MENA

The World Para Athletics division of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced that Dubai will host the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships.

Fifa has pulled back from any plans to expand the 2022 World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, while the ruling Council of world football’s governing body has taken the final step to pave the way for a vote to decide the destination of the 2026 edition of its showpiece tournament.

Lega Serie A, the governing body of the top division of Italian club football, has sealed a deal to take its Supercoppa Italiana competition to Saudi Arabia in three of the next five years.

Lega Serie A, the governing body of the top division of Italian club football, has confirmed it has received an “important offer” to take its Supercoppa Italiana competition to Saudi Arabia.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has conceded it is unlikely that Qatar’s 2022 World Cup will be expanded, while he has hit back at criticism of a lack of transparency concerning the plans of world football’s governing body for new-look Club World Cup and Global Nations League competitions.

The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB), governing body for the sport in the UAE, has revealed plans for a new Twenty20 league which it claims will be the most innovative and inclusive in the world.

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) has revealed plans to launch a new governing body that will represent 14 national organisations in South and West Asia.

Iraq has been awarded hosting rights for this year’s West Asia Football Federation (WAFF) Championship, with the event to mark the first time the country has hosted a national team tournament since the 1990s.

Saudi Arabia has landed its latest major sporting event under the Vision 2030 plan by agreeing a 10-year deal with Formula E to stage the electric street racing series’ first race in the Middle East.

The South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) has confirmed that next year’s edition of the Copa America national team tournament will feature Japan and Qatar.

The 2019 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships will feature the event’s first-ever midnight marathon as part of a range of new fan-focused initiatives, the organisers have confirmed.

The chief executive of European Leagues, the organisation that represents 32 football leagues on the continent, has said the body will not support the proposed expansion of the Qatar 2022 Fifa World Cup from 32 to 48 teams.

The organising committee for the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar has said that it will seek talks with football’s global governing body over the proposal for an early expansion of the national team tournament from 32 to 48 countries.

The Asian Cricket Council has switched the 2018 Asia Cup national team tournament from India to the United Arab Emirates.

The founders of the Big3, a three-on-three, half-court basketball league that launched last year in the US, have filed a $1.2bn (€964.6m) lawsuit against a Qatari group it claims failed to deliver on promised investment and tried to usurp them as controllers of the enterprise.

Qatar, host nation of the 2022 Fifa World Cup, is set to compete in the 2019 Copa America in Brazil as one of six invited countries for the national team football tournament.