On Monday, a Colorado judge dismissed a lawsuit that contested the succession plan laid out by the team’s owner, Pat Bowlen, before he died.The feud over the ownership of the Denver Broncos moved a step closer to resolution — and a potential sale of the club — Monday when a judge in Arapahoe County, Colo., dismissed a lawsuit that contested the will of the former owner Pat Bowlen, who died in 2019. More
A Euro 2020 delayed by the pandemic and then extended to a shootout ends, finally, with an Italian celebration on the field and stunned fans in the stands.LONDON — All day, there had been noise. The songs had started early in the morning, as the first few hundred fans appeared on Wembley Way, flags fluttering from their backs. They had echoed through the afternoon, as first tens and then a hundred thousand more had joined them, as shattered glass crunched underfoot.The songs started as soon as the train doors opened at the Wembley Park underground station, the paeans to Gareth Southgate and Harry Maguire, the renditions of “Three Lions” and “Sweet Caroline,” and they grew louder as the stadium appeared on the horizon, until it seemed as if they were emanating from the building itself.Inside, the noise rang around, gathering force as it echoed back and forth when it seemed England was experiencing some sort of exceptionally lucid reverie: when Luke Shaw scored and the hosts led the European Championship final inside two minutes and everything was, after more than half a century, coming home.Tens of thousands of fans, not all of them holding tickets, filled the streets around Wembley.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesEngland’s Luke Shaw had them roaring when he scored only two minutes into the final.Pool photo by Facundo ArrizabalagaThere was noise as Italy scrapped and clawed its way back, taming England’s abandon and wresting control of the ball, Leonardo Bonucci’s equalizer puncturing the national trance. That is what happens when individual nerves bounce around and collide with tens of thousands more nerves: the energy generated, at some atomic level, is transformed and released as noise.There was noise before extra time, Wembley bouncing and jumping because, well, what else can you do? There was noise before the penalty shootout, the prospect that haunts England more than any other. It was a day of noise. It has been, over the last few weeks, as England has edged closer and closer to ending what it regards as its years of hurt, a month of noise.What all of those inside Wembley will remember, though, the thing that will come back to them whenever they allow — whenever they can allow — their minds to flick back to this day, this moment, is not the noise but the sudden removal of it, the instant absence of it. No sound will echo for as long as that: the oppressive, overwhelming sound of a stadium, of a country, that had been dreaming, and now, started, had been awakened, brutally, into the cold light of day.Many England fans had never seen their team lift a major trophy. Many, now, still haven’t.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesSolipsism does not fully explain England’s many and varied disappointments over the last 55 years, but it is certainly a contributory factor. Before every tournament, England asserts its belief that it is the team, the nation, that possesses true agency: the sense that, ultimately, whether England succeeds or fails will be down, exclusively, to its own actions. England is not beaten by an opponent; it loses by itself.This, as it happens, may have been the first time that theory had the ring of truth. England hosted more games than any country in Euro 2020. Wembley was home to both the semifinals and the final. More important, Southgate had at his disposal a squad that was — France apart, perhaps — the envy of every other team here, a roster brimming with young talent, nurtured at club teams by the best coaches in the world. This was a tournament for England to win.In that telling of Euro 2020, Italy was somewhere between a subplot and a supporting cast. That is the solipsism talking again, though. Perhaps this tournament was never about England, desperately seeking the moment of redemption it has awaited for so long. Perhaps the central character was Italy all along.Leonardo Bonucci bundled in Italy’s tying goal in the 67th minute.Pool photo by Facundo ArrizabalagaIn the streets of Manhattan and elsewhere, Italy fans found hope in the shifting momentum.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesItaly’s journey does not have the grand historical sweep of England’s, of course — it won the World Cup only 15 years ago, and that is not the only one in its cabinet — but perhaps the story is actually about a country that did not even qualify for the World Cup in 2018, that seemed to have allowed its soccer culture to grow stale, moribund, that appeared to have been left behind. Instead, it has been transformed into a champion, once again, in the space of just three years.Roberto Mancini’s Italy has illuminated this tournament at every turn: through the verve and panache with which it swept through the group stage, and the grit and sinew with which it reached the final. And how, against a team with deeper resources and backed by a partisan crowd, it took control of someone else’s dream.In those first few minutes on Sunday at Wembley, when it felt as if England was in the grip of some mass out-of-body experience, as Leicester Square was descending into chaos and the barriers around Wembley were being stormed, again and again, by ticketless fans who did not want to be standing outside when history was being made, Italy might have been swept away by it all.All day the England fans had sung, their noise filling first the streets and the squares, and then the air inside Wembley.Jane Stockdale for The New York TimesThe noise and the energy made the stadium feel just a little wild, edgy and ferocious, and Mancini’s team seemed to freeze. England, at times, looked as if it might overrun its opponent, as if its story was so compelling as to be irresistible. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, Italy settled. Marco Verratti passed the ball to Jorginho. Jorginho passed it back. Bonucci and his redoubtable partner, Giorgio Chiellini, tackled when things were present and squeezed space when they were not.It felt England was losing the initiative, but really Italy was taking it. Federico Chiesa shot, low and fierce, drawing a save from Jordan Pickford. England sank back a little further. Italy scented blood. Bonucci tied the score, a scrambled sort of a goal, one borne more of determination than of skill, one befitting this Italy’s virtues perfectly.Extra time loomed. Mancini’s team would, whatever happened, make England wait. The clock ticked, and the prospect of penalties appeared on the horizon. For England, one last test, one last ghost to confront, and one last glimmer of hope. Andrea Belotti was the first to miss for Italy in the shootout. Wembley exulted. It roared, the same old combustion, releasing its nerves into the night sky.Andrea Belotti’s early miss opened the door to an England victory in the shootout.Pool photo by Facundo ArrizabalagaAll England had to do was score. It was, after two hours, after a whole month, after 55 years, the master of its destiny. It was, there and then, all about England. Marcus Rashford stepped forward. He had only been on the field for a couple of minutes, introduced specifically to take a penalty.As he approached the ball, he slowed, trying to tempt Gianluigi Donnarumma, the Italian goalkeeper, into revealing his intentions. Donnarumma did not move. Rashford slowed further. Donnarumma stood still, calling his bluff. Rashford got to the ball, and had to hit it. He skewed it left. It struck the foot of the post. And in that moment, the spell, the trance that had consumed a country, was broken.Jadon Sancho missed, too, his shot saved by Donnarumma. But so did Jorginho, Italy’s penalty specialist, when presented with the chance to win the game. For a moment, England had a reprieve. Perhaps its wait might soon be at an end. Perhaps the dream was still alive. Bukayo Saka, the youngest member of Southgate’s squad, walked forward. England had one more chance.But England soon missed, too. And when Gianluigi Donnarumma dove to punch away Bukayo Saka’s final shot, Italy was a champion again.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAnd then, just like that, it was over. There was still noise inside Wembley, from the massed ranks clad in blue at the opposite end of the field, pouring over each other in delight. But their noise seemed muffled, distant, as if it were coming from a different dimension, or from a future that we were not meant to know.Italy’s players, European champions now, sank to their knees in disbelief, in delight. England’s players stared blankly out into the stadium, desolate and distraught, unable to comprehend that it was over, that the tournament in which everything changed had not changed the most important thing of all, that the wait goes on. And the stadium, after all that noise, after all those songs, after all those dreams, stood silent, dumbstruck, and stared straight back. More
After facing a torrent of racist abuse online, Bukayo Saka said he didn’t want anyone to deal with such “hateful and hurtful messages.”After Bukayo Saka missed a penalty kick for England’s national team on Sunday in the final of the European soccer championship, he and several teammates were overwhelmed by a wave of racist abuse.On Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, people posted monkey emojis and racist epithets to insult Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, all Black players who missed their penalty kicks in the shootout against rival Italy. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Prince William and others swiftly denounced the ugly eruption of racist commentary, especially against a team that had come to symbolize England’s racial diversity.On Thursday, Saka, 19, spoke out for the first time since Sunday’s final. In a statement on Twitter, he condemned the online bigotry he and his fellow players have faced. After saying how disappointed and sorry he was with the loss, Saka took aim at Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, urging them to do more to crack down on the abuse.“To the social media platforms Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, I don’t want any child or adult to have to receive the hateful and hurtful messages that me, Marcus and Jadon have received this week,” Saka wrote. “I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages.”Saka’s comments added to growing calls for the platforms to take action against hate speech.On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson said he had warned representatives from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat that they would face fines under Britain’s planned online safety legislation if they failed to remove hate speech and racism from their platforms.England’s Football Association also released a statement, saying that “social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making the platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse.”Facebook, which owns Instagram, said it was removing comments and accounts that had directed abuse at England’s team and was providing information to law enforcement authorities. Four people have been arrested over online racist attacks aimed at England’s players, the British police said on Thursday.Twitter said it had removed more than 1,000 tweets and permanently suspended “a number of accounts” for violating its rules.Facebook and Twitter have long had trouble grappling with hate speech on their platforms. Last year, during the Black Lives Matter movement and just months before the presidential election, civil rights groups called on advertisers to boycott Facebook if it did not do more to tackle toxic speech and misinformation on its site.The issue became especially heated last year ahead of the presidential election, when President Donald J. Trump spread falsehoods about voting and made veiled threats against lawmakers. In January, after a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, Twitter and Facebook barred Mr. Trump from their platforms for speech that they said had the potential of inciting more violence. More
The police arrested the N.F.L. cornerback on Wednesday morning. They said he had fled the scene of a single-car crash and had tried to enter his in-laws’ house by force.Richard Sherman, the free-agent cornerback who is one of the most visible stars in the N.F.L., was arrested early Wednesday morning in Redmond, Wash., and booked into jail after the police said he tried to break down a door to enter the house of his in-laws. More
The players who battled for the Euro 2020 title will walk away from the tournament and right into a new season.LONDON — Giorgio Chiellini and Leonardo Bonucci had a full day of activities planned. They left England in the small hours of Monday morning, and landed back in Rome together with the rest of Italy’s exultant and exhausted Euro 2020 champions not long after dawn. There, they presented the glinting, silver spoils of their campaign to their public. Chiellini was wearing a crown.From there, Italy’s coach, Roberto Mancini, slipped away to snatch a brief moment with his family, and the players were whisked to a hotel. The team would have the morning to sleep, reporters were told, before gathering once more for a celebratory lunch.Monday afternoon brought a full slate of appointments: Chiellini, the Italy captain, was scheduled to present his teammates to Sergio Mattarella, the country’s president, at the Quirinale at 5 p.m., and then lead them to a reception with Mario Draghi, the prime minister, at Palazzo Chigi an hour and a half later. The country’s authorities, as of Monday morning, were still exploring whether they might squeeze in a victory parade. By Monday afternoon, that, too, had been arranged. Only once all of that is done will Chiellini, Bonucci and the rest of the players be able to draw the curtain on their season. A couple of days later, their other set of teammates — the ones with whom they spend most of their days at their club side, Juventus — will report back for the first day of preseason training.Pool photo by Laurence GriffithsAlberto Lingria/ReutersFor Italy, a whirlwind 24 hours went from photos on the field to a raucous return to Rome and then, after a short nap, a trip to meet the country’s president.Angelo Carconi/EPA, via ShutterstockThe club is not expecting much of a turnout. As well as its two central defenders, Chiellini and Bonucci, Juventus knows that their Italy teammates Federico Chiesa and Federico Bernadeschi will be absent as well.So, too, will the various representatives of Juventus who have been engaged by other nations over the last few weeks: Álvaro Morata, whose Spain side was eliminated by Italy in the European Championship semifinals, and the defenders Alex Sandro and Danilo, part of the Brazil squad that lost the Copa América final a few hours before Italy’s triumph. Adrien Rabiot, Matthijs de Ligt, Cristiano Ronaldo and all of the others have been given an extra couple of weeks’ break, too.They will need it. This summer’s championships — in Europe and in South America — have come at the end of a long and arduous schedule, one that stretches back beyond the start of this season, in September, to the resumption of soccer after the hiatus enforced by the coronavirus pandemic.Many of these players have been playing, with only the most cursory of intermissions, since last June: 13 months of uninterrupted slog, prompting warnings from Fifpro, the global players’ union, various managers and, increasingly, the players themselves not only that they were being placed at risk of injury, but that their workload was too great to expect them to be able to perform at their best.It would be comforting to think, with Euro 2020 and the Copa América — though not yet the Gold Cup in North America — now decided that the slog is over; that soccer has caught up with the three months it lost in the first wave of the pandemic, that everything will go back to normal now. In England, clubs are already planning for games with full stadiums as soon as the Premier League gets underway on the second weekend of August.The reality is a little different. June 30 is the date that, traditionally, marks the end of the soccer year. That is the moment at which contracts expire or renew, when clubs release the players they no longer require, when one season silently turns into the next. It fell, this year, as it so often does, in the middle of a tournament. But as one season bleeds into another, the slog has only just reached its midway point. And for that, soccer has nothing to blame but itself.The first game of the 2022 World Cup is fewer than 500 days away. The tournament, scheduled for the winter to avoid the stifling summer heat in the Gulf, is scheduled to get underway on Nov. 21 next year. Qatar, the host, will be involved in that fixture. Thanks to the delay caused by the pandemic, nobody else is even close to qualifying.Pool photo by Andy RainPool photo by Laurence GriffithsMarcus Rashford, top left, Declan Rice and the majority of England’s players will soon be back in training for the new Premier League season, which starts in the middle of August.Pool photo by Carl RecineIn Europe, most teams still have six qualifying matches to play; several more will have to negotiate a playoff before claiming their places. In Asia, the group stages have yet even to start. Africa, too, is not yet underway, and it has a continental championship to fit in: the Cup of Nations is slated to take place in Cameroon in January. South America’s prolonged qualifying process is a third of the way through: Brazil sits atop the standings after six games, but still has 12 left to play.And in North America, the expanded final round of qualifying will not start until September, with teams set to play 14 games to discover which ones will join Mexico, the region’s only sure thing, in the finals next year. All of that has to fit into a club calendar already squeezed by the timing shift necessary to accommodate, for the first time and contrary to what was originally advertised, a World Cup held in the northern hemisphere’s winter.That will force Europe’s major domestic leagues — the competitions that will provide the bulk of the players for the World Cup — to start the 2022-23 season just a little earlier, in order to allow a monthlong break right in the middle of their campaigns. But that does not mean the forthcoming season will finish any earlier: the Champions League final, the climax of the 2021-22 club campaign, is scheduled for May 28, in St. Petersburg. Once again, what little elastic that can be found will come out of the players’ chance to rest.It is not, in fact, until the summer of 2023 that the world’s elite men’s players will have a summer to rest and to recuperate properly. Most of them, the Europeans and South Americans, anyway. There is another Cup of Nations scheduled for Africa that summer, and a further Gold Cup, too.As ever, it is the players who will pay the price, and especially, ironically, those who enjoy the greatest success. It was hard, at Wembley on Sunday evening, not to be impressed by the composure, the calm, the obduracy of Chiellini and Bonucci, those grizzled old warriors at the heart of Italy’s defense. They have 220 international caps between them.They have been doing this for almost two decades, now. They deserve the pomp and ceremony of an official reception with the Italian president. More than anything, though, they deserve a break. They can have one, now. But they should just make sure they are back at work in two weeks. More
Barcelona’s financial woes and the expiration of its star’s contract have left the club in a bind. And the only solution — about $200 million in salary cuts — won’t be easy.When Lionel Messi stepped off the field late Saturday night after the final of the Copa América, the Argentina captain — one of the most celebrated athletes in history — was, at long last, a champion in his national colors.He was also, only weeks after his 34th birthday, unemployed.Messi’s talent has never been in question. A six-time world player of the year, he is among the best players of his or any generation. His professional future, though, and even his ability to suit up for F.C. Barcelona next season, is suddenly very much in doubt.Messi wants to stay at Barcelona, the only professional home he has ever known, and Barcelona desperately wants to keep him. But the club’s dire financial straits and a series of fateful decisions by team management — including the potentially disastrous one to let Messi’s contract expire at the end of June — have imperiled what is arguably the most successful association between a club and a single player in soccer history.And the vise, in the form of Spanish soccer’s strict financial rules, is tightening by the day.Lionel Messi and his teammates received a hero’s welcome on their return to Argentina after winning the Copa América.Juan Ignacio Roncoroni/EPA, via ShutterstockMessi said nothing about his contract situation over the last month while leading Argentina to victory in the Copa América in Brazil. And Barcelona’s new president, Joan Laporta, has tried to present a confident front. “Everything’s on track,” he told news crews camped outside his offices last week, when he and other Barcelona executives had huddled in search of a solution.But the problem is that Messi’s future may no longer be in the player’s hands, or his club’s. Spanish league rules limit each club’s spending to only a percentage of club revenue, and league officials have said repeatedly that they not will weaken their rules to accommodate Barcelona, which is far over that limit.In short, if Barcelona cannot cut 200 million euros, or about $240 million, from its wage bill this summer — an almost impossibly large sum in a soccer economy cratered by the pandemic — it will not be allowed to register any new players, including Messi, for next season. (Barcelona’s decision to allow Messi’s contract to expire last month means he now must be registered as a new signing, instead of a renewal, which might have been easier.)A rupture between Messi and Barcelona would be seismic for both sides. Messi has been the focal point of Barcelona for nearly two decades, the architect of much of its success on the field and the engine of its financial might away from it.But while Barcelona has collected money at breathtaking speed in recent years — in 2019 it became the first club to surpass $1 billion in annual revenue — it also spent with even more alacrity, living life on the financial edge through impulsive management, rash decisions and imprudent contracts. Messi’s most recent four-year deal alone, if he met every clause and condition, was worth almost $675 million, a sum so large that it had an inflationary affect on the salaries of all of his teammates, fueling a payroll that now eats up about three-fourths of Barcelona’s annual revenue.Now, facing debts of more than 1 billion euros and losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Barcelona is struggling to balance its books in a way that adheres to league rules.It is partly because of Messi, of course, that Barcelona finds itself on the brink. Its losses in the past two years have surpassed more than $500 million, much of that because of rich contracts like the one Barcelona’s former administration gave Messi in the fall of 2017.Details of the 30-page deal, which was leaked to a Spanish newspaper, are a testament to Barcelona’s taste for living on the edge: A salary of about $1.4 million a week. A signing bonus of $139 million. A “loyalty” bonus — to a player it has employed since he was 13 — of $93 million.A new contract, yet to be completed, almost certainly will require Messi, one of the world’s most valuable athletes, to accept a substantial pay cut.Victor Font, one of the losing candidates in this year’s presidential election, said he was surprised the team had yet to make the financial arrangements required to keep Messi. But like Laporta, he said he was convinced Messi would remain with the club.“The alternative would be so much of a disappointment that I cannot think there’s an alternative,” Font said in a telephone interview.Messi’s contract with Barcelona expired last month. Signing him to a new one that doesn’t require a significant pay cut will be difficult.Albert Gea/ReutersThe team is not getting any sympathy, or preferential treatment, from the Spanish league. Javier Tebas, the league’s chief executive, told reporters this week that Barcelona only has itself to blame for its financial crisis. Yes, he told reporters, the coronavirus pandemic had battered the team’s finances, but other teams — notably Barcelona’s archrival Real Madrid — have found ways to operate within the league’s rules.The issue, Tebas said, was that Barcelona has no room to maneuver. The league calculates different limits for each team based on each club’s income statements, but caps spending at 70 percent of revenues.“It’s not normal for clubs to spend right up to the last euro of the salary limit,” Tebas said.It is not just Messi’s fate that hangs in the balance, either. Barcelona has already announced the signings of his friend and Argentina teammate Sergio Agüero for next season, as well as those of the Netherlands forward Memphis Depay and the Spanish national team defender Eric García.All three arrived as free agents, meaning Barcelona did not have to pay multimillion-dollar transfer fees to their former clubs, but the league will not register any of them, or Messi, until the club first makes deep cuts to its costs.Barcelona’s new president, Joan Laporta, introduced Sergio Agüero as a Barcelona player in May. But the club is currently not able to register him with the Spanish league.Joan Monfort/Associated PressIn an effort to create some financial wiggle room, the club has been furiously working to offload players, tearing up contracts with fringe talents and negotiating the exits of some of its other stars. But all of its biggest earners remain, and with the transfer market deflated by the lingering effects of the pandemic, it is unlikely to receive significant offers from rivals for players those teams know it needs to sell.Instead, Barcelona may be pushed to sell off key players — the German goalkeeper Marc Andre ter Stegen, the Dutch playmaker Frenkie de Jong and even Pedri, the latest locally reared Barcelona starlet, would most likely bring the highest returns — in order to make ends meet.Font said he expected that Barcelona would prioritize re-signing Messi, even if that meant some of the team’s newest signings, or other key players currently under contract, would have to go.“It’s a matter of trade offs,” Font said. “You may not register other players, but you will not prioritize others over Messi.”But if, as is likely, Barcelona will not be able to make the necessary cuts, it will find itself in another bind. Under the Spanish league regulations, a team can spend only a quarter of the money it receives from player sales on new contracts. That means even if it can clear tens of millions of dollars off the books, it will have only a fraction of that total available to sign Messi — or anyone else.Could the unthinkable — Barcelona’s losing Messi for free — be imminent? Perhaps. But La Liga said as recently as last week that there would be no exceptions, no special rules to keep him in Spain.“Of course we want Messi to stay,” said Tebas, La Liga’s chief executive. “But when you are running a league you cannot base decisions on individual players or clubs.” More
The national team beat England in the final of the European Championship soccer tournament, and the country wildly celebrated a win that seemed to symbolize renewal after adversity.ROME — The eruption of sheer joy — and car honking and horn blowing and firework exploding and hugging, so much hugging — across Italy on Sunday after its national men’s soccer team defeated England to win the Euro 2020 tournament marked an extraordinary turnaround, not just for a recently beleaguered team, but also for a recently beleaguered country. More
Italy is in a tight huddle and England is a looser one as their coaching staff pick their penalty takers. But the tension ahead of the shootout is palpable. All that work, and it comes down to this.Kane and Chiellini meet with Kuipers for the toss. Kane picks the end on the first coin flip, and chooses the goal in front of the England supporters. Chiellini elects to have Italy go first on the second toss.We’ll just play this straight down the line here now, one by one, so keep refreshing:Domenico Berardi goes first. AND SCORES!Italy leads, 1-0.Now it’s Harry Kane. KANE SCORES! 1-1.Italy 1, England 1.———Belotti for Italy. PICKFORD SAVES!Still tied, 1-1.Harry Maguire. MAGUIRE SCORES!England 2, Italy 1.———Bonucci for Italy. BONUCCI SCORES!Italy 2, England 2.Marcus Rashford now. HE HITS THE POST!Italy 2, England 2. Advantage gone.Pool photo by John Sibley———Bernardeschi for Italy. SCORES!Italy 3, England 2.Sancho up next. SAVED BY DONNARUMMA!!Italy 3, England 2.Italy can win it here.———Jorginho. Who beat Spain. Who takes Chelsea’s penalties. For the win.Watch for the hop.PICKFORD SAVES! He read it and pushed it onto the post!!What a moment!Italy 3, England 2.Bukayo Saka for England.He must score.SAVED!!!!ITALY HAS WON THE EUROS!!! More
