Milan (AFP) — AC Milan have hit out after several black players in the Serie A side's under-10 squad allegedly suffered racist abuse at the hands of parents attending an international junior football tournament over the Easter weekend.

The incidents are believed to have taken place during the side's 4-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Universal Cup, currently taking place in Forte dei Marmi in Tuscany, on Sunday.

Players' agent Mino Raiola, who represents Mario Balotelli and Zlatan Ibrahimovic among other top stars, sounded the alarm when he posted a message about the scenes on Twitter late on Sunday.

"In shock about today's Milan/PSG in Universal Cup, parents booing colour 10 year olds. Heads up boys we're stronger than weak ignorant racists," said Raiola.

Milan on Monday did not confirm whether the incidents took place, but said if confirmed they were "unacceptable".

"We have been told of alleged incidents of a racist nature during yesterday's game between Milan and PSG in which coloured kids were targeted by 'people' attending the game," read the statement.

"We do not want to amplify or exaggerate anything, but we sincerely hope the allegations are unfounded or that it has been an isolated case.

"However, if they are true, it is absolutely unacceptable."

AC Milan's team went on to win the tournament, beating Inter Milan 4-0 in the final.

A club statement said: "Milan thoroughly deserved to win the tournament in what has been a big footballing and life experience, a group that has been strengthened after Sunday’s alleged racist incident and now nothing but satisfaction for their success out on the pitch."

It is the latest in a long line of incidents of a racist nature to sully Italian football.

In January 2013, former Milan forward Kevin Prince-Boateng reopened the debate into how to tackle racism in football when he and several other black players were targeted by racists during a friendly with a lower division side.

Boateng walked off the pitch, his teammates followed and the game, against Pro Patria, was abandoned.

Boateng and former teammate Balotelli were targeted by monkey chants later that season by fans of rival Serie A side Roma.

More recently, former Italy and AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi kicked up a storm that warranted a stiff response from the Italian government when he complained under-20 teams in Italy contained "too many blacks".

Graziano Delrio, the State Secretary to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi who also holds responsibility for sport in the Italian council of ministers, hit out: "The Italy of 30 years ago is not the Italy of today.

"Today there are young players who are Italian citizens in fact and by right given that they were born and raised in Italy, even if their parents had overseas roots.

"They are part of the young generations who go to our schools, who play on our football and sports fields.

"And the theme of skin colour is certainly not where we should start trying to revitalise our youth system."

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Paris Saint-Germain striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored a hat trick in his team's 4-1 win over St. Etienne on Wednesday.

His first goal came off a penalty kick, but the second, his 101st with PSG, came on a breakaway in which he passed it around the goalie and scored on the other side.

As the St. Etienne goalie charged out, Zlatan glided right around him with a pass to himself before putting away the easy shot:

Zlatan is now only eight goals away from becoming PSG's all-time leading scorer.

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London (AFP) — The England under-19 women's team will replay the final seconds of their European Championship qualifier against Norway later on Thursday after UEFA accepted the referee had made a mistake in the original fixture.

Norway were winning 2-1 in Belfast on Saturday when the sixth minute of stoppage time saw England awarded a penalty by German referee Marija Kurtes.

Leah Williamson scored from the spot but Kurtes disallowed the goal because an England player had encroached into the box before the kick was taken.

As Williamson prepared to kick, the England player clearly entered the box early:

The final minute of the match followed and Norway appeared to have won 2-1.

However, the laws of football state that Kurtes should have ordered the penalty to be re-taken and UEFA, European football's governing body, said Thursday it had no choice but to order the final moments of the match be replayed from the point of the penalty kick.

"We originally wrote that Norway had qualified", UEFA said on its website.

"But on 8 April the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body announced that Norway's game against England on 4 April will be replayed from the minute a penalty kick was awarded to England, who were 2-1 down at the time."

UEFA added Kurtes had been sent home from the qualifying event being held in Northern Ireland.

The game will now restart from the penalty spot at the Seaview Stadium in Belfast at 9:45pm local time (2045 GMT) on Thursday.

Adding to the extraordinary nature of the replay, both England and Norway will play their final group matches before the last minute of their match is replayed.

England play Switzerland and Norway face Northern Ireland.

England beat Northern Ireland 9-1 in their other fixture earlier this week and Norway defeated Switzerland 2-0.

The top teams in each group qualify, along with the runners-up with the best record against the sides first and third in their group.

The finals will take place in Israel in July.

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Atalanta combined a back-heel flick, a header, and a bicycle kick to score one of the goals of the season in their 2-1 win over Sassuolo.

German Denis finished the goal, but the flick from Luca Cigarini and the assist from Maximiliano Moralez make it special.

Here's the Vine via SBNation Soccer:

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Madrid (AFP) — Last season's Champions League finalists Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid meet for the seventh time this season in Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final, first leg with revenge in mind for both.

Real took the spoils in Lisbon last May as Sergio Ramos's stoppage time header denied Atletico their first ever European Cup and sent the game into extra time when Los Blancos romped to a 4-1 win.

However, the tables have been turned this season as Atletico have won four and drawn two of the six meetings so far this season.

That run has included two aggregate victories over two legs in the Spanish Supercup and the Copa del Rey.

Yet, it was their last encounter in La Liga in February that was the most embarrassing for Real as Atletico romped to their biggest victory in a Madrid derby for 28 years in a 4-0 rout.

"The last result against Atletico is a motivating factor for us," said Real boss Carlo Ancelotti.

"It will be a different game, but difficult as it always is against Atletico.

"We come into the game in good form, we are motivated and we will give everything we have.

"I don't have any doubt that it will be an intense game.

"That will be an important component of the game, but there will also be others that we need to utilise."

However, unlike that most recent meeting at the Vicente Calderon when they were without five first-team regulars, Real are at full strength for the first time in five months.

James Rodriguez and Toni Kroos return from suspension after missing Saturday's 3-0 win over Eibar which moved Real back to within two points of Barcelona at the top of La Liga.

Meanwhile, Gareth Bale returned to training on Sunday and is expected to fit to start.

Atletico have received a huge injury boost of their own with the news that Mario Mandzukic will be available after overcoming an ankle problem which kept him out of their last two games.

The Croatian has scored 20 goals since signing from Bayern Munich last summer, including two in three games against Madrid at the Calderon.

Raul Garcia is also expected to recover from an elbow problem meaning Diego Simeone will also have a fully-fit squad to choose from.

However, the Argentine has a number of key decisions to make, most notably in goal where the in-form Jan Oblak kept his place ahead of the fit again Miguel Angel Moya for Saturday's 2-2 draw at Malaga and in central defence where Jose Maria Gimenez and Miranda will battle it out to partner Diego Godin.

The draw at Malaga extended Atletico's unbeaten run in all competitions to eight games, albeit with four draws along the way.

Most encouragingly for Simeone's men is the return to goalscoring form of Antoine Griezmann. The Frenchman scored twice at La Rosaleda to take his tally over the last three games to four and move one ahead of Mandzukic at Atletico's top scorer this season.

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Barcelona beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-1 behind forward Luis Suarez, who scored two goals in a 12-minute span in the second half.

In the 66th minute, Suarez received a pass on the wing and took on half of PSG's defense by himself, nutmegging David Luiz, then skirting around two other defenders before firing a shot:

Suarez's ball control was insane:

Twelve minutes later, Suarez received a pass on the break and nutmegged Luiz again before firing a shot into the upper right corner:

PSG keeper Salavatore Sirigu didn't stand a chance on either goal. 

PSG did score a goal in the 82nd minute, but by then, Suarez had already done his damage.

Full video of both goals below via Fox:

SEE ALSO: Zlatan Ibrahimovic fools goalie with a pass to himself, scores into empty net

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Chelsea players responded to Arsenal fans' 'boring, boring Chelsea' chants in this incredible Instagram video.

Video courtesy of Didier Drogba via Instagram

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Avoiding mistakes is nearly impossible in life, so the question then is really how do you learn from your mistakes? Professional soccer player Robbie Rogers takes Behind the Brand through his worst mistakes, dealing with rejection, and ultimately how he learns from mistakes and failures. 

From using failure as a motivation to wanting to prove naysayers wrong, Robbie Rogers has applicable advice for Entrepreneurs and everyone else on how to learn from your mistakes. 

“To be able to notice, I think that’s the skill to have. To realize when you’ve failed, but not take it as a failure, but to learn from it, as a learning experience. That’s when I’ve improved the most.” – Robbie Rogers 

Behind The Brand takes you behind the scenes at some of the coolest brands as well as talk with world-class thought leaders and entrepreneurs so you can get an inside look at how they do it.

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Africa's richest man may be the next owner of Arsenal football club.

That's the hint from a Bloomberg interview with Aliko Dangote, the commodities colossus with a net worth estimated at $15.7 billion (£10.38 billion).

Here he is in Bloomberg: 

"I still hope, one day at the right price, that I’ll buy the team," Dangote, 58, said in an interview as he traveled on a plane owned by one of his companies between the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos on May 1. "I might buy it, not at a ridiculous price but a price that the owners won’t want to resist. I know my strategy."

He's got business interests in plenty of African countries, and across a broad range of commodities — and could easily prove to be Arsenal's answer to Chelsea's Roman Abramovich.

Dangote has reportedly mounted an attempt to buy the club previously. In 2010, it was widely rumoured that he had offered to buy Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith's 15.9% stake in the club. Back then, Forbes suggested he had a fortune of around $3.3 billion (£2.18 billion), far less than he does now. He could now mount a much larger bid if he wanted.

He said he has too many other investments to keep an eye on for the moment, precluding an immediate takeover. He's not alone in his fondness for the north London club: Nigeria has a soft spot for Arsenal as a team in general.

There are some similarities between Arsenal and the Nigerian economy: Both are powerful forces that regularly promise great things, but seem to constantly fall short.

Dangote has successfully navigated one, could he manage the other?

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A television crew was arrested, interrogated and had its equipment deleted and destroyed by Qatari authorities while filming a documentary about the 2022 World Cup.

A reporter, cameraman, camera assistant and driver were denied permission to leave the Gulf state for five days after capturing footage of labour camps there for a program called "The Selling of Football: Sepp Blatter and the Power of Fifa."

•Sepp Blatter apologises for Qatar World Cup

In an incident that raised questions about mega-wealthy Qatar’s attitude to scrutiny of the death and abuse of migrant workers building the infrastructure for it to stage the World Cup, the crew from Germany’s biggest television network was only allowed to return home following intense lobbying by their own country’s ambassador.

ARD journalist Florian Bauer and his team were investigating the squalid living and employment conditions of construction workers a year on from the Qatari government’s pledge to tackle what has been denounced by human rights organisations as modern-day slavery.

Bauer admitted travelling to Doha without permission to film after his requests to do so were either ignored or denied by several government agencies, as well as being rejected by World Cup organisers.

The sports politics specialist, who had been granted the required permit on each of his previous visits to the country, questioned whether the authorities and Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy were cracking down on those trying to hold the regime to account.

“I can only assume that this time they thought, ‘We don’t want to have the same story in terms of labour camp-visits’,” Bauer told Telegraph Sport.

• World Cup 2022 final in Qatar will be on December 18

“After five-and-a-half weeks of contacting the National Human Rights Committee, the embassy of Qatar in Germany, and so on and so forth, asking all of them for the shooting permit, we actually acknowledged they don’t want to give us one.”

Bauer and his team were arrested on March 27, a day after arriving in Qatar, and were held for 14 hours before being released at 4 a.m. the following morning.

Admitting he was “scared”, Bauer said: “There were interrogations by people from the intelligence service who said if I didn’t co-operate with them, it would work badly for me.”

The crew was physically unharmed, which could not be said for its equipment.

Bauer added: “Everything was deleted: phone, hard drives. A laptop got destroyed, got opened by I don’t know who.”

A Qatar 2022 source denied it was trying to stifle reporting of working conditions in the country, which Bauer admitted were of a high standard when it came to projects the Supreme Committee oversaw.

The source said it rejected his filming request because it had already granted one to a sports reporter from the same network, and also said it had not wanted to be the sole commentator on labour camps not under its direct jurisdiction.

The Telegraph was awaiting a response on Tuesday from a government spokesman on why the NHRC, Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Interior and representatives for the Emir himself did not grant Bauer permission to film.

Qatar’s minister of labour and social affairs admitted on Monday that the country’s failure to ensure decent accommodation for its bulging migrant workforce was a “mistake” he was working to fix.

Representatives of British broadcasters, who did not want to be named, have admitted deliberately omitting to tell the Qatari authorities if they plan to film labour camps when they travel there amid fears their application would be rejected.

Bauer said he was particularly “outraged” by his own snub because his previous reports about the country had not been unbalanced.

He added: “They knew that I’m not biased. Nevertheless, they weren’t giving me an invitation letter and that makes me think about, ‘Hey, what’s the Supreme Committee thinking about this? Why are they not more open?’”

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Cristiano Ronaldo is No. 4 on our list of the most dominant athletes in the world.

He's also the world's highest-paid soccer player, which means he has a decent amount of cash to burn.

The 30-year-old forward for Real Madrid owns luxury cars, flies around the world in private jets, and makes a mint on endorsement deals — and that's not even half of it.

He earned $80 million last year, making him the second highest-paid athlete in the world.

Source: Forbes

And more than a quarter of that ($28 million) is in endorsement deals with companies like Tag Heuer and Nike.

Source: Forbes

He rakes in over $9 million from his Nike deal alone.

Source: Sport

Longtime Premier League striker Emmanuel Adebayor posted an open letter on his Facebook page accusing his family of taking advantage of him and his money.

Adebayor, 31, who was once one of the highest-paid players in the league at $270,000 per week while at Manchester City, moved to France from Togo when he was 15 years old and has played in Europe ever since.

His Facebook post is heartbreaking. He says he gave his mother money for a cookie business and paid for her to spend a week with a famous Nigerian faith healer, but she left after two days. She also hung up on him when he called to tell her about the birth of his daughter, he says.

He accuses his sister of kicking his half-brother out of the $1.2 million house in Ghana that he let them stay at, and then renting out the rooms for profit. On his brother Kola, he wrote:

My brother Kola Adebayor, has now been in Germany for 25 years. He travelled back home about 4 times, at my expense. I fully cover the cost of his children's education. When I was in Monaco, he came to me and asked for money to start a business. Only God knows how much I gave him. Where is that business today?

When our brother Peter passed away, I sent Kola a great amount of money so he could fly back home. He never showed up at the burial. And today that same brother (Kola) is telling people that I am involved in Peter's death. How? He is the same brother who went and told inaccurate stories about our family to "The Sun" in other to take some money. They also sent a letter to my Club when I was in Madrid so I could get fired.

About why he was writing the letter, Adebayor said, "It's true that family matters should be solved internally and not in public but I am doing this so that hopefully all families can learn from what happened in mine."

"I organized a meeting in 2005 to solve our family issues. When I asked them about their opinion, they said I should build each family member a house and give each of them a monthly wage."

It's a crushing account, and it gives you an idea of the types of pressures players face when they suddenly hit it big.

Here's the entire post:

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Torino goalie Daniele Pardelli put his team in an early hole in a match against Empoli in Italy's Serie A on Wednesday.

Less than three minutes into the game, Pardelli attempted to clear a back pass, was unable to control it, and inadvertently kicked the ball backwards into his own net.

It was a simple play and Pardelli totally lost control of the ball:

Pardelli could only watch, horrified, as the ball rolled into the net:

Watch the full video below:

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We put the two biggest soccer stars in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, head to head.

Produced by Devan Joseph. Special thanks to Tony Manfred.

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We put the two biggest soccer stars in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, head to head.

Produced by Devan Joseph. Special thanks to Tony Manfred.

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Swansea beat Arsenal 1-0 on Monday in a game that would have ended 0-0 without goal-line technology.

In the 85th minute, Obafemi Gomis skipped in a header that looked like it was saved by Arsenal goalie David Ospina. On TV, the commentators even thought it hit the post:

After calling a goal kick, the referee was informed via an alert on his watch (the standard procedure in goal-line technology) that the ball had actually gone in.

Check out his reaction. He had no idea:

It was clearly a goal on replay:

Well across the line:

Here's the animation:

The world's biggest leagues were slow to adopt goal line technology. The Premier League didn't start using it until 2013.

This is the perfect example of why it's so necessary.

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Nearly a year after the 2014 World Cup, many of the 12 stadiums Brazil built and renovated for the event have fallen into disuse.

NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro and the AP's Tales Azzoni have each written stories about what has been going on with the stadiums in recent weeks, and they don't paint a pretty picture.

Brazil spent more than $3 billion on the stadiums, some of which were built in far-flung locations without popular local professional teams to sustain them after the tournament. A year later, some sit empty and others are running at a loss, and even the stadiums that host regular domestic games have been plagued by disputes between the clubs and the stadium operators.

The country's sports minister has even acknowledged the failed investment of the 2014 World Cup stadiums, telling Reuters of the 2016 Rio Olympics, "Differently from the World Cup, we are leaving a legacy."

Here's the rundown of the problems facing the stadiums:

The Arena Amazonia in the jungle city of Manaus cost $300 million to build, even though there's no top-flight team in the town and it's hundreds of miles from the more populated areas of Brazil. NPR reports that the stadium isn't even hosting local league games because it's too expensive. In addition, the promised income from things like concerts isn't coming in as expected. Kiss even skipped the Amazonian city on its tour of Brazil. The stadium hosted just 11 events in the five months after the tournament.

The Estadio Nacional in Brasilia, the most expensive of the stadiums, is being used as a bus parking lot. The stadium cost $550 million to build, NPR reports, but without a top-division team in the capital it has little use after hosting seven World Cup games.

Construction on the Arena Corinthians in Sao Paulo just finished, 10 months late. During the tournament, a rickety temporary stand was used in place of the planned seating at one end of the stadium. The stadium now hosts Corinthians games, but it hasn't helped the club. According to the AP: "Attendance has significantly increased at the stadium owned by popular team Corinthians, but the club can't keep any of the revenue because the money is still being used to pay for its construction."

The club team Atlético Mineiro plays its games at the old Independencia stadium in Belo Horizonte — it can't make money playing at the new Estádio Mineirão because of its contract with the stadium's owners, the AP reports.

The 42,000-seat Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá was closed earlier this year because the roof was leaking. In April, Globo reported that homeless people were living in the empty locker rooms. The two professional teams in the city typically draw between 500 and 1,000 fans a game. The stadium cost $215 million to build and is now, according to NPR, "draining city coffers" with maintenance costs.

The Arena das Dunas in Natal is "trying to make money by hosting weddings and kids' parties — with little luck,"NPR reports.

Then there's the Arena Pernambuco in Recife. Here's how the AP described it in December:

The Arena Pernambuco in the northeastern city of Recife, where 236 people bought a ticket to watch a Brazilian Cup match just before the World Cup, is resorting to corporate events, conferences, fairs and wedding ceremonies. In September, a 15-year-old boy celebrated his birthday at the stadium — he and his friends were allowed to play on the field and use the changing rooms and other facilities.

FIFA requires host nations to build just eight stadiums, but Brazil went beyond that. Academics have long argued that building stadiums for one-off sporting events like the World Cup and Olympics isn't a wise investment. Across Brazil, taxpayers and local officials are finding that out the hard way.

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The Canadian electric company Hydro One is firing an employee for his part in interrupting a reporter's live TV segment outside of a Toronto FC game.

On Tuesday a video surfaced of CityNews reporter Shauna Hunt being interrupted by a group of fans, one of whom yelled, "F--- her right in the p----," a phrase from a viral internet meme.

Hunt then turned and confronted the group — which included a Hydro One employee later identified by the Toronto Sun, Globe & Mail, and other major Canadian news outlets as Shawn Simoes— about the vulgar and disrespectful nature of the comment. When Hunt asked him about why his group was interrupting her, he called the stunt, "f------ hilarious."

A Hydro One spokesperson confirmed the firing to Business Insider.

"Hydro One is taking steps to terminate the employee for violating our Code of Conduct," the spokesperson said. "Respect for all people is engrained in the code and our values. We are committed to a work environment where discrimination or harassment of any type is not tolerated."

According to the Public Sector Salary Disclosure for 2014, Simoes made over $106,500 as an engineer last year.

Although the man identified as Simoes did not yell the actual phrase in the video, when confronted he said, "I don't care, it's f------ hilarious. It is f------ hilarious, we're not the only people, it happened in England ... You're lucky there's not a f------ vibrator near here, because in England, it happened all the time; it's f------ amazing and I respect it all the time."

When Hunt asks what his mother's reaction would be to seeing him yell that on TV, he said, "My mom would die laughing eventually."

According to the Toronto Star's Lauren Pelley, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns Toronto FC, is trying to identify the rest of the group so they can be banned. 

Watch the video of the incident below:

The video went viral in Canada, landing on the front page of Wednesday's Toronto Sun:

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The second leg of the Copa Libertadores last-16 tie between Boca Juniors and River Plate was suspended on Thursday after River players were targeted with pepper spray at half-time.

There was drama in Buenos Aires on Thursday as River Plate looked to defend a 1-0 lead in the away leg of their Copa Libertadores tie against fierce rivals Boca Juniors.

As the teams emerged after half-time with the game still goalless, the River players were attacked with pepper spray from within the inflatable tunnel at the side of the pitch.

It is thought that a Boca fan may have breached the tunnel through the security fence and released the spray, which causes discomfort to the eyes and skin.

Several River players including Driussi and Leonardo Ponzio were particularly affected leading and the team's head coach Marcelo Gallardo to insist the game be suspended.

After a lengthy deliberations lasting around 75 minutes, the match was officially suspended with the score still 1-0 to River after the first leg.

There has been no announcement so far as to whether the match will be replayed, restarted from the second half, or forfeited by Boca.

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Cristiano Ronaldo is the world's highest-paid soccer player and arguably the sport's finest athlete. Here's how the superstar spends his money. 

Produced by Devan Joseph. Special thanks to Tony Manfred and Melissa Stanger.

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