Business

New York City Football Club will become the first Major League Soccer (MLS) club to feature a small business on their shirts as the team have gifted their sleeve sponsorship to a Bronx craft chocolate company, Reuters has learned on Monday.

NYCFC, through a contest designed to help a local business impacted by COVID-19, surprised Sol Cacao with the prime advertising space to go along with the winning prize of a full partner package.

PARIS - Brazil forward Neymar has signed a new contract with Paris Saint-Germain that will keep him in the French capital until 2025, the Ligue 1 club said on Saturday.

The 29-year-old Neymar, who joined PSG in 2017 from Spanish club Barcelona for a record transfer fee of $270 million, has agreed a deal French media reported will earn him an annual salary of $36.50 million.

Neymar said he wanted to leave PSG in 2019 amid media reports he was keen on returning to Barcelona, but he stayed in Paris and helped PSG reach the Champions League final last season.

MANCHESTER, England - It has certainly been a year of sporting contrasts for American businessman Joel Glazer.

In February, he was in celebratory mood, raising the Vince Lombardi trophy as his NFL team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl, led by veteran quarterback Tom Brady.

Three months later, Glazer's Premier League soccer team, Manchester United, had to call off their match against rivals Liverpool following violent protests against the American's ownership of the club.

Back in December of 2019, UEFA revealed its plans for a revamped Women’s Champions League beginning with the 2021-22 season. After a brief nightmare concerning the ramifications of the harebrained European Super League on the women’s game, we can now get back to celebrating the changes that were approved by UEFA’s Executive Committee last week.

LONDON — JPMorgan said on Friday it regretted supporting soccer clubs in launching a breakaway European Super League after the plan collapsed earlier this week due to a storm of protest from fans and politicians.

"We clearly misjudged how this deal would be viewed by the wider football community and how it might impact them in the future," a representative for the bank said. "We will learn from this."

MANCHESTER, England - European soccer's governing body UEFA on Monday said clubs and players joining a proposed breakaway Super League could be banned from all of its competitions and the World Cup as it condemned a "disgraceful and self-serving proposal.”

Addressing an emergency meeting the day after 12 of Europe's top clubs announced the breakaway, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin upped the ante, describing the Super League plan as a "spit in the face" of all football lovers.

Following are the ownership details and Champions League records of the 12 top European clubs who announced on Sunday the launch of a breakaway Super League, and similar details on Paris St Germain and Bayern Munich, two major European clubs not taking part in the Super League:

Who Would Be In European Super League?

ARSENAL

Barcelona have leapfrogged Spanish rivals Real Madrid to become the world's most valuable soccer club with a valuation of $4.76 billion, according to a list published by business magazine Forbes on Monday.

Real Madrid, who have topped the list five times in the past, edged Barcelona 2-1 in El Clásico on Saturday but find themselves second best off the pitch with a valuation of $4.75 billion.

Premier League clubs paid a total of 272.2 million pounds ($375.1 million) to agents in the year to Feb. 2021, with Chelsea heading the list of top-flight spenders, according to data released by the Football Association (FA) on Wednesday.

Despite suffering major losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Premier League clubs spent nearly nine million pounds more on agent fees than in the previous year.

MILAN - CBS Sports has secured exclusive rights to screen Serie A matches in the United States for the next three seasons, Italy's top flight soccer league and the U.S. TV group said in a joint statement on Thursday.

Besides 380 league matches per season, the deal also includes some Italian Cup matches and the one-off national Super Cup Final, they added.

A source familiar with the matter said CBS Sports will pay some $200 million to screen the Serie A games over the 2021-2024 period, and $21 million for the Italian Cup.