With billionaire owner Stan Kroenke watching on, Arsenal’s players finally got their hands on the Premier League trophy as they lifted the biggest prize in English soccer to the backdrop of tickertape and fireworks on Sunday.
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard looked up to the sky and back down at the trophy, shaking his head in disbelief, before walking in front of his celebrating teammates and lifting it aloft inside Selhurst Park after a campaign-ending 2-1 win at Crystal Palace.
Click to Gallery
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta holds the trophy during celebrating their Premier League title after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta is thrown in the air by the players celebrating their Premier League title after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal players celebrate their Premier League title with the trophy after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal players celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke, right, and his son Josh pictured in the stands ahead of the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal clinched a first English league title since 2004 with a game to spare in midweek, after three straight runner-up finishes.
Kroenke made his way to London for the trophy lift and watched the game against Palace next to his son, Josh. About an hour after the game finished, they walked out onto the field with the trophy ahead of the ceremony.
It marked the latest success in Kroenke’s sporting empire. The Denver Nuggets won the NBA Championship in 2023, a year after the LA Rams won the Super Bowl and Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in NHL. All three of those teams are in the Kroenke Sports & Entertainment portfolio that also now includes the best soccer team in England.
Josh Kroenke, Arsenal's co-chairman, said his family is invested “emotionally, financially, everything.”
“This club means the world to us,” he told Sky Sports. "I think it took a few people a few years to understand what that meant but now we’ve some great people, great players and great coaches.
“We’ve just got to continue providing them the resources to go out and do magical things like they did this season.”
He described the Premier League as a “slower burn than our championships in the United States.”
“Here, the cumulative points — it's a grind and you start to feel it in December,” he said. “Credit to our players, the staff, and Mikel for keeping their heads on. They deserve it.”
For Sunday's big occasion, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and his players wore the team’s classic red-and-white jersey with “Champions 2026” on the back. Arteta was thrown up in the air by the squad in joyous scenes.
The season could get even better for Arsenal, which also has reached the Champions League final for the first time since 2006. Paris Saint-Germain will be the opponent in Budapest, Hungary, next Saturday.
“We’ve achieved one of our goals but we have several others as well," Josh Kroenke said. "There is still one to be played for next weekend. Today is about enjoying today — tomorrow, we will get back to work because there is still one more to play.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta holds the trophy during celebrating their Premier League title after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta is thrown in the air by the players celebrating their Premier League title after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal players celebrate their Premier League title with the trophy after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal players celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal supporters celebrate after the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke, right, and his son Josh pictured in the stands ahead of the English Premier League soccer match between Crystal Palace and Arsenal in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
West Ham was relegated and Tottenham survived on an emotional final day of the Premier League season when Pep Guardiola and Mohamed Salah made tearful exits after record-breaking spells in English soccer.
West Ham beat Leeds 3-0 but that wasn't enough to climb out of the relegation zone because fourth-to-last Tottenham also won, 1-0 at home to Everton, to stay two points clear of its London rival.
That meant West Ham's 14-year stay in the Premier League was over and Tottenham, which won three of its last five games under recently hired coach Roberto De Zerbi, will be in the top division for a 49th straight season.
“We shouldn’t be in the position we’re in but we’ve found ourselves in it and we’ve not done enough to stay up," West Ham captain Jarrod Bowen said. "Hurt is the only thing.”
Guardiola's decade-long tenure at Manchester City — which has included six Premier League titles among 17 major trophies — ended with a 2-1 loss to Aston Villa that featured a mid-match guard of honor for first Bernardo Silva and then John Stones, two of Guardiola's stalwarts.
Guardiola wept on the sideline as Silva left the field and was given his own guard of honor by players and staff after the match.
“We lived an incredible period,” Guardiola said. “If I had energy, I would stay here (but) a new person has to do this job.”
Salah started and was given a standing ovation — before he kissed the Anfield turf — during his second-half substitution in his 442nd and last game for Liverpool, in which he grabbed an assist in a 1-1 draw with Brentford. The Egypt winger finished his nine years with the Reds with 257 goals and received his own post-match guard of honor, which he walked through in tears.
Arsenal had already clinched the title in midweek and closed its first championship-winning campaign since 2004 with a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace. The players finally got their hands on the trophy about an hour after fulltime at Palace's Selhurst Park stadium, with coach Mikel Arteta and the team wearing jerseys with “Champions 2026” on the back for the occasion.
In the final shake-up for European qualification, Bournemouth and Sunderland finished sixth and seventh, respectively, to get into the Europa League and Brighton was eighth to reach the Conference League.
Brighton lost 3-0 at home to Manchester United, for whom Bruno Fernandes scored and got a record-setting 21st assist of the season.
Sunderland, which beat Chelsea 2-1, will be in Europe for the first time in 53 years — a remarkable achievement for a team in its first season back in the top division and which was in the third tier as recently as 2022. The team's players huddled around a cell phone to see their Europa League qualification confirmed and broke away in delight.
Chelsea, on the contrary, missed out on European competition entirely after finishing in 10th place — 10 months after winning the Club World Cup.
Add 2026 to 2003 and 2011 as years when West Ham lost its Premier League status.
The big difference this season is that the team is now playing its home matches in the vast Olympic Stadium, so that 68,000-capacity arena will be staging games in the second-tier Championship against the likes of Wrexham and the two clubs that had already been relegated from the Premier League before Sunday — Wolverhampton and Burnley.
“This club deserves to be in the Premier League,” said Bowen, who scored and set up a goal against Leeds. "Our aim now is to get this club back into the Premier League.”
A top-flight ever present since 1978, Tottenham was heading out of the Premier League before the club hired De Zerbi in what has proved to be an inspired appointment.
Three wins and two draws later — along with two losses — and Spurs have managed to avoid dropping into the bottom three in what would have been the most unlikely relegation since the Premier League was founded in 1992.
Joao Palhinha scored Tottenham's winner against Everton in the 43rd minute, forcing in a rebound after initially heading against the post, and Spurs defended stoutly to stop Everton scoring the two goals that would have kept West Ham up.
“After a bad season like this one, we showed up as a collective and had amazing support from the fans,” Palhinha said.
“The club will grow up with this season and we know what we have to do in the future."
Tottenham, one of the biggest clubs in Europe and the Europa League champion last season, has now finished one place outside the relegation spots in successive seasons.
Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Tottenham's Joao Palhinha celebrates scoring his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Everton in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, back to the camera, hugs team-mate Liverpool's Andrew Robertson as he is substituted off on his final appearance during the Premier League match between Liverpool and Brentford, in Liverpool, England, Sunday May 24, 2026. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola waves ahead of his last match as a manager before a Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Aston Villa in Manchester, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola hugs Manchester City's Bernardo Silva as he played last match for the team during a Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Aston Villa in Manchester, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Tottenham's Joao Palhinha celebrates scoring his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Everton in London, England, Sunday, May 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
West Ham United's Jarrod Bowen, left, looks down towards the ground during the Premier League match between West Ham and Leeds United, in London, Sunday May 24, 2026. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah runs during the English Premier League soccer match between Aston Villa and Liverpool in Birmingham, England, Friday, May 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Dave Shopland)
FILE - Manchester City's head coach Pep Guardiola, right, and Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak celebrate with the Premier League trophy after the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and West Ham United at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, Sunday, May 19, 2024. Manchester City clinched the English Premier League on Sunday after beating West Ham in their last match of the season. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson, File)
From left, West Ham United's Konstantinos Mavropanos, Jarrod Bowen and Valentin Castellanos applauds the fans following their English Premier League soccer match against Newcastle United in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Sunday, May 17, 2026. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP)
