Latest news with #BarneyRonay
The Guardian
17-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
FA Cup final buildup to Crystal Palace v Manchester City
Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature The FA Cup is back. True, it never went away, but it just feels bigger this season. The reasons for that may be numerous and we need not be concerned with them now. All that matters is that in several hours Crystal Palace and Manchester City will stride on to the Wembley turf to contest one of the more eagerly-awaited finals of recent years. This blog, your one-stop shop for all the buildup, will run until 4pm, otherwise known as half an hour before kick-off. We've got plenty to get through including a Q and A with Barney Ronay at Wembley. (Post your questions for Barney in the comments at your leisure, and he'll be here to answer them at around 2.30pm.) There are also league games in Scotland and Germany that we'll be keeping on top of, bringing you the big moments, as well as the League Two playoff semi-final between AFC Wimbledon and Notts County (12.30pm KO BST). Team news, all the buildup and completely over-the-top hype will be coming thick and fast so sit back, relax, and let the football commence. Share
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Your Guardian Sport weekend: FA Cup finals, F1 and US PGA Championship golf
8am (all times BST) Matchday live Football Join Luke McLaughlin and Tom Bassam for our special FA Cup final live blog covering all the buildup to the afternoon's big game as Manchester City take on Crystal Palace at Wembley. Ready to field your final-related questions will be the Guardian's chief sports writer, Barney Ronay. Email him at with your views, notes and queries. Spicing up our bumper coverage will be views from both sets of fans as City seek silverware to shore up an underwhelming season by their standards and Palace go for the first major trophy in their history – their third shot at an FA Cup final. 11am County Championship live Cricket Tanya Aldred keeps you up to date with the latest action from all nine matches. Tanya takes her seat at Old Trafford after a week of upheaval at Lancashire following the resignation of Keaton Jennings as captain, with the club sitting rock bottom of the County Championship. The Red Rose were relegated from Division One last season but were strongly fancied to win promotion this term. Instead, they have failed to win any of their first five games and sit at the foot of the standings with 50 points. The Australian Marcus Harris, who tops the Division Two run charts with 749 despite his side's struggles, takes over as interim captain. 3pm Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix qualifying live Formula One Tom Bassam is your live host as the pace hots up at Imola in the race for No 1 spot on the grid for Sunday's grand prix, with our F1 reporter Giles Richards trackside. This weekend sees a last hurrah for the famous old circuit, infamous for the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been hosting F1 races since 1963 but drops off the calendar next season. 4.30pm Crystal Palace v Manchester City live FA Cup final Rob Smyth keeps the updates flowing as our live coverage switches to the day's big event. In place at Wembley are our reporting team of David Hytner, Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson and Jamie Jackson. Will Erling Haaland rediscover his spark? Despite seemingly scoring goals galore for City, the striker is yet to register for the club in a final. He drew blanks in the 2023 Champions League showpiece and the past two FA Cup finals against Manchester United. He has scored 30 times this season but not since March due to a long spell out injured. City's high hopes of silverware rest with Haaland. 5pm US PGA Championship Golf Scott Murray is your expert guide to events unfolding at Quail Hollow. Never mind the mud balls, Masters champion Rory McIlroy ended the first round 10 shots behind the leader Jhonattan Vegas and faces an uphill struggle. 5.30pm Bath v Leicester Rugby union Robert Kitson reports from the Recreation Ground with plenty at stake for the Tigers. Leicester sit second in the table and can seal a play-off spot if they beat Bath, the Premiership leaders. Michael Cheika has Leicester challenging for the league crown in his one season in charge at Welford Road before he hands over to successor Geoff Parling this summer. However the former Wallabies coach insists he is firmly focused on this campaign. 'The best thing I can do for the future of the club is to go well for the rest of this year,' he told the BBC this week. 'Nothing else … to make sure we are playing our best footy and trying to stay in this competition for as long as possible.' 8am Inside football with Jonathan Wilson Analysis Our columnist looks forward to Wednesday's Europa League final in Bilbao by asking: is an all-English final between Manchester United and Tottenham really something to celebrate? It will be just the sixth time two English clubs have contested a European showpiece, and Spurs have featured in two of them. The others? Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea (Champions League, 2021); Spurs 0-2 Liverpool (Champions League, 2019); Chelsea 4-1 Arsenal (Europa League, 2019); Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea (Man Utd won 6-5 on pens) (Champions League, 2008) and Wolves v Spurs (Spurs win 3-2 on aggregate) (Uefa Cup, 1972). 8am Matchday live Football After Saturday's men's Wembley showpiece, it's the Women's FA Cup final with Chelsea facing Manchester United. Emillia Hawkins and Niall McVeigh set the scene with live updates as we build towards the 1.30pm kickoff. They will be inviting questions for our Merseyside correspondent Andy Hunter about Goodison Park as the old ground hosts its last men's fixture when Everton face Southampton. Email with your queries. Peter Lansley will consider Jamie Vardy's final Foxes bow before the striker makes his final Leicester appearance, the striker's 500th game for the club. The 38-year-old has scored nine goals this season – one more would make it 200 for Leicester. 11am County Championship live Cricket Join Tanya Aldred for our continued coverage of the latest county cricket games, including Surrey v Yorkshire at the Oval. 12pm Everton v Southampton, end of an era live Premier League Daniel Harris takes in the action and the colour at Goodison Park as Everton's home since 1892 bids a last hurrah to hosting men's matches. As Andy Hunter recounts in his colourfully entertaining piece on the ground's memorable moments, Everton won the first derby they hosted, Dixie Dean set his goals record there and Pelé made World Cup history. Read it here. 1.30pm Chelsea v Manchester United live Women's FA Cup final Emillia Hawkins returns to the hotseat with live updates on events at Wembley before Suzanne Wrack, Tom Garry and Jonathan Liew provide reports and analysis. Marc Skinner's United take on Chelsea for a repeat of the 2023 final, which the Blues won 1-0. WSL champions Chelsea are chasing another piece of silverware after they lifted the Women's League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City in March and completed an unbeaten WSL campaign. The chance to complete a domestic clean sweep beckons. 2pm Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix live Formula One Lap-by-lap updates from Niall McVeigh and race reports from Giles Richards at the circuit. McLaren's Italian boss Andrea Stella will be hoping for a happy homecoming as he leads the champions to Ferrari's backyard and the start of a run of three races on successive weekends. Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by 16 points after four wins, including the last three in a row, with Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen - winner of the last three races in Imola - 32 points off the pace in third. There has been plenty of swirl in the paddock, meanwhile, particularly at Alpine. Wiley F1 stalwart Flavio Briatore takes over from Oliver Oakes as team boss, though not technically as principal, while on the track Jack Doohan has been replaced by Franco Colapinto after only six races. 2.15pm West Ham v Nottingham Forest live Premier League Dominic Booth follows the cut and thrust live, followed by Jacob Steinberg's match report as the visitors seek their first league double over the Hammers since 1983-84. West Ham won 2-0 at Manchester United last time out, but have only once this season won consecutive Premier League matches (v Arsenal and Leicester in February). Their last three at home have all finished level. Forest, meanwhile, have won just one of their last six Premier League games, a dip in form that has seen them slip from third to seventh in the table. They must hope the noise around striker Taiwo Awoniyi's serious injury and owner Evangelos Marinakis' intemperate behaviour will not prove a distraction as they seek a place in Europe. 4.30pm Arsenal v Newcastle live Premier League A big game to bookend our weekend football coverage: Second meet third in the table separated by two points and Newcastle are certainly Arsenal's bogey team. Eddie Howe's visitors have won three games against the Gunners this season, 1-0 in the Premier League and 2-0 in both legs of the League Cup semi-final. No team has ever beaten Arsenal four times in a single campaign and it must be troubling for Mikel Arteta that his side are without a win in their last four home games in all competitions. Join Rob Smyth to see if Newcastle can make it a clean sweep before Ed Aarons's report. 5pm US PGA Championship final round live Golf Our attention swings once again to Quail Hollow and, in the capable hands of Scott Murray, the closing rounds from the North Carolina venue.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Your Guardian Sport weekend: FA Cup finals, F1 and US PGA Championship golf
Saturday 8am (all times BST) Matchday live Football Join Luke McLaughlin and Tom Bassam for our special FA Cup final live blog covering all the buildup to the afternoon's big game as Manchester City take on Crystal Palace at Wembley. Ready to field your final-related questions will be the Guardian's chief sports writer, Barney Ronay. Email him at with your views, notes and queries. Spicing up our bumper coverage will be views from both sets of fans as City seek silverware to shore up an underwhelming season by their standards and Palace go for the first major trophy in their history – their third shot at an FA Cup final. Advertisement 11am County Championship live Cricket Tanya Aldred keeps you up to date with the latest action from all nine matches. Tanya takes her seat at Old Trafford after a week of upheaval at Lancashire following the resignation of Keaton Jennings as captain, with the club sitting rock bottom of the County Championship. The Red Rose were relegated from Division One last season but were strongly fancied to win promotion this term. Instead, they have failed to win any of their first five games and sit at the foot of the standings with 50 points. The Australian Marcus Harris, who tops the Division Two run charts with 749 despite his side's struggles, takes over as interim captain. Advertisement 3pm Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix qualifying live Formula One Tom Bassam is your live host as the pace hots up at Imola in the race for No 1 spot on the grid for Sunday's grand prix, with our F1 reporter Giles Richards trackside. This weekend sees a last hurrah for the famous old circuit, infamous for the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been hosting F1 races since 1963 but drops off the calendar next season. 4.30pm Crystal Palace v Manchester City live FA Cup final Rob Smyth keeps the updates flowing as our live coverage switches to the day's big event. In place at Wembley are our reporting team of David Hytner, Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson and Jamie Jackson. Will Erling Haaland rediscover his spark? Despite seemingly scoring goals galore for City, the striker is yet to register for the club in a final. He drew blanks in the 2023 Champions League showpiece and the past two FA Cup finals against Manchester United. He has scored 30 times this season but not since March due to a long spell out injured. City's high hopes of silverware rest with Haaland. Advertisement 5pm US PGA Championship Golf Scott Murray is your expert guide to events unfolding at Quail Hollow. Never mind the mud balls, Masters champion Rory McIlroy ended the first round 10 shots behind the leader Jhonattan Vegas and faces an uphill struggle. 5.30pm Bath v Leicester Rugby union Robert Kitson reports from the Recreation Ground with plenty at stake for the Tigers. Leicester sit second in the table and can seal a play-off spot if they beat Bath, the Premiership leaders. Michael Cheika has Leicester challenging for the league crown in his one season in charge at Welford Road before he hands over to successor Geoff Parling this summer. However the former Wallabies coach insists he is firmly focused on this campaign. 'The best thing I can do for the future of the club is to go well for the rest of this year,' he told the BBC this week. 'Nothing else … to make sure we are playing our best footy and trying to stay in this competition for as long as possible.' Sunday 8am Advertisement Inside football with Jonathan Wilson Analysis Our columnist looks forward to Wednesday's Europa League final in Bilbao by asking: is an all-English final between Manchester United and Tottenham really something to celebrate? It will be just the sixth time two English clubs have contested a European showpiece, and Spurs have featured in two of them. The others? Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea (Champions League, 2021); Spurs 0-2 Liverpool (Champions League, 2019); Chelsea 4-1 Arsenal (Europa League, 2019); Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea (Man Utd won 6-5 on pens) (Champions League, 2008) and Wolves v Spurs (Spurs win 3-2 on aggregate) (Uefa Cup, 1972). 8am Advertisement Matchday live Football After Saturday's men's Wembley showpiece, it's the Women's FA Cup final with Chelsea facing Manchester United. Emillia Hawkins and Niall McVeigh set the scene with live updates as we build towards the 1.30pm kickoff. They will be inviting questions for our Merseyside correspondent Andy Hunter about Goodison Park as the old ground hosts its last men's fixture when Everton face Southampton. Email with your queries. Peter Lansley will consider Jamie Vardy's final Foxes bow before the striker makes his final Leicester appearance, the striker's 500th game for the club. The 38-year-old has scored nine goals this season – one more would make it 200 for Leicester. 11am Advertisement County Championship live Cricket Join Tanya Aldred for our continued coverage of the latest county cricket games, including Surrey v Yorkshire at the Oval. 12pm Everton v Southampton, end of an era live Premier League Daniel Harris takes in the action and the colour at Goodison Park as Everton's home since 1892 bids a last hurrah to hosting men's matches. As Andy Hunter recounts in his colourfully entertaining piece on the ground's memorable moments, Everton won the first derby they hosted, Dixie Dean set his goals record there and Pelé made World Cup history. Read it here. 1.30pm Chelsea v Manchester United live Advertisement Women's FA Cup final Emillia Hawkins returns to the hotseat with live updates on events at Wembley before Suzanne Wrack, Tom Garry and Jonathan Liew provide reports and analysis. Marc Skinner's United take on Chelsea for a repeat of the 2023 final, which the Blues won 1-0. WSL champions Chelsea are chasing another piece of silverware after they lifted the Women's League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City in March and completed an unbeaten WSL campaign. The chance to complete a domestic clean sweep beckons. 2pm Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix live Formula One Lap-by-lap updates from Niall McVeigh and race reports from Giles Richards at the circuit. McLaren's Italian boss Andrea Stella will be hoping for a happy homecoming as he leads the champions to Ferrari's backyard and the start of a run of three races on successive weekends. Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by 16 points after four wins, including the last three in a row, with Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen - winner of the last three races in Imola - 32 points off the pace in third. There has been plenty of swirl in the paddock, meanwhile, particularly at Alpine. Wiley F1 stalwart Flavio Briatore takes over from Oliver Oakes as team boss, though not technically as principal, while on the track Jack Doohan has been replaced by Franco Colapinto after only six races. Advertisement 2.15pm West Ham v Nottingham Forest live Premier League Dominic Booth follows the cut and thrust live, followed by Jacob Steinberg's match report as the visitors seek their first league double over the Hammers since 1983-84. West Ham won 2-0 at Manchester United last time out, but have only once this season won consecutive Premier League matches (v Arsenal and Leicester in February). Their last three at home have all finished level. Forest, meanwhile, have won just one of their last six Premier League games, a dip in form that has seen them slip from third to seventh in the table. They must hope the noise around striker Taiwo Awoniyi's serious injury and owner Evangelos Marinakis' intemperate behaviour will not prove a distraction as they seek a place in Europe. Advertisement 4.30pm Arsenal v Newcastle live Premier League A big game to bookend our weekend football coverage: Second meet third in the table separated by two points and Newcastle are certainly Arsenal's bogey team. Eddie Howe's visitors have won three games against the Gunners this season, 1-0 in the Premier League and 2-0 in both legs of the League Cup semi-final. No team has ever beaten Arsenal four times in a single campaign and it must be troubling for Mikel Arteta that his side are without a win in their last four home games in all competitions. Join Rob Smyth to see if Newcastle can make it a clean sweep before Ed Aarons's report. 5pm US PGA Championship final round live Golf Our attention swings once again to Quail Hollow and, in the capable hands of Scott Murray, the closing rounds from the North Carolina venue.
The Guardian
16-05-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Your Guardian Sport weekend: FA Cup finals, F1 and US PGA Championship golf
Join Luke McLaughlin and Tom Bassam for our special FA Cup final live blog covering all the buildup to the afternoon's big game as Manchester City take on Crystal Palace at Wembley. Ready to field your final-related questions will be the Guardian's chief sports writer, Barney Ronay. Email him at with your views, notes and queries. Spicing up our bumper coverage will be views from both sets of fans as City seek silverware to shore up an underwhelming season by their standards and Palace go for the first major trophy in their history – their third shot at an FA Cup final. Tanya Aldred keeps you up to date with the latest action from all nine matches. Tanya takes her seat at Old Trafford after a week of upheaval at Lancashire following the resignation of Keaton Jennings as captain, with the club sitting rock bottom of the County Championship. The Red Rose were relegated from Division One last season but were strongly fancied to win promotion this term. Instead, they have failed to win any of their first five games and sit at the foot of the standings with 50 points. The Australian Marcus Harris, who tops the Division Two run charts with 749 despite his side's struggles, takes over as interim captain. Tom Bassam is your live host as the pace hots up at Imola in the race for No 1 spot on the grid for Sunday's grand prix, with our F1 reporter Giles Richards trackside. This weekend sees a last hurrah for the famous old circuit, infamous for the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been hosting F1 races since 1963 but drops off the calendar next season. Rob Smyth keeps the updates flowing as our live coverage switches to the day's big event. In place at Wembley are our reporting team of David Hytner, Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson and Jamie Jackson. Will Erling Haaland rediscover his spark? Despite seemingly scoring goals galore for City, the striker is yet to register for the club in a final. He drew blanks in the 2023 Champions League showpiece and the past two FA Cup finals against Manchester United. He has scored 30 times this season but not since March due to a long spell out injured. City's high hopes of silverware rest with Haaland. Scott Murray is your expert guide to events unfolding at Quail Hollow. Never mind the mud balls, Masters champion Rory McIlroy ended the first round 10 shots behind the leader Jhonattan Vegas and faces an uphill struggle. Robert Kitson reports from the Recreation Ground with plenty at stake for the Tigers. Leicester sit second in the table and can seal a play-off spot if they beat Bath, the Premiership leaders. Michael Cheika has Leicester challenging for the league crown in his one season in charge at Welford Road before he hands over to successor Geoff Parling this summer. However the former Wallabies coach insists he is firmly focused on this campaign. 'The best thing I can do for the future of the club is to go well for the rest of this year,' he told the BBC this week. 'Nothing else … to make sure we are playing our best footy and trying to stay in this competition for as long as possible.' Our columnist looks forward to Wednesday's Europa League final in Bilbao by asking: is an all-English final between Manchester United and Tottenham really something to celebrate? It will be just the sixth time two English clubs have contested a European showpiece, and Spurs have featured in two of them. The others? Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea (Champions League, 2021); Spurs 0-2 Liverpool (Champions League, 2019); Chelsea 4-1 Arsenal (Europa League, 2019); Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea (Man Utd won 6-5 on pens) (Champions League, 2008) and Wolves v Spurs (Spurs win 3-2 on aggregate) (Uefa Cup, 1972). After Saturday's men's Wembley showpiece, it's the Women's FA Cup final with Chelsea facing Manchester United. Emillia Hawkins and Niall McVeigh set the scene with live updates as we build towards the 1.30pm kickoff. They will be inviting questions for our Merseyside correspondent Andy Hunter about Goodison Park as the old ground hosts its last men's fixture when Everton face Southampton. Email with your queries. Peter Lansley will consider Jamie Vardy's final Foxes bow before the striker makes his final Leicester appearance, the striker's 500th game for the club. The 38-year-old has scored nine goals this season – one more would make it 200 for Leicester. Join Tanya Aldred for our continued coverage of the latest county cricket games, including Surrey v Yorkshire at the Oval. Daniel Harris takes in the action and the colour at Goodison Park as Everton's home since 1892 bids a last hurrah to hosting men's matches. As Andy Hunter recounts in his colourfully entertaining piece on the ground's memorable moments, Everton won the first derby they hosted, Dixie Dean set his goals record there and Pelé made World Cup history. Read it here. Emillia Hawkins returns to the hotseat with live updates on events at Wembley before Suzanne Wrack, Tom Garry and Jonathan Liew provide reports and analysis. Marc Skinner's United take on Chelsea for a repeat of the 2023 final, which the Blues won 1-0. WSL champions Chelsea are chasing another piece of silverware after they lifted the Women's League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City in March and completed an unbeaten WSL campaign. The chance to complete a domestic clean sweep beckons. Lap-by-lap updates from Niall McVeigh and race reports from Giles Richards at the circuit. McLaren's Italian boss Andrea Stella will be hoping for a happy homecoming as he leads the champions to Ferrari's backyard and the start of a run of three races on successive weekends. Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by 16 points after four wins, including the last three in a row, with Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen - winner of the last three races in Imola - 32 points off the pace in third. There has been plenty of swirl in the paddock, meanwhile, particularly at Alpine. Wiley F1 stalwart Flavio Briatore takes over from Oliver Oakes as team boss, though not technically as principal, while on the track Jack Doohan has been replaced by Franco Colapinto after only six races. Dominic Booth follows the cut and thrust live, followed by Jacob Steinberg's match report as the visitors seek their first league double over the Hammers since 1983-84. West Ham won 2-0 at Manchester United last time out, but have only once this season won consecutive Premier League matches (v Arsenal and Leicester in February). Their last three at home have all finished level. Forest, meanwhile, have won just one of their last six Premier League games, a dip in form that has seen them slip from third to seventh in the table. They must hope the noise around striker Taiwo Awoniyi's serious injury and owner Evangelos Marinakis' intemperate behaviour will not prove a distraction as they seek a place in Europe. A big game to bookend our weekend football coverage: Second meet third in the table separated by two points and Newcastle are certainly Arsenal's bogey team. Eddie Howe's visitors have won three games against the Gunners this season, 1-0 in the Premier League and 2-0 in both legs of the League Cup semi-final. No team has ever beaten Arsenal four times in a single campaign and it must be troubling for Mikel Arteta that his side are without a win in their last four home games in all competitions. Join Rob Smyth to see if Newcastle can make it a clean sweep before Ed Aarons's report. Our attention swings once again to Quail Hollow and, in the capable hands of Scott Murray, the closing rounds from the North Carolina venue.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
León out of Club World Cup after losing appeal; LAFC and América set for playoff
Mexican soccer club León finally lost their legal match against Fifa on Tuesday and are officially out of the Club World Cup. Major League Soccer side Los Angeles FC or another Mexican team, Club América, will likely be the late replacement in the United States next month after a yet-to-be-scheduled one-game playoff. The Court of Arbitration for Sport said its judges rejected León's attempt to overturn being removed by Fifa from the 32-team tournament for being in the same ownership group as another Club World Cup qualifier, Pachuca. Advertisement Related: Club World Cup teams facing tax threat in new blow to expanded tournament 'The panel examined the evidence, including the Club León trust set up by the owners of the club, and concluded that this trust was insufficient to comply with the regulations,' the court said in a statement. The ruling says that 'Fifa is responsible for designating the final qualified team to participate in the Club World Cup 2025.' The worldwide governing body for soccer confirmed last month that it was considering a one-game playoff between LAFC and Club América for that purpose, to be held before the start of the Club World Cup on 14 June. Advertisement Fifa has not announced a date and venue for the potential playoff game, which would guarantee the winner almost $10m from the $1bn Club World Cup prize money fund. As it stands, the schedule is tight. LAFC are scheduled to play a game at least every four days with one exception: A six-day break between league games on 18 and 24 May. Club América's schedule is up in the air – they complete a two-legged quarter-final tie in the Liga MX playoffs on 10 May, and there are no scheduled dates for the semi-final stage at time of writing. Should they qualify for the Club World Cup, Club América will likely have to back out of a scheduled friendly against San Diego FC set for 20 June. The legal dispute played out in Switzerland five months after Fifa let León go into the tournament draw in Miami despite the pending multi-club ownership issue. León were drawn in a group to play Chelsea in Atlanta on 16 June, then Esperance from Tunisia in Nashville, and Flamengo of Brazil in Orlando. Advertisement Fifa's new rules to protect the integrity of its prized, revamped club event prohibit two or more teams being in the same ownership group. That standard has been in place in Uefa-run European competitions for more than 20 years and is typically solved by management changes at one of the two clubs, which can be placed into an ownership blind trust. Related: Infantino's $1bn prize: act of commercial disruption disguised as benevolence | Barney Ronay León and Pachuca qualified for the Club World Cup by respectively winning the 2023 and 2024 editions of the Concacaf championship. The owner of León and Pachuca, Grupo Pachuca, said it was prepared to sell one of the clubs to comply with Fifa rules but that it was not possible for a sale to be completed before the tournament started. Advertisement After Fifa officials decided León should be removed, Fifa appeal judges formally excluded León in March for non-compliance with the rules. At a previous appeal hearing at Fifa, León argued that the governing body 'should follow in the footsteps of Uefa and permit the implementation of a trust as a solution to the issue of multi-club ownership.' Fifa lawyers argued that despite the intention of León's owners, they still had not been compliant with rules when signing a Club World Cup entry agreement in February. A separate and long-shot appeal by Costa Rican club Alajuelense to replace León was incorporated into the overall case and also rejected on Tuesday, CAS said. Fifa previously said LAFC would be in the playoff because they were beaten by León in the 2023 Concacaf Champions League final. Fifa explained América's place was justified as the next-best ranked team in the Club World Cup confederation ranking. Fifa has not offered a reason why América – one of Mexico's best-supported teams – are eligible to be included when Fifa's rules cap each country at two entries unless it has more than two winners of a continental championship in the qualifying period. The entry that was fought over by lawyers is worth an initial $9.55m payment from Fifa for a Concacaf team, plus a share of the $1bn in total prize money based on results at the month-long tournament.
