Sports
Robinson Cano, at 41, finds joy — and hits — in the Mexican League
MEXICO CITY — One day in late July, Robinson Canó finished a workout and stepped out into a quiet hallway at Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium. He had two hours before his team, the Diablos Rojos del Mexico, would face the Conspiradores de Queretaro in an afternoon matinee, and he had a pregame routine to complete.
He needed to eat. He needed to stretch. And, at some point, he needed to finish an interview about why, at the age of 41, he was here in Mexico City, an eight-time MLB All-Star plying his trade in the Mexican League, where the salary cap is around $475,000 per month for an entire roster of 30 players.
“Cinco minutos,” Canó said, as he headed off to finish another task.
It was Saturday, and it had been a long week. The day before, the Diablos had arrived home from Leon at close to 4 a.m. On Friday night, Canó had collected two hits in an 18-11 victory over Queretaro.
Canó made more than $260 million in his career, including $240 million in a deal signed with the Mariners a decade ago. Were it not for two performance-enhancing drug suspensions, he would likely be a lock for the Hall of Fame. The Mexican League has long been a refuge for minor-league castoffs, four-A players and former major-leaguers with checkered pasts. But it’s rarely, if ever, been a place for a player like Canó.
So you might suspect that Canó spent the summer collecting a (relatively modest) check and serving as a (washed-up) draw for Mexican baseball fans. But that’s not what happened. Instead, Canó arrived this spring and immediately became the best hitter in the league, leading the Diablos — Mexico’s most storied club — to the best regular season in franchise history.
Canó finished the regular season batting .431, winning the “Champion Bat” for the highest average in the league and setting a new club record — which also tied for the highest average in the Mexican League this century. Meanwhile, the Diablos finished the regular season with a staggering 71-19 record, the highest winning percentage in league history. They entered Thursday with a 2-0 series lead over Puebla in the best-of-seven first round of the playoffs.
Canó’s arrival coincided with a Mexican League season that saw a record number of former big-leaguers thanks to relaxed rules on foreign imports, as well as increasing investment from club owners. (The Diablos also employ Trevor Bauer, the former MLB pitcher who served what amounted to a 194-game suspension for violating the league’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy.)
But after months of watching Canó dominate helpless pitchers, transforming into either the Ted Williams of the Mexican League, or perhaps its answer to Lionel Messi, the biggest question seemed to be: Why?
Why was Canó, at 41, grinding like he was back at second base for the New York Yankees — scouting pitchers who peaked at Double A, helping teammates who just want to survive a few more years, pushing himself to play five or six times per week?
“For me, the joy that I have is being able to be on the field,” Canó says. “I love the game. I still have that in me. I want to keep playing. I get a chance here.”
At some point, as his skills faded, his major-league career ended, and he faced his own baseball mortality, Canó considered what he would like to do with all that free time.
He opted for more baseball.
The Mexican Baseball League, or LMB, was founded in 1925. And for most of its existence, it has been a waystation for interesting outsiders. Consider the story of George Brunet, a lefty pitcher who debuted for the A’s in 1956, spent 15 seasons kicking around the majors, and then headed for Mexico in 1973, where he pitched for another 16 years, earned the nickname “El Viejo” (The Old Man), tossed a no-hitter at age 42, and suffered a heart attack in 1981. He returned the next year and won 14 games for Veracruz at age 47.
Or consider James Bell, better known as “Cool Papa,” the Negro Leagues star who batted .437 for Veracruz in 1940, joining a cadre of Black players from the era who were welcomed south of the border.
Then there was the pitcher from the Dominican Republic, who, when his six-game major-league career was over, came to Mexico and enjoyed brief stints with teams in Mexico City and Aguascalientes. José Canó didn’t leave much legacy in Mexico, but he did let his young son swing a bat on the field in Aguascalientes when he came to visit.
Robinson Canó recalled the story of his father one day in February, when club officials from the Diablos were visiting him in Miami and trying to sell him on a summer in Mexico. Canó’s career stateside had been waning since 2020 when, as a member of the Mets, he had tested positive for the anabolic steroid Stanozolol. It was his second violation of MLB’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, which triggered a year-long suspension in 2021. When he returned to the Mets in 2022, he batted .195 in 12 games before being released.
Canó kicked around with the Padres and Braves, toiling briefly at Triple-A El Paso, before being released for good in August. Not ready to hang up his cleats, he continued to play winter ball in the Dominican and invested in Baseball United, a coming startup league focused on growing the sport in the Middle East and South Asia, which announced a partnership with the Saudi Baseball and Softball Federation in March. But Miguel Ojeda, a former big-league catcher and the Diablos sports director, wanted to offer a completely different pitch.
Considered by some to be the “New York Yankees of Mexico,” the Diablos Rojos play their home games at Alfredo Harp Helu Stadium, a modern ballpark that cost $166 million, opened in 2019 and quickly became the jewel of the league. Tucked between turns of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez — Mexico City’s sprawling Formula One track — the stadium’s white canopy roof can be seen from its surrounding working-class neighborhood. The venue’s namesake is the Diablos’ owner, Harp Helu, a billionaire businessman who is also an investor in the Padres.
Ojeda emphasized to Canó that the Diablos’ home clubhouse was major-league caliber — weight room, sauna, kitchen, chef — and that the team could offer security during his stay. (Most players live at a nearby hotel.) He mentioned the possibility of up to 20 import players, meaning the roster would be filled with players with big-league experience. “It would be a big boom for baseball,” he told Canó.
Ojeda was also honest: The Diablos have more championships than any club in Mexican League history — 16 in total — but their last title was in 2014. Their fans were getting restless.
“We’ve been dominating it during the regular season,” Ojeda said. “We just haven’t been able to win.”
Diablos officials declined to reveal how much they offered Canó, but said that Canó and Bauer were “the best paid players in the history of this team.” One American player, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss salaries, said most players with major-league experience were making anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 per month, while Canó was thought to receive a premium over that. The monthly salary cap for a Mexican League roster is roughly $475,000 — equating to an average salary of just less than $15,000 per month — though Ojeda said the team had exceeded the cap and was paying a luxury tax.
In the end, money wasn’t a sticking point. “He doesn’t need the money,” says Diablos manager Lorenzo Bundy. So when Canó agreed to sign, the Diablos front office and coaching staff emphasized one thing: The team wanted to ensure that Canó was fresh and healthy for the postseason, so they would limit his playing time to three or four games per week.
But then Canó showed up in the spring and met with Bundy.
“I came to win,” Canó said.
Pretty soon, he was batting over .400.
So Bundy put him in the lineup each day.
On a cool night in late July, Canó stepped into the batter’s box in the first inning against Queretaro. The temperature hovered in the high 50s. A mix of reggaeton and American pop music played. A crowd of more than 10,000 fans spun noisemakers, blew into plastic horns and chanted “Vamos Diablos,” creating a near-permanent din.
Canó faced Wilfredo Boscan, a 34-year-old right-hander from Venezuela whose only big-league experience consisted of six appearances for the 2016 Pirates. Canó slapped a single to left field on the first pitch. One inning later, he stepped up again and blooped another single into center.
Canó is a little thicker in the midsection these days, and his hands are slower. But the lefty swing, for the most part, is the same one he possessed during nine seasons with the Yankees.
“He’s got a beautiful swing,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton, who managed Canó in rookie ball. “It has never changed.”
When Canó was playing for the Gulf Coast League Yankees in 2001, Shelton decided that he was “the smartest baseball player at that age” that he had ever seen. Canó was 18 and flashy, the kind of player who would charge hard for a slow roller and flip the ball behind his back. Shelton was always reminding Canó to use two hands, quoting a phrase he learned from his own father: “Robbie, God gave you two hands for a reason.”
Canó debuted with the Yankees in 2005, in the twilight of a dynasty, and grow into one of the best second baseman in the league. He helped New York win the World Series in 2009, and for a moment seemed like a Yankee lifer. But then came two moments that defined the rest of his career: In 2013, he fired agent Scott Boras, joined Jay-Z’s Roc Nation agency and departed New York for Seattle. And then, five years later, he tested positive for the diuretic furosemide, a banned substance that landed him an 80-game suspension.
Canó would finish his career with 335 home runs and 68.1 Wins Above Replacement, better than Roberto Alomar or Ryne Sandberg, two second basemen who reached the Hall of Fame this century. But that positive test — coupled with a second in 2020 — is likely to mar Canó in the eye of Hall of Fame voters. Canó maintains that he has not given much thought to his own case.
“I never paid too much attention or looked deep into what it takes — what type of numbers or whatever,” he said. “If things happen, great. If not, I’m always going to be thankful for the years that I played. I accomplished a lot of things.”
If Canó’s teammates on the Diablos are curious about his past, it has little to do with controversy. One day this summer, Jimmy Yacabonis, a former big-league lefty, was working out in the weight room with Canó when a song by rapper 50 Cent came on the stereo.
“Hey Robbie,” Yacabonis said, “did you ever meet 50 Cent?”
Canó whipped out his phone and pulled up a photo of him and 50 Cent from his time in New York.
“He’s very down to earth,” Yacabonis said. “For a guy that’s that high profile to be that cool and that laid back around everybody, he’s an awesome teammate, honestly.” Earlier this summer, Canó decided to outfit the team with personalized cleats.
But what really caught his teammates’ eye was his everyday diligence. He studied opposing hitters and doled out tips. He was a presence in the clubhouse. If he made a mistake in the field, he would corner the pitcher for a quick debrief. He maintained a routine just as if he was still playing for the Yankees.
“He’s seen a million games and been part of a million games,” said Diablos pitcher Ryan Meisinger, who last appeared in the majors with the Cubs in 2021. “If he sees something, he lets us know.”
Canó still has a flair for the dramatic. One day after collecting two hits against Queretaro, he ranged to his right at second base and retired former big leaguer Leonys Martin on a nifty side-arm throw, the kind of play he made for years in New York.
Back then, when Canó was starring for the Yankees and Shelton was coaching for Cleveland, the coach received a signed jersey from his former player.
The inscription included one phrase: “God gave you two hands for a reason.”
Robinson Cano was a perennial star with the Yankees, and helped them to a 2009 World Series win, before leaving for Seattle. (Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
There is a joke inside the Diablos clubhouse that Canó, at age 41, is the greatest hitter in the world.
“It’s like ‘create-a-player’ on (MLB) The Show,” Meisinger says.
He is Ichiro Suzuki. He is Rod Carew. He is the Mexican League’s Ted Williams, batting .400 and leaving his teammates in awe. When Canó heard the Williams comparison earlier this summer, he laughed.
“Come on,” he said. “Not even close!”
So how does one make sense of what Canó is doing?
The competition level of the level can be inconsistent. Some clubs — like Mexico City or Monterrey — can claim Triple-A quality. But much of the league is probably closer to Double A, and Kevin McCarthy, a former Royals pitcher who plays for Nuevo Laredo, admits “you might run into a Low-A game here and there.” One veteran scout says the league is filled with “throwers and not pitchers.” It is also a hitter’s paradise.
Mexico City plays their home games at an altitude of 7,350 feet — more than 2,000 feet higher than Coors Field in Denver — while more than a third of the league plays above 5,000 feet. McCarthy also cited the prevalence of turf fields, which can lead to more singles on ground balls. Another long-term factor has been the league’s reputation for loosely enforcing performance-enhancing drugs. The league does test its players, however.
Bundy, who has managed at Double A and Triple A, compared Canó’s .431 average to someone batting around .370 in the Pacific Coast League.
“I feel like in this league, a lot of the guys try to pitch to his holes,” Yacabonis said. “But some of the guys aren’t able to do that. And when they leave stuff over the plate, he’s ready to hit it.”
The question of how to understand Canó’s numbers has even been a topic of conversation among Diablos pitchers, a group which includes former big-leaguers Alex Claudio, Conner Menez and Daniel Ponce de Leon.
“It’s video game numbers,” Meisinger said. “I don’t know. We were talking about it in the bullpen the other day. He comes up with a runner on second: ‘Well, here comes a double.’ I don’t really know how to explain it.”
The simplest way to describe Canó’s summer in Mexico?
“Fun,” he says.
The Diablos were a juggernaut. He played at a high level. The cheers from the Mexican fans were rejuvenating.
The Diablos led the league in attendance, averaging 11,761 fans per, which was up 12 percent from last year and more than 60 percent from 2019, the last season before the pandemic. They are a heavy favorite to win their first championship in a decade. But one thing Cano noticed was how much opposing fans cared.
“Even if the other team is losing, they’re still singing,” Canó said.
Canó is not one to look back — or forward, for that matter. He might consider a return to Mexico next year. The inaugural Baseball United league in the Middle East kicks off in 2025. At some point, he says, he’d love to work in a major-league front office. He also wants to focus on being a dad to his two children.
His career was not perfect. But when he considers it in total, he thinks of the World Series championship, the successes on the field and the experiences he had.
“I think that everyone has their time,” he says. “So, I think that I had my time.”
He again mentioned the memory of his father playing in Mexico.
“This is something I talked to a lot of friends and people about,” he says. “You can go and just play and have fun.”
(Top image: Daniel Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Carlos Santiago / Eyepix Group / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Sports
Maxx Crosby plans to attend America 250 UFC fight, talks White House, Fernando Mendoza, Tom Brady and Olympics
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Las Vegas Raiders star Maxx Crosby told Fox News Digital he plans on attending the UFC fight at the White House on June 14 to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.
“I’ve never been to the White House,” Crosby said. “I’m excited, I like history…
“It’s incredible that we all have an opportunity to celebrate our country and just be part of a historic event… we live in the greatest country in the world and it should be celebrated.”
Maxx Crosby of the Las Vegas Raiders walks on the sideline before a game against the Denver Broncos at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nev., on Dec. 7, 2025. (Chris Unger/Getty Images)
For Crosby, as a highly successful NFL star, the celebration represents an opportunity to recognize the freedoms and opportunities he appreciates most as an American.
“You have an opportunity every day to chase your passion,” Crosby said. “Everyone comes from different backgrounds, but in this country you have a choice every day to chase what you love and what you aspire to do. People don’t say the American Dream for no reason. It’s the greatest country because it’s opportunity. It’s a land of opportunity.”
Crosby also revealed who he’s rooting for at the event.
“I think everyone knows how much I love Justin Gaethje,” Crosby said. “Justin Gaethje is one of the greatest fighters to ever do it, and he’s an absolute legend. He’s also a great friend, so I’ll definitely be biased for him. I want to see him go to the White House and do his thing for sure.”
The fight, slated for the South Lawn, came about after Donald Trump casually leaned over to Dana White during a live UFC match and suggested they “do a fight at the White House”. White immediately agreed, and logistics were set in motion days later.
“Dana White is like family to me. He always does it big, and he always does it the biggest and best way. He’s always going to put on an incredible show,” Crosby said.
“I’ve met Trump a couple times, and he’s been incredible to me,” Crosby later added. “I know Dana [White] thinks nothing but the world of him and has a lot of respect for him. But you know we’ve met a couple times, and he’s always been great to me. So, going to the White House, and being there, is going to be a lot of fun for sure.”
Playing flag football for Team USA at the 2028 LA Olympics
Crosby also said he would welcome the opportunity to represent the United States in flag football when the sport makes its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“Oh, no doubt,” Crosby said when asked whether he would consider playing. “I think it’d be incredible.”
While Crosby noted that his family has roots in the Balkans, he made clear where his allegiance would lie if given the opportunity to compete on the international stage.
TEAM USA FLAG FOOTBALL STAR WANTS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE OLYMPIC TEAM AMID NFL PARTICIPATION
Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby stands on the field after a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pa., on Dec. 14, 2025. (Eric Hartline/Imagn Images)
“My mom’s side, I’ve got a Yugoslavian background, so I’ve got some Serbian and Albanian in me over there,” Crosby said. “I’m sure they’d give me a call as well, so it’d be an interesting decision.”
Still, the Raiders star said his heart remains with the country where he was born and raised.
“Everyone knows my heart’s here,” Crosby said. “This is the country I’ve been raised in, born and raised, so yeah, it would definitely be special.”
Crosby was also asked whether he would try to recruit Raiders minority owner Tom Brady to play quarterback for Team USA if he joined the Olympic squad.
“I don’t think he would do that,” Crosby said with a laugh. “I think he’s retired and there’s a lot of great quarterbacks right now. But I wouldn’t be mad at Tom Brady coming back. It’s a great time.”
Getting Fernando Mendoza ready for the NFL
Crosby also had high praise for quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who is adjusting to life at the NFL level after a successful college career.
“He’s a young guy and he’s coming in off an incredible season and an incredible college career,” Crosby said. “But when you get to the NFL, you’ve got to start from square one.”
The veteran defensive end said Mendoza has impressed him with his willingness to learn and fit into the locker room.
“I think he’s done an incredible job of just being one of the guys, being humble, being a sponge, just learning from everybody and asking questions,” Crosby said.
WHO IS FERNANDO MENDOZA? THE NFL DRAFT SENSATION NO ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED
Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza warms up during a rookie minicamp at Intermountain Health Performance Center in Henderson, Nev., on May 2, 2026. (Candice Ward/Imagn Images)
But Crosby won’t be taking it easy on the fresh-faced rookie in practice.
“There’s no taking it easy,” Crosby said with a laugh. “We play this game one way, and I’m going to go out there and do what I do. It’s going to help him in the long run and making him better. I want to push all my teammates. That’s how teams improve — by pushing each other and making each other better on a daily basis.”
While many young quarterbacks are immediately compared to established NFL stars, Crosby said Mendoza should be given the opportunity to carve out his own identity.
“A lot of times people try to make comparisons,” Crosby said. “People just need to allow Fernando to be Fernando. I think he’s going to be a really special player.”
Playing for Tom Brady
Crosby also spoke about the unique opportunity to play for an organization that includes NFL legend Tom Brady as a minority owner.
“Tom has had one of the greatest careers, if not the greatest career, of anybody,” Crosby said. “He’s an incredible player and won at the highest level.”
Tom Brady looks on before the game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Washington Commanders at SoFi Stadium on Oct. 5, 2025. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Imagn Images)
While Brady isn’t involved in the day-to-day operations of the franchise, Crosby said having someone with his experience around the organization is a valuable resource.
“Anybody you get around an organization that has done it at that level, I think is a positive,” Crosby said. “He’s not there all the time, but he is a resource for people in that building. I think his winning mindset is only a plus.”
Crosby only played Brady once before Brady retired.
“I wish we could have had a couple more swings at it,” Crosby said.
A big partnership
Crosby’s appearance with Fox News Digital came as part of a partnership with SAXX Underwear, a brand he said immediately caught his attention for more than one reason.
“Obviously, everyone knows I make a living sacking quarterbacks, so the name alone drew me in,” Crosby joked. “The double X was a bonus, too.”
But beyond the name, Crosby said he became a fan of the product itself. Crosby said the product has become part of his everyday routine.
“I literally wear it every single day,” Crosby said. “I wear it during workouts, I wear it around the house, I literally wear it everywhere I go.”
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Still, while Crosby wears it to workouts, he won’t be wearing it during games.
“It’s not NFL certified yet,” he said. “But I wear it to the games, for sure.”
A few hours after Lionel Messi and the Argentine World Cup team checked into their training base in Kansas City, a series of thunderstorms pounded the area, knocking out power, felling trees and bringing flood and tornado warnings.
Hardly ideal conditions for the world’s biggest soccer tournament. Yet that’s likely just the opening salvo of a disruptive weather system that could affect the 38-day competition, which kicks off next week with games in Mexico, Canada and the U.S.
“It’s pretty safe to say climate change is going to have a mark on this World Cup,” said Kaitlyn Trudeau, a senior research associate of climate science for Sacramento-based Climate Central. “With climate change we know it’s not just going to be hotter, but it’s also going to increase the humidity as well.”
And that could make this summer’s World Cup one of the last of its kind. Tournament soccer in June and July has been a tradition dating to the first World Cup in 1930, but since then global temperatures in June have warmed by 1.89 degrees, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That may not sound like a lot, but it takes many days and nights of extreme heat to move the needle that much.
“It can be a very dangerous situation,” Trudeau said.
As a result, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has already begun discussions on moving the start of the tournament from June to March or October after 2030. In the meantime, early kickoffs, cooling breaks, air-conditioned stadiums and regular weather-related delays will necessarily become common features of the tournament, according to “Pitches in Peril,” a detailed report on the impact of climate change on global soccer, released in the run-up to the World Cup.
“Football’s all of a sudden starting to reckon with the new climate realities,” said Elliot Arthur-Worsop, founding director of Football For Future, a pioneering U.K. nonprofit and co-publisher of “Pitches in Peril.”
“Extreme weather events are becoming more unpredictable,” he said. “The players, the spectators and the officials, they’re all at risk here, especially when it comes to extreme heat. How can we future-proof the game?
“Adaptation looks like moving the entire tournament to another time of year to deal with the extreme weather. Short term it could be moving the kickoff times, it could be introducing more drink breaks, having more heat protocols and safety regulations.”
Some climatologists fear summer events like the World Cup and Olympic Games are just one heatwave away from a major weather-related tragedy. In fact, Arthur-Worsop said his group’s study found that this men’s World Cup, the first held in North America in 32 years, will likely be the last played here.
“By the time the cycle of awarding the hosting rights would possibly come back, our climate projections show that the tournament in its current form would be unplayable due to extreme weather events,” he said. “Not only heat, but other compounding threats such as extreme wind and flooding and wildfires.”
Trudeau worries that whatever adaptations are eventually adopted won’t keep pace with a rapidly warming planet.
“We are basically pushing ourselves to a limit,” she said. “I’m not saying we’re going to absolutely lose the World Cup. But we are making it so much harder to find time to safely enjoy these kinds of events.
“This is not a safe environment and we should not be putting people’s lives at risk just to watch a game.”
FIFA did move the 2022 World Cup, pushing the start of the tournament in Qatar from June to November. Even then the games had to be played in air-conditioned stadiums, though. Three of the 16 venues to be used this summer — in Atlanta, Houston and Arlington, Texas — are domed and climate-controlled.
But the next World Cup, to be held in 2030, will be played mostly in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, where June and July temperatures frequently top 95 degrees. And just one of the likely venues is climate-controlled.
As for this summer’s tournament, a 2025 study published in the International Journal of Biometeorology found that conditions in 14 of the 16 World Cup host cities are likely to exceed the extreme Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) threshold, an advanced index used to measure how the human body experiences heat stress.
A weather delay interrupts a Club World Cup match between Auckland City FC and Boca Juniors in Nashville in June 2025.
(Alex Grimm / Getty Images)
But you don’t have to do complicated math to know it’s hot because there’s also the “feels like” index, which registers how your body feels the heat. That can be vastly different from the reading on a thermometer. In Miami, for example, where seven World Cup games will be played, humidity will make an air temperature of 90 degrees “feel like” 109 degrees.
Under those conditions, it becomes more difficult for the body to cool itself.
“We talk about temperatures all the time, but that is only one part of the equation. It’s not including the amount of heat that you might feel from humidity,” Trudeau said. “It’s so important because once it gets too humid, then our body’s main cooling mechanism, sweating, is no longer possible.
“These are the kinds of situations where you have to be really careful. Not just players, but also people who maybe work at the stadiums, people who are watching the matches. It can be a very dangerous situation.”
Playing games in the cooler evening hours could alleviate that but FIFA, in a nod to TV viewers in Europe, scheduled 40 of the tournament’s 104 games, including the majority of games in the knockout rounds, to kick off at 3 p.m. or earlier local time. And though mandatory three-minute hydration breaks midway through each half have been added, Trudeau questions their impact.
“That’s kind of silly to be like, ‘Oh, we’re going to give an extra water break. But we’re going to be doing it at the hottest time of the day,’” she said. “It kind of sends mixed messages, right? What is the main priority of FIFA here? Is it to get the most views and the most revenue and the most whatever? Or is it to actually protect these players?
“We should not be having these in the hottest parts of the world at the hottest times of day,” she continued. “It’s just common sense.”
Chelsea’s Benoit Badiashile puts water on his face before a Club World Cup match against Esperance de Tunis in Philadelphia in June 2025.
(Francois Nel / Getty Images)
FIFA defended the schedule, saying in a statement that climate-related risks are assessed as part of overall tournament planning and managed in close coordination with the host cities, stadium authorities and national agencies.
“Building on experience from recent tournaments, a tiered heat-mitigation model will apply,” the statement continued. “When forecasts indicate elevated temperatures, venues will activate additional cooling capacity, including shaded areas, misting systems, cooling buses and expanded water distribution. Work-rest cycles for staff and volunteers are adapted accordingly, and first-aid readiness is reinforced with clear triage and escalation pathways for suspected heat illness. These measures scale dynamically based on real-time conditions before and during each event.”
Last summer’s FIFA Club World Cup, a 63-game tournament played in the U.S. as a kind of dress rehearsal for this year’s event, gives an indication of the problems ahead. That tournament was plagued not just by high heat and humidity, but also by thunderstorms and lightning that paused or delayed a half-dozen matches in Orlando, Fla.; Nashville; Cincinnati; Charlotte, N.C.; and East Rutherford, N.J.
“The heat is incredible,” said Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernandez, who played in last summer’s tournament with Chelsea. “I got a bit dizzy during a play. I had to lie down on the ground because I was really dizzy.
“Playing in this temperature is very dangerous.”
But if health risks are the primary concern of summer sporting events on a warming planet, they aren’t the only ones. The weather also affects the quality of play, said Norwegian defender Julian Ryerson, who played for Borussia Dortmund in last summer’s club tournament.
“Football is different when you play in this humidity and heat,” he said. “It is really tough. You take some precautions. That’s the only way to go about it.”
As the planet continues to bake, there are also increasingly fewer ways of going about staging a World Cup. You can play it nontraditional times and in nontraditional places. You can play it indoors in air-conditioned stadiums.
Or you can not play it at all.
“We’re running out of options,” Trudeau said. “We have to understand that unless we are going to address human-caused climate change, you’re going to start losing these things that are culturally important to us or economically important.
“We cannot keep doing these things at the rate we’re doing them and the times that we’re doing them in the ways that we’re doing them while we also continue to warm the planet.”
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Denver Broncos star Jonathon Cooper and his girlfriend were both arrested on domestic violence charges on Friday.
Both Cooper and his girlfriend were held on suspicion of two counts of domestic violence and one count of criminal mischief, according to Douglas County jail records.
An argument broke out between the two over cheating allegations, according to TMZ.
(Left) Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper (0) looks on after a defensive play in the overtime period of the AFC Divisional Round game against the Buffalo Bills at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado, on Jan. 17, 2026. (Right) Denver Broncos star Jonathon Cooper was arrested early Friday morning on suspicion of two counts of domestic violence and one count of criminal mischief in Colorado. (Dustin Bradford/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; Courtesy of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office)
The pair, who have been seeing each other on and off for years, were hanging out at Cooper’s residence when she confronted him over his alleged infidelity. The woman grabbed Cooper’s phone and threw it against a wall, and then eventually regained control of the device to go through it, the arrest affidavit said, according to TMZ.
Cooper and the woman then struggled for the phone, which Cooper eventually retrieved after a physical struggle. He then demanded that the woman leave his home, or he allegedly told her he would break her cell phone, the probable cause affidavit said, per TMZ.
After the woman did not leave, he bit down and broke the screen on the iPhone, according to the affidavit.
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
Denver Broncos star Jonathon Cooper was arrested early Friday morning on suspicion of two counts of domestic violence and one count of criminal mischief in Colorado. (Courtesy of Douglas County Sheriff’s Office)
Cooper had a hearing at 9:45 a.m. in a Douglas County courtroom, and a follow-up hearing will be held on Monday, when Cooper is expected to enter a plea, according to 9NEWS.
Following the hearing, Cooper was released on a personal recognizance bond, according to 9NEWS’ report.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Broncos and Cooper’s agency for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
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Denver Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper stands on the field before the game at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colo., on Dec. 21, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)
Cooper, 28, has been with the Broncos since they drafted him out of Ohio State in the seventh round of the NFL Draft, and he has spent all five seasons of his career with Denver.
In 17 games last season, Cooper recorded 50 tackles and eight sacks and was a key member of the Broncos’ stout defense. In his career, Cooper has played 81 games, recording 266 tackles and 31.5 sacks.
The Broncos signed him to a four-year, $60 million contract extension in November 2024.
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