Arsenal are ready to join Manchester City in the race to land Newcastle right back Tino Livramento, while Tottenham defender and captain Cristian Romero is likely to leave at the end of the season. Join us for the latest transfer news and rumors from around the globe.

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TRENDING RUMORS

– Arsenal are considering an offer to sign Newcastle right back Tino Livramento this summer, reports The Daily Telegraph. Livramento, 23, has a contract until 2028, but it’s claimed that talks over a possible extension have been shelved. Newcastle want the England international to stay, but Arsenal are keen, while Manchester City have also been linked with a move at a cost of around £60 million.

– There is a serious possibility that Tottenham defender and captain Cristian Romero could leave in the coming months, according to Fabrizio Romano. A number of top clubs have reportedly been calling about a transfer, as uncertainty continues over his long-term future at Spurs with the club in the midst of a relegation battle. The Argentina World Cup winner has a contract until 2029, so his exit could raise some significant funds.

– Arsenal have held initial talks with RB Leipzig over a possible deal for defender Castello Lukeba, claims L’Equipe. The report suggests that the Gunners are one of several teams looking at the France center back, with Bayern Munich also in the picture. The 23-year-old has a contract with Leipzig until 2029, while the Bundesliga club values his transfer at around €60 million.

– Juventus and AC Milan have joined a number of MLS clubs in the race to sign Barcelona striker Robert Lewandowski, reports Calciomercato. The 37-year-old is set to become a free agent in the summer, with his contract entering the final few months, and has scored 115 goals and assisted 23 times for the Blaugrana in 181 appearances since joining from Bayern Munich. However, with no sign of a renewal in sight, teams are circling tp land him as a free agent.

– Bayern Munich are keen to keep hold of forward Michael Olise this summer amid reports linking the France international with a transfer to Liverpool, according to Fabrizio Romano. The Bundesliga giants are looking to downplay talk of an exit and while Liverpool are likely to push for a winger, Olise may not be available. The 24-year-old joined Bayern in 2024 and has 15 goals and 26 assists across all competitions this season.

EXPERT TAKE

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Olley: Tudor’s position will be reviewed after Liverpool vs. Tottenham

James Olley examines Igor Tudor’s future at Tottenham after their 5-2 defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.

OTHER RUMORS

– Manchester United are stepping up interest in West Ham midfielder Mateus Fernandes but his transfer will cost around £60 million. (Ekrem Konur)

– Joshua Zirkzee is eyeing a possible exit from United in the summer transfer window, with clubs in Serie A interested. (Sun)

– Liverpool have added Real Madrid defender Dean Huijsen to their shortlist, having missed out on signing him last summer when he was at Bournemouth (Ekrem Konur)

– West Ham want to make their loan move for Chelsea defender Axel Disasi permanent in the summer, if they stay in the Premier League. (Daily Mail)

– VfB Stuttgart youngster Finn Jeltsch is attracting transfer interest from Arsenal, Liverpool, and Bayern Munich. (TEAMtalk)

– Arsenal are preparing offers for Bayern’s Leon Goretzka and Dortmund’s Julian Brandt, with the midfield pair set to become free agents at the end of the season. (TEAMtalk)

– Tottenham are still keen on signing left back Andy Robertson as a free agent if he leaves Liverpool, having missed out on landing him in January (Football Insider).

– Juventus want to sign Marcos Senesi as a free agent from Bournemouth this summer (Gazzetta dello Sport)

– Napoli are set to enter talks with Scott McTominay‘s agent over a new contract (Gazzetta dello Sport)

PARIS — Like it or not, Paris Saint-Germain are still the team to beat in the Champions League. Why? The reigning champions can reach levels that the rest can only dream of, and PSG simply blew Chelsea away when they slipped through the gears.

This has been a season of inconsistency and ups-and-downs for PSG, but the side that won the Champions League in such devastating form last season has apparently been lying in wait at Parc des Princes, ready to reawaken. And that moment came as this round-of-16 first-leg tie approached its final fifteen minutes in Paris.

Chelsea had fought back twice to make it 2-2 on the night and the Premier League side threatened to turn the game on its head and take the lead ahead of next Tuesday’s second-leg at Stamford Bridge. But then it happened.

A mistake by goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen — surprisingly selected ahead of first-choice Robert Sánchez — gifted the ball to Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and it ended up with Vitinha, who lofted the ball over Jorgensen to make it 3-2. For Chelsea, it marked their third error leading to goal in the Champions League this season — only on-the-verge-of-relegation Tottenham has more among Premier League teams with six.

From that point onwards, PSG — and especially substitute Kvaratskhelia — were unstoppable. They were ruthless, and a game that was drifting towards a draw — or even a Chelsea win — ended with PSG claiming a 5-2 victory.

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Now, PSG are overwhelming favourites to comfortably reach the quarterfinals. Last season, a similar spark propelled PSG to Champions League glory. In January 2025, PSG fell 2-0 behind at home to Manchester City, who scored twice shortly after the start of the second-half, and the French side were heading out of the competition in the League Phase. But by the end of that game, PSG had won 4-2 and it transformed their season. They never looked back.

Chelsea certainly didn’t help themselves. PSG scored five goals from an expected goals of just 0.87 — that +4.13 goal-above-expected is the second highest in a Champions League knockout match in 15 years. The error that allowed PSG to score the go-ahead goal was a big culprit.

But in the end, Chelsea were the victims of another PSG surge, and it was the home side’s breathless performance in the final 15 minutes that will send put the rest of Europe on notice.

“The last 15-20 minutes were crazy, but that’s on me,” Chelsea coach Liam Rosenior said. “We need to better when setbacks happen, be calm and collected, and that didn’t happen.

“It’s a painful one because we were in the tie for 75 minutes. We have shot ourselves in the foot, made the tie very difficult now and the fifth goal is the painful one.”

PSG simply have incredible attacking talent and it all clicked against Chelsea, starting with Bradley Barcola and Ousmane Dembélé‘s first-half goals — Dembele’s counter-attack goal was a stunning example of the pace PSG possess.

Chelsea were able to expose PSG’s defensive frailties, equalising twice through Malo Gusto and Enzo Fernández, but Enrique’s forwards are so potent that they are able to make up for the lapses at the back that have affected the team all season.

Will those issues cost them a back-to-back Champions League title? That’s the risk, especially after the inexplicable decision to offload Gianluigi Donnarumma to City in the summer following the signing of Lucas Chevalier.

Chevalier has had a difficult first season in Paris and he was on the bench again, overlooked in favour of the inconsistent Matvey Safonov, who should have saved Gusto’s goal.

Perhaps PSG can ride it out all the way to another final simply because they have so much firepower upfront, but they will have to repeat the form that overran Chelsea to ensure that their defensive problems don’t prove to be their downfall.

If Kvaratskhelia can continue to play as he did in the final 15 minutes, PSG will be too strong for every other team left in the competition.

The Georgia winger made it 4-2 with a powerful curling shot from 20 yards on 86 minutes and then put the game seemingly beyond Chelsea’s reach with another, deep into stoppage time.

But even before he started scoring, the former Napoli player destroyed Chelsea’s right flank and it was clear that he was burning with determination to make a point to Enrique for starting him on the bench in the first place.

When Kvaratskhelia hit PSG’s fifth, the Chelsea players slumped to the ground like a boxer that had taken too many blows.

“I think we showed today we are capable of everything,” Kvaratskhelia said. “We just have to continue like this. We conceded two goals and we can see the mistakes we made, but we are happy with a three goal victory. We are still PSG.”

Chelsea still have 90 minutes to turn the tie around next week, but they will know that PSG are more likely to pick them off on the counter-attack whenever they attempt to find the three goals needed to wipe out their deficit.

This was a brutal lesson for Chelsea. They looked like a team that could compete for 70 minutes, but then they encountered the European champions at the top of their game.

That PSG were able to just turn it on and dismantle a Premier League side as strong as Chelsea — a team that was able to beat PSG in the FIFA Club World Cup final last summer — underlined the power and quality that Enrique has at his disposal.

Yes, it has been difficult season for PSG, but they have shown their best again and nobody can live with them like this.

The Big Ten sent a letter to the NCAA this week asking the organization to put a halt to “investigations and infractions proceedings” related to tampering, according to a copy of the letter obtained by ESPN.

The letter states that the “current framework” for tampering rules “cannot be credibly or equitably enforced,” pointing out the rules for tampering were designed before a modern era that includes paying athletes and essentially unlimited transfers.

“These rules were not designed for a world in which student-athletes are compensated market participants making annual decisions with significant economic consequences,” the letter reads. “The collision between the old rules and new reality is producing outcomes that harm the population that the rules were designed to protect.”

The letter comes in the wake of a flurry of recent tampering headlines. That included the NCAA seeking to impose significant penalties against tampering offenders. The case of linebacker Luke Ferrelli, who transferred to Ole Miss after enrolling at Clemson, has also put the issue in the forefront.

The prevalence of tampering in the current landscape is so great that numerous officials told ESPN’s Max Olson that it’s essentially a competitive disadvantage to not tamper.

“If you’re not doing that, you’re so far behind in the game,” an SEC general manager told Olson.

The Big Ten’s letter lays out why the current rules are antiquated for the modern space, suggests a pause that “does not create a window of impunity” and lays out a vision for building “a framework suited to the world as it actually exists.”

The Big Ten letter states: “We are committed to engaging in an expeditious process to develop a modern framework for contact rules that addresses the varied challenges and opportunities of the current collegiate landscape.”

The letter shows portal numbers from this year (the first football season with just one portal period) that have not appeared publicly. That includes 1,000 football players who entered the portal on Jan. 2 and took campus visits the same weekend. More than 300 had signed with a new school by the end of the weekend. Some signed as quickly as 90 minutes into the portal opening, and others had a “do not contact” designation that essentially couldn’t exist without some type of fact finding to determine a new destination.

“These timelines reflect the reality of player movement and raise serious questions about whether the current regulatory structure can realistically accommodate the pace at which the modern transfer market operates,” the letter says.

The letter says the current framework “conflates” genuine predatory recruiting — in which a school targets a player under contract — with a far more common scenario in which a student-athlete already exploring options engages in conversations as part of a rational, market-driven evaluation.

“The world is materially different than in 2018 when the Division I membership adopted the existing contact rules and penalty structure,” the letter reads. “The House v. NCAA settlement transformed college athletics into an environment where student-athletes are compensated directly by institutions.”

The letter also notes that only 15 Level II or above tampering cases have been fully adjudicated by the NCAA in five years, including just three involving FBS football, one involving men’s basketball and zero involving women’s basketball.

The NCAA says its enforcement team processed around 90 impermissible contact cases last year, including major infractions by Oklahoma State’s women’s tennis program and UCLA’s cross country and track programs.

The Big Ten argues the dearth of tampering cases in a time when thousands of athletes are transferring every year proves that “consistent, equitable enforcement is no longer achievable” under current NCAA rules.

The letter also mentions legal scrutiny that has arisen.

“Continued enforcement of the current rules risks having the courts strike down the rules entirely,” the letter reads.

The letter argues the NCAA must change: “The system of college sports is under tremendous stress, both internally and externally. Systems adapt or they break.”

It lays out that the Big Ten would want an enforcement approach that would be “timely and meaningful, but able to be meted out fairly with penalties that are commensurate with the circumstances.”

The letter concludes by saying: “The Big Ten is committed to quickly engaging in a deliberative process drawing on athletics administrators, compliance professionals, coaches, legal counsel, and other stakeholders from across the membership and will work to produce a comprehensive proposal. We believe this collaborative, membership-driven approach is the best path to a durable solution and need the NCAA’s support in this effort.”