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Hello! Fresh out of the oven this morning — Mohamed Salah has signed a new two-year contract at Liverpool. We have all the details of a huge development here.
Keep your eyes on The Athletic for the definitive inside read on a year of exhaustive negotiations. This is why they fought to keep him:
Also in today’s TAFC:
💸 Chelsea and financial loopholes
🔮 Onana prophecy comes true
👀 Real Madrid eye PL defenders
🇺🇸 Euro games headed to the States?
Chelsea’s balancing act ⚖️ PSR and the delicate world of Premier League finances
Chelsea fans protest against the club’s owners before facing Southampton in February (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
The incoherence of Chelsea’s squad won’t stop the Conference League from being theirs for the taking. One leg of their quarter-final against Legia Warsaw yesterday was all it took to make progress a formality.
Through good results and bad, though, the squad is what dominates conversations around Stamford Bridge: how it was built, the money burned on it and, most contentiously, how the huge outlay is avoiding a breach of the financial rules governing the Premier League. The really interesting thing about Chelsea is their activity behind the scenes.
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The club have consistently stayed in line with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR). Some would regard their compliance as extraordinary when you consider Chelsea have spent more than £1billion ($1.30bn) on players across the past three years — the period in which a Premier League club’s losses can hit a maximum of £105m.
Two bold accounting moves have kept them within the limit:
Chelsea have also used more conventional methods to keep their finances in check. Handing long contracts to players — some, including Cole Palmer’s, cover the best part of a decade — allows them to spread the cost of a signing across different accounting periods. They also sell fringe players at a rate of knots to claw cash back in.
But raising funds from the in-house sales of their own properties and women’s team is contentious. Oli Kay thinks it reflects poorly on the Premier League, a governing body falling short of properly regulating its members.
Do other clubs care?
PSR exists to stop unsustainable spending and spending that skews competition levels — that’s the theory, anyway. The rules are controversial, largely because of perceived inconsistencies in how they are applied, which clubs are punished and the loopholes through which teams manage to comply.
But here’s the irony: as Oli explains, top-flight clubs had the chance to stop a repeat of Chelsea’s hotel sales at a vote last summer, yet they fell short of the majority required to alter the regulations. Why? As hypocritical as it sounds, some clubs realised that they might find themselves relying on those same accounting ploys one day. They weren’t keen to close a loophole that could benefit them in the future.
As an organisation, the Premier League is perennially surrounded by regulatory stress. Manchester City are fighting the league, among other things, over the interest-free loans some owners give to their teams (see graphic above). Yesterday, we explained how Bournemouth would have broken PSR limits had the Premier League not allowed the club to write off a £71.4m shareholder loan. Naturally, more eyebrows are being raised.
The UK government would like an independent regulator to encourage the Premier League to get a grip on all this. The introduction of one is pending. In the meantime, the competition continues to be a tangled world of finance — with Chelsea at its very centre.
A tale of two goalkeepers: Kelly saves the day but Onana drops the ball
(X/@footballontnt)
Nemanja Matic’s work is done. One dig and Manchester United goalkeeper Andre Onana duly ran off the rails, beaten by two soft goals in last night’s 2-2 Europa League draw against Lyon. The second, above, was just about the final kick of the game.
It’s all to play for at Old Trafford in Thursday’s quarter-final second leg, but United are labouring in the direction of a trophy that would qualify them for next season’s Champions League. Likewise, Tottenham Hotspur, who drew 1-1 with visitors Eintracht Frankfurt.
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When all’s said and done, teams who lie 13th and 14th in the Premier League shouldn’t be good enough to win European club football’s second-biggest tournament. United are actually unbeaten in the Europa League this season — it just doesn’t feel like it.
Up in Scotland, meanwhile, marbles were lost as Rangers, who played most of the match with 10 men after an early red card for defender Robin Propper, hung on through a goalless battle with Athletic Club.
The real fun started late on. The Spaniards scored, only for the finish to be disallowed for offside. The VAR then spotted a Rangers handball in the build-up and awarded them a penalty instead. Alex Berenguer, who had netted the disallowed effort, took the spot kick, at which point (if you’re still with me) goalkeeper Liam Kelly saved it with his toe, below. To the uninitiated, this is why football is bad for your health.
(X/@footballontnt)
EPL In USA? Settlement clears path to host European league matches
Important news from the United States — and a story that should fire up the arms race to host other countries’ league matches on American soil.
Last year, promoter Relevent Sports — a firm hoping to bring La Liga, Serie A and even Premier League fixtures stateside — settled a lawsuit with FIFA, world football’s governing body. The case was blocking Relevent’s grand plans.
Yesterday, it reached a resolution with a second party involved in the dispute, the U.S. Soccer Federation. Melanie Anzidei explains exactly what this means, but to sum up, Relevent (co-founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross) has cleared its last serious obstacle to take official league matches on tour. FIFA is discussing new regulations allowing it.
Litigation is over. Put simply, it’s going to happen.
Saliba and Huijsen on Real Madrid’s centre-back shopping list 🛒
Whether manager Carlo Ancelotti stays or goes, Real Madrid are crying out for defenders, with a centre-back a priority. They’ve paid for sitting on their hands in the January transfer window.
Our Madrid writer, Mario Cortegana, has his ear to the ground on prospective moves. Here’s the info he’s bringing us today:
- Arsenal’s William Saliba would be Madrid’s top pick, but a contract running to 2027 makes the Frenchman hard to prise out of the Emirates Stadium this summer.
- Dean Huijsen is flavour of the month and also floats the Bernabeu’s boat. Unfortunately, his £50m release clause at Bournemouth might be beyond them. In transfer terms, Madrid aren’t wildly cash rich.
- Jonathan Tah fits the bill. He is experienced and will be a free agent when his Bayer Leverkusen deal expires in June. Join the dots and, a bit like Antonio Rudiger’s free transfer from Chelsea in 2022, you can see why Tah, 29, would suit.
Catch a match 📺
(Kick-offs ET/UK time)
Friday
Serie A: Udinese vs Milan, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, Fubo/OneFootball.
Saturday
Premier League: Manchester City vs Crystal Palace, 7.30am/12.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/TNT Sports; Arsenal vs Brentford, 12.30pm/5.30pm — NBC, Peacock Premium, Fubo/Sky Sports.
La Liga: Leganes vs Barcelona, 3pm/8pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.
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German Bundesliga: Bayern Munich vs Borussia Dortmund, 12.30pm/5.30pm — ESPN, Fubo/Sky Sports.
Sunday
Premier League: Liverpool vs West Ham United, 9am/2pm; Newcastle United vs Manchester United, 11.30am/4.30pm — both USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports.
La Liga: Alaves vs Real Madrid, 10.15am/3.15pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports.
MLS: Chicago Fire vs Inter Miami, 4.30pm/9.30pm — MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.
And Finally…
¡Bajala como puedas! 😮💨👀 ¿Puntuación del control del señor Segundo Castillo?@BarcelonaSC #Libertadores #GloriaEterna pic.twitter.com/KTXZcwxlIy
— CONMEBOL Libertadores (@Libertadores) April 9, 2025
Chapter two in the opus of Segundo Castillo, the well-dressed coach of Ecuador’s Barcelona SC (in the words of Wiki, not to be confused with FC Barcelona).
Last time he featured in TAFC, he was wearing a white tuxedo on the touchline. This week, for a Copa Libertadores game against Argentina’s River Plate, he went pink instead — and not only that, he wowed those watching by controlling a dropping ball as if he had glue on his toes. Get this man to Broadway.
(Top photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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PHILADELPHIA — Howie Roseman strode into the auditorium with a grin, with a quip prepared for the bleary-eyed reporters who stuck around the NovaCare Complex into the wee hours of the NFL Draft’s second night only for the Philadelphia Eagles general manager to trade out of the third round.“Rest up for next year, Friday night, because we are working next year on Friday night,” Roseman said.AdvertisementIndeed, Day 2 in 2026 is scheduled to be a marathon. The Eagles have a second round pick and three other selections in the third round. They’ve never had more than three in a given draft since Roseman was first named general manager in 2010. Next year promises to offer more flare than Friday night did. The Eagles spent the No. 64 pick on Texas safety Andrew Mukuba, then used Nos. 96 and 134 within a series […]
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