Jewish anti-Zionist organisations. Jewish Network for Palestine and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network have written the letter in response to the suspension of Tony Greenstein from the party.

We reproduce the letter in full:

We are writing to the Green Party as members of two Jewish Anti-Zionist organisation operating in Britain – Jewish Network for Palestine (JNP) and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), and representing many thousands of members and followers – protesting against the recent Green Party’s shameful decision to suspend the membership of Tony Greenstein, claiming a “history of antisemitism including court decisions” as the foundation for this action.

Tony Greenstein, a pro-Palestinian activist and Jewish Anti-Zionist Green Party Member has been active against Israeli racism, ethnic cleansing, Apartheid and genocide for many decades; he is a member of Jewish Network for Palestine and on its Steering Committee. He has been a fearless campaigner against Zionism and for the rights of the Palestinian people and the rule of international law. He has been given no information other than spurious claims without evidence or proof for this offensive claim. We are deeply concerned this could be part of a broader smear campaign against pro-Palestinians within the Green Party, along the lines of the Hasbara campaign against the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

We were offered no information about the source of such accusations but believe the Party has been bullied into taking action without any basis in fact. No court decision anywhere has decreed Tony Greenstein is an antisemite, so there is no substance to this accusation, and the Party should have checked this before signing up to an accusation which itself is antisemitic. The claim that Tony has “a history of anti-Semitism” is false and especially infuriating as Tony is the author of a most detailed recent book about the links between Zionism and the Nazis during the period 1933-45, and is an authority about antisemitism himself; much more so than the people who accused him anonymously.

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Like so many Jews, Tony comes from a family which suffered losses during the Holocaust, and the accusation, as well as the suspension from the Party, are hurtful, offensive and unjustified antisemitic acts by the Green Party.

So, we have some questions for Zack Polanski, for which we should have simple and truthful replies:

1. Is the Green Party now taking on the mantle of accusing Jews with antisemitism if they criticise Israel for its crimes – crimes the whole world is aware of and for which it is now under inquiry by the ICC and ICJ – the highest courts of humanity?

2. Has the party become an instrument of Israeli Hasbara? By acting like an inquisitorial court driven by Zionist accusations, without providing details to the accused, any pretence of justice seems to have been abandoned. Do you find this an acceptable way to treat your members, and are you committed to continue using this flawed approach?

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3. Who has put such accusations against Tony Greenstein, and what is the evidential foundation of such scurrilous claims? Is it the practice of the Party to accept accusations and keep the identity of the accuser a secret, and not expose them to a simple procedure of a proper inquiry and cross-questioning?

4. What kind of process is being used by the party, in which no proof is necessary, no evidence is presented, no procedure is followed, and no justice can be seen, let alone done? Is the GP now open to any accusation of antisemitism against anti-Zionist Jews and others, not upholding an evidential procedure, requiring proof from named persons, and allowing the accused a process of self-defence, not to mention some information about the basis for the inquiry?

5. Does the Party believe it has the expertise, procedures, information and the moral authority to dictate to Jews, as well as non-Jews, committed to international law and the struggle against Israeli racist crimes and crimes against humanity – that they must support Zionism, in defying not only of their personal moral code, but that of the international legal authorities?

6. Will the Green Party act against those Jews, and others, who have supported, and continue to support the crimes of the Zionist state? Is the Party committed to ending the Racist Zionist Apartheid in Palestine? If so, will supporters of the Zionist crimes be ousted by the Party as opponents of both international Law and the Green Party positions?

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Given that there were no clear or truthful grounds for the decision taken by the Committee, and no proper process followed, and hardly any information supplied by the deciding body, we call on the Green Party to immediately apologise to Tony Greenstein and annul the incorrect and shameful decision.

We also call upon the Party to clarify its rules, make then compatible with local and international law, and overhaul its faulty procedures so such decisions cannot be taken in such manner in the future.

We are convinced that the Green Party owes such clarity to its members, to the law-abiding Jewish community, and the Palestinians under the Zionist genocidal jackboot.

Signed for JNP and IJAN, David Cannon, Chair of JNP

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By The Canary

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