Champions League

It was a massive Sunday for USWNT players abroad as Alana Cook’s PSG hosted Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League semifinal showdown, while over in England Christen Press’s Manchester United continued its push for a place in next season’s tournament by welcoming Tottenham.

After knocking out eternal rival Lyon in the quarterfinals, PSG was sent crashing back down to Earth in the 13th minute after Jennifer Hermoso opened the scoring for Barça. 

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."

The new UEFA men’s Champions League format in 2024 was quietly announced on Tuesday while all the noise from the Super League drama drowned out any other sound. This new format is, well, a little too similar to the Super League for my liking.

Here are all the details you need to know for the new Champions League format starting in three years (for the men’s competition).

MANCHESTER, England — The European Super League collapsed on Wednesday as eight of the 12 founding members from England, Italy and Spain abandoned the breakaway project under massive pressure from fans, politicians, soccer officials and even the British royals.

Founder and Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli told Reuters he was reluctantly calling time on the new league after six English clubs withdrew on Tuesday, with Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid following suit and AC Milan indicating they would too.

MANCHESTER, England — Manchester City started the process of withdrawing from the breakaway European Super League on Tuesday less than 72 hours after agreeing to join, with Chelsea also reported to be quitting in a major blow for the proposed new competition.

City confirmed they wanted to pull out while fellow English club Chelsea were reported by local media to be preparing the paperwork to leave a project backed by U.S. investment bank JP Morgan and headed by Real Madrid president Florentino Perez.

In the wake of 12 of Europe's major soccer clubs planning an independent Super League we look at a selection of previous sporting breakaways and how they turned out.

A History Of Breakaway Leagues Across Sports

WORLD SERIES CRICKET

Late Australian media mogul Kerry Packer changed the face of world cricket in 1977 when he secretly recruited top players for a series of day-night matches for his Channel Nine Australian TV network.

Following Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Leeds United in Premier League action on Monday, we finally got down to business. Despite there being no official word on the start date of the newly formed European Super League, we do know that the league is now official and our worst dreams have been realized.

The cat is out of the bag as 12 “leading European clubs” have thrown it all away in pursuit of securing the most gluttonous bag in the history of football. It’s difficult to see these historic institutions — Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus and AC Milan among them — as football clubs at this point; they’re self-serving vehicles of greed that operate as welfare for billionaires. We should amend the “FC” abbreviation on these clubs’ names accordingly.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, you're aware of the biggest disgrace in the history of this sport. 12 of Europe’s biggest clubs announced plans to create their own European Super League.

Fans, former players and others vehemently denounced the situation with some seeing the move as the beginning of the end for the sport.