Soccer Digest

NEW YORK

Rodman's daughter on mark for US women

Trinity Rodman, the daughter of former NBA star Dennis Rodman, scored her first international goal as the United States thrashed Uzbekistan 9-0 in a friendly on Tuesday.

Rodman, 19, rifled home a low shot in the 72nd minute after coming on as a second-half substitute for the reigning world champion at Subaru Park, home of Major League Soccer's Philadelphia Union.

Rodman's first international goal came in her third appearance at international level.

The teenager is one of the emerging talents in the US women's set-up, making her first appearance in February against the Czech Republic.

Tuesday's win extended the US women's unbeaten streak on home soil to 67 games.

PARIS

FIFA launches its own streaming platform

FIFA on Tuesday announced the launch of its own digital platform that will offer livestreaming of thousands of soccer matches as well as archive footage of the World Cup and a library of other material in a variety of languages.

The platform, named FIFA+, will show over 40,000 matches in 2022 including 11,000 women's games, said world soccer's governing body.

"From launch, 1,400 matches will be livestreamed monthly on FIFA+, rising rapidly."

It is making its entire archive from the men's and women's World Cups available to watch, "totaling more than 2,000 hours".

The platform will also feature statistics, talk shows and documentaries, including a 90-minute documentary about former Brazil star Ronaldinho. FIFA's decision to launch its own streaming service comes with established platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime already investing heavily in sport-related content.

LAUSANNE

Platini and Blatter fraud trial set for June

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and former UEFA chief Michel Platini will appear before Swiss prosecutors on charges of fraud from June 8-22, a Swiss court said Tuesday.

It will be the final hearing in a long-running saga that began in 2011 and stems from a payment from FIFA to Platini of 2 million Swiss francs ($2.15 million) for consultancy services.

Platini's services date from 1998 to 2002 when he had a 300,000 Swiss franc-per-year deal, payment for which was only made eight years later. The two are being investigated for "disloyal management", "breach of trust" and "forgery of securities", the Federal Criminal Court of Switzerland said.

TOKYO

TikTok announced as new J.League sponsor

China's video-sharing site TikTok has become one of the primary sponsors of Japan's top-flight J.League, according to local reports on Wednesday.

The English-language Japan Times said that the league announced a new partnership with TikTok on Monday, aiming to "introduce itself to new audiences".

"An important part of developing our league is figuring out how to widen our circle of friends, and with one video we can extend that circle," J.League chairman Yoshikazu Nonomura said. "We want to use TikTok to present aspects of the J.League that we haven't been able to show before."

The partnership will see the J.League stage three so-called "hashtag challenges" over the course of the season, encouraging fans to upload videos related to their match-day experience.

Xinhua - Agencies