Tag: rules

Europa League playoffs draw results: Matches, teams qualified, seeds, rules for Round of 16 qualifiers

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The Europa League may be Europe’s secondary club competition behind the lucrative UEFA Champions League, but the entertainment value and drama should ratchet up significantly after the changes made to the 2021-22 tournament to make it more exclusive and competitive.

One of those changes was the introduction of a playoff stage before the Round of 16. The eight Champions League third-place teams that in the past just walked into the Europa League’s knockouts as a consolation prize, will now have to prove they belong through playoff matches. Gone is the inflated Round of 32 that allotted slots for those Champions League underachievers to drop in — the Europa League knockouts will now start with the Round of 16, and half of the participants will come via the playoffs.

That playoff draw took place on Monday, Dec. 13. Here’s how it worked and which teams were involved.

Match Home team – 1st leg   Home team – 2nd leg
1 Sevilla FC vs Dinamo Zagreb
2 Atalanta vs Olympiakos
3 RB Leipzig vs Real Sociedad
4 Barcelona vs Napoli
5 FC Zenit vs Real Betis
6 Borussia Dortmund vs Rangers
7 FC Sheriff Tiraspol vs Sporting Braga
8 Porto vs Lazio

Europa League playoff draw

In the past, the Champions League third-place teams dropped into the Europa League knockouts because they were deemed to be deserving based on the quality and credentials that allowed them to qualify for Europe’s premier competition in the first place. Beginning this season, they’ll have to earn their spot in the Europa League Round of 16.

Those eight Champions League teams were drawn against the eight Europa League group runners-up in playoff series that will be played over two legs on Feb. 17 and Feb. 24. The team with the most goals in each series will

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Handball federation changes uniform rules after pressure over ‘sexist’ bikini rule | Sport

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The International Handball Federation has responded to widespread accusations of sexism by changing its rules around women’s uniforms to allow bike shorts and tank tops instead of bikini bottoms and crop tops.

The sport’s global governing body has been the subject of international pressure since July, when the European Handball Federation made headlines for imposing a €1,500 fine on the Norwegian women’s beach handball team for wearing shorts like their male counterparts during the Euro 21 tournament in Bulgaria. At the time, the EHF described the shorts as “improper clothing”.

At some point over the past month the IHF has quietly altered its regulations for beach handball, which now stipulate that “female athletes must wear short tight pants with a close fit”. Male athletes can still wear regular shorts as long as 10cm above the knee “if not too baggy”.

It follows a campaign by Norway-based Australian activist Talitha Stone, whose petition – supported by gender equality organisation Collective Shout – attracted 61,000 signatures.

“I hope this is the beginning of the end of sexism and objectification of women and girls in sport,” said Stone, who led Collective Shout’s 2012 campaign against the Lingerie Football League. “And that in future all women and girls will be free to participate in sport without fear of wardrobe malfunctions and sexual harassment.”

Comparison of the former women’s beach handball uniform (left) and the current one. Photograph: International Handball Federation

In July, US pop star Pink threw her support behind the Norwegian team, tweeting her pride in them “protesting the very sexist rules” and offering to pay their fines. The country’s minister for culture and sport, Abid Raja, described the ruling as being “completely ridiculous” and women’s sports associations across Europe also called for the resignation of the presidents of both the IHF

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