Here are the latest Premier League headlines for Wednesday, June 15.
Fixture requests
The winter World Cup has seen Premier League clubs make more requests for the 2022/23 season than usual, the fixture list compiler has revealed. The campaign, which starts earlier than usual on August 6, will pause between November 13 and December 26 due to the tournament in Qatar and it has put heavy pressure on Glenn Thompson, the man responsible for putting the fixture list together.
Thompson, who works for Atos, an international IT services company used by the Premier League, has been working on next season's fixtures since the start of the year and has had a lot to contend with, with 2,036 games across the top four divisions to arrange. Clubs are invited to send fixture requests - such as asking to be at home on a certain date - in March and Thompson says there have been more than usual.
"The early start to both the Premier League and EFL means we have encountered more date requests from clubs than usual," he said ahead of Thursday's release of the 2022/23 fixtures. "The various start, break and end dates between the leagues has also posed a few sequencing problems."
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Sterling defends Southgate
Raheem Sterling leapt to the defence of under-fire Gareth Southgate following England's Hungary humbling, saying it is unfair to judge the manager on this Nations League run given what he has done for the team and nation. Just 11 months ago the Three Lions went agonisingly close to joining the heroes of 1966 in immortality, with the country's first ever European Championship final ending in a penalty shoot-out loss to Italy.
Southgate had already led England to the 2018 World Cup semi-finals and third at the inaugural Nations League the following year, but the former defender is now facing the biggest challenge of his reign. June's draws with Germany and Italy were bookended by a famous Hungary double, with a shock 1-0 triumph in Budapest - their first win against England since 1962 - followed by a Molineux mauling.
The Magyars' 4-0 triumph on Tuesday was the Three Lions' biggest home loss since 1928 and saw fans chant "you don't know what you're doing" at Southgate.
"No one was expecting it," experienced forward Sterling told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I think it's been a disappointed camp overall in a sense that there's been games that we should have won. But football's cruel sometimes and we'll take this one on the chin, recover well and get ready for the campaign in September.
"Of course it's disappointing, of course there's going to be question marks, of course there's going to be doubts. But I'm more than confident in the group that we have. It's solely down to us as players. We put good enough sides on each and every match that we've played and we just haven't got the results. We haven't been competitive enough, we haven't been ruthless enough - myself also.
"So, it's one that we just look at ourselves as a collective and I know once we have that well-deserved break that we need and we come back, we'll be ready again."
LaLiga make PSG & Man City complaint
LaLiga has filed complaints to UEFA claiming Paris St Germain and Manchester City are "in continuous breach" of Financial Fair Play rules. President Javier Tebas has a long-running issue with the two clubs, backed by the resources of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and Abu Dhabi's ruling family respectively, over the way they are financed through sponsorship deals which he argues do not reflect the market.
Last month Tebas was furious when PSG extended the contract of striker Kylian Mbappe - a target for Real Madrid - with reported wages of £1million-a-week and a £100m signing-on bonus - a deal he described as an "insult to football". But he has taken that attack further by lodging formal papers with European football's governing body against the Ligue 1 club, having already done so against the Premier League champions.
"This week, LaLiga has filed a complaint with UEFA against PSG, which adds to another against Manchester City in April, on the grounds that these clubs are in continuous breach of the current financial fair play rules," a LaLiga statement read. "LaLiga considers that these practices alter the ecosystem and sustainability of football, harm all European clubs and leagues, and only serve to artificially inflate the market, with money not generated within football itself.
"LaLiga understands that the irregular financing of these clubs is carried out either through direct injections of money or through sponsorship and other contracts that do not correspond to market conditions and do not make economic sense."
