Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has been ruled out for the remainder of Liverpool's season and the World Cup for England with a knee injury.

Scans confirmed Oxlade-Chamberlain suffered knee ligament damage.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was in clear pain when suffering the injury in the first half of Liverpool's 5-2 win over Roma in the Champions League Semifinals.

Oxlade-Chamberlain has flourished with Liverpool since leaving Arsenal.

Tottenham Hotspur hope to act early on the summer transfer market as the World Cup will complicate both the timing and prices.

“It is so dangerous to go and scout players in the World Cup," said Mauricio Pochettino. "If a player plays well you will have a lot of competition and how are you going to sign him? Sometimes you need to anticipate, to think, ‘OK, this player can be good for us’, but you need to sign [him] before the tournament starts. We are thinking and trying to anticipate because it will be difficult if not.

“It’s not all about money in football, that is true. But it helps. As a coach you can have ideas about football but then you need the principal actors to deliver this idea. We are competing in a different way to Manchester City. At Tottenham we have to be brave, to believe, to work harder than other clubs that are at our level.”

Jurgen Klinsmann said the United States' failure to qualify for the World Cup will set the country back for years.

Klinsmann was fired as manager of the United States in November of 2016 and replaced by Bruce Arena.

"It's been set back by several years," Klinsmann said. "That was a huge disappointment. The qualification really was never in doubt, but then the lads had a blackout versus Trinidad & Tobago. They only needed a point, were too sure of that and underestimated that final match."

Klinsmann insisted that "despite that low point, the football [in the U.S.] is still on the rise."

"Sure, there are a lot of things to catch up on: In the youth academies, in the universities, in cross-linking the pieces," Klinsmann said. "But MLS is stable after 20 years. It has role-model character. It has a backbone, mostly thanks to [league founder] Phil Anschutz. He kept things together when they could have fallen apart.

"By now, MLS has caught up in the infrastructure. What happened in U.S. soccer in the past 20 years, that is a bit like a fairy tale. It still needs patience, but the league's getting stronger with every year."

Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave his strongest suggestion he plans to play for Sweden in the World Cup.

Ibrahimovic has posted on his official Twitter account: "The chance of me playing in the World Cup is skyhöga ["sky high" in Swedish]."

Ibrahimovic retired from international football following Sweden's 1-0 loss to Belgium in Euro 2016.

MLS will observe a nine-day break during the World Cup, from the opening match on June 14 running through June 22. Sweden have group-stage matches against Germany on June 23 and Mexico on June 27, with the Galaxy resuming play at the San Jose Earthquakes on June 30.

FIFA is being offered $25 billion from a fund of investors from the Middle East and Asia to buy an expanded version of FIFA's Club World Cup as well as the rights to a proposed global league for national teams.

Gianni Infantino did not reveal the identity of the investors to the assembled FIFA Council, though he said the group wanted a speedy decision on its offer.

FIFA has never sold control of its events to the highest bidder, and never to an investment fund.

Infantino's request to push forward with the proposal was rejected.

Selling the competitions to a third party would also represent a major shift in FIFA’s business model, which relies on the sales of tickets, sponsorships and media rights for revenue.