The 2026 Community Shield was a one-sided affair, with Arsenal easing past Manchester City. The Premier League champions won 3-0 on the day, but one player has come in for some strong criticism.

The Gunners were at it from the off against Enzo Maresca’s side, with Riccardo Calafiori netting after just 24 seconds. Kai Havertz then headed home to make it 2-0 in Cardiff before half-time, as Martin Odegaard capped off a fine display with his team’s third in the 48th minute.

Truth be told, Mikel Arteta’s men never looked like losing and were in cruise control for most of the second half against an underwhelming Man City team. Despite that, former PGMOL head Keith Hackett has taken issue with one key incident.

Action Images via Reuters/Matthew Childs

During the match, with Arsenal on top and pushing for more goals, Calafiori burst into the box on the overlap. Christos Tzolis’ pass was a touch heavy, allowing Abdukodir Khusanov in with a chance of winning the ball. Anticipating contact from the Man City defender, the Italian threw himself to the ground.

Khusanov read his intentions and made sure not to make any significant contact. Referee Sam Barrott was on top of the incident and correctly opted to book the defender for simulation. Speaking to Football Insider, Hackett has now slammed Calafiori while praising the official.

On the referee’s actions, he said: “Sam Barrott is an established, good referee who has come through very quickly, is very experienced and is officiating really well. So for me I think it’s great that we’ve got another named referee that appears to be a safe pair of hands

“The more referees penalise acts of simulation, diving, the less players will do it. This borders on the amusing, but not because it’s so bad.

“If referees are not going to take the action unilaterally across all the group, all the games, then we will never get rid of this aspect of the game which is damaging to the image.”

He then went after Calafiori, noting:

“All these sorts of nonsense things that go on. Fans are not daft. Whoever you support, they don’t like it, and I share their view.

“And I think referees like Barrett have set the scene, but until there is a consistent approach, players will continue to simulate.”

Hackett Proposes New Rule To Guard Against Premier League Diving

Hackett then proposed that VAR could be used to help make sure that all diving is punished. He pointed out that sometimes a referee won’t give a penalty, but will also avoid booking a player if the dive isn’t particularly obvious.

The former Premier League referee insisted that VAR should be able to tell a referee when a player has dived, explaining:

“But it’s an unacceptable part of the game, and well done to Barrett.”

It will be interesting to see if the laws around potential punishments for diving do change in the VAR era.

NFL stadiums are the beating heart of the league, with fans packing out stadiums week in week out to support their teams from Week one all the way to Week 18, and throughout the playoffs, with 32 teams battling it out to be in contention for the Vince Lombardi Trophy come the 14th of February, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, home to the Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers.

With the NFL season getting underway in just under a month, with a rematch of Super Bowl 60 between reigning champions the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, taking place at Lumen Field, before the season begins, AI has ranked all 30 NFL stadiums, from worst to best to see which team takes home that title.

10

Hard Rock Stadium

Miami Dolphins

Credit: Joel Auerbach/Getty Images

AI Description: The canopy transformed the South Florida experience.

The home of the Miami Dolphins isn’t just a home to the AFC East side; it has also held matches for the Miami Open in tennis, as well as the Miami Hurricanes in College Football since 2008, although it does not directly involve the stadium. Since 2022, Formula One has added Miami to its calendar, with drivers winding around the stadium.

Hard Rock Stadium is 38 years old, originally named Joe Robbie Stadium and holds just over 65,000 fans. In 2016, extensive updates were finished, adding a canopy roof as well as updated seating.

This stadium adds a weird nuance to visiting NFL sides as the away sideline is typically significantly hotter than the Dolphins one that they stand on, with it being shown during the match between the Miami Dolphins and Minnesota Vikings, with the visiting Vikings sideline measuring to be 30 degrees hotter than their opponents.

9

Ceasars Superdome

New Orleans Saints

AI Description: Historic, loud, and uniquely New Orleans.

This stadium has hosted eight Super Bowls, the most out of any NFL stadium, with the first one happening in 1978 between the Cowboys and the Broncos, and most recently in 2025, in which the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs.

Formerly named the Louisiana Superdome up until 2011, this stadium’s capacity holds 73,208 fans, but can be expanded to 76,468, although those fans haven’t had much to cheer about over past years with the Saints not winning a playoff game since 2021.

In 2019, this stadium witnessed one of the most controversial no-calls in NFL history, with there being clear pass interference from Rams corner back Nickell Robey-Coleman on Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis going uncalled-for, with the latter eventually losing in overtime.

8

Mercedes-Benz Stadium

Atlanta Falcons

AI Description: One of the most spectacular roofs/interiors in sports.

The home of the Atlanta Falcons is certainly one of the most visually pleasing stadiums in the NFL, with its modern and futuristic look. Internally and externally, it holds 71,000 spectators and opened as recently as 2017, with the cost to build this infrastructure totalling just over two million dollars.

As well as hosting NFL games, it’s home to Atlanta United in the MLS and showcases the Peach Bowl in College Football, typically played either as a quarter-final or a semi-final.

Originally, this stadium was meant to open on the 1st of March 2017, but was delayed due to the complexity of the eight-panel retractable roof. Eventually, the Falcons would play in it for the first time against the Green Bay Packers on the 17th of September 2017.

7

Arrowhead Stadium

Kansas City Chiefs

AI Description: Maybe the most pure football atmosphere in America.

Recently rebranded as just Arrowhead Stadium, converting from GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, the capacity reads 76,416, and is the third-oldest current stadium in the NFL.

Based off data from the 2025/26 NFL season, the Kansas City Chiefs had the third-highest attendance, behind the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos, with 661,146.

The fans inside the Chiefs’ ground once achieved the loudest crowd roar, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, achieving a measurement of 142.2 decibels against the Patriots in 2014.

6

Levi’s Stadium

San Francisco 49ers

Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

AI Description: Modern, major-calibre, excellent amenities.

The one downside to the home of the 49ers is that it is a 45-minute drive from San Francisco, given that the stadium is located in Santa Clara.

It’s been home to the 49ers since 2014, with the branding of Levi’s, who purchased naming rights in 2013, it holds a capacity of 68,500, and held last year’s Super Bowl between the Seahawks and the Patriots, as well as Super Bowl 50, where the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers.

While Levi’s Stadium is primarily home to the 49ers, it was turned into a football stadium to host six World Cup games over the summer, including, the USA vs Bosnia and Herzegovina and Qatar’s first-ever World Cup point against Switzerland.

5

Solider Field

Chicago Field

AI Description: Flawed Building, but an unbeatable lakefront/historic building.

The home of the Chicago Bears is the oldest active stadium in the NFL, with it celebrating its 102nd birthday on the 9th of October 1924. The Bears have been home to this stadium since 1971, with major renovations taking place in 2003 with modern steel-and-concrete seating bowl inside the neoclassical outer colonnades, which cost $632 million.

Although this might not be the Bears’ home for much longer, as the ownership are looking into moving to a new stadium, located in Indiana, if they were to move, then they still would keep the Chicago name if they were to relocate.

4

AT&T Stadium

Dallas Cowboys

Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

AI Description: Ridiculous in the most possible way – Jerry World delivers spectacle.

Many believe the Cowboys to be the biggest franchise in the NFL, regardless of bringing high expectations into the start of the new season, but always seem to let their fans down within their 80,000-plus-seat stadium.

Jerry’s world, as many like to call it, is named after its owner, Jerry Jones. It’s believed that it’s meant to reflect his bigger-than-life personality, as both a football stadium and an entertainment complex.

The stadium in Arlington, Texas, opened in 2009, and its features include massive arched steel supports, and a giant centre-hung high definition video board.

3

Allegiant Stadium

Las Vegas Raiders

Credit Raiders.com

AI Description: Gorgeous, theatrical, uniquely Vegas.

Located just west of the Las Vegas strip, this arena opened in 2020, and is also home to the UNLV Rebels College Football team, with a capacity of 65,000, but can be expanded by an extra 6,000 seats.

It hosted one of the more dramatic Super Bowls in history, between the Chiefs and the 49ers in 2024, and will also hold Super Bowl LXIII in 2029.

Recently, the Las Vegas Bowl in the College Football playoffs took place at Allegiant Stadium as of 2021, and at $1.9 billion, it is among the most expensive stadiums in the world.

2

SoFi Stadium

Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers

AI Description: Architectural masterpiece and arguably the best overall facility.

Situated next to Rivers Lake, the home to the Rams and Chargers is one of the most visually pleasing stadiums, and alongside MetLife Stadium, which hosts Giants and Jets games, it’s one of only two to hold two NFL teams in the same stadium.

The Rams won the Super Bowl in 2022 against the Bengals in their own stadium, and the Buccaneers did that too in 2020, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs.

The interior of this stadium has a massive 360-degree double-sided oval video board from the roof and the playing field is dug about 100 feet below ground level to comply with nearby LAX fight paths.

1

Lambeau Field

Green Bay Packers

Credit: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

AI Description: The NFL pilgrimage: history, atmosphere, and football identity.

It seems right that the team with the most Lombardi Trophies claims top spot on the AI’s list of NFL stadiums, winning 13 NFL Championships, but only four within the Super Bowl era, with the most recent one coming in 2011, with Aaron Rodgers under centre.

It has a rich history as the NFL’s oldest continuously operating venue. Lambeau Field is typically filled with Packers fans with cheese hats on their heads, known as “cheeseheads.”

Once named The Ice Bowl, due to a New Year’s Eve game against the Cowboys being played in a brutal kickoff temperature of -13 degrees Farenheit.

EA Sports FC 27 lands worldwide on 25 September, and it arrives with the biggest shake-up in terms of features the series has attempted since the FIFA name was dropped.

Volta and the old standalone Clubs hub are gone. In their place sits an open-world social space that borrows openly from NBA 2K’s The City. The headline modes remain three: The Grounds, Football Ultimate Team and Career.

Each feature has been reimagined to offer a new gaming experience; it includes a transfer market that finally behaves like a transfer market, a FUT collection layer that rewards everything you have ever packed, and a persistent world where your Pro’s progression never really stops. Kylian Mbappé fronts the cover and doubles as an in-game mentor.

The Grounds

EA Sports

This is the most significant and bold addition in years. The Grounds is a free-roaming social hub split across three districts, and you explore on foot, buy gear, and drop into matches without touching a menu:

• Parkside, a working-class British setting.
• Montclair, cage football in a Parisian cityscape.
• Zeiza, built around Argentine potrero (makeshift field) culture.

Competitive formats allow for matchups such as 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and Rush. It also runs alongside looser activities like Bocce Ball, Team Keepaway and Balloon Ball. Progression is layered — Archetype XP, Grounds Coins, Amps and permanent Masteries all feed your Pro giving a long-term view to this new gameplay.

Mbappé, Chloe Kelly, Paulo Dybala and Alex Hunter appear as mentors, in a new feature, and Clubs is also folded in, with upgradeable stadiums and clubhouses. O

There is one catch: it’s PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Switch 2 only.

EA Sports via YouTube

FUT’s big idea this year is the Gallery — which is a permanent record of every card you’ve earned, whether you kept it or sold it. Complete collections by league, club and rarity to earn Gallery grades from D to S, unlocking kits, badges and Gallery Tokens.

What’s new is that premium tiers hand out holographic cards carrying player signatures. Those tokens feed the Hall of FUT, a set of 17 launch cards immortalising cult heroes including Hulk, Adebayo Akinfenwa and Marouane Fellaini.

Elsewhere, SBCs have been stripped of chemistry and rating requirements in favour of a single squad-score threshold, Evolutions now run six customisable stages with pre-viewable chains, and a new Campaign Hub pulls Objectives, Evolutions and Tokens into one place.

Manager & Player Career

EA Sports via YouTube

Career mode also gets its most substantial overhaul in a decade. The transfer market has been rebuilt around genuine negotiation — initial inquiries, rival interest, late contract changes — with valuations powered by a TransferRoom partnership and deals structured using installments, loan-backs, swaps and buyback clauses providing a more interactive experience.

Dynamic Player Overalls mean ratings now move with form, fitness, injuries and squad competition, while Growth Profiles give every player a distinct development curve. On the Player side, Career Rivalries pit you against a positional competitor, with in-game media coverage casting you as hero or villain.