UEFA, which governs the competition, said it was “aware” of the apparent threats, which stemmed from social media posts attributed to an ISIS-affiliated media organization that allegedly called for attacks at the stadiums.

The validity of the threats has not been confirmed.

“[UEFA] is closely liaising with the authorities at the respective venues,” the European soccer association said in a statement Tuesday. “All matches are planned to go ahead as scheduled with appropriate security arrangements in place.”

The announcement came before Tuesday’s matches between Real Madrid and Manchester City in Madrid and between Arsenal and Bayern Munich in London.

On Wednesday, Paris Saint-Germain is scheduled to play Barcelona in Paris, and Atlético Madrid is set to take on Borussia Dortmund in Madrid.

“Who wouldn’t be concerned by that? Of course we’re concerned,” PSG coach Luis Enrique said of the alleged threats. “We hope it’s only a threat and that nothing will happen.”

The concerns surrounding the Champions League quarterfinal ties come less than three weeks after ISIS claimed responsibility for the mass shooting at Moscow’s Crocus Hall that left 144 people dead.

Officials in cities hosting UEFA matches this week publicly vowed to have significant police presences in place.

“We have seen, among others, a statement from the Islamic State, which is particularly targeting stadiums. It’s not new,” said France Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. “This morning we asked the general director of interior security to communicate the information we have with the other (security) services of the other countries hosting the quarterfinals.”

With News Wire Services

Jaedyn Shaw also scored for the United States in the match played before 50,644 fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a record for a friendly match for the United States women on home soil. It was also the largest crowd for a women’s game in the United States since the 1999 World Cup final.

The game also marked the return of both Mallory Swanson and Catarina Macario after lengthy absences because of injury.
Japan scored 30 seconds into the game. Kiko Seike dashed down the wing and evaded a defender with a shot that was out of the reach of U.S. goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. It was the first time the U.S. conceded a goal within the opening minute since 2003.

Swanson started in her first game back in nearly a year since injuring her patellar tendon during an exhibition match against Ireland last year. The injury kept her out of last summer’s Women’s World Cup.

Swanson nearly scored in the 15th minute but a goal-line clearance by Japan’s goalkeeper denied her. She had another good chance in the 72nd minute.

Macario came into the game as a second-half substitute, making her first appearance with the national team in two years after tearing an ACL in a match with Lyon.

Shaw, playing as a No. 10, scored through traffic with a blast from outside the penalty box to tie it. Shaw, 19, is the first U.S. player with five goals in five straight career starts.

Just before Shaw’s goal, the United States was hurt when defender Naomi Girma was subbed off with an apparent right thigh injury. Girma was the U.S. Soccer Player of the Year last year.

Horan’s game-winning penalty came after Sophia Smith was brought down in the box.

Korbin Albert came into the match as a second-half substitute following a controversy over past social media posts. The 20-year-old Albert, who plays for Paris Saint-Germain, had reposted anti-LGBTQ+ content on her TikTok account.

Albert apologized, saying “liking and sharing posts that are offensive, insensitive and hurtful was immature and disrespectful which was never my intent.”

Alex Morgan addressed the issue in a statement earlier this week and noted the team was handling it internally.

“We stand by maintaining a safe and respectful space, especially as allies and members of the LGBTQ+ community. This platform has given us an opportunity to highlight causes that matter to us, something that we never take for granted. We’ll keep using this platform to give attention to causes,” Morgan said.

Brazil was set to play Canada in the later game Saturday in Atlanta. The results will determine the matchups for Tuesday’s SheBelieves Cup matches in Columbus, Ohio.

All of the teams playing in the SheBelieves Cup have qualified for the Olympics in France this summer.

The uniforms in question feature a number 4 closely resembling the lightning-like logo worn by Adolf Hitler’s Schutzstaffel paramilitary organization, better known as the SS.

Further complicating matters, the uniforms were supplied by Adidas, which is still striving to recover from its collaboration with the Nazi-sympathizing rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

German soccer officials said Monday that none of the parties involved in producing the controversial jerseys initially detected any semblance between its design and the aesthetic of the nationalist party responsible for World War II and genocidal death camps.

But public attention to the matter caused sports executives to rethink the uniforms, with the DFB saying they “do not want to provide a platform for discussions.”

The organization added it will develop an “alternative design” for the uniforms’ problematic number 4 and use that on the new jerseys.

The 4 on the German team’s current jersey is most problematic when paired with a second number 4, somewhat replicating the look of the double-lightning bolt emblem worn by SS officers.

Adidas — which has produced the German team’s uniforms for more than 70 years, according to CNN — reportedly told local media it would also immediately block the number 44 from being printed on customized jerseys as the company actively opposes “xenophobia, antidemitism, violence and hatred in any form.”

Adidas found itself facing another Nazi problem in October 2022 when West, now legally known as Ye, increasingly voiced distaste for Jewish people while working with the sports apparel brand.

“I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me,” he boasted before being cut loose. “Now what?”

A New York Times report revealed employees at Adidas knew about Ye’s antisemitism well before the company ended its nearly decade-long deal with the “Black Skinhead” rapper. Ye and Adidas both claimed to have lost at least $1 billion when they parted ways.

“I want to sincerely apologize for my actions on social media,” the 20-year-old midfielder wrote on her Instagram Story Thursday. “Liking and sharing posts that are offensive, insensitive and hurtful was immature and disrespectful which was never my intent.”

Albert, who also plays for Paris Saint-Germain, was likely referring to a clip of a Christian worship sermon she shared on TikTok that described being gay and “feeling transgender” as wrong.

News of her online activity quickly spread on social media and her TikTok account was quickly inundated with comments by angry fans, some of whom called her “hateful” and an “absolute disappointment” whose actions were “shocking and ridiculous.”

Rapinoe, who retired from a groundbreaking career as a soccer player last year, also took an issue with the repost.

In a scathing statement shared on her Instagram Story ahead of Albert’s apology, the two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medalist addressed the issue, saying “kids are literally killing themselves because of this hate.”

“For people who want to hide behind ‘my beliefs,’ I would just ask one question: Are you making any type of space safer, more inclusive … bringing the best out of anyone? Because if you aren’t, all you believe in is hate,” Rapinoe wrote.

The 38-year-old, who has always been a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights, didn’t directly address anyone in her comment, but later confirmed to The Athletic she was responding to Albert’s posts.

“I’m really disappointed in myself and am deeply sorry for the hurt that I have caused to my teammates, other players, fans, friends and anyone who was offended,” Albert wrote in her apology.

Korbin Albert has issued a statement on her Instagram story addressing her social media activity which included sharing posts with transphobic and homophobic views on TikTok. Megan Rapinoe made a statement earlier today that’s been shared by many former and current USWNT players. pic.twitter.com/wY2trL3Py2

— Claire Watkins (@ScoutRipley) March 28, 2024

“I truly believe that everyone should feel safe and respected everywhere and on all playing fields,” the up-and-coming star said. “I know my actions have not lived up to that and for that I sincerely apologize. It’s an honor and a privilege to get to play this sport on the world stage and I promise to do better.”

Rapinoe has not commented on the apology.

Jessica Berman expects “explosive growth” stateside over the next four-to-six years with the U.S. co-hosting the men’s World Cup in 2026 and bidding for the 2027 women’s tournament.

“There’s this age-old question: When is America going to start paying attention to this global sport? Well, it’s happened,” Berman said in London at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit, according to ESPN.

“They are paying attention, they love this sport, and we have this halo effect of the U.S. women’s national team and their incredible success.”

The soccer surge is particularly prominent in the New York/New Jersey area, with the 2026 World Cup final set to take place at Metife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where the Giants and Jets call home.

NJ/NY Gotham F.C., meanwhile, won its first-ever NWSL championship in November, then added four staples of the U.S. Women’s National Team in Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson during a franchise-altering offseason.

All four players were part of the U.S. roster that won the 2019 World Cup, which marked back-to-back titles for the women’s national team. Dunn, Lavelle, Sonnet and Davidson bring with them a collective star power that’s invited mentions of a Gotham superteam.

“We want this type of attention,” general manager Yael Averbuch said last month at the quartet’s introductory press conference. “I’m from this area of the country, and we really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mindset, which is [that] we want to be the best and we want other people chasing us. We want that target on our back.”

Further fueling the fútbol frenzy in the U.S. was Lionel Messi signing with Inter Miami CF last summer. The soccer superstar made his Major League Soccer debut in August against the New York Red Bulls in Harrison, N.J., and scored a goal in Miami’s 2-0 victory.

Inter Miami is set to return to Red Bull Arena on March 23, though Messi may miss that meeting in favor of games with Argentina in Philadelphia and Los Angeles that were originally scheduled to take place in China. Messi led Argentina to a World Cup title in 2022.

The U.S. is co-hosting the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada. The FIFA Congress is set to vote in May to decide the site of the 2027 Women’s World Cup, which the U.S. hopes to co-host with Mexico.

“[Soccer] is one of the few sports where when you ask 100 percent [of the] people in the U.S. to close their eyes and imagine ‘greatness, soccer and America,’ they think of women,” Berman said.

“With the World Cup coming in 2026 and the possibility the Women’s World Cup will come in 2027, there is an incredible amount of interest.”

If they can take care of the world’s best ‘football’ players when they play in New Jersey, they can do what’s best for the world’s best American football players, too.

FIFA announced on Sunday that MetLife Stadium will host eight matches during the 2026 World Cup tournament, headlined by the World Cup Final on July 19.

The turf pitch will be converted to grass for the World Cup games to meet FIFA’s standards. That costs money.

The stadium is using $400,000 in funds from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority — which owns the lease on the stadium’s land — to turn the field to grass for this summer’s Copa America games, per The Athletic.

Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch, and Jets owner Woody Johnson, would have to foot a big bill to convert their surface to grass and maintain it.

But a slightly improved bottom line for billionaires and millionaires should not take priority over the safety of the players who bring those dollars in with their talents and hard work.

The NFL players’ union has called for all teams to switch permanently to grass in their stadiums, citing data that it makes the game safer. The league, naturally, occasionally finds its own selective data to push back.

Still, there is no regional argument for why a grass field couldn’t be maintained in New Jersey when the Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders all play on grass in the Northeast already.

If it saved even one ACL or Achilles, it would be worth it.

Mara, to his credit, said last March that he hopes to move to grass permanently one day at the Giants’ and Jets’ home stadium.

“It would have to go down for the World Cup,” Mara said last March of grass at MetLife. “My hope is that we can get to a day some point in the future that we can have a grass field that we’re able to maintain with two different teams and all the other events. I think we can get there at some point. Maybe it’s a hybrid product or something.”

The Giants and Jets installed a new “monofilament” turf at last offseason in response to harsh criticism from the union and players around the league, including some of their own, about their previous “slit film” turf’s connection to frequent player injuries.

Players were included in the conversations about which new turf the teams should install, and the change represented progress. But players have still complained.

Houston Texans rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud said after suffering a concussion in a road loss against the Jets that he “hit the back of my head” on the ground and it felt like “I damn near hit my head on cement, kind of. It was cold, and the turf I guess isn’t the best I’ve learned.”

At the old Giants Stadium, they once switched from the infamous AstroTurf to a grass tray system in 2000, but the field quality was still poor and that led to the installation of a different field turf in 2003.

More than 20 years have passed, though. There is a reason the best soccer players in the world play on grass only in the World Cup.

And frankly, when the NFL’s experts are traveling internationally for their collaborative summits with these international ‘football’ leagues and stadiums, they should be harnessing new knowledge on how to maintain grass back home as they do overseas.

The planned installation of grass for the 2026 World Cup is a reminder that they’ll put grass down in MetLife Stadium when provided with enough incentive.

So if they’ll do it for Kylian Mbappe, Kevin De Bruyne, Marcus Rashford and Jamal Musiala, they can do it for the Giants’ Dexter Lawrence, the Jets’ Garrett Wilson and the NFL’s players, too.

While in competition with the AT&T Stadium inn Arlington, Tex., the home of the Giants and Jets promised to remove 1,740 seats to accommodate a wider field for the beautiful game, the Daily News previously reported.

MetLife Stadium would re-add the vacated seats following the World Cup as parts of removable sections.

“In many ways, we’ve got the whole world right in our backyard with more than 600 languages and dialects spoken across our region,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. “There is nowhere that better captures the breadth and diversity of the world’s greatest game than New York City and our great Garden State.”

The final match will be held on July 19, 2026 in the East Rutherford, N.J., stadium.

“As mayor of the most diverse city in the United States, a city filled with soccer fans, we cannot wait to welcome the world for the 2026 FIFA World Cup,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a joint statement with Murphy.

The massive tournament spans 16 locations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, with Dallas hosting nine matches.

The event will officially kick off on June 11, 2026 in Mexico City’s new, high-tech Estadio Azteca. The United States’s opening match with be held in Los Angeles on June 12, FIFA said in a post on X.

The bronze medal final will take place in Miami and the semi-final games will take place in Atlanta and Dallas, according to FIFA.

Signing a multi-year contract with Gotham FC this offseason offered the decorated World Cup champion an opportunity to compete for her fourth National Women’s Soccer League title.

Just as importantly, it gave her a chance to come back home.

Dunn, 31, was born in New Hyde Park on Long Island and grew up in nearby Rockville Centre, where she captained the South Side High School soccer team and won state championships in 2006, 2007 and 2009.

Those titles were just the start for a player who has won nearly everywhere she’s gone since. Now entering her 10th NWSL season, Dunn boasts an MVP trophy she earned in 2015 with the Washington Spirit; back-to-back championships with the North Carolina Courage in 2018 and 2019; and an additional title with the Portland Thorns in 2022.

Dunn was also part of the U.S. Women’s National Team that won the World Cup in 2019, appearing in six games. She competed as well in the 2023 World Cup and in two Olympics.

Through it all, Dunn remained true to New York.

“When people see New York, it’s so easy to get caught up in the fame, the access to all these high-stage, high-spotlight moments,” Dunn said Friday following an introductory press conference at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room. “But to me, being a New Yorker was always about the grind. It was about the ailments that were thrown your way that you had to battle through and face. That’s my mentality as a player.”

Dunn’s latest challenge is suiting up for a retooled Gotham club that enters the 2024 season with sky-high expectations. Fresh off the franchise’s first-ever NWSL championship in November, Gotham added four staples of the USWNT in Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson.

The big-name quartet joins a team already featuring USWNT members including Lynn Williams and Kelley O’Hara, who were also part of the 2023 World Cup roster.

All of that star power on one club invited mentions of a possible “superteam.” Dunn, who spent the past three seasons with Portland, is aware of that buzz.

“All this hype about us coming in is amazing, but I also think we’ve got pressure on us, which is an incredible feeling,” Dunn said. “Pressure creates diamonds, and I think you’ve got to embrace it. You can’t shy away from it, but it all starts with … getting to work.”

The 5-1 Dunn, whose deal runs through 2026, brings rare versatility to Gotham. A goal-scoring midfielder and forward by trade, Dunn has primarily played as a defender with the USWNT.

Her new coach, Gotham’s Juan Carlos Amoros, describes Dunn as “very special on and off the ball.”

“She’s exciting,” Amoros said Friday. “She’s very versatile as well, can play different positions, and she’s also a leader.”

She’s also a mother, having welcomed her first child in 2022. The chance to raise her son in her native New York proved to be a massive draw for Dunn, who acknowledges it felt “amazing” to be wanted by her hometown team.

Gotham’s pursuit of Dunn played out separately from those of Lavelle, Sonnett and Davidson, though all four entered free agency looking for the same things, general manager Yael Averbuch said Friday.

“We always started the conversation with asking them what they’re looking for in the next phase of their career,” said Averbuch, a former player who, like Dunn, hails from Long Island. “Every single person who we brought to the club said something similar. They said, ‘I want to win. I want to get better, I don’t feel like I’ve met my potential and I want to be around other people that share that mindset.’ The second they said any version of that, I felt pretty confident. I knew they should choose Gotham.”

Dunn’s addition to Gotham represents a testament to the organization’s turnaround in recent years.

Before 2023, the club endured losing seasons in six of the past seven years, including in 2022, when it finished in last place at 4-1-17. Before moving in 2020 to the spacious Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., Gotham played its home games at Rutgers University’s Yurcak Field, which seats only 5,000 people on a single grandstand.

“People need to realize the New York area is a tough market,” Dunn said. “There’s not a lot of space. There’s not always an easy stadium to have and to build on. From afar, it always looked like there was passion behind growing this club in this area, but there were always challenges. I think the last couple of years, getting so many people in this organization to have that vision and have that guideline, has been able to put that team on the map and make it so much more accessible for people to be able to come and see these games.”

Attracting larger crowds to Red Bull Arena is a priority for Dunn, who urged her fellow New Yorkers — including those on Long Island — to show up for her new club. Gotham averaged around 6,300 fans at home games last season. Dunn’s previous team averaged about 19,000 fans at its games in Portland.

Gotham is set to host the league’s season opener on March 15 against San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL Challenge Cup.

With Friday’s team introduction behind her, Dunn is eager to get going.

“I’ve been highly successful in my career, but every year I’ve got to upgrade the résumé,” Dunn said. “It’s not about what I did five years ago, even last season. It’s about what I’m presently here to do and take on, and I think that’s really important that people hear that from me, as somebody that is a leader, as somebody that has achieved a lot.

“If I’m not showing up … and competing to fight to be the best player out there, how can I demand that from my teammates?” she continued. “I think that’s really something that New York has instilled in me, that you’ve got to work for everything.”

Gotham FC, the defending champions of the National Women’s Soccer League, followed up its first-ever NWSL title in the fall with a franchise-altering offseason, adding four star players in Crystal Dunn, Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett and Tierna Davidson.

Their arrivals give Gotham four more staples of the U.S. Women’s National Team who further bolster a roster already featuring standouts in Lynn Williams, Kelley O’Hara, Midge Purce and Jenna Nighswonger.

Expectations are understandably high for such a loaded lineup — and that’s exactly how general manager Yael Averbuch wants them.

“We want this type of attention,” Averbuch, who was born in New York and grew up in Montclair, N.J., said Friday at Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, where Gotham officially introduced its new big-name quartet.

“I’m from this area of the country, and we really want to embody the New Jersey/New York mindset, which is [that] we want to be the best and we want other people chasing us. We want that target on our back.”

The busy offseason aligns with Averbuch’s mission, as she described Friday, to turn Gotham into the “global capital of women’s soccer.” The 2023 season ended with a championship but still left room for improvement in the eyes of Averbuch and coach Juan Carlos Amoros, considering Gotham finished the regular season sixth out of the league’s 12 teams with an 8-7-7 record.

Enter the new additions.

The multi-positional Dunn, 31, is a Long Island native who won NWSL MVP honors in 2015 and boasts three league championships, most recently in 2022 with Portland Thorns FC.

The midfielders Lavelle, 28, and Sonnett, 30, come over from Seattle Reign FC, which lost to Gotham, 2-1, in November’s NWSL final. Davidson, a 25-year-old defender, spent the past five years with the Chicago Red Stars.

All four were members of the USWNT roster that won the 2019 World Cup and the bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics. Dunn, Lavelle and Sonnett returned for the 2023 World Cup, while Davidson did not after tearing her ACL the previous year.

Gotham veterans Williams and O’Hara were also part of that 2023 World Cup club, which failed to medal.

“It’s always exciting to be on a team with a lot of great winners,” Lavelle said Friday.

“It’s an amazing roster before we even got here and we’re excited to add to that, but nothing’s given. Everything’s earned. I know people are saying ‘super team,’ but we still have to show up and put in the work and put the product on the field.”

Despite their USWNT ties, Dunn, Lavelle, Sonnett and Davidson didn’t decide together to join Gotham. The pursuits played out separately, with each determining New York gave them the best chances to win and grow.

“Each of us chose this club, not necessarily for different reasons, but … we went through our own separate, individual processes of what mattered most to us as players at this stage in our careers,” Dunn said Friday.

“For me, I speak a lot about family. Now, being a mom [to a 1-year-old son], there’s a lot of things that play into happiness, not really on the field, but off the field. Being supported as a player, being valued as a player, is what I felt from this club.”

That Gotham stood out as a desirable destination is a testament to the organization’s recent turnaround, much of which came under Averbuch, a former professional player who took over as general manager in 2021.

Originally known as Jersey Sky Blue and later as Sky Blue FC, the club spent years playing at Rutgers University’s Yurcak Field, a modest 5,000-seat venue with a single set of bleachers. Gotham started playing at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J. — a 25,000-seat venue more befitting of a professional team — in 2020.

Gotham finished 2022 in last place with a 4-1-17 record, during which it fired coach Scott Parkinson. The team had losing records in five of the previous six seasons as well.

Averbuch hired Amoros, the longtime coach of the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club Women, before the 2023 season and immediately reached the NWSL pinnacle.

Now, Gotham enters the 2024 campaign with an entirely different level of pressure.

“Having so many incredible players, it doesn’t come easy,” Sonnet said Friday. “You have to train. You have to have the same mentality.

“How can you do the game plan that the coach wants to? Can you guys all do it? [That is] probably the biggest thing we all have to come over,” she said. “People probably look at ‘super team.’ … But it’s really, can you come in and can you train every day, and can you take what Juan wants and apply it to the games?”

Adding star power to the country’s biggest market presents an exciting opportunity to bring attention to the NWSL, which launched in 2012 in place of the Women’s Professional Soccer league and the Women’s United Soccer Association before that.

Uncertainty that once swirled around the current league’s future largely eased after the league’s first Collective Bargaining Agreement came together in early 2022. Months later, the NWSL opened its first-ever free agency period.

“The CBA forever changed the trajectory of women’s soccer in this country,” Averbuch said. “I truly believe until that point, there was always the conversation of, ‘Will there be a league? How do we plan, because is this going to be here? Will all these teams be here?’

“I think at the point at which the CBA was signed, combined with the great momentum surrounding the women’s game and everybody starting to finally see it as the opportunity that it is, I think we’ve hit a new level of stability where people can actually aggressively grow.”

Fresh off its first title, Gotham is set to open the 2024 season on March 15 by hosting San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL Challenge Cup.

Gotham averaged about 6,300 fans at home games last season. That paled in comparison to top-drawing clubs such as San Diego and Angel City FC, which both averaged around 20,000.

In order to continue to break through in a New York market filled with popular professional teams, Gotham must keep progressing on the field, according to Averbuch.

“We need to keep showing an exciting product on the field and winning games,” Averbuch said. “That’s something we are [in] the very early stages of what we’re doing. It’s really amazing to have these landmark moments to celebrate, but that’s something we’re building day in and day out. … I’m really mostly excited for people to come watch us and then to want to come back.”

Organizers behind the home of the Giants and Jets intend to remove 1,740 seats in order to facilitate a wider field for FIFA’s global men’s soccer tournament. The seats are set to be removed from the corners of the venue in East Rutherford, N.J.

MetLife Stadium is competing with the similarly sprawling AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to host the World Cup final on July 19, 2026.

“The FIFA setback provisions really impact MetLife only at the corners,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told The Associated Press.

“Other stadiums have a much tougher nut where they have to set the entire perimeter back. FIFA wants a deal that works for them. New Jersey and New York City — remember our partners New York City — we’re prepared clearly to put serious skin in the game. In fact, we have already.”

Under the current plan, MetLife Stadium — which welcomed more than 83,000 fans for the Giants vs. Jets game last year — would re-add the vacated seats following the World Cup as parts of removable sections.

Officials responsible for AT&T Stadium, which is home to the Dallas Cowboys, have not said how they would accommodate any potential needs to update that venue’s dimensions.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are hosting the 2026 World Cup, marking the second time the men’s tournament will be played in the U.S. The 1994 final took place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

“I speak on behalf of New Jersey but also as our partner of New York City, do not underestimate how aggressive we’re prepared to be to get the best package of games possible,” Murphy told The AP.

With News Wire Services