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How much do we really know about Mark Zuckerberg?

The creator of Facebook. One of the world’s richest men. A 39-year-old father-of-three. But is he a force for good?

One man has made it his mission to try to help us answer that question.

For more than a decade, US university professor Dr Michael Zimmer has been recording “every single thing” the Facebook founder says in public, in an archive known as “The Zuckerberg Files”.

Covering a period from 2004 to the present day, it features more than 1,500 transcripts of Zuckerberg’s remarks, including Facebook posts, media interviews and hundreds of videos of his public appearances.

With growing concerns over Facebook users’ privacy and how their data is used, Dr Zimmer says he wanted to take a “closer look” at Zuckerberg’s language and views.

Dr Michael Zimmer
Image:
Dr Michael Zimmer is the creator of The Zuckerberg Files. Pic: Sky UK

“The privacy concerns around Facebook, and the amount of data Meta collects across its platforms, are real and important for users to understand,” he tells Sky News.

“I don’t rush to suggest people delete their accounts, as there can be real benefits being on the platforms.

“But it’s important for users to explore the privacy settings available to understand how visible their content is, what kind of details are being collected and shared, and so on.

“Facebook has got better at giving users the ability to manage their privacy, but they could certainly do more.”

Zuckerberg’s posts on his Facebook page suggest he has his own concerns about privacy, Dr Zimmer says.

“More recently he’s been posting more about his family, including pictures of his children – but interestingly we rarely see his children’s faces,” Dr Zimmer adds.

“So I’m assuming he wants to make sure his kids’ faces don’t get put online for privacy reasons, or any kind of face recognition, for their own safety.

“But, of course, his platform has built tools to scan our pictures and our faces.”

Twenty years after it was created, Facebook is now irrevocably linked with concerns about data collection, online safety and the deterioration of democracy itself.

Now, a new Sky documentary delves into how Zuckerberg built his Meta empire (which includes Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), what drives him and how he’s changed his public persona over the years.

One of four children and the only boy, Zuckerberg was known as the “prince” by his mother, according to the programme.

“He was anointed even within the family,” says David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and author of The Facebook Effect. “That shaped his worldview tremendously.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, California, October 17, 2007. REUTERS/Kimberly White (UNITED STATES)
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Mark Zuckerberg in 2007

It was at Harvard University where the “prince” became a celebrity, when he created FaceMash – a hot-or-not website where users compared photos of their fellow students.

“It was sexist, it was juvenile. It did get him in trouble,” Mr Kirkpatrick said.

But it almost made him famous. The short-lived FaceMash may have got Zuckerberg hauled before a disciplinary committee, but it also racked up 22,000 hits in its first day.

“By the time he launched Facebook, he was already like a famous innovator so people wanted to know what he was going to do next,” Mr Kirkpatrick adds.

Mark Zuckerberg in 2007. Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Zuckerberg created the first version of Facebook in his dorm room – and infamously described the early users who trusted him with their data as “dumb f****”, the documentary says.

He left Harvard early with some friends and headed to Palo Alto, California – Silicon Valley – to work on TheFacebook (as it was known) full time.

Zuckerberg was often seen lying on the floor coding, wearing flip-flops.

Poking – an innocuous Facebook function that was popular for a while – was something he thought up when he was drunk, Zuckerberg says in an early interview.

The rise of Facebook was meteoric. It hit one billion users. President Barack Obama visited its headquarters. It was clear that this social media giant had changed the world forever – but for good or for bad?

U.S. President Barack Obama attends a town hall meeting at Facebook headquarters with CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Palo Alto, April 20, 2011. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS)
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Barack Obama with Zuckerberg in 2011

One of the first examples of the power of Facebook was the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, where countries across the Middle East saw popular uprisings and some governments were overthrown.

“Mark was feted,” says former Facebook vice president Richard Allan.

“Here were all these people in countries like Syria, Tunisia and Egypt who could create their own alternative media, in opposition to a state that controlled the media to within an inch of its life and allowed them no space.

“They created the revolution, not us. We weren’t there on the barricades but we had given them a media tool.”

Facebook had become something that was politically powerful, and everyone from protesters to world leaders knew it.

But as we know now, Zuckerberg’s empire would not always be regarded as a positive force for democracy.

Where early in his career he talked a lot about being a start-up chief and creating Facebook in his dorm room, the questions in interviews got harder.

Zuckerberg in 2010. Pic: AP
Image:
Zuckerberg in 2010. Pic: AP

“Suddenly I think some corporate communication people got involved and his message started to be more controlled, more about products, more about what he’s trying to do with the company,” Dr Zimmer says.

“You almost got a sense that he was trying to sort of step away from the day-to-day trials and tribulations of Facebook, until Cambridge Analytica, until the Brexit and the Trump elections, when suddenly Facebook was back in the spotlight.”

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 US election made the world stand still.

“Overnight we went from everything we touched turned to gold, to everything we touched turned to dust,” says Katie Harbath, who was Facebook’s public policy director from 2014 to 2019.

“When I first joined, movies were being made (about Facebook), the founder was on the cover of Time Magazine, you’re overthrowing dictators – seven years later you’re being told you destroyed democracy.”

After becoming famous for his laid-back appearance, wearing a hoodie and jeans, Zuckerberg looked very different on 10 April 2018: the day he appeared before US Congress.

Mark Zuckerberg appears before US Congress
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Zuckerberg appears before US Congress

He faced questions over the Cambridge Analytica scandal where it had emerged data belonging to up to 87 million Facebook users was improperly accessed by the political consulting firm, which has since been shut down.

“You could tell it wasn’t something he wanted to do,” Dr Zimmer says of Zuckerberg’s US Congress appearance, noting that he actually did “quite well”.

“I think ever since then he’s been very effective in reshaping what people focus on.”

This includes things like the Metaverse, a virtual environment where people can interact with each other that some in tech think will be a huge part of humanity’s future.

“I think he’s trying to get us to rethink Facebook as a platform for goodness, for happiness, for all these great things in our lives and to forget about the bad things that happen,” Dr Zimmer adds.

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So has Zuckerberg been a force for good?

“I think overall he’s had a good impact,” says Dr Zimmer, who is an expert in privacy and data ethics.

“I think he – and the way he’s run his organisations – has been naive and miscalculating in terms of the broader impact that they have on the world.

“We can look at examples, especially in developing countries, where his platforms have clearly been used and misused in ways that have harmed people.”

Read more:
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Facebook ‘overwhelmed’ by hoax posts on serial killers
Meta ‘intentionally addicts children to social media’

He adds: “I guess he can’t correct those challenges but I think he can own it, and I think he can find ways to really try to engage in that space and help make sure that his impact and his legacy does remain positive.”

In a statement provided to the documentary, Meta denied that it promotes profit over safety, citing changes made to the newsfeed that mean that users spend less time on Facebook.

It said it has introduced new guidance for parents and teenagers on Instagram and says that its own research found that in most cases teenage girls said the platform made them feel better, not worse.

Zuckerberg has said that he wants Congress to update internet regulation around elections so that harmful content, privacy and competition are addressed.

Zuckerberg: King Of The Metaverse is available to watch on Sky Documentaries from Thursday 11 January.

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Rise in Gaza deaths linked to aid distributions by controversial group

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Rise in Gaza deaths linked to aid distributions by controversial group

Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor.

The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month.

The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded “death traps”.

The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites.

Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation’s operations.

“Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something,” he said.

“Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts.

“We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”

However, new analysis by Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions.

On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip.

On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties.

Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%).

At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings.

Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight.

“I witnessed death first-hand – bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me,” says Huda.

“This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down.”

Huda told Sky News that she has been trying to obtain aid from SDS4, in the central Gaza Strip, for the past ten days.
Image:
Huda told Sky News that she has been trying to obtain aid from SDS4, in the central Gaza Strip, for the past 10 days

Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets “just to get a bag of rice or pasta”.

“You may come back, you may not,” she says. “I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent.”

One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June.

According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open.

“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people “even as we were fleeing”. At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals.

Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood.

The IDF says it is reviewing the incident.

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Doctor’s final moments revealed

Issues of crowd control

Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control.

An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites.

The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza’s far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background.

Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground.

Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a “free-for-all”.

“What they’re doing is they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in,” he says.

Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open.

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Doctors on the frontline

Confusing communications

Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF.

Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes’ notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening.

The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times.

The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones.

The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them.

The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza’s far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone.

The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor.

“They don’t know what they’re doing,” says UNRWA’s Sam Rose.

“They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”

Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way.

The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out.

The shortest distance is at SDS4 – 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover.

But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out.

“We don’t have time to pick anything up,” says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days.

In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice.

“I got it from the floor,” she says. “We didn’t get anything else.”

More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution.

In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world’s largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.

Additional reporting by OSINT producers Sam Doak and Lina-Serene.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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Teens unable to walk, mothers with rash-covered babies: Kush is ruining lives – and made with ingredients shipped from the UK

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Teens unable to walk, mothers with rash-covered babies: Kush is ruining lives - and made with ingredients shipped from the UK

A red shipping container sits on the tarmac of Sierra Leone’s Queen Elizabeth II Quay, under swinging cranes and towering stacks of similar steel boxes.

This one will likely be parked at the port permanently. The contents are suspected to be the ingredients of kush, the deadly synthetic drug ravaging Sierra Leone.

Sky News was given access to the container two weeks after it was seized.

“Preliminary testing has shown that these items are kush ingredients,” says the secretary of the Ports Authority, Martin George, as he points to the marked contraband in massive multicoloured Amazon UK bags and a large blue vat of strongly smelling acetone.

He adds: “Shipped from the United Kingdom.”

sierra leone kush feature

The container was selected for screening based on its origin. The UK is with the EU and South America on the list of places considered high risk for the import of illicit substances fuelling the drug trade in Sierra Leone and the region.

Kush has shaken this part of West Africa to its core – not just Sierra Leone but Liberia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. It is highly addictive, ever-evolving and affordable.

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The sprayed grey-green marshmallow leaves are rolled in a joint like marijuana and are extremely dangerous. Samples of the drug tested by researchers contained nitazens, one of the deadliest synthetic drugs in the world.

sierra leone kush feature

“It was a shock to find them in around half of the kush samples we tested, as at that point there was no public evidence they had reached Africa,” says Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo from Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) who independently tested kush from Sierra Leone.

“Nitazenes are among the deadliest drugs available on retail drug markets across the world – with one nitazene in kush in Freetown being 25 times stronger than fentanyl,” she added.

The shocking effects of its potency can be seen on the bodies of young men and women around Freetown. Teenagers with sores eating away at their legs, unable to walk. Mothers who smoked during pregnancy carrying sickly rash-covered infants. Young men drooling from the intense high and slumped over while still standing.

sierra leone kush feature

They are not the fringes of Sierra Leonean society but a growing demographic of kush users searching for an escape. People riddled by poverty and unemployment, living in the dark corners of a capital city which has endured a brutal civil war and Ebola epidemic in the last three decades alone.

An entire community of men and women of all ages is held together by kush addiction under a main road that cuts through the heart of Freetown.

They call themselves the “Under de Bridge family” and live in the shadows of the overpass, surrounded by the sewage and rubbish discarded by their neighbours.

sierra leone kush feature

One of them tells us the harsh conditions drive him to keep smoking kush even after losing more than 10 friends to the drug – killed by large infected sores and malnutrition.

Nearby, 17-year-old Ibrahim is pained by growing sores and says the drug is destroying his life.

“This drug is evil. This drug is bad. I don’t know why they gave me this drug in this country. Our brothers are suffering. Some are dying, some have sores on their feet. This drug brings destruction,” he says.

“Look at me – just because of this drug. I have sores on my feet.”

Read more from Sky News:
Man separated from family by war returns home
Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins

sierra leone kush feature

Across a stream of sewage, a young mother expecting her second child cries from fear and anguish when I ask her about the risk of smoking while pregnant.

“Yes, I know the risk,” Elizabeth says, nodding.

“I’ll keep smoking while I live here but I have nowhere else to go. It helps me forget my worries and challenges.”

Life under the bridge is disrupted from its sleepiness by a yell. A plain-clothed police officer is chasing a child accused of selling kush.

The lucrative industry is absorbing all age groups and spreading rapidly to nearby countries – even passing through three different borders to reach the smallest nation in mainland Africa, The Gambia.

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Police hunt for kush dealers in West Africa

Gambian law enforcement has cracked down on spreading kush use with regular zero tolerance drug raids. The small population is extremely vulnerable and the country is yet to open its first rehabilitation centre. Rising xenophobia seems to be mostly directed at Sierra Leonean immigrants who they blame for smuggling kush into the country.

We spoke to one man from Sierra Leone who was arrested for dealing kush in The Gambia and spent a year in prison. He says that though he feels saddened other Sierra Leoneans are being alienated as a result of the trade he was involved in, he has no remorse for “following orders”.

“Do I feel guilty for selling it? No, I don’t feel guilty. I’m not using my money to buy the kush, people always give me money to get kush for them,” he tells Sky News anonymously.

“I needed a job. I needed to take care of my son.”

Gambia’s hardline approach has been credited with driving its local kush industry underground rather than eradicating it but is still hailed as the most impactful strategy in the region. Sierra Leone’s government told Sky News it needs help from surrounding countries and the UK to tackle the sprawling crisis.

sierra leone kush feature

Transnational crime experts like Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo see the rise of kush as part of a global synthetic drugs network that requires a multi-national response.

“Coordinated action is urgently needed across the supply chain, particularly focused on nitazenes – the deadliest kush component,” says Ms Bird.

“Our research indicated that kush components are being imported to West Africa from countries in Asia and Europe, likely including the UK. All countries in the supply chain bear responsibility to act to mitigate the devastating and expanding impacts of kush across West Africa, a region with scarce resources to respond.”

Sky News’ Africa correspondent wins award

Yousra Elbagir has been named a winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation 2025 Courage in Journalism Awards.

She has chronicled the current war in Sudan, which has displaced more than 13 million people, including her own family.

Recently, Elbagir led the only television news crew to document the fall of Goma – the regional capital of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – to M23 rebels backed by Rwanda.

In the past year, her reports from the frontlines of Sudan’s war have broadcast massive scenes of devastation inside a global humanitarian crisis.

She said: “Our job as journalists is to reveal the truth and inform the public. Sometimes, it’s about exposing the misdeeds of the powerful. Other times, it’s about capturing the scale and depth of human suffering. Our job is also getting more difficult: Information wars and contempt for legacy media is growing by the day, which makes our job even more important.”

Elbagir added: “It is an honour to receive the IWMF Courage Award and join the ranks of such incredible women journalists. The courage to share the truth in our polarised world is at the heart of public service journalism and to be recognised for it is truly affirming – it gives me faith that people are listening.”

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Women’s Euros: Concerns for player safety as tournament kicks off in Switzerland

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Women's Euros: Concerns for player safety as tournament kicks off in Switzerland

The Women’s Euros begin in Switzerland today – with extreme heat warnings in place.

Security measures have had to be relaxed by UEFA for the opening matches so fans can bring in water bottles.

Temperatures could be about 30C (86F) when the Swiss hosts open their campaign against Norway in Basel this evening.

Players have already seen the impact of heatwaves this summer at the men’s Club World Cup in the US.

Players take a drink during a training session of Spain soccer team at the Euro 2025, in Lausanne, Switzerland Tuesday, July 1, 2025 Pic: AP
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The Spain squad pauses for refreshments during a training session. Pic: AP

Read more: A complete guide to the Women’s Euros

It is raising new concerns in the global players’ union about whether the stars of the sport are being protected in hot and humid conditions.

FIFPRO has asked FIFA to allow cooling breaks every 15 minutes rather than just in the 30th minute of each half.

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There’s also a request for half-time to be extended from 15 to 20 minutes to help lower the core temperature of players.

FIFPRO’s medical director, Dr Vincent Gouttebarge, said: “There are some very challenging weather conditions that we anticipated a couple of weeks ago already, that was already communicated to FIFA.

“And I think the past few weeks were confirmation of all worries that the heat conditions will play a negative role for the performance and the health of the players.”

Football has seemed focused on players and fans baking in the Middle East – but scorching summers in Europe and the US are becoming increasingly problematic for sport.

Chloe Kelly celebrates with Beth Mead, right, after scoring her side's sixth goal at Wembley Stadium, in London, Friday, May 30, 2025. AP
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England are the tournament’s defending champions. Pic: AP

While climate change is a factor, the issue is not new and at the 1994 World Cup, players were steaming as temperatures rose in the US.

There is now more awareness of the need for mitigation measures among players and their international union.

FIFPRO feels football officials weren’t responsive when it asked for kick-off times to be moved from the fierce afternoon heat in the US for the first 32-team Club World Cup.

FIFA has to balance the needs of fans and broadcasters with welfare, with no desire to load all the matches in the same evening time slots.

Electric storms have also seen six games stopped, including a two-hour pause during a Chelsea game at the weekend.

This is the dress rehearsal for the World Cup next summer, which is mostly in the US.

Players are also feeling the heat at the Club World Cup in the US. Pic: AP
Image:
Players are also feeling the heat at the Club World Cup. Pic: AP

The use of more indoor, air conditioned stadiums should help.

There is no prospect of moving the World Cup to winter, as Qatar had to do in 2022.

And looking further ahead to this time in 2030, there will be World Cup matches in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. The temperatures this week have been hitting 40C (104F) in some host cities.

Read more:
Ex-England boss receives knighthood
Football star mural unveiled

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Wildfires erupt in Italy and France amid heatwave

FIFA said in a statement to Sky News: “Heat conditions are a serious topic that affect football globally.

“At the FCWC some significant and progressive measures are being taken to protect the players from the heat. For instance, cooling breaks were implemented in 31 out of 54 matches so far.

“Discussions on how to deal with heat conditions need to take place collectively and FIFA stands ready to facilitate this dialogue, including through the Task Force on Player Welfare, and to receive constructive input from all stakeholders on how to further enhance heat management.

“In all of this, the protection of players must be at the centre.”

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