Governing Bodies
MAN CITY QUIT BREAKAWAY LEAGUE, CHELSEA SET TO FOLLOW

Manchester City started the process of withdrawing from the breakaway European Super League on Tuesday (April 20) less than 72 hours after agreeing to join, with Chelsea also reported to be quitting in a major blow for the proposed new competition.
City confirmed they wanted to pull out while fellow English club Chelsea were reported by local media to be preparing the paperwork to leave a project backed by US investment bank JP Morgan and headed by Real Madrid president Florentino Perez.
Twelve of Europe’s top football clubs had announced on Sunday they were launching a breakaway Super League in the face of widespread opposition from within the game and beyond.
However, the sport’s governing bodies, other teams and fan organisations said it would increase the power and wealth of the elite clubs and the partially closed structure of the league goes against European football’s long-standing model.
“Manchester City Football Club can confirm that it has formally enacted the procedures to withdraw from the group developing plans for a European Super League,” the Premier League club said in a statement.
The BBC reported that London club Chelsea were also set to pull out of the Super League following protests outside their stadium by fans on Tuesday before a Premier League match.
Adding to the sense of disarray, Manchester United executive vice chairman Ed Woodward, one of the key players in the breakaway move, tendered his resignation to the club.
The president of European soccer’s governing body Uefa, Aleksander Ceferin, was quick to welcome City’s decision.
“I am delighted to welcome City back to the European football family,” he said.
“They have shown great intelligence in listening to the many voices – most notably their fans – that have spelled out the vital benefits that the current system has for the whole of European football.
“It takes courage to admit a mistake but I have never doubted that they had the ability and common sense to make that decision,” he added.
The Super League organisation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Widespread opposition
The breakaway move has prompted a wave of protest from within the game, political world and public opinion, particularly in England.
The opposition has focused on the fact that the founder members of the league will be given automatic places in the competition – in contrast to Uefa’s elite Champions League where qualification must be earned.
Real Madrid’s Perez has argued that the new competition will generate increased revenue and benefit the entire game.
The news that Chelsea, owned by Russian Roman Abramovich, were taking steps to pull out, was celebrated wildly by Chelsea supporters who had held banners saying “Fans not customers.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was quick to encourage the rest of England’s teams to follow suit.
“The decision by Chelsea and Manchester City is – if confirmed – absolutely the right one and I commend them for it,” he wrote on twitter.
“I hope the other clubs involved in the European Super League will follow their lead.”
The 12 also include Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Liverpool, Italians Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan along with Spain’s Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
Woodward’s announcement that he will leave at the end of the year raises questions over United’s continued involvement while Liverpool have been under pressure from their fans.
Their German manager Juergen Klopp said: “I don’t like this either, but I don’t talk about the other clubs”.
Liverpool’s players have been open in their opposition to the breakaway.
Manchester City’s decision came a few hours after their Spanish manager Pep Guardiola criticised the idea of a league without qualification.
“Sport is not a sport when the relation between the effort and the success, the effort and the reward, doesn’t exist… It’s not sport when the success is already guaranteed. It’s not sport when it doesn’t matter if you lose,” he said.
Court ruling
City acted just hours after the Super League won a preliminary ruling from a Madrid court to stop Uefa and the sport’s global governing body Fifa from imposing sanctions designed to stop the new formation.
The company set up to run the new league is headquartered in Madrid.
The court said in a ruling seen by Reuters that Fifa, Uefa and all its associated federations must not adopt “any measure that prohibits, restricts, limits or conditions in any way” the Super League’s creation.
The Super League has been hoping that a mixture of defensive court actions and momentum would lead soccer’s authorities to accept their new competition within the game.
But Fifa president Gianni Infantino said that the clubs cannot be “half in, half out” of the established framework.
Uefa has threatened to ban the Super League’s 12 founding clubs from domestic and international competition, with Infantino adding his voice to the backlash.
“We strongly disapprove … if some go their own way then they must live with the consequences of their choice, either you are in, or you are out. You cannot be half in and half out,” Infantino told Uefa’s congress in Montreux, Switzerland.
The magnitude of the upheaval has led political leaders across Europe to speak out, and, in some cases, to threaten intervention.
British Prime Minister Johnson said his government would consider passing legislation to stop the breakaway, likening the plans to creating a cartel.
But amid continued condemnation and threats, Uefa’s Ceferin offered an olive branch to the breakaway dozen, asking them to “think again”.
The Premier League said it “unanimously and vigorously” rejected the plans. After a meeting with the 14 clubs not involved, it said it was considering “all actions available” to stop the new competition.
Ceferin accused the breakaway dozen of contempt for smaller clubs, but insisted there was still time for reconciliation.
“What matters is that there is still time to change your mind, everyone makes mistakes, English fans deserve to have you correct your mistake, they deserve respect,” he said.
-Reuters
Governing Bodies
IOC is in ‘best of hands’, says Bach as he hands over to Coventry

Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Governing Bodies
New IOC head Coventry already counting down to LA 2028

Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Governing Bodies
Accidental double-touch penalties must be retaken if scored, says IFAB

Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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