World Cup ‘fears’ as Arsenal and Liverpool Champions League paths ‘clear’

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·25 février 2026

World Cup ‘fears’ as Arsenal and Liverpool Champions League paths ‘clear’

Football headlines that aren’t about football, exclusives that aren’t exclusives, fears that aren’t fears, and an icon who isn’t an icon.

It’s another tip-top morning in the world of football journalism, and Mediawatch has waded through it so you don’t have to.

Vidéos OneFootball

You’re welcome.

The headlines

Mediawatch tries desperately hard not to be too much of an old game’s gone misery yelling at modern football clouds, but sometimes it’s just very hard.

Here, for instance, are the top five stories we woke up to on the Mirror football homepage this morning.

DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT! Wild Snoop Dogg scenes as Swansea City co-owner forces warm-up to be stopped and record crowd shows up for rap legend’s first game Case against Premier League club executive accused of sexually abusing teenager dropped Gianluca Prestianni to allege Vinicius Jr called him a DWARF in defence against racism claim Man City handed 115 charges boost as former Premier League chief spots major hint F1 2026 teamwear: Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull unveil new merchandise ahead of Australian GP

We’re not even having a go at the Mirror here really, more railing forlornly against the universe itself. This collection of what they consider this mild Wednesday morn to be the five biggest stories in all of football is just so unflinchingly and notably grim and depressing for just so many reasons. Does feel like it holds up a, well, mirror to life in big 2026.

Celebrity fluff. Alleged sexual abuse. Racism. Corruption. No actual football whatsoever. It’s all so depressingly unpleasant we can’t even be bothered to make the low-hanging yet entirely offensive joke about the inexplicable F1 story being the worst of the lot.

Joint winner

Talking of low-hanging jokes, credit of sorts to The Sun for at least correcting one clear error from the Mirror’s hard-hitting Snoop Dogg coverage. Why call Snoop Dogg a co-owner when JOINT OWNER is right there?

Dog days

Today’s episode of Words Have Meanings is a reminder to The Sun that an EXCLUSIVE really ought to be a story that you have to yourselves because nobody else got it rather than because nobody else wanted it.

MIDFIELD TERRIER! Forest’s Ryan Yates hires £1k a week trainer to tame his aggressive SAUSAGE DOG which kept lunging at people

That doesn’t really qualify, we don’t think. But we’ll let it slide because there must have been some serious digging to uncover such a story. How precisely did The Sun’s ‘Investigations Editor’ Rob Pattinson manage to land this Fleet Street-scooping exclusive tale?

He read it on Insta, obvs.

In an Instagram testimonial, Yates said he sent Peanut for a residential stay. He added: “He was very reactive with dogs and people. He’d be lunging when we were at cafés and with family members who weren’t seen that often.”

Quiet Please! Investigation in Process!

Fear we go

‘WORLD CUP FEARS’ barks a headline from the Mirror, before going full Daily Mail brevity be damned and adding:

Mexican cartels’ position on ruining tournament with violence as Brits given travel advice ahead of potential England and Scotland clashes

And what, precisely, is the Mexican cartels’ position on ‘ruining’ the World Cup ‘with violence’?

However, foreign visitors have been told they should remain safe in the country, as it’s in the cartels’ best interests for the World Cup to go ahead, given the financial stake they have in their nation’s assets.

So the FEARS and ‘ruining’ and ‘violence’… probably won’t happen? Ah. Right. Still, a lovely calm headline you got to use to cover a serious subject over dramatic pictures of chaps with guns and all fires burning. Not like any of this is important, is it?

Draw comfort

The confirmation of four more Champions League last-16 qualifiers on Tuesday night means a raft of perfectly valid updates on who might be drawn against who on Friday now that possible opponents have narrowed from four to three for each of the teams who qualified via a top-eight finish.

All absolutely fine. But obviously that alone isn’t enough. No, it’s vital that these updates sit beneath misleading headlines pretending the draw has already taken place. Otherwise they won’t get as many clicks, will they?

So we get this from the Express…