FIFA must show that it respects human rights and brandish the threat of withdrawing a World Cup to prove it means business, an independent review of football's world body said Thursday. The report by former UN special representative on human rights and business John Ruggie is likely to intensify pressure on 2022 hosts Qatar, widely […]

Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool will play Villarreal in the Europa League semi-finals while defending champions Sevilla face Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk. Liverpool, who hit back from 2-0 and 3-1 down to beat Klopp's former club Borussia Dortmund 4-3 and progress into the semis 5-4 on aggregate, have never played Villarreal before. Sevilla ousted fellow Spaniards Athletic Bilbao […]

Manchester City will play Real Madrid while Atletico Madrid will face Bayern Munich in the semi-finals of the Champions League, after the draw was made on Friday. The first leg of the semi-finals will be played on April 26-27, with the second leg scheduled for May 3-4. The final will take place at Milan's San […]

The 2015/16 season has been a bit of a strange one for the Gunners. It seems as if the north London club are always either in the middle of a high-scoring shootout, or fighting to a 0-0 draw. There hasn’t been much in between. In fact, Arsenal have been a part of 13 matches in […]

Barcelona's hopes of becoming the first side to retain the Champions League were dashed as they were eliminated 3-2 on aggregate by Atletico Madrid on Wednesday. A 2-0 defeat at the Vicente Calderon was Barca's third in four games after a 39-match unbeaten run stretching back the previous six months. Here, AFP Sports looks at […]

West Ham move home to the Olympic Stadium in August at a cost of £2.5million ($3.54 million) per year, it was revealed on Thursday. The Premier League side have taken up a 99-year tenancy agreement with The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC). West Ham's new landlords will meet running costs for the centerpiece of the […]

Hosts Brazil will open their bid for a first Olympic men's football title against South Africa after Thursday's draw was made in the Maracana Stadium. Brazil, three-time runners-up including in 2012, have won every title apart from the Olympics and are drawn in the same Group A as South Africa, Iraq and Denmark. "I'm very […]

France will introduce a play-off to decide the final promotion and relegation place between the top two divisions from next season, the French Football League (LFP) said on Thursday. The top two finishers in the second division — Ligue 2 — and the bottom two Ligue 1 sides will swap places as is the current […]

Dejan Lovren scored a heart-stopping stoppage-time header as Liverpool completed an astonishing comeback to beat Borussia Dortmund 4-3 on Thursday and reach the Europa League semi-finals. Held 1-1 in last week's first leg at the Westfalenstadion, Dortmund scored twice in nine minutes through Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to take a firm grip on the […]

Karim Benzema was axed from France's Euro 2016 squad so as not to "disrupt the spirit" in the national squad, French football chief Noel Le Graet told sports daily L'Equipe on Thursday. The French Football Federation (FFF) president added that the Real Madrid striker had "done something really stupid" over the Mathieu Valbuena sex tape […]

Barcelona coach Luis Enrique admitted his side are suffering a slump in form after a third defeat in four games saw them dumped out of the Champions League by Atletico Madrid. Antoine Griezmann struck twice for Atletico in a 2-0 win Wednesday to seal their passage to the last four at Barcelona's expense for the […]

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal hailed Marcus Rashford's startling self-awareness after the 18-year-old striker's memorable goal inspired his side to FA Cup victory at West Ham United. Rashford broke the deadlock in the 54th minute of Wednesday's quarter-final replay, shimmying inside James Tomkins and arcing an unstoppable shot into the top-right corner. Marouane Fellaini […]

Footballer Didier Drogba said Thursday he would take legal action against Britain's Daily Mail newspaper after it published allegations that most of the money raised by his charity in Britain was not going to good causes. The newspaper reported that less than one percent of over £1.7 million (2.1 million euros, $2.4 million) raised by […]

The “next big thing” has been a US soccer mantra for players going back to Jovan Kirovski’s time at Manchester United two decades ago. Time and again, American soccer fans and the media have hyped teenage players. First, it was Kirovski, then it was John O’Brien — a great whose career was curtailed by injuries. […]

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has instructed his players to forget about their slender away-goal advantage ahead of Thursday's Europa League quarter-final second leg against his former club Borussia Dortmund. Liverpool secured a 1-1 draw in last week's first leg in Germany, with Divock Origi's first-half opener for the visitors cancelled out by a header from […]