London (AFP) – Crystal Palace's Senegalese left-back Pape Souare has returned to full training after sustaining serious injuries in a car crash 11 months ago, his club revealed on Wednesday. Souare, 27, had to be airlifted to hospital with a broken leg and jaw after the accident on the M4 motorway in London in September […]

London (AFP) – Ahead of Arsenal's home game with Leicester City in the curtain-raiser to the new Premier League season on Friday, AFP Sport selects the 10 biggest transfers of the close season: Romelu Lukaku – Everton to Manchester United; £75 million ($97.5 million, 83 million euros) rising to £90 million* After four increasingly prolific […]

London (AFP) – Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said on Wednesday he has had no contact with Paris Saint-Germain regarding Alexis Sanchez, who will miss the start of the season through injury. Sanchez, 28, has been linked with a move to PSG, who have just completed a world-record 222 million euros ($260 million) swoop for Barcelona […]

London (AFP) – Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore does not expect to see Premier League clubs pulling off transfers to match Neymar's record-breaking move to Paris Saint-Germain, he said on Wednesday. "I can't see anything like that (in the Premier League)," Scudamore told BBC Radio 5 Live. "When the previous record was £89 million […]

Shanghai (AFP) – Chinese football is being held back by poor running of its football association, a senior FA official has admitted in unusually forthright terms, saying "there is no vision or foresight". The Chinese Super League (CSL) has hit international headlines with a wave of big-name foreign signings but the national team ranks a […]

Jakarta (AFP) – Former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Didier Zokora has been released by Semen Padang, the club said Wednesday, becoming the second big foreign signing to be axed in Indonesia's new national league in just a week. The Ivory Coast international, who only signed for the Padang-based club four months ago, had his contract terminated […]

Seoul (AFP) – Former South Korean football star Park Ji-Sung has lamented a lack of unity in the national team as it struggles to qualify for the World Cup. The Taeguk Warriors have reached eight World Cups on the trot, but are in danger of missing out on direct entry to Russia 2018 after a […]

New York (AFP) – New York's most unlikely football league meets every Saturday in the Bronx. Its players are minors who arrived from Central America without their parents, with no documents or money. They made the dangerous journey here with one goal in mind: to escape the violence and poverty of their homelands. Now, the […]

London (AFP) – Rattled by a chastening first season in England, Pep Guardiola has gone back to the drawing board in an attempt to fashion Manchester City into Premier League champions. Expectations were sky-high when Guardiola alighted in Manchester after years of being courted by City, but a title challenge failed to materialise and his […]

Skopje (AFP) – Jose Mourinho insisted that Manchester United had emerged from their trip to Skopje for the UEFA Super Cup reinforced despite the scoreline flattering them in a 2-1 defeat to Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid. The Portuguese manager had expected his side to struggle against the reigning European champions and they could have conceded […]

Skopje (AFP) – A delightful goal by Isco proved the difference as Real Madrid survived a Manchester United fightback to win 2-1 and lift the UEFA Super Cup in the Macedonian capital of Skopje on Tuesday. Casemiro put the reigning European champions in front on 24 minutes on a steamy summer's night in the Balkans […]

Madrid (AFP) – Mexican international Carlos Vela will move to Major League Soccer in January, Real Sociedad confirmed on Tuesday. According to reports in the United States, Vela will join new franchise Los Angeles FC for the 2018 season. "Real Sociedad and Major League Soccer (MLS) have reached an agreement for the transfer of Carlos […]

Barcelona (AFP) – Barcelona are reportedly close to buying Liverpool playmaker Philippe Coutinho for a club record fee as the Catalans look to fill the void left by Neymar's world record move to Paris Saint-Germain. The Spanish giants already had an interest in Coutinho prior to Neymar's 222 million euro ($262 million) transfer to Paris […]

Paris (AFP) – Former Confederation of African Football president Issa Hayatou on Tuesday slammed his successor Ahmad Ahmad over claims that Cameroon is not ready to host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. Malagasy Ahmad, who ended Hayatou's 29-year reign as CAF president last March, had said that the country's infrastructure "wasn't ready" to host […]

Nice (France) (AFP) – Veteran Wesley Sneijder is dreaming of playing in a fourth World Cup next summer and believes a good season with Nice can help him achieve that aim. The 33-year-old, the most capped player in the Netherlands' history with 131 national team appearances, was the latest marquee signing to join the Cote […]