🌏 There are two members of CONIFA, the global governing body for football teams not affiliated with FIFA, in the Oceania region. The island of Hawaii, the 50th state of the USA, and West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia.

🇮🇹 It is a shame Italy's Serie C is regional as otherwise we could have Monopoli & Vado, which translates as "I go", in the same league next season. There would surely have to be some sort of rule that every time Monopoli passed Vado in the league standings, they would collect £200.

🇮🇸 In January 2024, lower-league Icelandic club KV Vesturbaejar made headlines by appointing Orri Fannar Thórisson, a man who had spent 8% of his waking life (13,700 hours) on Football Manager. Two years later Thórisson is still in charge of the club, who play in the country's fourth division.

🏟️🏊‍♀️ Football clubs that have announced plans to build a swimming pool on their stadium roof: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Fulham, Craven Cottage 🇮🇹 Cagliari, Cagliari Arena We're curious: How many people to go to an elite football match and think, I fancy a swim?!

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! 🟡 Featuring clubs Europe-wide who are nicknamed the Canaries in their various languages. 🇧🇪 Sint-Truiden, 🇧🇬 Botev Plovdiv,🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Norwich City, 🇫🇷 Nantes, 🇮🇹 Modena, 🇳🇴 Lillestrøm, 🇵🇹 Estoril Praia, 🇸🇮 Koper, 🇹🇷 Fenerbahçe, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Caenarfon Town

🇦🇺 Western United, who were removed from the A-League this season for financial reasons, have announced that they have settled all outstanding matters with the Australian Taxation Office. The club say they are now focused on rebuilding and working towards a return to the A-Leagues.

🇵🇫 Tahiti United are - to the best of our knowledge - the only club worldwide that have to cross the International Date Line for every away game. An overseas collectivity of France located in the South Pacific, Tahiti's first pro team will make trips to six circuit series in the OFC Pro League.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 THE MAGIC OF THE CUP. Sixth-tier Macclesfield have knocked Premier League club & reigning champions Crystal Palace out of the FA Cup!!! Macclesfield were - along with fellow sixth-tier team Weston-super-Mare - the lowest-league representative in the FA Cup third round!

🇮🇩 Indonesian fourth-tier player Muhammad Hilmi Gimnastiara has committed a foul so bad that he has been handed a lifetime ban! Gimnastiara kicked an opponent in the chest with his team 4-1 down last July, drawing a fierce response from the football authorities in Indonesia!

🇯🇵🔜 There's a big change coming in Japan, as the country aligns its calendar to the European season. For all the info, tune into the new pod!

🇰🇿 The promotion of Altai Oskemen to the Kazakhstan Premier League means they will be the easternmost club across UEFA's 55 countries in 2026. The other geographical extremes are: 🇳🇴 Tromsø (northernmost) 🇵🇹🏝️ Santa Clara (westernmost) 🇮🇱 Hapoel Be'er Sheva (southernmost)

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 It is a huge day in the FA Cup for the two lowest-league clubs left in the competition: sixth-tier Macclesfield & Weston-super-Mare! Macclesfield host Premier League club Crystal Palace, while Weston-super-Mare visit fourth-tier Grimsby in their first-ever FA Cup third-round game.

🇸🇩 Sudanese club Al-Merrikh played two league games in two different countries today! Their first team played against Police FC in Rwanda, where they are currently playing due to the conflict back home, while the B team faced Sahm Aldamer in the local Sudanese league. They both drew.

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! 🇦🇷 River Plate*, 🇦🇺 Riverside Olympic, 🇨🇴 Atrato River, 🇫🇮 SC Riverball, 🇮🇩 Riverside Forrest, 🇮🇪 River Valley Rangers, 🇮🇹 River Pieve, 🇳🇬 Rivers United, 🇰🇳 Rivers of Living Water, 🇪🇸 Sestao River, 🇺🇾 Boston River, 🇺🇸 Pittsburgh Riverhounds

🇻🇺 Vanuatu United FC, whose team primarily consists of national team first-team players, will face Vanuatu B in a warm-up game for the OFC Pro League this weekend. Vanuatu will play Bula FC in the first-ever game of Oceania's first professional competition, the OFC Pro League, in Auckland on Friday.

🇺🇸 Portland Hearts of Pine have released a lighthouse-themed shirt inspired by the red and white hoops of West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Lubec. The USL League One club even invited US soccer legend Landon Donovan to Lubec to take part in a photoshoot & spearhead the kit launch.

🇻🇪 Venezuela's Liga FUTVE is scheduled to get its 2026 season started on 30 January, but football has not followed baseball by suspending its activities in the country - yet! That said, there are reports Venezuela's clubs in the Copa Libertadores/Sudamericana might have to play home games elsewhere.

🇳🇺 Niue Island, a self-governing island in the South Pacific Ocean with around 2,000 inhabitants, has its first-ever professional footballer! Midfielder Jaylen Rodwell, 23, has signed a contract with South Island United, one of the two New Zealand clubs in the OFC Pro League!

🇲🇱 Mali, the only AFCON quarter-finalist that has never won the tournament before, could reach the semi-finals today without winning a game in 90 minutes! They face Senegal today, having drawn all three of their group games and beaten Tunisia on penalties in the round of 16.

🏆 The eight countries in the 2025 AFCON quarter-finals, which get under way today: 9 Jan: 🇲🇱 Mali v. Senegal 🇸🇳 9 Jan: 🇨🇲 Cameroon v. Morocco 🇲🇦 10 Jan: 🇪🇬 Egypt v. Ivory Coast 🇨🇮 10 Jan: 🇩🇿 Algeria v. Nigeria 🇳🇬

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! Featuring football clubs worldwide with the word victory in their name: 🇦🇺 Atletico Adelaide Victory & Melbourne Victory, 🇨🇼 Victory Boys, 🇬🇭 Victory Club Warriors, 🇮🇩 Victory Dairi, 🇲🇻 United Victory & Victory SC, 🇳🇬 Victory Police

🇮🇹 AS Velasca, who play in the lower leagues of Italian football, are described as "the most artistic football club in the world" by FIFA. They take their devotion to the arts seriously: the club has artists design shirts, corner flags and even the coin they use for the toss!

✍️ We have a monthly column in World Soccer magazine where we tell a selection of stories from around the football world. ‘Sweeper Ultras’ on Patreon can read it as part of their membership each month. Sign up at patreon.com/sweeperpod

🌍🏝️ Did you know? The African Football Confederation, CAF, has 54 member states - but it briefly had a 55th: Zanzibar. Zanzibar was accepted in March 2017 only to have their membership rescinded by then CAF president Ahmad Ahmad, who said it shouldn't have been admitted as a non-sovereign nation.

⚽️ Who are the standout players in the 2026 OFC Pro League? Tune into our new episode to meet them!

🇷🇴🎂 Adrian Mutu celebrates his 47th birthday today - and we sincerely hope he is having a better day than the last time we talked about him on the podcast. Back in 2023, he was sacked as the coach of Azerbaijani club Neftçi Baku at Christmas time - while attending his mother's funeral in Romania.

🇮🇳 A start date of 14 February 2026 has finally been set for the 2025/26 Indian Super League, which should have gotten under way in October! The delay - due to an expired commercial agreement - has been an existential threat to the clubs & players, who have been in limbo for months.

🇪🇷 Eritrea, the only FIFA country that did not enter 2026 World Cup qualification, have announced they will take part in qualification for AFCON 2027. Eritrea have not been allowed to play an official match for over six years by the country's repressive regime, which deems the players a flight risk.

🏆 The OFC Pro League, Oceania’s first professional football competition, starts next week ⚽️🔜 Here’s how the format will work…

🇬🇦 For more on Gabon & AFCON, go to the link in our bio to listen to our brand-new podcast episode! 🌍🏆

✍️ NEW BLOG ✍️ What is the first football fact that comes to mind when we think about each of the 55 UEFA countries? Find out in our blog series, the second instalment of which is out now & covers Czechia to Greece 🇨🇿➡️🇬🇷 To read the series, simply join us on Patreon at patreon.com/sweeperpod!

🇦🇮 It is a big day in the sporting calendar of the Caribbean island of Anguilla, where the 2026 football season starts with the President's Cup. The competition is the traditional curtain-raiser in Anguillan football and precedes the league season, which commences in late February.

🎫 Amazing to see such affordable ticket prices for OFC’s first pro competition! 🤩

🇯🇵 Japanese third-tier team Fukushima United, the club of legendary 59-year-old forward Kazu Miura, are building a unique circular timber stadium. It will be seen as a symbol of recovery for a region that suffered tremendously from the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011.

📺 NEW EPISODE 📺 Part 1: 2026 OFC Pro League 🏆 Oceania's first-ever fully pro competition 📅 The clubs, format, fixtures & TV 🏖️ Beach soccer & copy shops - meet the players! Part 2: Rest of the world 🍔 The ex-Bundesliga boss at McDonald's 🙏 Mali’s fetish priests 👑 Japan's 100 Year Vision League

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! Featuring football clubs/national teams worldwide with meaty names: 🇧🇼 Botswana Meat Commission, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 West Ham, 🇫🇮 Chicken Wings FC, 🇩🇪 Hamburger SV, 🇬🇺 Wings FC, 🇱🇷 Chicken Soup Factory United, 🇪🇸 Atlético Porcuna, 🇹🇷 Turkey national team, 🇺🇸 Salisbury Steaks, 🇿🇼 Chicken Inn

🇫🇷 Ligue 1 club Strasbourg are redeveloping their 112-year-old Stade de la Meinau using components from decommissioned passenger jets. The plane parts will be transported from a scrapyard on the French/Spanish border, before being repurposed as part of the south stand's facade.

🔜 It is amazing to think that one of the world's six inhabited continents, Oceania, has not had a single fully professional football competition - until now! Eight clubs have now been selected to take part in the inaugural OFC Professional League, which kicks off in New Zealand next week!

🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea has joined the rather short list of countries worldwide with no top-flight capital clubs after moving its capital to Ciudad de la Paz. Ciudad de la Paz, a city being built from scratch that translates as 'City of Peace', replaces Malabo - on the island of Bioko - as the capital.

🆕 NEW EPISODE OUT NOW 🆕 Exclusively available early to Patreon subscribers! Join the party at patreon.com/sweeperpod 🥳

🇰🇭 Things seem bleak for Life FC, who are looking fairly lifeless in the Cambodian Premier League and currently sit bottom of the standings. And if things weren't bad enough, they have to face reigning champions Svay Rieng and the Cambodian armed forces in their next two games!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Not a single Scottish Premiership B-team has made it into the Challenge Cup round of 16, which takes place this evening. The B-teams - a widely disliked addition to the tournament - were eliminated by the second round, leaving only Championship, League One & League Two clubs in contention.

🇮🇶 It was a busy Sunday for Erbil SC, who played two league matches on the same day - in the Iraq Stars League & the Kurdistan First Division. The Iraq Stars League is the top division in the country, but Erbil also play in the Kurdistan First Division, which is organised by the regional government.

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! Featuring football clubs that have names that sound like people/are named after people: 🇦🇬 John Hughes, 🇧🇴 Jorge Wilstermann, 🇨🇱 Thomas Bata, 🇬🇲 Steve Biko, 🇭🇹 Don Bosco, 🇮🇹 Brian Lignano, 🇯🇵 Mito Hollyhock, 🇰🇪 Michael Olunga, 🇳🇱 Jan van Arckel, 🇪🇸 Marino de Luanco

🍔🍟 Former Bundesliga coach Alexander Nouri has decided to leave football & run two McDonald's restaurants in North Rhine-Westphalia. Having completed training in the kitchen, the 46-year-old will embark upon his new role as a franchisee for the fast food chain this month.

🇦🇷 River Plate of Argentina reportedly achieved the highest average attendance in world football for the third consecutive year in 2025. The Estadio Monumental set a record of 85,018 people per match on average, with a total of 1,360,288 spectators visiting throughout the year.

🏆 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴...𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝘆𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲! 🇦🇷 Newell's Old Boys, 🇦🇼 Master Boys, 🇧🇩 Bangladesh Boys, 🇻🇬 Sugar Boys, 🇨🇼 Victory Boys, 🇳🇵 Church Boys, 🇳🇱 Quick Boys, 🇳🇬 City Boys, 🇵🇪 Sport Boys, 🇨🇭 Young Boys, 🇺🇬 Bad Boys, 🇺🇿 Unwanted Boys Broke Boys Moscow will not be considered for as long as Russia is banned by FIFA!

🇦🇩 Andorra FC face one of the more complicated away days in Spanish football this weekend as they visit the exclave of Ceuta in continental Africa. They must either fly or drive the length of the country before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry, as Ceuta does not have an airport.

🇫🇷 Europe's shortest top-flight away day - excluding stadium shares - returns today as Paris FC travel 30m to the Parc des Princes to face PSG. The two Parisian clubs have not played each other in the top flight since the 1978/79 season, at the end of which Paris FC were relegated.

🎉 50,000 FOLLOWERS ON X 🎉 A big thanks to every single person who follows The Sweeper on X and has supported our pursuit to cover the whole world of football - in all 211 FIFA member states and beyond! 🌍 Time to have a beer and celebrate! 🍻 You can join us on X at x.com/sweeperpod