Sports Poets Society

ALEX LIVESEY/DANEHOUSE/ GETTY IMAGES Manchester City turned players such as Kevin De Bruyne (left) and Rodri into global stars City have been a joy to watch but they became detached from their roots The 50+1 rule in Germany strengthens the rights of members and fans ...  I consider it a distinct competitive advantage 22 Oct 2026 - The Guardian Philipp Lahm  Philipp Lahm’s column was produced in partnership with Oliver Fritsch at the German online magazine Die Zeit Do we have to reassess Manchester City now? In my columns, I have repeatedly engaged with this club and its key figures. Looking back at what I have written over the years, I believe it remains beyond question that the team have achieved greatness. I always loved watching them: they were a true unit on the pitch, a finely tuned orchestra. I would also write all over again that the conductor, Pep Guardiola , masters his craft like few others. I could recognise his teams even if they were wearing the wrong shirts and t...

TOM JENKINS/THE GUARDIAN  Maghnes Akliouche basks in the limelight after scoring  PSG’s fourth in their breathless win over City European champions hand out punishment to City Manchester City 2 Haaland 53 75 Paris Saint-Germain 4 Doué 13, Dembélé 15 Vitinha 32 Akliouche 62 15 Oct 2026 - The Guardian David Hytner A penny for Pep Guardiola’s thoughts. The legendary Manchester City manager was back at the Etihad Stadium for the first time since his departure at the end of last season and, well, the announcement of you-know-what. Sporting a flat cap, Guardiola took his seat in the stands behind the City chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, and the chief executive, Ferran “Not” Soriano, and, certainly, the TV director seemed intent on scrutinising him – if the number of cutaway shots to him were any guide. Everybody knows where Guardiola stands on the great City scandal; the numerous guilty verdicts handed down to them on the 100plus charges they have faced for breaking the Premier League’s...

Erling Haaland face aux Parisiens  Marquinhos et Warren Zaïre-Emery  lors du match de  Ligue des champions entre le PSG et Manchester City, le 22 janvier 2025, au Parc des Princes. Reconnus coupables de 114 infractions financières , les Skyblues accueillent les Parisiens dans un climat pour le moins spécial, ce mercredi, en Ligue des champions. 14 Oct 2026 - Le Figaro Christophe Remise Envoyé spécial à Manchester Un test grandeur nature. Encore loin de sa meilleure forme, le PSG s’est contenté de donner le change jusqu’ici. Ayant déjà la seconde partie de la saison en tête, Luis Enrique préfère soigner le physique de ses joueurs et prendre le temps d’inculquer ses préceptes si particuliers aux recrues plutôt que d’aligner régulièrement le même 11 pour créer une dynamique. La preuve avec la gestion (très) précautionneuse d’ousmane Dembélé, au repos fin août et encore la semaine passée. Face à Manchester City, à l’etihad Stadium, ce mercredi (21 h, Canal+), lors de la 2e j...

GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS Nasser al-Khelaifi (far left) and Khaldoon al-Mubarak  find their clubs at very different junctures PSG’s trip to City is a reminder of past sanctions battles Both clubs have come under Uefa scrutiny but one is now at the top table while other is raging against the machine Al-Khelaifi will arrive as the face of the establishment while City remain the insurgents 14 Oct 2026 - The Guardian Matt Hughes Nasser al-Khelaifi was among those unhappy with the timing of the release of Manchester City’s guilty verdict by the Premier League a fortnight ago, although his visit with Paris SaintGermain to the Etihad Stadium for a Champions League game tonight provides a timely reminder that it could have been far worse. The two clubs are linked by more than their ownership by Gulf states, being among the first found to have broken Uefa’s financial fair play rules in 2014, and by a magnitude that would make subsequent offenders pale in comparison. Uefa’s investigators found t...

Ceci n’est pas defeat. The significance of today’s result remains to be seen – but for a different reason than in past seasons, writes Rory Smith 11 Oct 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Rory Smith Manchester City’s fans will know, so far as it is possible to know, what is coming. They have, after all, been amply forewarned. Their club might continue to perform its defiance, to insist on its innocence, to protest long and loud and with the slightly odd support of the prime minister that the legal process is not yet over, that it will – eventually – be exonerated, vindicated, avenged.Mark Leach/Offside/ Getty Images Banana drama: City fan groups are encouraging supporters to brandish the inflatable fruit as they did in the 1980s, as a reminder of the club’s history. The fans, though, will be well aware that the wholly informal court of public opinion works much more swiftly and much less subtly than that. A verdict, conclusive and indissoluble, was reached two weeks ago. A sentence has alread...

Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/GettyPoint taken:  Liverpool fans welcome City to Anfield in 2019. League football is back, but the Sunday narcotic of watching two of England’s best teams go head-to-head won’t cut it this week. There’ s no chance ‘sham City’ verdict will be put aside to focus on the game at Anfield ‘The real business isn’t the game.  It’s the mass awakening to an illusion,  unfairly won trophies’ 11 Oct 2026 The Observer - Sport The English Sunday has evolved over a century from religious observance, enforced rest, closed shops and Sunday roasts to mass consumerism and huge leisure gatherings. Central to what it is now is not Songs of Praise  (*) but the sensory onslaught of the Premier League’s biggest games. On any normal weekend Liverpool vs Manchester City would be the fountainhead of fun, via a TV subscription or screens in pubs: a vastly commercial but also communal happening. Reaction would ping around the digisphere. Afterwards the league table woul...

À Manchester et ses alentours, les supporters de City se montrent plutôt discrets, vivant très mal la révélation des infractions financières par leur club et ses conséquences encore hypothétiques. "J’essaie de me couper un peu de tout ça et des réseaux sociaux,  où l’on est victimes d’une campagne de dénigrement"    - DON GRANT, PEINTRE ET FAN       DE MANCHESTER CITY "En attendant le résultat de l’appel,  je me dois de croire ce que dit le club''    - RIC TURNER, MODÉRATEUR DU       FORUM EN LIGNE BLUE MOON 9 Oct 2026 - L'Équipe TEXTE : PIERRE-ÉTIENNE MINONZIO  PHOTOS : BERNARD PAPON MANCHESTER (GBR) – Se promener, mercredi après-midi, aux alentours de l’Etihad Stadium, s’apparentait à une expérience aussi déroutante que le visionnage d’Inception, le complexe film de Christopher Nolan (2010). Parce qu’en déambulant aux abords de l’antre de Manchester City, complètement désertés ce jour-là, on en est ve...

Club chair helped to make Abu Dhabi a world power, but his stance on financial misdeeds is embarrassing the royal family and his next task may be to sell up In fighting to the end, al-Mubarak appears to have broken a cardinal law of diplomacy 9 Oct 2026 - The Guardian Rob Draper No one better understands the precarious tightrope Abu Dhabi walks when it tries to balance its relationships with western Europe while weighing the complex geopolitics of the Gulf region than Manchester City’s chair, Khaldoon al-Mubarak. He was eight when his father, ambassador Khalifa Ahmed Abdel Aziz al-Mubarak, left the family’s Paris apartment for work on 9 February 1984, and was assassinated on the street by a Palestinian terrorist. And no one outside the emirate’s royal family could be more wrapped up in the project of making and maintaining Abu Dhabi as a significant and secure world power and the dominant member of the United Arab Emirates, a nation state still only 55 years old. His paternal grandfath...

Simon Stacpoole/Getty Blue moon setting?  The Man City case threatens consensus the Premier League was founded on Once the principle of collectivism is gone, where is the incentive for English football’s more traditional powerhouses – Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool – to keep up appearances? 4 Oct 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport Rory Smith To paraphrase Super Hans: the secret ingredient is co-operation. Over the past three decades, that has been the single most important thing in transforming English football from a backwater into a gleaming citadel, a monument in glass and steel, dwarfing the rest of the game. History played a part, obviously. The style of play was a factor. Packed stadiums meant an evocative backdrop. Little tricks – like ensuring the microphones around the pitch captured the noise of the crowd, rather than the players – made for a more compelling television product. And there is the language advantage, too, the fact it all takes place in English. The rise of t...