Kylian Mbappe, Real Madrid’s star player, had his X (formerly Twitter) account hacked on Thursday, leading to a controversial post about Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi going viral. Fans were shocked as several provocative messages were posted from Mbappe’s account, including remarks on the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry that caught the attention of many football enthusiasts. The hackers didn’t stop there, as they also made posts involving Manchester United, Manchester City, and Tottenham. Fortunately, Mbappe’s account was soon recovered, and the unauthorized posts were deleted.
Recently, Mbappe made a high-profile transfer from PSG to Real Madrid, and he celebrated his first trophy with the club by scoring his debut goal in their UEFA Super Cup victory.
In other news, a new chapter in European club football starts on Thursday with the draw for an expanded UEFA Champions League taking place in Monaco. The competition now features a drastically revised format, with UEFA promoting what it calls “a thrilling new future” for European football. This new version includes more teams, more matches, and increased prize money.
The updated format might initially seem confusing to fans accustomed to the old system. For over two decades, the Champions League had a group stage with 32 clubs divided into eight groups of four, each playing six matches to determine who advanced to the knockout rounds. Now, the competition will have 36 clubs playing in a single league, where each team will play eight matches. The top eight teams will advance directly to the last 16, while the teams ranked 9th to 24th will enter an intermediate play-off round. The bottom 12 teams will be eliminated.
This new structure was introduced partly in response to the threat of a breakaway Super League proposed by some of Europe’s biggest clubs.
