Governing Bodies
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ADAPTS TO A FLUID CONCEPT – HOME AND AWAY
Two European football giants, Atletico Madrid and Chelsea, will meet in the Champions League on Tuesday (Feb 23).
The site of this much anticipated game? Bucharest, Romania.
On Wednesday, Manchester City will play German team Borussia Monchengladbach. That game will be in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, where English champions Liverpool beat Germany’s RB Leipzig last week.
In the Europa League, the continent’s second-tier club championship, neutral sites are now almost as common as home games. Last week, Spanish and English teams played in Italy, and teams from Norway and Germany met in Spain. On Thursday, a week after London club Arsenal played to a draw against Portugal’s Benfica in Rome, the teams will meet again in the second leg of their not-home-and-home tie near Athens.
The pandemic has wreaked havoc with international sports schedules for a year, and that chaos continues to have an effect on football’s biggest club tournaments. The reasons – government edicts, travel restrictions and quarantine rules – vary around Europe.
In some countries, teams are still allowed to travel to and from their opponents’ stadiums without issue. In others, countries have blocked entry to visitors from entire nations or drawn up onerous rules that make such travel impractical in a football season when teams often play two or three games a week.
Uefa, the European football governing body that runs the competitions, has decided that if restrictions adversely affect any game, it will be played at a neutral site where travel is permitted. But the decision to play knockout games in places seemingly chosen at random has led to confusion and not a little grumbling.
Real Sociedad, for example, played their “home” leg against Manchester United last week in Turin, Italy, but will play the return match at United’s home, Old Trafford, on Thursday.
“It does not seem coherent to me that as the home team, we play on a neutral field, and as a visitor, we do it there,” Roberto Olabe, Real Sociedad’s director of football, told Diario Vasco. “I would like the return to also be on neutral ground or for Uefa to appoint a single venue for a one-game tie as it did last year.”
The displeasure has not been universal. Both Hungary and Romania, whose teams almost never go deep in major European competitions, have been eager to bring the games to their countries – even if, in many cases, they must still be played behind closed doors.
“A match played in the framework of the most prestigious European inter-club competition is a major sporting event, and we offered our support to the organisers as soon as this possibility was raised,” the Romanian football federation president, Razvan Burleanu, told Agence France-Presse.
The playing of some games at neutral sites has turned the first tiebreaker for the tournament, the away-goals rule, into something of a paradox. Normally, if a home-and-away tie ends with neither team ahead in total goals, the team with the most goals away from home advances. The logic is that scoring away from home is a little harder in a hostile environment and should get a small bonus.
But home is not the same for everyone. Chelsea, for example, will play their away game not at Atletico’s Wanda Metropolitano stadium but on neutral ground in Bucharest. But any goals scored there still will count as away goals only for the English team.
Atletico will then have to defend, or make up, any difference in the score line on Chelsea’s home field in London next month.
For the Benfica-Arsenal match-up, the away-goals rule seemed even more puzzlingly arbitrary. The first leg in Rome ended in a 1-1 tie, when Arsenal were considered the away team. Benfica will be the away team in Greece, but if that leg ends in a higher-scoring draw – say, 2-2 – Benfica will advance by having scored more away goals.
(Some European football traditions appear immune to the coronavirus: Serbian club Red Star Belgrade were forced to apologise last week after some of their fans broke into a closed stadium for a Europa League tie against Milan and racially abused Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is of Bosnian descent.)
Football’s scheduling problems may not be over, however. The continuing reach of the pandemic has called into question the plans to stage this summer’s European Championship in 12 cities around Europe. Traditionally, the event has been a less-sprawling affair hosted by one country or a pair of neighbouring ones.
Given the travel complications laid bare by the club competitions, the idea of national teams flying around Europe seems foolhardy or downright dangerous. Already there are calls for relocating the entire tournament to a single county, probably England, which is already scheduled to host the two semi-finals and the final.
Over the weekend, The Sunday Times of London reported that the British government had told Uefa it was ready and willing to stand in as host of the full schedule of games, although the country’s health minister promptly denied that report.
-New York Times
World football governing body, FIFA, today clocks its 122nd anniversary, celebrating more than a century of overseeing and expanding the global game.
Founded on May 21, 1904, in Paris, France, FIFA began with just seven member associations — France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
From that modest beginning, the organisation has grown into the most influential sports governing body in the world, with 211 member associations spread across all continents.
Over the decades, FIFA has transformed football into a truly global phenomenon through competitions such as the FIFA World Cup, Women’s World Cup, Club World Cup, youth tournaments, and developmental programmes aimed at growing the game worldwide.
The organisation has also witnessed remarkable milestones, including the expansion of the men’s World Cup from 13 teams in 1930 to 48 teams beginning from the 2026 edition to be jointly hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
FIFA’s journey has equally reflected football’s growing influence beyond sport, with the game becoming a major tool for diplomacy, social inclusion, youth empowerment, and economic development across the world.
As FIFA celebrates 122 years of existence, attention is now focused on the future of the game, technological innovations, expanded competitions, women’s football growth, and the continued globalisation of football.
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UEFA has issued a lifetime ban to Petr Vlachovsky, a Czech women’s soccer coach who secretly filmed his players, the governing body announced on Tuesday.
Czech media reported that the coach was convicted in May 2025 and initially received a suspended one-year prison sentence and a five-year domestic coaching ban for filming FC Slovacko’s players in changing rooms, the youngest of whom was 17.
In a statement, UEFA’s Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) said it had decided to ban Vlachovsky “from exercising any football-related activity for life” following the appointment of an Ethics and Disciplinary Inspector to investigate allegations of potential misconduct.
“The CEDB further decided to request FIFA to extend the abovementioned ban on a worldwide level and to order the Football Association of the Czech Republic to revoke Mr Petr Vlachovsky’s coaching licence,” the statement added.
FC Slovacko did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Football players’ union FIFPRO welcomed the ban as well as UEFA’s request for world soccer governing body FIFA to impose an international ban on Vlachovsky.
“This outcome sends a strong and necessary message that abusive and inappropriate behaviour has no place in football and that safeguarding the well-being of players must remain a priority at every level of the game,” FIFPRO added in a statement.
Vlachovsky had also previously served as coach of the Czech women’s Under-19s team.
RELATED STORY: https://sportsvillagesquare.com/2026/04/08/outrage-as-male-coach-who-secretly-filmed-women-players-still-free-to-work-in-football/
-Reuters
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Southampton have been kicked out of the Championship playoff final after being found guilty of spying on semi-final opponents Middlesbrough, the English Football League said on Tuesday.
Middlesbrough, who lost 2-1 to Southampton on aggregate in the semi, have been reinstated and will face Hull City on Saturday in what is dubbed the world’s richest soccer match.
Promotion to the Premier League, even with an immediate relegation, is estimated to be worth in the region of 200 million pounds ($268.10 million) over three seasons.
Southampton, who admitted the charges, were also found guilty of filming training sessions involving Oxford United in December and Ipswich Town in April during the regular season.
They have also been deducted four points from the start of next season in England’s second tier.
“An Independent Disciplinary Commission has today expelled Southampton from the Championship play-offs after the club admitted multiple breaches of EFL regulations related to the unauthorised filming of other clubs’ training,” the EFL said.
“Southampton admitted breaches of Regulations requiring Clubs to act with the utmost good faith and prohibiting the observation of another Club’s training session within 72 hours of a scheduled match.
“The effect of today’s order is that Middlesbrough are reinstated into the 2026 play-offs and will proceed to the play-off final against Hull City. The final remains scheduled for Saturday 23 May, with the kick-off time to be confirmed.”
The EFL confirmed that Southampton could appeal against the decision and that “parties are working to try and resolve any appeal on Wednesday 20 May.
“Subject to the outcome, it could result in a further change to Saturday’s fixture,” the statement said.
‘BORO CALLED FOR SOUTHAMPTON EXPULSION
Middlesbrough had called for Southampton’s expulsion after having a training session at their Rockliffe Park site filmed 48 hours ahead of the first leg of their playoff semi-final with Southampton which ended 0-0.
The north-east club said they welcomed the decision.
“We believe this sends out a clear message for the future of our game regarding sporting integrity and conduct,” the north Middlesbrough said in a statement.
“As a club, we are now focused on our game against Hull City at Wembley on Saturday.”
Southampton were relegated from the Premier League last season and were struggling in the early part of this campaign until a storming finish in which they went unbeaten in 19 league games to finish fourth and enter the playoffs.
The south-coast club are the first to fall foul of the Football League’s regulation 127 — brought in after Leeds United were found guilty of spying on Derby County seven years ago, an offence for which they were fined 200,000 pounds.
-Reuters
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