Manchester City Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has expressed his regret over the club’s involvement in the ill-fated European Super League – but insisted they will continue to ‘disrupt’ to become the best in the world.

City were left reeling in April after announcing they were one of the founder clubs of the doomed breakaway – and the furious condemnation from across the football world eventually forced the 12 members into a U-turn.

And now, several weeks on and with City having won the Premier League once again, Al Mubarak admitted the decision was a mistake and that the Etihad giants plan to use it as a ‘learning experience.’
“Regret, yes, a big learning experience. We go on and we will continue,’ Al Mubarak told the club’s website.

“It was a decision based on a view, which was a mistaken view, this will improve and strengthen our position as a club. What it missed was an important aspect which is how the fans felt about it.

“We will learn from it, I have no doubt. Our fans appreciate the heart and spirit of everything we do. Our fans, I hope, will understand when we make such a mistake like this our heart was in the right place. Our assessment was wrong.

“We took a decision, I took a decision on this and I take full responsibility, it was a mistake.”

In the wake of the fierce backlash, City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal all revealed they would pull out – with most of the clubs then issuing an apology to their fanbases.

The two Milan teams, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus were also involved in the competition – which has now been suspended.

As a result of the Super League’s collapse, the Premier League have introduced measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again in the future through an owners’ charter.

The owners of all 20 top-flight sides will be required to sign up to the charter, which enforces the principles of the division.

Al Mubarak says that City will make more errors in the years to come as they bid to become a global force, but believes these chastening experiences are all part of their journey to the top.

He added: ‘We will continue to push the envelope in everything we do. We want to be the best club in the world and to do so, we have to disrupt and we will disrupt.

“In being disruptive, sometimes you make mistakes. We have made mistakes in the past, we will make mistakes in the future, but we will do more right than wrong.

“We will be better, stronger and more successful. What I tell the fans on this is, to get to where we are today we have done a lot of things right and we have made a lot of mistakes. It’s part of growing and improving.

“You need to have the courage to make mistakes and to own up to these mistakes to go forward.

“If you go back 12 years ago where we started, to where we are today, we couldn’t have done the leaps we have made over the years without taking risks and without making mistakes, learning and coming back and constantly improving.”

Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus are still on board with the Super League, meanwhile, and FIFA has begun disciplinary proceedings against them.

LaLiga president, and UEFA Executive Committee member, Javier Tebas has said that the three clubs should be ‘scared’ of the punishments they may be hit with.

La Repubblica in Italy have even claimed that they will all be kicked out of the Champions League.

Swiss eighth seed Roger Federer regained his composure during a heated battle with Croatia’s Marin Cilic to reach the French Open third round.

Federer, 39, had some testy exchanges with the umpire on his way to a 6-2 2-6 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 win on the Paris clay.

Top seed Novak Djokovic produced a focused performance to reach the third round for a 16th consecutive year.

The 34-year-old Serb won 6-3 6-2 6-4 in his first career meeting with tricky Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas.

Djokovic will face Lithuania’s Ricardas Berankis, ranked 93rd in the world, in the last 32.

The 18-time Grand Slam champion is aiming for a second title in Paris to follow up his sole win in 2016.

Defending champion Rafael Nadal plays his second-round match in the night session on Chatrier, taking on France’s Richard Gasquet for the right to face British number two Cameron Norrie in the next stage.

While the Spaniard has won a record 13 titles at Roland Garros and is the favourite for another, he is seeded third behind Djokovic and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev because the seeding system is based on the current world rankings.

‘It added some energy’ – Federer on towel ‘misunderstanding’

If Djokovic does lift the Coupe des Mousquetaires on 13 June, the world number one will close the gap on Nadal and Federer in terms of Grand Slam victories to one.

All three players find themselves in the same half of the Roland Garros draw – the first time that this has happened at a major tournament.

Having barely played since the 2020 Australian Open following two knee operations, Federer has been keen to dampen expectations on only his second visit to Roland Garros since 2015.

The 20-time Grand Slam champion says he is focusing on being in prime shape for next month’s Wimbledon – where he has won a record eight men’s singles titles – although privately may harbour higher hopes of a deep run on the Paris clay.

After an impressive opening win against Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin, he faced a step up in quality against former US Open champion Cilic.

Other than in a ragged second set, where Federer lost his cool with the umpire after being warned for taking too long between points, the Swiss star played fluently throughout and looked to be moving well.

“I was a bit surprised by the level I played because I didn’t play so much lately,” said Federer, who faces 59th-ranked Dominik Koepfer of Germany next.

“I was a bit on and off, but I served well in the tie-break. I am very pleased with the result.”

On riling Cilic and the subsequent discussion with umpire Emmanuel Joseph, he added: “I just feel like it was a misunderstanding on many levels.

“I didn’t feel like I was playing particularly slow. I always feel like I don’t make my opponent wait very much, but clearly Marin wanted to go faster. I didn’t realise that.

“I told him, I also haven’t played so much lately that I’m not quite understanding the rhythm, and I guess I’m just ‘new’ to the new tour.

“It was quite interesting to live through it. It got a little energy to the match, which I liked.”

Business-like Djokovic ‘staying in the moment’

Djokovic has made no secret of his desire to overhaul his great rivals in the race to finish with the most men’s major titles and, so far this week, has cut a tense figure.

Stern-faced throughout his opening win against Tennys Sandgren, Djokovic had a similar emotionless expression as he raced into a two-set lead against Cuevas.

The 35-year-old Uruguayan is a clay-court specialist known for his variety and there was an early warning for Djokovic when Cuevas broke his serve for a 2-1 lead in the opener.

That sharpened the Serb’s focus, however, and he responded by winning 10 of the next 12 games.

Djokovic served precisely and powerfully throughout the second set, but came under more pressure from the creative Cuevas at the start of the third set.

Four break points were saved by the top seed in his opening two service games of the third set, leading to a rare show of emotion as he accused a noisy spectator of trying to disrupt him during his serving motion.

A cute drop-shot sealed a 3-1 lead, with the Serb flashing a steely glare at the person in the stands who had upset him.

From that point, Djokovic was rarely troubled on serve and sealed victory with an ace out wide on his first match point.

“I stayed concentrated. I thought the third set was very difficult for me because he lifted the level of his game,” said Djokovic, who stared again at the same fan after taking match point and then breaking out into a broad smile.

“It’s a cliche to say ‘day by day’, but it’s very important for me to stay in the moment.”

Meanwhile, Spanish teenager Carlos Alcaraz became the youngest man since Ukraine’s Andrei Medvedev in 1992 to reach the third round when he beat 28th seed Nikoloz Basilashvili in straight sets.

The world number 97, who turned 18 last month, won 6-4 6-2 6-4 against the Georgian.

Home favourite Gael Monfils was knocked out by Sweden’s Mikael Ymer, while Russian 24th seed Aslan Karatsev – a surprise Australian Open semi-finalist in February – was beaten by German veteran Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Italian ninth seed Matteo Berrettini and Argentine 10th seed Diego Schwartzman both progressed with straight-set wins.

Nigeria has made a dramatic U-turn over the hosting of the troubled African Athletics Championships.

The championships, originally to hold in Algeria but suffered three-time postponements before Nigeria stepped in last month to rescue the event and fixed June 23 to 27 for it.

But now, the Nigerian authorities have now said the championships cannot be hosted as planned  due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

This latest decision leaves the future of the athletics showpiece in doubt for this year despite Algeria insisting it is still willing to host the event later this year, coronavirus permitting.

The Confederation of African Athletics had hoped that with Nigeria hosting the championships it would give athletes the chance to achieve qualifying standards for the Tokyo Olympics ahead of the 29 June deadline.

It is yet another problem to hit the biennial event which should have taken place in 2020 before being postponed by a year due to Covid-19.

The plan was then to hold the championships in the Algerian city of Oran between the 1st and 5th June 2021 before it was then moved to Algiers and set to take place 22-26 June.

The Africa Sports Management Association (ASMA) has announced Nigeria’s Professor Seun Omotayo as the continental representative on the Executive Board of World  Association of Sport Management  (WASM).

Omotayo, a visiting scholar at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ghana broke the news to Sports Village Square.

The World Association of Sports management was founded to facilitate sport management research, teaching and learning excellence, and professional practice, across every continent.

The WASM book series is designed to support those aims by presenting current research and scholarship, from well-established and emerging scholars and practitioners, on sport management theory, policy and practice.

Its African wing, ASMA  was founded on 8th June 2010 during the 17th Biennial International Conference of the International Society for Comparative Physical Education and Sport held at Kenyatta University, Nairobi (Kenya)..

Irish FA President David Martin believes the UEFA Super Cup will be one of the biggest matches played in Northern Ireland in recent history.

It was confirmed on Thursday that the game between Chelsea and Villarreal, Champions League and Europa League winners respectively, will be played at Windsor Park as planned on 11 August.

UEFA considered moving the game to Istanbul as a compensation measure after the Champions League final was switched from the Turkish city to Porto because of coronavirus restrictions.

Details on attendance and ticketing arrangements for the game are still to be finalised, but Martin is hopeful that a “big, big crowd” can be at the National Stadium.

“This is massive for Northern Ireland, massive for the country, massive for the Irish Football Association and the game here,” he said.

“It is the biggest game in the history of our sport here in Northern Ireland, certainly in recent times, and we would like to see a big, big crowd at the national stadium.

“We will not know exactly how many supporters we will have in the stadium but what we do know is that supporters are being allowed into stadia throughout the UK and there are high hopes that a considerable number of supporters make the semi-final and final of the Euros in July. We are a month further down the line.

“All Covid issues will of course be taken into consideration but this is a time when we have to hope that things will be relaxed more and we can have a high percentage of people can attend in August.

“I am not putting a percentage on it, we have two and a half months to come so let’s see what happens between now and then.”

This season’s Champions League final was the second successive year that the decider was moved from Istanbul to Portugal.

Hosting the Super Cup fixture on 11 August was understood to be among the compensation measures offered to the Turkish football authorities by Uefa.

Paris Saint-Germain have reached out to Juventus over a deal to sign forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who could replace Kylian Mbappe if the Frenchman joins Real Madrid.

Real have been focused on signing Mbappe for years and are finally planning to move for him this summer, leaving PSG to draw up a shortlist of replacements which has included Tottenham’s Harry Kane and Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.

Well, there’s a new name on the shortlist as several outlets across Europe have confirmed that Ronaldo has been bumped up to the top priority.

The idea of Ronaldo joining PSG was floated out by La Gazzetta dello Sport on Wednesday and has since been backed up by AS, with both reports suggesting new Juventus boss Massimiliano Allegri is not particularly interested in keeping the high-earning superstar.

The reports claim that Ronaldo has wanted to leave Juventus for a while now, with the Italian side also exploring ways to get out from his enormous contract. It’s the kind of contract we usually say only PSG could afford, and here we are.

Allegri has made it clear that he hopes to build his attack around Paulo Dybala and Alvaro Morata, and he also dreams of adding former Inter hitman Mauro Icardi to his new-look attack – something PSG could turn into a reality.

Juventus have asked for Icardi as a straight-swap for Ronaldo, or a fee of around £25m if that doesn’t work for PSG, with the French side seriously considering pulling the trigger on the enormous deal.

It’s thought that PSG want to see Mbappe’s future resolved first. They dream of tying the forward down to a new long-term contract but know full-well that Real Madrid are waiting in the wings to snap him up, and those at the Parc des Princes see Ronaldo as a perfect alternative if they do lose their talisman.

Having said that, for the kind of money Juventus are looking for, there’s a good chance PSG could go for this deal even if they keep Mbappe. It might be a bit of a squeeze to fit his wages into the budget, but selling a handful of fringe players on top of offloading Icardi could get the job done.

For now, it’s worth keeping a close eye on Mbappe’s future. It seems as though the Frenchman holds the key to this entire monster merry-go-round. If he seals his move to Real as expected, all hell could break loose.