In your briefing today:

📣 The Scottish Government may consider a sweeping moratorium on building new datacentres after the Scottish National Party’s National Council passed a resolution to freeze all new datacentre development in Scotland. Two councils - Edinburgh and East Ayrshire - have also called for a pause in data centre development. (Guardian)

📣 Nato’s leaders meet in Turkey today and will hear a plea from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for new air defence systems to protect itself from escalating Russian attacks. Zelensky's call for help will comes after Russian missiles rained down on the Ukrainian capital twice in less than a week, killing more than 50 civilians. (BBC)

📣 Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has led calls for FIFA’s President Gianni Infantino to resign, after the global football body was accused of bowing to political pressure from Donald Trump to reverse the suspension of one of Team USA player Florian Balogun.

“If Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino really sorted this out between themselves, it is madness; it calls everything into question,” said Klopp. (LBC)

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📣 Scottish police officers want greater powers to stop and search people in their fight against knife crime. The call comes after the conviction of three teenagers for the death of Kayden Moy last year. (STV)

📣 Four councillors who supported a rapist taxi driver keeping his operator’s license have resigned from Highland Council’s licensing committee. (BBC)

📣 The SNP has been warned its “mansion tax” will hit house prices in Scotland. Consultation on the policy has just opened. (Times)

📣 A tanker is on fire in the Strait of Hormuz, the latest ship there to be hit by a projectile, while Iran continues to mourn late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose funeral continues. (AP)

📣 Fraudster George Cottrell has been seen at numerous Reform events, raising questions about the party’s insistence that he has no official role. (Guardian)

📣 A £31 million school in Exeter is to be demolished before it admits a single pupil (Times)

📣 The UK is entering its third heatwave of the summer this week, with temperatures predicted to hit 35C in some parts of the country later in the week. (Sky News)

📣 Prince Harry won’t be staying at Buckingham Palace after all, after his invite “was withdrawn”, according to his spokesperson. (Independent)

⚽️ Team USA’s World Cup dream ended amid controversy about the unsuspension of Florian Balogun and a flat on-field performance last night, outclassed 4-1 by Belgium. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ In the day’s other game, Portugal and Spain battled out a sensationally dull contest, won by Spain at the death by substitute Mikel Merino. The game brought to an end Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup career - cruel cynics might say that had happened on the pitch some time earlier - and set up Spain to meet Belgium in the quarter-final. (Report & highlights)

⚽️ Tottenham have signed Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali for £100 million. (BBC)

🗣️ Are you looking forward to the Commonwealth Games? The event returns to Glasgow in little more than two weeks, 12 years after the city successfully hosted the 2014 edition. But lots will be different this time - not least that many Glaswegians, never mind broader Scotland, will be unaware the games are on their way back.

But don’t think the games won’t be closely watched by the sports industry. This year’s edition could be viewed as one of the biggest experiments in world sports. And if it works, it could change the face of big events long into the future.

The 2026 games are a huge part of the athletics diary for competitors from 74 nations and territories across the Commonwealth. But this year’s edition has had a particularly troubled gestation: a global sporting event that, in stark contrast to the bigger Olympics or World Cup, no city or state appeared keen to host.

The original winner of the 2026 bid was Birmingham. But when the South African city of Durban lost the rights to hold the 2022 games, the English city stepped in to help (backed by £850 million of public money) and was bumped up four years - creating a vacancy for 2026. It took years for that to eventually be filled by the Australian state of Victoria, in January 2022. Timelines were already tough.

But a little more than 18 months later, Victoria bailed out. Costs had escalated to an estimated £3 - £3.6 billion and the state said it couldn’t justify the expense. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said they’d been "happy to help out" when approached to host, but "not at any price".

With the games facing cancellation for the first time since the Second World War, Glasgow stepped in to save the day. But - driven by concerns about costs, an ever-tightening timeline and the fact that Glasgow had, only recently, been a host - these games would have to be very different.

Glasgow would host a scaled-down version with fewer sports and fewer athletes, it was announced. It would run across four existing venues in the city. And there would be none of the expensive infrastructure - such as an athletes’ village - to accompany the event. Instead, competitors would be put up in student housing.

Vitally, organisers promised the event would come at no cost to the public purse, with a large chunk of the £150 million budget coming from compensation paid by Victoria, and the rest being drawn from commercial revenue.

And that’s why this year’s games will be more closely watched around the world. We’re about to see a major multi-sport event hosted on a (relative) shoestring budget.

Contrast the Commonwealth Games with the World Cup (budget: $8.9 billion) or the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris ($8.2 billion) and you see how little is being spent. You have to go back to 1968 for a Summer Olympics with a budget anywhere close.

A tiny budget and zero public-purse commitment doesn’t mean there isn’t controversy around this year’s event. We’ve already had a row about ticket prices: organisers have been accused of “pricing out families”.

And SNP MSP David Linden has called on UK Government ministers to make the games free to watch on TV, saying it’s “simply wrong” that live coverage will only be available on TNT Sports. Viewers who don’t have that service will have to rely on nightly live coverage on BBC Alba, the Gaelic broadcaster, or highlights on Channel 5.

Out of sight, out of mind? If the fans don’t turn up, or tune in, it could spell the end - in the long run - of these games. Ahmedabad in India is lined up for 2030: beyond that, potential hosts will be keeping a close eye on the Glasgow experiment.

If it turns out that Glasgow and wider Scotland rallies around the event, which will - after all - bring 3,000 world-class athletes to the city, then the canny template drawn up for 2026 could be one repeated across the world in 2034.

So let the games begin?

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