The final round of the Premier League season in May gave the Stadium of Light one of its great days.

Sunderland’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea lifted Regis Le Bris’ side to seventh in the table at the last moment, bringing European football back to Wearside for the first time in more than half a century. Within the celebrations, though, one supporter old enough to remember that 1973-74 Cup Winners’ Cup campaign approached Sunderland’s director of football Florent Ghisolfi with a furrowed brow.

“He came to me and said: ‘Is this really a good thing?’,” says a smiling Ghisolfi, the man tasked with overseeing the next steps in Sunderland’s rapid evolution. “He was saying it will be tough, but I said to enjoy it! It’s a historic situation for Sunderland. We can’t have fear. Only conviction that we will be ready.”

Sunderland supporters have seen enough false dawns to be excused that nagging concern. A club that dramatically won the Championship play-off final as recently as May 2025, ending eight arduous years out of the top flight, must now plan for the Europa League and its additional demands this coming season. At least eight more games will be added to Sunderland’s calendar when UEFA’s draw is made in Nyon on August 28.

This great, once improbable, step into the unknown has the potential to bring tests against Milan, Juventus and Bayer Leverkusen, and nights like never before at the Stadium of Light.

“I can’t wait to see it,” adds Ghisolfi, who joined Sunderland last summer after previously working for Lens, Nice and Roma. “It’s an opportunity for the club to continue to grow. We want to be the best version of ourselves, all together. We believe in the strength of the organisation, and we don’t want to talk about fear of playing in four competitions. We just want to be ready to compete.”

Florent Ghisolfi, with Jim Ratcliffe in the background, while working for Nice in May 2024 (Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images)

That messaging ran through Sunderland’s return to the Premier League last season. At least a point was taken from every opponent barring Fulham in a campaign that offered no indication of the time Sunderland had spent away from English football’s elite. The final standing of seventh has not been bettered since 1954-55. It matched the best achievements of Peter Reid’s side in 1999-00 and 2000-01.

Sunderland’s unity allowed them to capitalise on the failings of the Premier League’s European regulars to join Bournemouth as unlikely debutants in the Europa League.

Both thrived on the back of excellent recruitment and astute coaching, but now comes the challenge of backing it up. This summer will not repeat the last, where 14 new players arrived at a cost of £170million ($228m) to ruthlessly overhaul a promotion-winning squad. Belgium international defender Thomas Meunier, signed on a free transfer from Lille, is the only new face to date, but the coming weeks promise to be busy.

“For sure we need more quality, but our foundation is the same,” says Ghisolfi, speaking to The Athletic in a restaurant overlooking the River Wear at the Stadium of Light. “Our foundation is the mentality in the group, the cohesion we have in the team and the connection we have at the moment.

“The only pillar we have to protect is to keep this mentality. If someone is coming into the team now, it has to fit with what we are today.

“This summer will be different. Last summer we needed to increase the quality and numbers of players who could compete in the Premier League. It was a rush, it was a sprint. This one, because of the World Cup and our philosophy being about stability, this summer will be more of a marathon.”

And the byproduct of Sunderland’s success?

“We are more attractive now,” he adds. “This last season confirmed that Sunderland is a huge club and is able to be sustainable in the Premier League.”

Granit Xhaka leads Sunderland out at the Stadium of Light for the Chelsea match at the end of last season (George Wood/Getty Images)

Sustainability has always been a keyword for Sunderland under their owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, still only 28.

The purse strings were loosened 12 months ago to strengthen in the weeks that followed the Championship play-off final victory, but only after selling Jobe Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund in a package worth up to £32m and letting Tommy Watson join Brighton & Hove Albion for £10m. The previous summer it was Jack Clarke sold to Ipswich Town; the one before, Ross Stewart to Southampton. All outgoings to facilitate spending.

Sunderland’s excellent season saw several newcomers to the Premier League swell their stock, such as goalkeeper Robin Roefs, midfielder Noah Sadiki and forward Brian Brobbey. They will have eyes tracking their progress but, so far, it has only been Chelsea’s failed bid to sign Granit Xhaka, Sunderland’s captain and talisman, that has been a test of resolve.

The hope is that fringe players can be the ones sold off. Eliezer Mayenda, the young Spanish forward who scored Sunderland’s first goal of their Premier League return in a 3-0 win over West Ham United last August, has already been sold to Rennes for £21.5m. Promotion winners Dan Neil (Rangers) and Dennis Cirkin have also left on free transfers.

“The plan is that we want to keep every important player in the team, but also we will see what happens,” says Ghisolfi. “You know the football industry. We want to be a sustainable club and, on the sporting side, I am not afraid to sell a good player because I am confident we can replace him and refresh the team.”

European qualification, though, brings its own impact. UEFA’s squad cost ratio (SCR) limits clubs to spending 70 per cent of their revenue on wages, transfers and agents’ fees. The Premier League adopts the same finance control framework this season, but clubs not in European competitions will instead work to an 85 per cent cap.

Tom Burwell, Sunderland’s chief executive, is alongside Ghisolfi in planning the next steps. “We recognise the challenges that two forms of financial regulation bring so we need to be astute,” he says.

“The reality is that we have to work to UEFA rules and that’s new to us this season. I come back to the fact we’re built on really strong foundations, and we’ll make decisions from a position of strength. We do have headroom to spend this summer.”

The world in which Sunderland operate now is very different to that upon Louis-Dreyfus’ arrival in February 2021. They were League One’s underachievers, struggling to shift the decay that had taken hold with back-to-back relegations.

Turnover was just £25m in Louis-Dreyfus’ first full season at the club (2021-22) but that has increased eight-fold, with a return to the Premier League bringing in more than £200m. It has been forecast that £168m came in prize money alone.

Sunderland owner, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

It has made Sunderland a more attractive proposition for investment and brought noises of a possible sale of the shares owned by Louis-Dreyfus (64 per cent) and Uruguayan businessman Juan Sartori (36 per cent).

“There’s probably two lenses we look at this through,” says Burwell. “From a day-to-day, Flo and I’s alignment with Kyril is as definitive as it’s always been. Kyril is a hands-on, pretty inspirational owner who has a really clear vision for where this football club is going. He’s put people in place who can help him do so. He’s also shown a mid-term commitment to this by investing again through a capital investment programme this summer.

“We’re not naive enough not to recognise that the Premier League is the No 1 league in the world and there is a scarcity to the assets that sit within that. We’ve seen rumours around Crystal Palace and clubs will always be spoken about in that nature.

“With that, people knock on our door. But what I can do is speak of the reality of where that’s playing out and there’s a complete commitment from the ownership and board to continue on chapter two with plenty of work still ahead of us.”

Regis Le Bris led Sunderland back to the Premier League and, now, to UEFA competition (Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

Sunderland’s attempt to broaden its bottom lines takes them across the Atlantic on Wednesday for a three-game tour of the United States. Liverpool will be their first opponents on Saturday in Nashville, where they will hold fan events, a business breakfast and coaching clinics.

There will also be games against Leeds United at the Sports Illustrated Stadium in New Jersey, and against Wrexham in Chester, Pennsylvania. The last of those games has been dubbed the “documentary derby” internally.

“We have to recognise that there’s only so much value you can create within the 30-mile radius of the Stadium of Light,” says Burwell. “You can’t continually go back to that same well.

“What we have here is an incredibly unique story. There are not 20 unique stories in the Premier League, so we have to be relevant nationally and internationally, and those things can only be created if we get it right locally. Retaining that deep connection we have with our fanbase locally will give us the opportunity to monetise globally.

“The U.S. tour is an incredibly exciting opportunity. We’re able to do it in the right way in the U.S. There are commercial opportunities for sure, but it’s also about having the best preparations for another season in the Premier League.”

Growth is a buzzword for Sunderland, a club that has looked in a hurry over the last 12 months. A season-ticket waiting list now stands at 15,000 supporters and hospitality areas are also heavily oversubscribed. One solution would be a relatively simple expansion of the southern end of the Stadium of Light to mirror the height of the west and north. The latter was extended to meet demand back in 2000 after Sunderland’s home had been opened at an initial capacity of 42,000.

“We are exploring options but we have to be a 365-days-a-year operation and ensure the Stadium of Light can drive people into the footprint all year round,” says Burwell.

“We would love to (extend) but if we did it on the south or the east stands, the cost would be circa £150m for 5,000-8,000 new seats. Is that the best use of £150m when trying to commercialise this particular building?”

Sunderland’s immediate priorities are on growth of a different kind. European football is the next frontier ahead.

The World Cup has come to an end, so the focus for fans immediately switches back to transfers and domestic football.

Arsenal are gearing up for their first season as Premier League champions for more than 20 years, but preparations will look slightly different in the wake of a major international tournament.

This is our chance to look at what to expect from the players who represented their countries over the past six weeks in the United States, Mexico and Canada, as well as those who got some rest ahead of a new season. Here is what the north London club have planned between now and their opening league game on August 21.

How many Arsenal players were at the World Cup?

Arsenal had 15 players involved in the World Cup.

These were Mikel Merino, Martin Zubimendi and David Raya for eventual champions Spain, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke as their England representatives, while Gabriel and Gabriel Martinelli were also together for Brazil. The six players who were the sole Arsenal players for their nations were Martin Odegaard (Norway), Kai Havertz (Germany), Viktor Gyokeres (Sweden), Piero Hincapie (Ecuador), William Saliba (France) and Leandro Trossard (Belgium), who has since joined Besiktas for €20million (£17.1m, $22.9m).

Outside the trio of Spanish champions, the English quartet also made it to the final weekend of the tournament, winning the third-place play-off against France on Saturday, July 18. Saliba was injured and missed that match. Odegaard and Trossard reached the quarter-finals, Martinelli and Gabriel exited in the last 16, and Havertz, Gyokeres and Hincapie went out at the round of 32.

Mikel Merino was among three Arsenal players who won the World Cup with Spain (David Ramos/Getty Images)

Did any pick up injuries?

Saliba did not play in France’s 6-4 defeat against England due to a back injury that flared up in their semi-final defeat to Spain. The 25-year-old admitted he had been “gritting his teeth” through minor niggles for months, but without much rest, he reached breaking point, stopping the match of his own accord to be replaced. The extent of the injury and how long he will be sidelined are not yet known more than a week later.

Rice (hamstring) and Saka (Achilles) were Arsenal’s other fitness concerns heading into the tournament. Both needed managing by England coach Thomas Tuchel, missing some training sessions and matches, but were able to feature and score in that last game against France.

Saliba left the pitch due to a back issue in the semi-final (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

When will World Cup players return to pre-season training?

All players who have been involved in the World Cup receive a mandatory three weeks off after the end of their country’s involvement before they need to report for pre-season training. How they are integrated back into sessions and the warm-up matches will then be down to manager Mikel Arteta and his staff.

That three-week period comes to an end for those who were eliminated at the round of 32 (played between June 29 and July 3) this week. Brazil’s round-of-16 exit to Norway was on July 5, so Gabriel and Martinelli could report before Arsenal’s first official pre-season match away to Spanish side Girona on August 1. Odegaard should be expected back just after that trip, since the Norwegians were eliminated by England in the last eight on July 11.

Arsenal’s third and penultimate friendly, at home to Borussia Dortmund on August 9, is three weeks after the World Cup’s final weekend, so the eight players who made it that far can return after that fixture.

Following the 2024 European Championship, when England reached the final, Rice and Saka returned for Arsenal in the final pre-season friendly before starting in their opening Premier League fixture a week later. Whether Arteta decides to do the same with them this time, given the amount of football they have played in the past few years, will be a point of interest.

What about the rest of the squad?

For those not at the World Cup, Arsenal’s pre-season officially began this Monday, July 20.

Some players were involved in a training camp in Marbella, Spain, the previous week, which has become customary at Arsenal in recent years for players to start building their fitness early.

The players who did start their pre-season on Monday include Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera, Gabriel Jesus, Ben White, Jurrien Timber, Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Illan Meslier, Christian Norgaard, Max Dowman, Marli Salmon, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira.

Max Dowman in training on Monday (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

White’s 2025-26 season ended in early May with a medial cruciate ligament knee injury; he told Arsenal’s social channels: “I’ve been training every day. Knee’s all good. Started training with the team last week.”

Timber, who missed out on a World Cup squad place with the Netherlands after being absent for almost all of the club campaign’s final two months because of an ankle issue, said: “Getting there slowly. (I was) rehabbing during the summer, hopefully back soon.”

When are the first pre-season friendlies? Is there a tour?

The World Cup ending on July 19 has left little room for a pre-season tour. The number of Arsenal players at the tournament not only makes travel across the world less worthwhile, but has also contributed to a truncated pre-season.

So, in a somewhat old-school manner, Arsenal will be playing two warm-up matches elsewhere in Europe as well as their usual two at their Emirates Stadium. They are as follows (kick-offs are UK time):

• Girona (away). Saturday, August 1 (7pm)
• Real Betis (neutral — Aviva Stadium, Dublin). Wednesday, August 5 (7.30pm)
• Borussia Dortmund (home). Sunday, August 9 (2pm)
• Como (home). Wednesday, August 12 (7.30pm)

The Premier League champions then face FA Cup winners Manchester City in the Community Shield on Sunday, August 16 (3pm). It will be played at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff rather than at Wembley this season because of concerts at England’s national stadium.

For the third time in six seasons, Arsenal will then play the Premier League’s first game of the season on a Friday night (August 21, 8pm). They are hosting 2025-26 Championship winners Coventry City, having previously travelled to Brentford in 2021 (a 2-0 loss) and Crystal Palace in 2022 (a 2-0 win).

Last Wednesday, July 15, Manchester United fan Dee, who has attended matches since 1989, when he was 13 years old, and has held a season ticket since 2000, received an email about ticketing from the club titled ‘ACCOUNT Restriction’.

“My first reaction was shock and worry,” Dee explains of the message.

Like other fans The Athletic has spoken to for this article who received similar notifications — prompting anger on social media — Dee does not want us to use his full name, because he is concerned that speaking publicly might affect his chances of accessing tickets in the future.

The email, which The Athletic has seen, reads:

Dear Dee, 

Demand for tickets at Old Trafford remains extremely high, and the club has a responsibility to ensure tickets are accessed and used fairly by supporters. One of the most regular complaints we receive is around automated activity on our website, impacting genuine supporters when trying to purchase tickets. 

Following a detailed review of activity across our ticketing and digital platforms, we have identified sustained activity associated with your account, or accounts that appear to be controlled by you, which may indicate a breach of the club’s terms and conditions. 

As a result, your account has been temporarily restricted from making further transactions. Any tickets currently held for upcoming matches have also been deactivated while we complete our review.

We understand that receiving this communication may be concerning. No final decision has been made, and there may be legitimate explanations for the activity identified. This process is intended to give you the opportunity to provide further information so that your circumstances can be reviewed fully and fairly.

To allow us to undertake a full review, please email a written response by 8am on Monday, July 27.

• Confirmation of every device regularly used to access your account, including mobile phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.
• Confirmation of whether any of these devices are also used to access other ticketing accounts. Please provide the names of the account holders and explain why you access those accounts.
• Confirmation of whether your account is regularly accessed from multiple locations. Please provide details of each location.
• A brief explanation of how your account is accessed and managed, addressing each of the points above.
• A copy of valid photographic identification.

This investigation is based on activity between March and Sunday, July 12, your response only needs to cover this timeframe.

Dee sent a detailed response to all the questions, explaining which devices he accesses his account from and confirming he does not use any automated software, bots, scripts or third-party tools to access tickets.

He listed the names on his account, explained his relationship to each of them and said the accounts are not used for any commercial purpose or to circumnavigate the club’s ticketing policies. He confirmed the locations from which he accessed his account and set out, in detail, why he was in these locations.

“I have never sold my tickets to anyone,” Dee tells The Athletic.

Three days later, he received an email from the club lifting the temporary restrictions “following a full assessment of the material provided”.

Dee is one of hundreds of United fans who have had similar emails from United, and many are expressing unhappiness about them.

Manchester United fans wait for the players outside Old Trafford last season (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)

What has the reaction been?

Negative. Social media lit up with angry and anxious supporters saying they had received emails. Most replied to the message stating their case, but others said they would not bother. Some lashed out at United’s fan representatives — volunteers who have been working behind the scenes to try to help.

With trust between supporters and the club dented, some have accused United of treating them like suspects but with no evidence presented to them, the implication of the emails being that some accounts were being used for the improper purchasing of tickets. Some expressed the view that the emails were disproportionate and that the club had taken a block-first-ask-questions-later approach.

“The net has been cast very wide,” one fan representative told The Athletic. “I’m all for stopping touts, but the sentiment feels as bad as when the club removed concessions and priced remaining tickets at £66.”

Another fan, J, got the notification and was also subsequently cleared. “The anxiety I felt just from the email made me feel like I’d lost everything,” he says. “I told my family that I might not be able to go to the football, due to a reason that I had not been part of. I’ve never touted tickets or anything of the sort.”

“We were hit with the emails last week regarding suspicious activity but with no evidence to properly challenge what we’d done,” explains another supporter, O. “We panicked and appealed, which was rejected by the club within the hour, and then given 72 hours to re-appeal. Again, no evidence was given. We’re in limbo, stressed and anxious, knowing we’re about to lose a hobby, along with the European away credits collected over the years. I appreciate they need to tackle touts, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

“I was in complete disbelief,” explains another fan, who travels to all games from Northern Ireland. “I was about to pay for something at a till, and when I got my phone out I saw the email from United and it knocked me sick.

“To read what felt like accusations and a portrayal of you that simply isn’t true, with no evidence in the email to substantiate any of their claims, is bad enough. Then to get to the bottom of the email and read that my son was banned as well… basically guilt by association.”

The supporter has appealed.

What have the club said about this issue?

In an explanation message to Dee, United said: “A very small percentage of users interact with our ticketing platform in ways that can closely resemble activity associated with attempts to circumvent our systems. While we recognise that your account activity was entirely legitimate, it shared characteristics that required further review.

“We appreciate that this process may have been frustrating. However, we hope you understand why, in the interests of protecting genuine supporters, we have employed a specialist external company to help carry out these investigations where automated monitoring identifies unusual activity.

“Our review process is designed to ensure that these cases receive human assessment rather than relying solely on automated data, helping us distinguish between genuine supporters and those attempting to misuse the club’s ticketing systems. In your case, following that review, we are satisfied that this was a false positive.”

The Athletic put the points raised in this article to United.

The club say one of the biggest complaints they have had from fans for years now is to do with ticket touting, which has become more widespread and focused on bot activity, particularly around members’ ticket releases for home fixtures and season-ticket-holder releases for returned away tickets.

United hold back 200 tickets from each away allocation (typically 3,000) for their players, and not all of these are taken. They then put these back on the market in phases in the week leading up to a given game and say that when they do, bots are snapping them up. United say a small number of season-ticket holders are passing on their usernames and passwords to friends, who then make applications from their account. This behaviour replicates that of a bot, which is why they have been flagged.

The club hired an external specialist at the end of last season on a trial basis to help analyse account login data and fans’ behaviour online to try to tackle the issues. This arrangement was made permanent in the middle of June. United say everything they are seeing is because of that analysis and that they did not know people were sharing usernames and passwords.

There is an understanding within the club about the anxiety caused by that first batch of emails, which were received out of the blue. Subsequent correspondence has been amended.

United deny this is revenue-driven or that they want to reduce the number of season tickets. The club also say the correspondence they are sending out is a request for information, not a sanction. But there is a restriction on people’s apps while United wait for the information requested, with an actual person (rather than a machine) going through the cases.

The club also sent 20,000 similar emails to members (not season-ticket holders) at the end of last season and say 95 per cent of recipients did not reply. Their position is that they are trying to protect the integrity of the ticketing system for everyone’s benefit.