Manchester City’s chief executive struck a defiant note Wednesday in his first public comments on the team’s possible ban from the Champions League, saying charges that the club broke cost-control regulations in pursuit of on-field success were untrue. The chief executive, Ferran Soriano, made his comments in a video interview posted on the team’s website […] More
DORTMUND, Germany — Borussia Dortmund’s players hung back a little, idling halfway between the center circle and the goal. With Paris St.-Germain jerseys slung over their shoulders, the spoils of battle, they clapped each other on the back, they exchanged high fives, they ruffled each others’ hair. Most of all, though, they waited for him […] More
MADRID — Atlético Madrid scored early and then defended well to beat Liverpool, 1-0, in the first leg of the Champions League’s round of 16 on Tuesday, spoiling the reigning champion’s return to the place where it had won the European title last year. Midfielder Saúl Ñíguez netted in the fourth minute, and Atlético’s defense […] More
MADRID — Diego Simeone loved the way the sunlight hit the stands at the Vicente Calderón. First as an Atlético Madrid player, and then as its manager, he relished home games in the stadium in late afternoon, when he could look up from the field and see the red and white seats glinting in the […] More
MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City needed only a few minutes to come out swinging. It has been that way right from the start, right from the moment Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, started publishing the series of exposés that became known as Football Leaks. City responded to the allegations contained in those leaks — not […] More
Manchester City, the reigning Premier League champion and one of the world’s richest soccer clubs, has been barred from the Champions League for the next two seasons for “serious breaches” of European soccer’s financial regulations. The decision, announced Friday by an independent financial control body of UEFA, the governing body for soccer in Europe, found […] More
The situation, as Zenit St. Petersburg’s players trooped back into their changing room in Lisbon’s Estádio da Luz, was encouraging. From the moment the Champions League’s groups had been drawn in August, Group G had the look of the most finely-poised, the least predictable: no obvious favorite, no vast financial disparity, no doomed makeweights. So […] More
Last spring, days after news reports revealed the English soccer champion Manchester City was facing expulsion from the Champions League, European soccer’s governing body confirmed the club was indeed in danger. Its investigators had found the club had breached financial control regulations to such an extent that it recommended the team be punished. Manchester City […] More
