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USMNT and Newcastle United defender DeAndre Yedlin has penned a message of solidarity with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement while revealing a gut wrenching text he received from his grandfather.

The 26-year-old has been in England since January of 2015 and with Newcastle for the past four seasons, and his grandfather said he’s glad that he’s “not living in the U.S. right now because he would fear for (his) life as a young black man.”

World soccer's governing body FIFA has asked competition organizers to use "common sense" with players who show messages of protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed in police custody in the United States.

The move, which marks a change from a previous strong line against players displaying messages on the field, came as athletes and sports figures around the world made their views on the situation in the United States clear.

Players are facing a deadline of high noon on Tuesday to avoid being locked out by MLS owners, ESPN reported on Monday.

At odds over the return-to-play tournament in Orlando, players voted to approve a counterproposal but owners had already determined their best offer was on the table, per the report.

After a scoreless first half, Borussia Dortmund shifted through the gears in the second 45 to overwhelm Paderborn 6-1 on Sunday. The match featured a couple of historic firsts for Dortmund: 20-year-old English phenom Jadon Sancho notched his first professional hat-trick, and 17-year-old American prodigy Giovanni Reyna registered his first Bundesliga assist.

Like all lower division soccer clubs, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed Minneapolis City SC into dangerously uncharted waters. The club, which was founded in 2016, plays in the fourth tier NPSL. Back in late March, the season was cancelled and the team’s highly anticipated U.S. Open Cup first round match against Chicago FC United was postponed indefinitely.

Gladbach took care of business against Union Berlin on Sunday with a comfortable 4-1 victory. The biggest talking point of the match came in the 41st minute, when Alassane Pléa found Marcus Thuram for a well-placed header and the Frenchman quietly celebrated in a powerful way.

Alassane Pléa → Marcus Thuram@borussia_en's French connection strikes again pic.twitter.com/33rXCHv7nc

German-American coach David Wagner saw his Schalke side fall to a fourth consecutive defeat with a 1-0 result against Werder Bremen on Saturday.

The MLS expansion club in Charlotte will reveal its name in June, team president Tom Glick said.

Glick declined to specify an exact date in an interview published Friday by the Sports Business Journal.

"This is a very important moment in the formation of our new club for the city and for the region," Glick said. "We've been monitoring and thinking about when the right time to introduce it would be. What's clear to us right now is not only is there a hunger for the return of sport and watching sport, there's a hunger and anticipation for this moment for this new club."

The year 2020 is the nightmare we can’t seem to wake up from. Outrage swept the country after a video captured four Minneapolis police officers arresting George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, on Monday. One of the officers held his knee to Floyd’s neck for nine minutes while he screamed “I can’t breathe.” Floyd died shortly after while in police custody.

Fortuna Dusseldorf boosted their hopes of avoiding relegation from the Bundesliga as goals from Rouwen Hennings and Kenan Karaman helped them come from behind to beat Schalke 04 2-1 at home in a scrappy contest on Wednesday. 

The result left Fortuna 16th, the relegation playoff spot, on 27 points from 28 games, one behind Mainz who stayed in the safety zone with a 1-1 draw at Union Berlin. 

Schalke, who extended their winless league run to 10 matches, stayed ninth on 37 points.