A Canadian Soccer Association delegation has delivered the bid book for the 2015 Women's World Cup to FIFA headquarters in Zurich. The delegation, which included federal Minister of State (Sport) Gary Lunn, Canadian Soccer Association President Dominic Maestracci, Vice-President Victor Montagliani and General Secretary Peter Montopoli, met with FIFA officials Tuesday, including President Sepp Blatter.

Within the space of the year, the two Canadian players who created one of the greatest goals in national team history have called time on their careers. Today, Richard Hastings, who roofed the extra-time golden-goal winner in the 2000 2-1 Gold Cup semifinal over Mexico, announced his retirement from the game. Hastings spent most of his career with Scottish side Inverness Caledonian Thistle, playing there from 1994-2001 and again from 2004-2009.

There have been more than a few embarrassing moments in the four-plus seasons of Toronto FC’s existence; but the fact that Dwayne De Rosario was training with Celtic —less than a full day after acting GM Earl Cochrane vehemently denied that the team’s all-time leading scorer would be leaving the club —has to go right to the top of the charts when it comes to egg dripping off the faces of those running the Reds. De Rosario checked into Celtic’s training session Tuesday morning, wearing shirt No. 19.

The referees are on strike in Scotland. They have had it. They’ve had it with the criticisms of coaches and players. They’re tired of being made the scapegoats whenever a close decision goes against a fiery manager with an axe to grind. Good for them. They’ve gone on strike, leaving the Scottish FA scrambling to find refs for this week’s matches. Polish and Portuguese refs who the SFA thought it had secured to officiate this weekend’s games have gone back home. Scotland did find enough foreign refs to keep the Premier League going, so fans could be treated another weekly instalment of Rangers, Celtic and Everybody Else.