Leicester City’s Champions League Qualification Could Be Curse In Disguise

We’ve been wrong about Leicester City before and we’re willing to miss the mark again. So here goes. The UEFA Champions League could do more to knock Leicester City off the Premier League summit next season than any other factor. Leicester City achieved automatic qualification to the group stage of the 2016-17 Champions League on Sunday, adding another chapter to the story of the Foxes’ fairy-tale rise in English soccer. Leicester City, the favorite to win this season’s Premier League title, fully deserves the plaudits and riches that accompany participation in the Champions League. The Foxes could face one or more of Europe’s ...

Taylor: City’s Kolo Toure hearing ‘strange’

Players' chief Gordon Taylor has labelled Manchester City's decision to hold a disciplinary hearing with Kolo Toure over his failed drugs test as "strange''.GettyImagesKolo Toure joined Manchester City from Arsenal in 2009 for £16 million• Kolo Toure to learn fate at City hearingTaylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), attended the hearing with Toure on Monday afternoon and the outcome of the gross misconduct charge is expected later this week.Toure, who has served a six-month ban imposed by the FA, produced character references from his former club Arsenal and a number of fellow players at the hearing.He insists he tested positive for a because he took one of his wife's slimming pills not knowing it contained a banned substance.Taylor said the six-month ban was punishment enough,