World football, told properly
Wednesday Edition · 30 September 2026 · Arsenal covered separately
An independent commission has found Manchester City guilty of serious financial wrongdoing across nine seasons, ruling that the club inflated its revenues and cut its costs by more than £900 million through contracts it called commercial and the panel called sham. The sanction is still to come. Everything about the Premier League now bends around it.
The document that landed on Tuesday afternoon runs to a redacted core decision and a conclusion that leaves almost no room to stand. An independent commission, appointed under Premier League rules, found Manchester City guilty of every charge relating to serious breaches of the league's financial regulations across nine seasons, from 2009/10 to 2017/18. It also upheld three of the four charges alleging that the club failed to co-operate with the investigation that produced them. In the panel's words, by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the rules, and it made concerted efforts to stop and frustrate the league's inquiry.
The mechanism, as the commission describes it, was not a rounding error or an accounting disagreement. Commercial partners were required to pay only part of the sponsorship fees that appeared in the club's books, with the remainder funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development, the ownership vehicle. Other arrangements allowed costs to be recorded at artificially low levels. Between them, the panel found, these structures inflated revenue and suppressed expenditure by more than £900 million, roughly $1.2 billion, across the period in question. Accounts were misstated. Auditors and regulators were kept from the real picture. Both Premier League and UEFA spending limits were breached, substantially.
Premier League chief executive Richard Masters put the finding in a single sentence: the core decision, he said, details how the club systematically broke Premier League rules for nearly a decade. That is the sort of language a regulator uses when it believes it has won.
“By its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules.”
The independent commission, in the redacted core decision
How the public came to know is its own story, and not a flattering one for the league. The commission's decision was communicated on Thursday 24 September. Club executives were briefed at a shareholders' meeting the same day and asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. Within about a day the substance was in The Guardian, The Athletic, the BBC, The Times and on Sky Sports. The Premier League then published its redacted core decision on Tuesday 29 September, five days after the parties who stand to claim compensation had already been told the outcome. Several outlets have characterised the ruling as 114 of 115 charges proven; the league's own statement simply says all charges of serious breach, plus three of four on co-operation.
City's response was defiant and carefully lawyered. The club said it was disappointed and surprised, insisted a comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence supports its positions, and declared that it would be relentless, and where necessary proactive, in any and all appropriate regulatory and legal forums. The opinion, it argued, contains clear material errors of law, principle and fact, and is unsafe. It noted pointedly that it had respected due process for eight years on the understanding that the Premier League board would behave as an impartial regulator free from partisan influence. Chief executive Ferran Soriano took no questions.
Origin Football Leaks documents obtained by Rui Pinto and published from 2018 triggered scrutiny of the club's sponsorship structures.
UEFA A two-year European ban imposed in February 2020 was overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which left a €10 million fine in place.
Charged February 2023, after a four-year Premier League investigation, with more than 100 alleged breaches.
Hearing A closed hearing before an independent commission, held over a period of months.
Verdict Communicated Thursday 24 September 2026. Reported publicly by Friday 25 September. Redacted core decision published Tuesday 29 September.
Appeal window City have until Friday 2 October to appeal to a fresh three-person commission under Section W of the rules. There is no route to CAS, though a High Court challenge alleging procedural unfairness remains open.
Sanction A separate hearing, still to be listed. The Times reports it is expected within weeks rather than months.
Sources: Premier League statement, 29 September 2026; Sky Sports; The Times; Al Jazeera.
Which brings us to the only question anyone in England is actually asking. What does it cost? The Premier League deliberately publishes no tariff, on the reasonable theory that a fixed price for cheating is simply a budget line. The commission has discretion to fine, to deduct points, to impose other sporting sanctions, and in theory to expel. Expulsion is the exotic option and worth understanding properly: it would not relegate City to the Championship. A club outside the league is outside the pyramid, and would have to apply to the Football Association to rejoin, entering the English Football League at League Two subject to a majority vote of EFL clubs. The Premier League would be left with nineteen teams and, most likely, two relegation places that season.
The realistic range is a points deduction, and the precedent ledger is where the argument will be fought. Everton lost eight points in total in 2023/24 across two profitability cases, six of them after a successful appeal against an initial ten. Nottingham Forest lost four in the same season. Further down the pyramid, Derby County were docked 21 points in 2021/22 and Luton Town 30 in 2008/09. The football finance academic Kieran Maguire has suggested that a proportionate penalty here would sit between 40 and 60 points, which would have placed City eighteenth last season. Figures inside other clubs, according to The Times, want a deduction heavy enough to amount in practice to relegation.
Chart built from published sanctions. No penalty has yet been set in the Manchester City case, and the commission is not bound by any of these figures.
Then there is the second front, which may ultimately cost more than any deduction. Several Premier League clubs have already taken legal advice on compensation claims, the BBC reports, arguing that City's conduct affected their own league positions, European qualification or, in the worst case, their relegation. The template exists. In June, Burnley won a £35 million settlement from Everton on exactly that reasoning, a decision Everton are appealing. Multiply that logic across nine seasons and a dozen aggrieved clubs and the exposure becomes genuinely existential, whatever happens to the points column.
The cruellest detail is the football. Manchester City go into October top of the Premier League with a perfect record: five wins from five, fifteen points, seven consecutive victories in all competitions under Enzo Maresca, who replaced Pep Guardiola in the summer and has lost only the Community Shield. Erling Haaland leads the division's scoring charts. Reports in Spain say there is no relegation release clause in Haaland's contract, which runs to 2034, though nobody at the Etihad pretends a severe sanction would leave the squad intact. Sponsors, the Mirror reports, are already examining their agreements against the possibility of a season without European football.
Guardiola himself broke cover on Wednesday, posting that he wanted every City supporter to know he was there, more than ever, behind his club, his owner, his chairman, Ferran Soriano, the players, the staff, Maresca and the fans, and adding that they would get through it together. Maresca had been more oblique on Sunday, posting a line of Socrates on Instagram: the only thing I know is that I know nothing. Time to breathe, he added. Time to analyse. Time to learn.
There is one more layer of irony, and it is not small. This is the first season of the Premier League's new financial architecture. Profitability and Sustainability Rules expired with 2025/26. In their place sits the Squad Cost Ratio, which caps on-pitch spending at 85 per cent of football revenue adjusted for player trading, with a multi-year allowance to exceed that by 30 percentage points at a financial cost, alongside a Sustainability and Systemic Resilience test of working capital, liquidity and positive equity. The league built a new rulebook and, in the same autumn, found that the old one had been dismantled from the inside for the better part of a decade. Whatever the sanction, that is the finding that will follow English football around.
Club football stopped on 20 September and does not restart until 10 October. In the gap, an experiment: four internationals instead of two, three weeks instead of one, and a Nations League that has already produced the result of the year.
FIFA's answer to a crowded calendar was to consolidate rather than trim. The September window ran from 24 September to 6 October, national teams were handed up to four fixtures rather than the customary two, and the October break was abolished altogether. Add the buffer either side and the big five European leagues are dark from 20 September to 10 October. The stated logic is player welfare and travel: with the World Cup final falling on 19 July, the season started late and FIFA wanted two international windows a season rather than three. The remaining breaks are 9 to 17 November, 22 to 30 March and 7 to 15 June. UEFA slotted the Champions League league phase around it, with matchday one on 8 to 10 September and matchday two not until 13 and 14 October.
The effect on the ground is strange and, for a European league fan, slightly disorienting. Three weekends without domestic football is not a pause, it is a mid-season break. Lower divisions in England kept playing. MLS took a fortnight off its own run-in. And the international game, handed the entire stage, has filled it.
Start with the only story that can compete with Manchester for column inches. Greece have beaten Germany for the first time. Dimitris Kourbelis scored the goal, deflected, on 75 minutes in Augsburg on Sunday, and Jürgen Klopp lost his first match as Germany head coach on his home debut. Klopp took the blame without flinching: the line-up and the many changes, he said, were 100 per cent on him. He also insisted he would rather have a bad start than a bad ending. Captain Joshua Kimmich was blunter, describing a side that struggled against a deep block and was too static and not creative enough. Germany have one point from two; Greece have six and lead the group.
Elsewhere the new managers are mostly thriving. Zinédine Zidane has won both with France, 1-0 in Türkiye through Kylian Mbappé and 1-0 in Belgium through a slaloming solo goal from Michael Olise two minutes from time. Jorge Jesus has won both with Portugal, with João Félix scoring in each. Xavi Hernández began at Netherlands with a 1-1 draw against Germany rescued by a Cody Gakpo volley in added time, then won 2-1 in Serbia through two goals from debutant Mexx Meerdink. Roberto Mancini's Italy lost 2-0 at home to Belgium and then went to Türkiye and won 4-1, Pio Esposito and Michael Kayode among the scorers.
And the world champions keep winning. Spain came to Wembley on Saturday and beat England 3-2, a result that will feel familiar to anyone who watched the last two finals these sides have contested. Lamine Yamal scored inside two minutes, Anthony Gordon and Harry Kane turned it around before half time, Kane struck the bar from the penalty spot on 54 minutes, and then Álex Baena equalised on 60 and Mikel Oyarzabal won it on 74. Three days later Spain hammered Croatia 4-1 in Seville with Yamal scoring twice. Thomas Tuchel's England recovered by winning 2-0 in Czechia against ten men, Gordon and Kane again.
Group A1 France 6 pts, Belgium 3, Italy 3, Türkiye 0.
Group A2 Greece 6 pts, Netherlands 4, Germany 1, Serbia 0.
Group A3 Spain 6 pts, England 3, Croatia 3, Czechia 0.
Group A4 Portugal 6 pts, Denmark 3, Norway 3, Wales 0.
Two teams qualify from each group for the quarter-finals. Matchday three runs 1 to 3 October, matchday four 4 to 6 October, with matchdays five and six on 12 to 17 November. England edge Croatia and Denmark edge Norway on goal difference.
The bill for all this arrives at the training grounds. Mbappé suffered a hyperextension of the posterior capsule of his left knee in Türkiye and is expected to miss around two to three weeks, which for Real Madrid compounds a defensive injury list that already included Ibrahima Konaté and Fede Valverde. Jamal Musiala tore a muscle fibre in his right thigh. Gakpo went off with an ankle problem seventeen minutes into the Serbia game; Alexander Isak returned to Liverpool with a thigh complaint. Sunderland lost Brian Brobbey to a hamstring, Manchester United fear the same for Patrick Dorgu, and Barcelona had a scare with Eric García's left knee before tests found nothing wrong. Four matches instead of two was always going to read like this.
Also This WeekThe other governance war escalated sharply. On Wednesday the Swiss Football Association withdrew its support for Gianni Infantino's re-election as FIFA president, a remarkable rebuke from his home federation, which had pledged backing as recently as June. The Swiss cited two things: the secretive FIFA Forward Enterprise plan to sell stakes in World Cup commercial operations, revealed on 28 July and abandoned within days, and pressure from United States president Donald Trump not to impose a mandatory one-match ban on the USA forward Folarin Balogun after a red card against Belgium at the World Cup. Credibility, transparency, accountability and effective statutory bodies, the federation said, are essential to trust in the governance of the game.
A day earlier, FIFA had filed a 21-page response through the law firm Linklaters in the Southern District of Florida, opposing UEFA's application to obtain documents and testimony for a planned criminal complaint in Switzerland. UEFA alleges the FFE proposal was developed with a small circle of advisers outside normal governance, that investors would have paid $4.2 billion for a stake in a business valued near $20 billion with no open auction or independent valuation, and that a $30 million commissioner role was earmarked for Infantino. FIFA calls the application bad faith and harassment, accuses UEFA of a misinformation campaign timed to influence the election, and argues it would have been a dereliction of duty not to evaluate such a project at all.
Club football has taken a side. On 25 September the Premier League, LaLiga, Lega Serie A and the Bundesliga issued a rare joint statement calling for structural reform, arguing that the FIFA presidency should not combine unchecked regulatory, commercial and political power, and describing what had happened as one of the biggest abuses of power in FIFA's history. UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation had already written that leadership of the game should never be treated as personal property. Nominations close on 18 November and the vote is in Rabat on 18 March 2027. UEFA meets its 55 member federations in Berlin next week, still without a candidate. That is the thing to watch: not the filings, but whether a challenger emerges before the deadline.
The European windows are shut. That has never stopped the business, and with three weekends of empty fixtures the agents have had the floor to themselves. One story dominates, and it belongs to a boy who cannot legally sign a professional contract for another week.
Manchester United have a generational forward in their academy who has asked to leave, an Irish passport that lets him, and a birthday next Tuesday that makes it possible.
Joseph Junior Andreou Gabriel, known to everyone in English football as JJ, was born in Enfield on 6 October 2010. He passed through the academies at Chelsea, Arsenal and West Ham before joining Manchester United in 2022. In April 2025, aged fourteen, he became the youngest player ever to appear for United's under-18s and scored twice on debut against Leeds United. In May 2026 he was named the under-18 Premier League player of the season. He has nine England youth caps across the under-15, under-16 and under-17 age groups. He wears the number 95 at Carrington. He has never played a senior minute, and he is already the most consequential transfer story in Europe.
The reason is a passport. Gabriel holds Irish citizenship, which makes him eligible under FIFA's rules to move to a club inside the European Union from the age of sixteen rather than waiting until eighteen, as an English-only player moving abroad would have to. He turns sixteen next Tuesday. In mid-September he formally asked United to terminate his registration with immediate effect, stopped training, missed a Premier League 2 fixture against Brentford, and travelled to Barcelona. United refused to release him.
Barcelona are the club most heavily linked, having first hosted him on a tour of the facilities in August 2024, when he met Lamine Yamal. Real Madrid are described by ESPN as monitoring the situation closely, with Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain also watching. One outlet, 101greatgoals, has gone further and reported that Gabriel will join Real Madrid on a free transfer on his sixteenth birthday; that claim is single-sourced and should be treated as such. Fabrizio Romano has pushed back on part of the narrative, stating that Gabriel did not hold direct talks with Barcelona in person and that it is his representatives who are speaking to several clubs. Romano's reading of United's position is that they are not giving up and still hope to keep him.
United's head coach, Michael Carrick, has tried to lower the temperature, saying only that JJ is a young boy, that it is important nothing is played out in public, and that making sure he is all right is what matters. The hard-edged reality is simpler. If United retain his registration he cannot join an English club this season, which leaves a move to continental Europe as the only live route, and leaves United to argue about training compensation rather than a fee. For a player of this billing, that is the difference between a windfall and a rounding error.
Where it sits Advanced interest and representative-level talks. No agreement reported with any club.
Hard facts Turns 16 on 6 October. Has requested termination. Irish passport permits an EU move at 16.
Best sourced ESPN (Barcelona and Real Madrid monitoring); Fabrizio Romano (no direct player-to-club talks; United still hopeful).
Treat with care Reports of a done deal with Real Madrid on his birthday. Single-sourced.
A contract running out in 2027, a Barcelona hovering, and a 6ft 6in Plan B currently playing in Turin.
Harry Kane's Bayern Munich contract expires in 2027, which means it is now inside its final nine months, which is precisely the point at which a striker with 152 goals in 154 appearances for the club becomes the most interesting man in Europe. He reached 100 Bundesliga goals faster than anyone in history, in 49 matches. Barcelona have been monitoring the situation for weeks.
Kane himself addressed it on 25 September, telling Goal that talks are going well, that he is hoping something gets done, and that over the next month or so there should be some sort of decision. A separate strand of reporting claims he wants a release clause permitting a Premier League return. Bayern have announced nothing, so the correct reading is this: an extension is expected, it is not signed, and Barcelona are close enough to hear it if the talks stall.
Behind that, Bayern are doing the sensible thing and building a list. Nick Woltemade is on it. The Germany forward moved to Newcastle United for a club record fee of around £69 million in 2025 and was loaned to Juventus on 1 September 2026 for a fee reported at about €4 million, with the Italian club covering his wages. Tuttosport, cited by Sport Witness, reported on 29 September that Bayern have held preliminary conversations with his representatives and that Newcastle would want in the region of €60 million to sell next summer. Nothing is imminent. Juventus, who are paying to watch him every week and would like to make the move permanent, are the immediate competition. Woltemade's own stated priority is more prosaic: get fully fit, play, score.
Rodri arrived for a package worth €76.5m. Since then the club has spent its energy locking down what it already has.
The headline summer move in Spain was Rodri leaving Manchester City after seven years for Barcelona, with City accepting a package reported by Sky Sports and others at €76.5 million. The knock-on has been a burst of retention. Raphinha, who leads La Liga's scoring charts with nine goals, has extended to 2030 on improved terms. Xavi Espart has also signed to 2030, and the midfielder Marc Bernal has extended from 2029 to 2031. On top of that Barcelona have completed the signing of Dany Freire, a sixteen-year-old Portuguese attacking midfielder, on a three-year deal to 2029 after a successful trial. Romano calls that one done, and frames it as Barcelona moving early to head off rival interest, which is a familiar pattern and, given the JJ Gabriel saga, a pointed one.
Sell two senior midfielders in the summer, lose your remaining one to injury, and January arrives early.
Chelsea sold Enzo Fernández to Manchester City and Andrey Santos to Manchester United over the summer, then watched Moises Caicedo manage fourteen minutes of football before injury intervened, which has forced Xabi Alonso to field right-backs in central midfield. The club's reporter Nizaar Kinsella, writing for BBC Sport, says Chelsea are open to signing a midfielder in January, while cautioning that they may prefer to wait until the summer for genuine quality rather than take a short-term option, depending on Caicedo's recovery and how the academy players develop.
The primary target is Alex Scott of Bournemouth, who has so far been reluctant to sign an extension while the club tries to tie him down, possibly with a release clause attached. The alternatives named are Lamine Camara at Monaco, whose summer move collapsed, Manu Koné at Roma, Adam Wharton at Crystal Palace and Sander Berge at Fulham. Status: concrete interest, no negotiation.
With Kamil Grabara injured and the window closed, Juventus went to the free-agent market and re-signed Neto, announced officially on 28 September on a deal running to June 2027. The Brazilian returns to Turin for a second spell as cover. It is a small piece of business with an unusual amount of romance attached to it, and a reminder that the closed window is not a sealed one: any club with a genuine emergency can still recruit an unattached player. Reported first by Nicolò Schira and confirmed by the club.
Everything still simmering, with the certainty labelled. Treat anything below “fee agreed” as a story that can die overnight.
Nobody in Europe's big five has kicked a competitive ball since 20 September, so this is a standings-and-consequences round rather than a results round. It is also, for once, a useful vantage point: five weeks of football is exactly enough to tell you which of the summer's many new managers have landed.
Take the verdict out of the room for a moment and the sporting story is Enzo Maresca. Replacing Pep Guardiola after a decade should be one of the least survivable jobs in football. Instead Manchester City have won all five league games, sit top on fifteen points, and have taken seven straight victories in all competitions since losing the Community Shield. The manner is not Guardiola's. City beat Sunderland 5-3 on 20 September in a game that had Antoine Semenyo scoring twice, Enzo Fernández and Rayan Cherki adding to it, Erling Haaland leading the division's scoring charts, and Brian Brobbey becoming the first player since 2007 to score a Premier League hat-trick in a defeat. Maresca was unimpressed with the theatre of it. He said he would rather win 1-0 than 5-3, which is the most Marescan sentence available.
At the other end the crisis is in north London and it is not subtle. Tottenham are twentieth with two points and two goals from five matches, already out of the EFL Cup at the hands of Liverpool, and beaten 3-2 at home by Aston Villa on 19 September in a game Roberto De Zerbi described with real anger. He said he was very disappointed, very sad and very frustrated, called the second goal conceded unbelievable, and told his squad that leaders need to be leaders, because football is like life and either you are stronger or you lose. He had warned them before kick-off that Villa were playing far more direct football this season. They were caught by exactly that. Romano reports that Spurs are not preparing to sack him, on the basis that they backed his ideas in the summer and understood this would be a process. Whether the stand holds through a fixture list that resumes with Manchester United away is a different question. Fulham, nineteenth on two points, would quite like the attention elsewhere.
In between, the picture is genuinely strange. Xabi Alonso's Chelsea have a minus goal difference and a set-piece problem that Brentford exposed in a 3-0 win on 18 September. Andoni Iraola's Liverpool are unbeaten but have scored seven in five, with Alexander Isak responsible for most of the decisive moments, including both goals at Ipswich and the only goal at Bournemouth. Brighton have sixteen goals in five, more than anyone, including a 5-0 win at Coventry. And the promoted clubs are not drowning: Hull City are eighth, Ipswich Town have six points, and Coventry, for all their minus-nine goal difference, won at Nottingham Forest. Leeds United are fifth and put four past Newcastle. Manchester United, twelfth on five points, are the anomaly that keeps being an anomaly.
| Club | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | +8 | 15 |
| 2 | Arsenal | +4 | 12 |
| 3 | Brighton | +11 | 10 |
| 4 | Brentford | +6 | 9 |
| 5 | Leeds | +4 | 9 |
| … | |||
| 18 | Coventry | −9 | 3 |
| 19 | Fulham | −3 | 2 |
| 20 | Tottenham | −6 | 2 |
Every club has played five. Liverpool and Everton are also on nine points. Play resumes with matchweek six on Saturday 10 October.
Barcelona have won all seven, scored thirty-one goals and conceded seven. That is not a start, it is a statement, and Hansi Flick was named La Liga coach of the month on Wednesday for good reason. Raphinha, freshly extended to 2030, leads the scoring charts with nine. There have been 7-2 and 5-0 and 4-2 scorelines, and a 3-1 win at Sevilla on 19 September that felt like the moment the rest of the league did its arithmetic.
Which leaves José Mourinho six points back in fourth with a problem that is partly his own and largely medical. Real Madrid have fifteen points from seven, having lost 1-0 at Real Betis on the opening weekend and 2-1 in the derby at Atlético Madrid on 20 September. Kylian Mbappé is now out for two to three weeks with a knee injury picked up on international duty. Ibrahima Konaté and Fede Valverde were already out, and Raúl Asencio needs surgery on a fractured tibia that may cost him the rest of the calendar year. October then delivers five matches in sixteen days: Villarreal at home on the 10th, Roma away in the Champions League on the 14th, Sevilla on the 18th, RB Leipzig on the 21st and the Clásico at Barcelona on the 25th. Mourinho has spent September publicly dismissing the pressure. It arrives anyway.
Below that, Atlético and Betis are level on sixteen and both capable of holding a top-four place. The horror show is at Valencia, where the club's worst start on record produced a double sacking on 15 September: head coach Carlos Corberán, whose contract had been extended two months earlier, was dismissed on a video call while owner Peter Lim sat 10,000 kilometres away in Singapore, and chief executive Ron Gourlay went with him, ten days after publicly defending the club's stability. Braulio Vázquez has arrived from Osasuna to run the search, with Ernesto Valverde and Jagoba Arrasate reported among the candidates, and B-team coach Óscar Sánchez in temporary charge. Promoted Deportivo A Coruña are seventh, which is the happier end of the same story.
Four games, four wins, nine scored and two conceded: Niko Kovaç's Borussia Dortmund are top of the Bundesliga, and they got there the unglamorous way, with a 1-0 win at Stuttgart on 19 September. Bayern Munich are second on ten with a far better goal difference, having put seven past Union Berlin on 18 September, but they also drew 0-0 at promoted Schalke on the opening weekend and have now lost Jamal Musiala to a torn muscle fibre in his right thigh. Freiburg, quietly, are also on ten.
The first managerial casualty of the German season came at Borussia Mönchengladbach, and it was not close. The club endured the worst three-match start in its history, capped by a 5-0 defeat at Freiburg on 12 September, and Eugen Polanski departed with zero points. Sporting director Rouven Schröder framed it as being about points rather than individuals. Polanski, to his credit, conceded he had never seen individual defensive mistakes at such a number and frequency. Jan-Moritz Lichte took one game, a 4-3 home defeat by Mainz, before Alexander Blessin was appointed on 22 September on a contract to 2028. The 51-year-old arrives from two seasons at St Pauli, having previously won the Belgian cup with Union Saint-Gilloise and managed Genoa and Oostende. He inherits a side with no points and a minus-ten goal difference.
The rest of the bottom half is a study in how brutal this division is to the newly arrived and the recently fallen. Union Berlin have one point and have conceded seventeen in four. Hamburg have scored two and conceded thirteen, shipping five at RB Leipzig and five at home to Mainz. Against that, promoted SV Elversberg have seven points and promoted Paderborn beat Hoffenheim 3-1, which tells you something about where the soft underbelly really is.
Three clubs sit on thirteen points and the one on top is the one nobody predicted. Gian Piero Gasperini's Roma have conceded three goals in five matches and have found, in Donyell Malen, the centre-forward the previous four regimes could not. Malen has five, and Gasperini has called him extraordinary, saying he knew he was an important player but that Roma have gone further than that. The 2-2 draw with Inter on 19 September was the first genuine test and Roma passed it.
Inter under Cristian Chivu are level on points with the best attack in the division, having beaten Napoli 3-2 on the opening weekend and Udinese 5-3. Gennaro Gattuso's Lazio are also on thirteen with a defence that has conceded three. Rúben Amorim's Milan are unbeaten on eleven. Luciano Spalletti's Juventus have ten. And then there is the oddity of the table: Cagliari fourth on twelve points having scored five goals all season, which is either excellent coaching or a statistical practical joke.
The disappointments are concentrated at the two clubs who changed most. Massimiliano Allegri's Napoli are ninth on seven points. Maurizio Sarri's Atalanta are eleventh on six, with five goals scored. In an audit of the summer market published on 28 September, Gianluca Di Marzio judged that Inter's new arrivals have settled fastest while several expensive signings at Atalanta, Milan and Roma are still finding their feet. At the foot, Venezia have lost all five and Daniele De Rossi's Genoa have one point, while promoted Frosinone have ten and Cesc Fàbregas's Como have ten.
Ligue 1's table reads like a prank on the establishment. Filipe Luís's Monaco lead on thirteen points, having won 2-1 at the Parc des Princes on the opening weekend and 2-1 at home to Lens on 18 September through two goals from Brunner. Lyon are second on eleven, unbeaten, with two goals conceded in five and a 4-0 dismantling of Rennes on 19 September in which Ernest Nuamah scored twice. And Paris FC, promoted, are third on eleven under Liam Rosenior, having won at Marseille and beaten Strasbourg. Davide Ancelotti's Lille are fourth.
Paris Saint-Germain are sixth on eight points. Luis Enrique lost his opening weekend at home and did not win until matchday two had passed, and while a 1-0 at Brest and a 2-1 at Marseille have steadied things, the champions have conceded seven in five. Nobody in Paris is panicking, and nobody should: the pattern of a slow PSG September is practically a genre. But the gap to Monaco is five points already.
The real emergency is at the Vélodrome. Marseille are seventeenth, inside the relegation zone for the first time since 2011-12, with four defeats in five. The Classique on 20 September summed it up: Angel Gomes equalised on 72 minutes, Marquinhos won it for PSG, and Timothy Weah was sent off and is now suspended. Bruno Génésio, appointed on 1 July, was scathing and specific: they cannot be satisfied with losing 2-1 while making the same mistakes, he said, because they do not learn from their mistakes, and for three or four weeks it has been the same recurring lack of concentration and lack of maturity. He has ruled out resigning. Troyes are next, when football restarts, and Marseille need the points more than the performance.
MLS is the one league in this digest that kept playing into the window, and it has a record chase on. Nashville SC have sixty points from twenty-seven matches, eighteen wins and only three defeats, and they are ten clear of anyone. They reached fifty-two points after twenty-two games, the most any MLS side has ever held at that stage, and are running at 2.36 points per game, a pace that projects to roughly eighty and would comfortably beat Inter Miami's single-season record of seventy-four from 2024. They were the first club to secure a playoff place. They beat Toronto 2-0 at GEODIS Park on 26 September through a brace from Hany Mukhtar, a third straight win. Sam Surridge has sixteen league goals, Cristian Espinoza has led the league for assists, and B.J. Callaghan has declined to put a ceiling on any of it.
Miami, by contrast, are stuck. The defending champions lost 2-1 at Columbus Crew on 27 September and have now gone five MLS matches without a win, four draws and a defeat. Lionel Messi produced the moment of the weekend, a free kick curled over Patrick Schulte from the right-hand touchline five minutes after Josef Martínez had converted a penalty, and it counted for nothing: Jamal Thiare won it in the 98th minute, two minutes after Santiago Morales had been sent off for time-wasting. Columbus created 1.87 expected goals to Miami's 0.27 and hit the woodwork three times. Miami sit third overall on forty-six points, level with New England and one behind FC Dallas.
Vancouver Whitecaps lead the West on fifty from twenty-six. St Louis City have not lost since 3 May and have reached the US Open Cup final. Philadelphia Union have been the form team of the post-World Cup stretch, a run that included recovering from 3-0 down to win 4-3 at Sporting Kansas City with four goals in nine minutes. Houston, Dallas and San Jose are separated by two points in the West. Decision Day is 7 November, the wild-card games are on 18 November, and MLS Cup is on 18 December.
| Club | Pld | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nashville | 27 | 60 |
| 2 | Vancouver | 26 | 50 |
| 3 | Dallas | 27 | 47 |
| 4 | New England | 27 | 46 |
| 5 | Inter Miami | 27 | 46 |
Standings as of 30 September 2026. Records, in wins, draws and defeats: Nashville 18-6-3, Vancouver 15-5-6, Dallas 13-8-6, New England 14-4-9, Inter Miami 12-10-5. Nashville lead the Supporters' Shield race; Vancouver lead the Western Conference.
Ballon d'Or leaves Paris for the first time
The ceremony is on 26 October at the London Palladium, seventy years after Stanley Matthews won the first award. Voting covers 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026. Harry Kane is the bookmakers' favourite on the back of 73 goals in 65 games; Lamine Yamal, Kylian Mbappé, Rodri, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Lionel Messi are among the thirty nominees, with Ousmane Dembélé defending. On the women's list, three-time winner Aitana Bonmatí missed out through injury.
Champions League returns after a five-week gap
Matchday two of the league phase is on 13 and 14 October. Matchday one, back on 8 to 10 September, produced Bayern 5-0 Bodø/Glimt, Barcelona 5-1 Feyenoord, PSG 6-1 Slovan Bratislava and Real Madrid 2-1 Inter. The best result of the round belonged to newly promoted Como, who beat RB Leipzig 4-1.
Džeko says goodbye at forty
Edin Džeko plays his farewell international for Bosnia and Herzegovina during this window, closing a nineteen-year career as his country's record scorer.
Minnow milestones in the lower leagues
Joel Pohjanpalo scored a hat-trick as Finland beat San Marino 7-0. Luxembourg won their first ever League C match, 2-1 at Bulgaria. Northern Ireland claimed their first League B victory with a 99th-minute winner against Georgia.
Switzerland win comfortably in Scotland
Switzerland opened their League B campaign with a 3-0 win in Scotland, Ricardo Rodríguez scoring from a free kick before Nico Elvedi and Zeki Amdouni added to it. Jack Hendry was sent off after eleven minutes.
A debut to remember for Meerdink
Mexx Meerdink scored twice, one from the penalty spot, on his first start for Netherlands as Xavi Hernández's side won 2-1 in Serbia.
United keep raiding academies
Paper reports say Manchester United have added the teenagers Karim Cassim and David Eze from Manchester City's academy, with Eze, sixteen, agreeing scholarship and long-term professional terms, and signed the winger Isaac Konde from Liverpool. Unconfirmed by the clubs.
A trophy Miami did win
For all the winless league run, Inter Miami lifted the Campeones Cup this season and remain the reigning MLS Cup champions. They also lead the Eastern Conference for points collected on the road, with twenty-seven.
Barcelona scare passes
Eric García left the Spain camp with discomfort in his left knee and was assessed at Barcelona's training ground. Tests found no injury, Mundo Deportivo reported, and the withdrawal was precautionary.
All kick-off times below are Pacific. Europe is still on summer time until 25 October, so the standard Nations League evening slot of 20:45 in central Europe lands at 11:45 a.m. Pacific, and the earlier 18:00 slot lands at 9:00 a.m. Times marked expected follow the same slot but have not been individually confirmed. There is no Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A or Ligue 1 football in this window.
Wednesday 30 September
4:30 p.m. MLS: New York Red Bulls v St Louis City.
Thursday 1 October
11:45 a.m. Nations League A, matchday three: Germany v Serbia. Klopp needs a win after the Greece defeat.
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: Greece v Netherlands, top of Group A2 against second.
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: Denmark v Portugal.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: Wales v Norway, with Erling Haaland on three goals in two.
11:45 a.m. Nations League B: Republic of Ireland v Austria.
6:30 p.m. MLS: Seattle Sounders v Sporting Kansas City.
Friday 2 October
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: France v Italy at the Stade de France. Zinédine Zidane's first home match as France head coach, against a Roberto Mancini side that put four past Türkiye. France have won four of the last five meetings; Italy have not beaten them since 2012. Mbappé is out.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: Belgium v Türkiye.
Deadline Off the pitch: the last day for Manchester City to lodge an appeal against the commission's findings.
Saturday 3 October
9:00 a.m. Nations League A: Croatia v England. Thomas Tuchel's side won 2-0 in Czechia; Croatia were beaten 4-1 in Seville. The group's second qualifying place is effectively in play here.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: Spain v Czechia. The world champions have won both, scoring seven.
Sunday 4 October
11:45 a.m. Nations League A, matchday four: Greece v Germany, the immediate rematch in Athens.
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: Portugal v Norway.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: Netherlands v Serbia and Wales v Denmark.
Monday 5 October
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: France v Belgium, the reverse of the fixture France won 1-0 in Brussels.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: Italy v Türkiye.
This week UEFA are due to meet their 55 member associations in Berlin to find a challenger to Gianni Infantino before nominations close on 18 November.
Tuesday 6 October
11:45 a.m. Nations League A: Croatia v Spain.
11:45 a.m. (expected) Nations League A: England v Czechia at Wembley.
All day JJ Gabriel turns sixteen, and becomes eligible to sign for a club inside the European Union.
Wednesday 7 October
Diary Nothing scheduled in the six leagues. Three days until football restarts.
Premier League Manchester City, 15 points from five, a perfect start. Arsenal 12, Brighton 10.
La Liga Barcelona, 21 points from seven, all won. Atlético Madrid and Real Betis 16, Real Madrid 15.
Bundesliga Borussia Dortmund, 12 points from four, all won. Bayern Munich and Freiburg 10.
Serie A Roma, 13 points from five, level with Inter and Lazio. Cagliari 12, Milan 11.
Ligue 1 Monaco, 13 points from five. Lyon and Paris FC 11, Lille 10.
MLS Nashville SC, 60 points from 27. Vancouver 50, FC Dallas 47.
Trouble Tottenham and Fulham on two points in England; Málaga three and Valencia four in Spain; Borussia Mönchengladbach nil in Germany; Venezia nil in Italy; Marseille inside the drop zone in France for the first time since 2011-12.
And then the season restarts. The Premier League returns on Saturday 10 October, with Manchester United v Tottenham at 9:30 a.m. Pacific and, on the Sunday, Liverpool v Manchester City at 8:30 a.m. Pacific, which is the first meeting of the division's two leading scorers and the first time Maresca's City face a peer. Champions League matchday two follows on 13 and 14 October. La Liga returns the same weekend, with Real Madrid hosting Villarreal on the 10th. Somewhere in there, a sanctions hearing gets listed.