Juventus have completed the signing of Alisha Lehmann from Aston Villa.

Lehmann’s arrival at Juventus comes a week after the Italian club announced the purchase of her partner, Douglas Luiz, from Villa. Luiz signed a five-year deal with Juventus, with Lehmann agreeing to a three-year contract.

“An emotional goodbye, I wanna say thank you to my teammates, staff and of course the amazing fans,” Lehmann posted in a farewell to Villa on social media. “I spend the best three years so far of my career at this amazing club, every single minute I enjoyed.

“Thank you for everything Aston Villa. You will always have a special place in my heart, and of course a part of me will be there forever. Thank you.”

Lehmann leaves Villa after making 74 appearances in three seasons with the Women’s Super League club. The 25-year-old forward scored 14 goals in that time and helped Villa to ninth-, fifth- and seventh-place finishes in the WSL.

Lehmann is a Switzerland international and has represented her country on 53 occasions since making her debut in 2017.

Juventus finished second in last season’s Serie A Femminile, 11 points behind league winners Roma.

GO DEEPER

Villa’s complex transfer deals: Big sale needed, Douglas Luiz and PSR issues to solve

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The Champions League final is the biggest club game on the calendar and the climax of the football season.

On June 1, Real Madrid, the 14-time winners of Europe’s elite club competition, will play German club Borussia Dortmund at Wembley Stadium in London. According to UEFA, the game will be shown in more than 200 territories and will reach 450million people worldwide, with an estimated global average viewership of around 145m.

The most ardent of football supporters, be it in the United States or the United Kingdom, will devour any match if it is on TV, whether that is the Premier League, Ligue 1, Major League Soccer (MLS) or the Women’s Super League (WSL).

Fortunately for fans, most games are now available on TV — but just how much do those in the U.S. and the UK pay to tune in?

As part of TNT Sports’ deal with UEFA, the broadcaster has to make the Champions League final free to view in the UK, giving supporters a small reprieve from the monthly costs associated with watching football on TV.

Regular fixtures, however, are seldom made available for free, and following your team on TV, or another league, is not cheap.

For the figures in this article, the platform’s baseline cost is not factored in. For example, the cost of basic cable in the U.S. is not included in the…

Fiorentina’s general director Joe Barone has died at the age of 57. 

The club said in a statement: “It is with deep sorrow and immense sadness that Fiorentina confirms the loss of one of its figureheads, a person who has marked the recent history of the club and who will never be forgotten. General director Giuseppe Barone passed away today at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan after suddenly falling ill on Sunday.

“Rocco Commisso and his family, Daniele Prade, Nicolas Burdisso, Alessandro Ferrari, Vincenzo Italiano, Cristiano Biraghi and everyone associated with Fiorentina are utterly devastated by the terrible loss of a man who showed great professionalism and gave his heart and soul for these colours.

“He was a treasured friend who always stayed strong in the happiest and, above all, the most difficult moments. The entire Viola world sends its heartfelt condolences to Giuseppe’s wife Camilla, his children and the entire Barone family during this time of immense sorrow.”

Barone was omitted to hospital on Sunday after being taken ill in the afternoon, resulting in Fiorentina’s Serie A match against Atalanta being postponed. The rescheduling of the fixture is yet to be confirmed.

He fell ill at the team hotel in the hours leading up to the fixture. Barone was then…

This time last year, Pablo Mari had just been allowed home after undergoing surgery — but this was not the sort of hospital visit that footballers expect during their career.

The Spanish defender had been stabbed in the back during a frenzied attack at a Milan shopping centre in which six people were injured, one of whom was killed.

Mari was in the wrong place at the wrong time. While shopping in a busy Carrefour supermarket with his wife and son, a 46-year-old man came from behind and stabbed him in the back.

The former Arsenal player had been oblivious to the danger until he felt the sharp pain. Once aware of what he was in the middle of, he had to witness the attacker launch himself at others who escaped less fortunate than him.

It was an ordeal that left Mari needing surgery to reconstruct two injured muscles. The surgeon credited his muscle mass as his saving grace, which meant that the knife — grabbed from the supermarket shelf — did not pass through the rib cage and puncture his lung.

That is the small margin between life and death which means Mari is still here.

“I want to say thank you to everybody. Not only here in Italy but in Spain, the UK and everywhere else,” Mari tells The Athletic.

“The messages of support I received were really impressive. People I have…

Tonight, Lionel Messi is fancied to win the Ballon d’Or, which will be the eighth time the Argentinian has walked off with the award, while fellow World Cup winner Aitana Bonmati is favourite take the Ballon d’Or Feminin.

It’s the highest individual honour that a footballer can receive, and while the physical manifestation of it — a quite literal golden, 18-carat, 22cm football that weighs around 12 kilos — is impressive enough, the real prize is the kudos and glory that comes with it.

Why is it so prestigious? How do you win it? Who decides who wins it? When did the people behind it discover that women play football too? Do players care? And what is the plural of Ballon d’Or?

We invite you to find out all of this, and possibly more, by reading on…

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What is the Ballon d’Or?

The Ballon d’Or is an annual award given to the best men’s and women’s footballers in the world. Basically, it’s world football’s MVP award.

Whose bright idea was it?

The first Ballon d’Or was awarded in 1956, and back then was widely known simply as the European Footballer Of The Year award. It was the brainchild of Gabriel Hanot and Jacques Ferran, two journalists from France Football…

It is that time of year for us to draw conclusions in the world of football. Like accepting that Manchester City are now as good as it gets in Europe. Or that Jack Grealish is partial to an all-nighter.

And here’s another one: football is a boom industry and at the very heart of its expansion is the Premier League.

Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance has been published and its forensic analysis details that just shy of €30billion (£25.6bn; $32.5bn) was generated by European clubs across the 2021-22 season. Covid-19 might have applied the brakes but the accelerator is back to being squeezed with growth of seven per cent year on year.

The European football market has expanded by almost €10billion since 2012-13 — a billion for every season, if you like — and central to the continued uplift is the Premier League. All by itself, English football’s top division now generates €6.4billion (£5.5bn) per year. Spain’s La Liga, its nearest competitor, only just turned over half of that sum last season.

In the women’s game, the upward trajectory is even steeper, with 60 per cent growth year on year in the English Football Association’s Women’s Super League.

Deloitte’s 32nd Annual Review depicts a sport with a widening appeal and enduring interest levels…