Here is a factual guide on the man of the moment...
Croatia defender Domagoj Vida apologised after his team's World Cup semi-final victory over England on Wednesday after speaking out in support of Russia's neighbour and adversary Ukraine.
A Singapore court jailed a Lebanese referee for six months on Tuesday for accepting sexual favours to fix a soccer game, a day after two fellow countrymen were jailed for the same offence amid an international investigation into soccer corruption.
The 39-year-old appeared at Italy's Sanremo festival in March, where he sang a duet with Bologna coach Sinisa Mihajlovic and said he would like to try acting.
All major sporting events in the Paris region were suspended on Saturday as France mourned the victims of the attacks in the capital city the night before that left 129 people dead and 352 wounded.
Asia's top soccer officials delivered a major snub to FIFA on Tuesday, forcing the postponement of an election for three spots on the world body's new governing Council in a row over the disqualification of a Qatari candidate.
'It was not an agreement, this was his proposal and of course it (then) went to the vote at the (FIFA) executive committee'
A debatable penalty awarded with the use of FIFA's new video replay system proved a turning point in the World Cup final on Sunday and raised more questions over whether the new technology is being used in the way it was originally intended.
When Olympic swimming champion Kyle Chalmers completed what he knew would be his final training session before the coronavirus shutdown, his overwhelming feelings were of sadness and the fear of what was to come. Many athletes are putting a brave face on the lockdown, converting garages and bedrooms into home gymnasiums and posting cheerful videos of themselves on social media keeping fit by "bench-pressing" their children.
Factbox on Andy Murray who won his second Grand Slam singles title at Wimbledon on Sunday by beating Serbia's Novak Djokovic 6-4 7-5 6-4 in the final.
Manchester United Soccer Schools' world coaching programme was launched in Goa on Wednesday.
Megan Rapinoe earlier won the women's Ballon d'Or after leading the United States to a record-extending fourth World Cup title in France this year as they retained the trophy.
Two Swiss government ministers have backed national team players Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri after their controversial goal celebrations in Friday's 2-1 World Cup win over Serbia.
Aleksander Ceferin, the president of Slovenia's football federation, was overwhelmingly elected as the new head of European soccer's governing body UEFA at an extraordinary Congress on Wednesday.
Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli is the sole sportsperson from the country to feature among the world's 100 highest paid athletes in the latest Forbes list topped by soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
With Subrata Bhattacharya putting in his papers after the club's poor show in the ongoing I-league, East Bengal on Wednesday named Monoranjan Bhattacharya as their new soccer coach.
The corruption scandal that has rocked athletics is worse than the one that has plunged soccer body FIFA into crisis because it punished clean athletes, four-times Olympic gold medallist Michael Johnson said on Tuesday. "With athletics, if you think about the victims, it is absolutely worse," the 400 metres world record holder told BBC radio. "The victims here are those (clean) athletes. They never had the opportunity to stand on the podium and they should have," added the American sprinter. An independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has stated in a damning report that "corruption was embedded" at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Australia has shelved its bid for the 2023 Women's World Cup pending an "overhaul" of FIFA as the global football governing body reels from a corruption scandal.
Indian Americans are not just shining in the fields of technology, education and management. You can now spot them every where... in politics, in research, in the movies and even on YouTube, says Ignatius Chithelen.Indian Americans are not just shining in the fields of technology, education and management. You can now spot them every where... in politics, in research, in the movies and even on YouTube, says Ignatius Chithelen.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Italy's heritage authority allows San Siro demolition
World soccer's governing body FIFA will proceed with an election to pick a new president on Friday to replace the disgraced Sepp Blatter and vote on a set of reforms aimed at restoring its credibility after the worst graft scandal in its history.
Barcelona star Lionel Messi is hoping to arrange a meeting with an Afghan boy who shot to fame after pictures of him dressed in a striped plastic bag jersey went viral, Kabul's football federation said on Monday.
A summary of sports events and persons in the news on Saturday.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly was among the first in the Indian sporting fraternity to take to Twitter to pay his tributes to Diego Maradona.
India captain Sunil Chhetri has urged fans to be patient with the team and coach Stephen Constantine after the national team's yet another shambolic qualification campaign for the 2018 soccer World Cup.
His agent Simon Bayliss said the 22-year-old striker is not interested in playing for India and is all set to pursue his career in England.
It was a case of down but definitely not out as a Rafael Nadal kept picking himself off a slippery and dusty Centre Court surface to storm into the Wimbledon semi-finals with a pulsating 7-5, 6-7(7), 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 over Juan Martin del Potro.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar has been beset by controversy, but for the visionaries bringing soccer back to life in Afghanistan it represents a shining, magical light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday
Rafael Nadal has withdrawn from the Paris Masters ahead of the tournament's start on Monday for "personal reasons", the French Tennis Federation announced on Friday.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter said that it would be done step by step and in different time frames.
"I have been told by Dasmunshi that as per tournmanet rules, Bhutia can't play," IFA secretary said.
British citizen detained in Russia after incident on World Cup train: Embassy
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Monday
Factbox on Serbia's Novak Djokovic who won his sixth Australian Open men's singles title on Sunday.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended Kuwait for the second time in five years over government interference in the country's Games committee.
