Erling Haaland called on everyone at Manchester City to “stick together” in his first public comments since the club was found guilty of large-scale financial rule-breaking in the Premier League.
City will play Liverpool on Sunday in its first match since the publication of an investigatory panel’s verdict that City artificially inflated its revenue by more than $1 billion from 2009-18 to circumvent financial fair-play rules that restricted rival clubs in that period.
City was found guilty by the panel of all 80 of the serious financial charges brought by the Premier League and could be hit with severe sanctions — including being expelled from the top flight. City has lodged an appeal against the findings.
In an interview with Sky Sports published Thursday, Haaland — City's most high-profile player — said: “We have to stick together and we have to spread the love to each other. So yeah, stick together, enjoy the ride and smile.”
Asked what his message would be to City fans traveling to Anfield, where a potentially hostile reception awaits the team, Haaland said: “We have to stick together, we have to stay with each other and we have to stay positive.
“No matter what happens in life, we have always have to have a smile. So we have to stay positive, look ahead and try to win football games and then try to enjoy the situation and the game.”
City manager Enzo Maresca is likely to face more severe questioning Friday when he holds his pre-match news conference with reporters. It will be Maresca's first remarks on the scandal, with domestic soccer having been on hold for the past three weeks because of an extended international break.
The return of the Premier League offers rival team coaches a first opportunity to react to the City case that has rocked the world’s most popular soccer league and is likely to have a major impact on the remainder of the season.
They weren't rushing to judgment on Thursday.
“We’ve all seen the news. It’s obviously big news,” said Frank Lampard, the Coventry manager who played for City for one of the seasons — 2014-15 — that has been under investigation.
“Man City are appealing the situation so I guess my reaction is that: what can you say when an appeal is going on? I’m not inside the story, I’m outside it completely — I played for Man City a long time ago, for one year — so we’ll wait and see what the result of the appeal is.”
Bournemouth manager Marco Rose preferred to stay away from the matter, saying: “I’m a football coach, not a politician,” while Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle said he was “not able to judge” as a manager of another club and “there are authorities taking care of it.”
In a similar vein, Leeds manager Daniel Farke said there were “more qualified people ... able to speak about it.”
Speaking at the Leaders in Sport conference in London, Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe – president of the club’s U.S.-ownership group, 49ers Enterprises – said he believed “the most just result, I’m sure, will be delivered.”
“In any sport, you know, everybody wants to play by the same rules,” he added, without mentioning City.
See AP’s full soccer coverage here
FILE -Chairman of Manchester City Khaldoon Al Mubarak, right, poses with Manchester City's Erling Haaland after the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, England, May 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Jon Super, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using H-1B visas as it accuses the company of fraud.
Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like the one Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of abusing essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In a wide-ranging announcement Thursday, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing firms.
The announcement came hours before Trump was scheduled to award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he is granting some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.
Vance said that the program from which Microsoft is being suspended requires companies to advertise jobs in America before applying to the Department of Labor to show they need to give a foreign worker a green card because of a lack of American workers.
“They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants," Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft."
Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vance said Microsoft last year laid off 6,000 American workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance said in a White House news conference announcing the decision. "Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers."
Vance said H-1B workers are effectively foreign indentured servants because if they lose their job, they have to leave the country, and they earn less than Americans in the same position.
The H-1B program has long been a target of Trump supporters who say that the program undercuts American workers and is rife with abuse.
H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India.
The Vance announcement came a day after Trump's administration launched another broadside against international students and their ability to work in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practical Training program, known as OPT, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.
Vance also called out universities that he suggested were abusing a program to allow international students to come to the U.S. These temporary visas, called J-1 visas, allow international visitors to temporarily come to the U.S. for work and study exchange programs. Vance singled out nine universities that he said merited further investigation for J-1 visa fraud, saying they used the program in greater proportions than their counterparts.
The universities were Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech; Arizona State; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. The universities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Vice President JD Vance speaks as Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, from left, and Attorney General Todd Blanche listen during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Vice President JD Vance speaks as Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling listens during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella walks to the White House to attend a state dinner hosted for China's President Xi Jinping, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, listens as Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
