Italy “woke up ⁠angry and disillusioned” after their play-off defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina meant they missed out on a third consecutive World Cup, “prolonging a sporting nightmare for ⁠the football-mad country”, said Al Jazeera.

Italy have won the tournament four times but are now suffering from a “World Cup curse”, said Corriere della Sera on its front page. The last time the Azzurri “actually won” a knockout match on the game’s biggest stage was “before the first iPhone was released”, said Politico.

‘Outrage across the country’

“The Italian catastrophe has now lost its sense of shock,” said Luigi Garlando in Gazzetta dello Sport. “Rather than being unpredictable, it seems to be the norm.” So for the first time an “entire generation will have grown up” without seeing Italy at a World Cup.

The “influx” of overseas players that headed to Serie A in the late 1990s “came at a cost”, said the BBC, because “homegrown talents” then found “opportunities” in the top flight “increasingly hard to come by”.

The Italian league is suffering from financial problems, so as Premier League clubs “benefit from ever-increasing TV deals” and other European leagues “attract heavy investment”, Serie A has seen that type of revenue “stagnate”.

The play-off defeat “triggered outrage across the country”, said Al Jazeera. “It’s clear that Italian football needs to be rebuilt from the ground up,” said Italy’s sports minister Andrea Abodi. Gabriele Gravina, president of the Italian Football Federation, has ⁠quit in the wake of the defeat, after he initially “lashed out” at a “perceived lack of support” for football from the government.

‘In need of tearing down’

The problems go beyond the national team. A 98th-minute penalty earned Atalanta a place in the last 16 of the Champions League – but they are the only Italian club left in the elite European competition. The “giants” of Serie A have “fallen”, said Sky Sports.

The “lack of investment” in Serie A clubs has seen a “dip in player quality”. The top division is “relying more and more” on older players and there’s “a lack of promising Italian youth coming through”. There’s also a “lack of tactical innovation” at the “heart of Italian football”.

Even if “the state of Italian football in 2026 isn’t alarming”, there are bells “sounding anyway, right now”, said Mark White on Four Four Two. The “colosseums” of the 1990 World Cup in Italy, famous stadiums like the San Siro, Delle Alpi and Olimpico, are “either crumbling, torn down or since abandoned altogether”. Italian football itself is “in need of tearing down and starting again”.

Meanwhile, there’s “still a chance” that Italy will end up at the 2026 World Cup finals, said Give Me Sport. With “uncertainty” over whether Iran will compete at the tournament, it’s thought that Italy could be Fifa’s preferred choice to replace the Middle Eastern nation if necessary.

What happened

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday announced that transgender women athletes will be barred from competing in women’s events starting with the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The announcement ends “months of speculation” over how the governing body would address one of the “most contentious issues facing global sports,” The New York Times said. It was the IOC’s “most consequential” decision since Kirsty Coventry took over as the organization’s first woman president last June.

Who said what

“Eligibility for any female category event” at any IOC event is “now limited to biological females,” the IOC said in a statement. Any athlete who wants to compete in a women’s category must take a mandatory one-time gene test to determine if they have a Y chromosome. “We know that this topic is sensitive,” Coventry said. But the “science” conducted by the IOC’s “medical experts” shows that “biological males” have inherent physical advantages, and “at the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat.”

Critics warned that the new policy “extends beyond transgender athletes and could subject all women competitors to invasive scrutiny,” Advocate said. The “potential” for “increased ‘gender policing’ of all female athletes” is “unwelcome,” said Outsports. The French Olympic Committee said the genetic tests “raise major ethical and scientific concerns” and also “practical difficulties,” since French “bioethics laws and the civil code” prohibit their use.

What next?

The IOC’s policy is “widely expected to be adopted by international sports federations and become a universal rule for competitors in female elite sports,” Reuters said. But it also “can — and likely will — be challenged at the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” The Associated Press said. Any challenge would examine the “science underpinning IOC research which was not published” on Thursday.

What happened

Venezuela beat Team USA 3-2 on Tuesday night to win its first World Baseball Classic title, with Eugenio Suárez’s ninth-inning tiebreaking double topping Bryce Harper’s eighth-inning two-run home run. The championship game, in Miami’s loanDepot Park, capped the sixth edition of the 20-nation event, which is held every three years. As the heavily Latino crowd cheered Venezuela’s win in Miami, thousands of people also celebrated in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

Who said what

“Thirty million people around the world were watching this game today,” Venezuela captain Salvador Perez said after the game. “The World Series, as you all know, is one of the most important championships in the major leagues, but when you fight for your country, that goes beyond.” Team USA captain Aaron Judge, who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, said his teammates “put on this uniform, signed up to go out there and get a gold medal,” and “we just fell short.”

This year’s Team USA was “the greatest collection of American baseball players ever assembled for the World Baseball Classic,” bringing together “All-Stars and MVPs and future Hall of Famers,” said The Athletic. But “despite the gaudy statistics and lucrative contracts,” the team “lacked cohesion and performed as less than the sum of its parts.” Venezuela was overshadowed ahead of the tournament by the U.S., Japan and the Dominican Republic, the only other Latin American team to win the WBC, in 2013. But Venezuela’s “success was not that surprising,” The Associated Press said, given that 63 Venezuelan-born players “appeared on Major League Baseball opening-day rosters last year.”

What next?

Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, declared Wednesday a National Day of Joy, giving everyone but essential workers the day off. Team USA — which has only won one WBC championship, in 2017 — will get its next shot at the title in 2029.

What happened

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) on Tuesday filed criminal charges against Kalshi, accusing the online prediction marketplace of “running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law.” The 20-count indictment alleges that Kalshi illegally accepted bets on sporting outcomes, political events and election results, among other “unlicensed wagering.”

Who said what

“Arizona will not be bullied into letting any company place itself above state law,” Mayes said in a statement. The criminal charges, the first filed by a state against Kalshi, mark a “new front in a high-stakes legal battle over whether prediction markets should be subject to the same rules as gambling companies,” The Associated Press said. President Donald Trump, whose son Don Jr. is a “strategic adviser” for Kalshi, has thrown his “support behind the multibillion-dollar prediction market industry.” Several other states have sued Kalshi and its rival, Polymarket.

The Arizona lawsuit “comes less than a week” after Kalshi filed a preemptive suit, asking a federal judge to rule that its wagers are “not gambling but instead something more akin to trading futures on commodities,” the Arizona Capitol Times said. The company argues its “contracts” can only be regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “out of reach of state authorities.” CFTC chair Michael Selig appeared to agree, calling the Arizona suit a “jurisdictional dispute” that is “entirely inappropriate as a criminal prosecution.”

What next?

The outcome of the legal actions in Arizona and “at least nine other states” could have “sweeping implications for how sports betting — which makes up roughly 90% of Kalshi’s trading volume — is regulated in the U.S.,” the AP said. Legal experts predict the dispute over prediction markets “has a good chance of making its way to the Supreme Court,” Axios said.

This summer’s controversy-laden men’s Fifa World Cup took on a whole new layer of jeopardy when the US, the main co-host, attacked Iran, one of the competitors.

The football tournament, hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico and due to kick off on 11 June, had already been beset with criticism. There were worries about logistics and infrastructure, calls for a boycott over Donald Trump’s travel bans, and fears about fans’ safety in a US where Ice agents have been sweeping into cities for violent immigration crackdowns. Fifa itself has also been under fire – for its president Gianni Infantino’s sycophancy to the US president, and its “strategic partnership” with Trump’s Board of Peace.

Now Iran’s participation has been thrown into doubt by the war in the Middle East. Fifa seems unwilling to grant the Iranian football federation’s request to relocate its US fixtures to Mexico, and Trump has already said it would not be “appropriate” for the Iranian players to take part “for their own life and safety”.

Will Iran participate?

“When Trump has explicitly stated that he cannot ensure the security of the Iranian national team, we will certainly not travel to the United States,” said Mehdi Taj, the president of Iran’s football federation, on the Iranian embassy in Mexico’s X account.

Moving Iran’s fixtures to Mexico would be logistically tricky but not unprecedented. But then there’s the issue of the knockout stages: if the US and Iran both finish as the runner-up in their group, they would play each other in the last 32. Should Iran decide to withdraw, they would be the first qualifying team to do so since 1950.

As the schedule currently stands, Iran’s first group fixture is against New Zealand in Los Angeles on 15 June. New Zealand told The Athletic that it is continuing to “monitor the situation” but is making plans to play Iran “until we hear otherwise”.

What about other Middle Eastern teams?

Iraq has a chance to qualify for its first World Cup finals since 1986 but it needs to win a play-off against either Suriname or Bolivia on 31 March – in Mexico. With airspace currently closed over the Middle East, it’s hard to see how the Iraqis can travel to their match.

The Iraqi team coach, Graham Arnold, has called for the play-off to be postponed, and the country’s football chief, Adnan Dirjal, has, has written to Fifa to explain the “difficulty of the journey”. In the meantime, he has made plans for the team to travel Mexico by private plane, according to the BBC.

What else is a concern?

There are worries that Ice officers will be deployed at US World Cup venues, for security purposes. And there is alarm about the wave of violence in Mexico since the death of a cartel boss in Jalisco state. Guadalajara, the state capital, is due to host four games.

Last month, the EU Sports Commissioner, Glenn Micallef, urged Gianni Infantino to “help safeguard fans”, said Politico. He has since asked again as violence escalates in the Middle East but said there has been “no further communication from Fifa”. It’s “legitimate” to seek assurances from a “public security point of view”, particularly as “one of the hosts of this biggest sporting event in the world is party to a war,” he told the news site. “Let’s say there’s room for more clarity.”

Fifa also has “a lot to answer for” on its role with the Trump-backed Board of Peace, said Micallef. It may have pledged $75 million for football infrastructure in Gaza, but Europe would “prefer to partner up” with organisations that “respect the international rules-based order, like Unesco and Unicef” on such sports-related projects.

Safety and security at the World Cup is a “top priority”, said a Fifa spokesperson. We are “confident that efforts being made by Canada, Mexico and the US will ensure a safe, secure, and welcoming environment for everyone involved”.

Max Dowman made football history on Saturday. Running from his own half, he fired into an empty net to secure Arsenal a 2-0 win over Everton and become the youngest goalscorer in the Premier League.

But afterwards, in the “ecstatic dressing room, the man of the match wasn’t there”, said Miguel Delaney in The Independent. That’s because Dowman “isn’t actually the man of the match”, but a child. The midfielder, aged 16 years and 75 days, isn’t allowed in the same dressing room as the adults, and gets changed in his own space near the referees’ room.

‘Never left alone’

Dowman “probably cannot even remember a time when he was not skipping past opponents with a ball at his feet”, said Sam Dean in The Telegraph. There has been “a buzz” around his name for years. He was scouted when he was just four; at 13, he became the youngest player to represent Arsenal’s under-18s; at 14, he was the youngest to play for their under-21s. He also played for the England under-17s at 14, and started training with Arsenal’s first team. Earlier this year, he became the youngest player in Champions League history and the youngest starter for Arsenal.

There are “clear rules in place” for minors playing adult football, said BBC Sport. Dowman has to change in a separate room from his teammates, before going into the main changing room for pep talks. The teenager, who is due to sit his GCSEs this summer, divides his non-playing time between a private tutor and school. One member of Arsenal’s security team is “assigned to stay close to Dowman at all times”.

“In the eyes of the law, he is still a child,” said former Leeds United welfare officer Lucy Ward. “He looks and behaves like an adult, he’s in an adult environment and scores goals for Arsenal, but the law says that he is treated as a child until he is 18.” Dowman is “never left alone with anyone” who hasn’t been cleared by a DBS check. His parents must give consent when he travels for an away match, and he has to have a chaperone. “He doesn’t want to stand out – he just wants to fit in – but these safeguarding measures are in place for young players.”

‘Right temperament to deliver’

Last season, Dowman was “so far ahead of his opponents and teammates that he was almost playing a different sport”, said Dean in The Telegraph. It was obvious he had “outgrown youth football”. If Premier League rules hadn’t prevented him from playing for the senior team last year, “he might have broken through even earlier”.

In January, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta likened the teenager to a young Lionel Messi. That was after Dowman signed a pre-contract agreement with the north London club (his father handled the negotiations). A professional deal will follow when he turns 17 in December.

“For all the skill, though, you need to have the right temperament to deliver” at that age, said Sky Sports. For every wunderkind who went on to a glittering senior career, there are “players who fell through the trapdoor of promise”.

“He doesn’t seem to be fazed by the occasion or the moment or the context or the opponent,” Arteta said on Saturday. “I’ve seen a lot of players with talent but at 16, very few that can cope with that level of demand.”

Dowman’s goal will “go down in Arsenal folklore”, said Sky Sports. The “touch of the head” to gain control of the ball, the “physicality” required to get past Everton left-back Vitalii Mykolenko, and the touch that sent midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall “to the shops”. It took Arsenal closer to their first Premier League title in two decades, but it looked like Dowman “had been doing that for years”.

“I just felt it was a magical moment for Max Dowman, a magical moment for Arsenal and absolutely it stopped me in my tracks,” said football pundit Gary Neville. “This kid does look different.”

The winter months in Europe are dominated by skiers heading for the Alps. But before you “(snow)plough on with your usual ski holiday booking”, why not see what else is out there to scratch the adrenaline itch, said Rhiannon Batten in The Times.

If there was one thing to take from the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina this year, it’s that snow sports can take many, many forms. Here are some of our top recommendations for your upcoming coolcations across Europe.

Skijöring in Switzerland

The country’s “sporty mountain resorts” have always offered “far more than just downhill skiing”, said National Geographic. As you can imagine with such isolated Alpine communities, traditionally “getting from A to B in winter has often required ingenuity”.

Enter “skijöring”, also known as “horse-powered skiing”. The sport was exhibited at the first Winter Olympics, in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Try it for yourself in the Alpine resort village of Arosa, where a “horse-drawn sleigh takes riders from railway station to hotel”.

But perhaps the crown jewel is skijöring across the “sparkling Lake St Moritz”. With winter walking, ice skating and snowshoeing also on offer, Switzerland offers “some of the most diverse ways to have fun on frozen water”.

Wolf tracking in Abruzzo, Italy

Wolves have been “making a comeback” in Italy, said Batten. As a result of rewilding drives in Abruzzo National Park, visitors have the “chance to find out more about this keystone species” and its historical links to the region.

With trips available to Apennine Wolf Museum, the more adventurous can also embark on “hikes, snowshoe expeditions and torchlight forays into the surrounding mountains in the hope of sightings and to listen to the howling”. On your return, traditional “homemade pasta, proper pizzas and cups of rich hot chocolate” are the perfect way to warm up after your adventure.

Hiking in Germany

“It’s a mystery as to why the spectacular landscapes of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in eastern Germany remain so under the radar,” said Annabelle Thorpe in The Guardian. This is a hiker’s dream, with “sandstone cliffs, dramatic gorges” and “flat-topped mesas”.

There is a famous self-guided walking tour through the region – known as “Saxon Switzerland” – which “takes in quiet villages of timber-framed cottages and dense pine forest, cloaking the peaks that sweep up to the sandstone spires”. Starting in Bad Schandau, “home to the spectacular, 11-metre-high Kuhstall rock gate and the beautiful Lichtenhain waterfall”, it provides plenty of opportunity to indulge in the area’s culinary delights. Expect piles of Spätzle, sausage and lentil soup, and marzipan cakes at traditional “Berggasthofs”, or mountain inns, en route.

Northern Lights tours in Norway

“Watching the ethereal Northern Lights as they dance across the skies is possibly one of the most awe-inspiring activities you can enjoy on a snow holiday,” said Jo Blyth in Country Living. Alta in the far north of Norway is nicknamed the “Northern Lights city” for a reason. It is one of the best places in the country to see the aurora borealis, so consider embarking on a tour to “discover the magic of Norway’s fjords, villages, and coastal towns in their winter glory”.

North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive and patriarchal countries, dominates in a surprising arena: women’s football.

The hermit kingdom became a powerhouse after the regime invested heavily in the women’s game as a tool of soft power and propaganda. The youth team still excels internationally, but after losing the Asian Cup final to Australia in 2010 the senior team “all but disappeared from global competition”, said The Guardian.

Now, the Eastern Azaleas are back in the tournament, playing their opening match against Uzbekistan in Sydney tomorrow. Invigorated by a “new generation of youth World Cup winners”, they are “hoping to return to the summit of Asian football”.

Rise and fall

At Fifa’s annual congress in 1986, the Norwegian delegate “demanded the creation of a World Cup for women”, said The Guardian. North Korean officials, so the story goes, were “inspired”. They returned to Pyongyang with a plan to use women’s football as a “tool to reassert their collapsing power on the world stage”.

Like China, the government saw sport as an opportunity to “strengthen their international profile”. Under Kim Jong Il, the women’s game “became a proxy platform” for North Korea’s political agenda. The government introduced development programmes in schools, built new facilities and even had teams in the military where players trained full-time at the state’s expense. That investment “paid off almost immediately”.

Between the 1990s and the 2010s, North Korea had one of the world’s best women’s football teams, winning three Asian Cup titles and more trophies across the continent. Then Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011 and, like his father, made competitive sport a “key policy priority”, said Jung Woo Lee, senior sport lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, on The Conversation. Any victory on the global stage “helps boost nationalism among the country’s people”. As North Korea grew more internationally isolated, sport became one of the only avenues through which it could assert itself.

But in 2011, a major doping scandal “put the brakes on this success”. Five players tested positive for a banned steroid at the Women’s World Cup in Germany. North Korea had a “bizarre excuse”, said The Times, claiming they had been “struck by lightning” and given a traditional Chinese medicine of deer musk gland, which caused the positive tests. Fifa was “not persuaded”.

North Korea was banned from the 2015 World Cup, then failed to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2018 and the World Cup in 2019. Tightening sanctions also made it impossible for players to sign overseas contracts. Then, when the pandemic hit, North Korea shut its borders and withdrew from both tournaments.

The missing decade

During the senior team’s missing decade, the youth teams flourished. The regime has “developed a sporting powerhouse of young girls”, said The Observer.

In 2013, it opened a state-run elite training facility to develop talent. At the Pyongyang International Football School, young girls are “selected, developed and educated following a highly disciplined and scientific approach”, said DW.

The first generation of graduates from that school are the reigning under-20 and under-17 World Cup and Asian Cup champions, and have won five of these titles since 2020. They have “cemented their status as the dominant force in women’s youth football”.

Their success is “the product of a broader strategy aimed at strengthening national pride and boosting the country’s international standing”, said Lee. Domestically, the regime uses the popular sport of football as a “propaganda tool to glorify their leaders and also how great their country is”, Lee told DW.

Many North Korean media reports say that players under a communist regime “do whatever they can, even if they’re physically exhausted”, said Lee. “Then they directly compare those mentalities with capitalist countries.” When those athletes are exhausted, they are substituted.

“That psychological element has seemingly given the team an edge, but beyond a strong sense of patriotism and years of disciplined work lies the motivation of a life-changing reward.” The regime can give players living in poorer rural areas, where food and healthcare shortages are common, a chance of a far better life in Pyongyang. It’s like “winning a lottery”, said Lee.

It remains to be seen whether North Korea can qualify for the senior women’s World Cup in Brazil next year. But this year’s Asian Cup, said The Guardian, will be “the best glimpse yet of whether this old, unlikely superpower of women’s football is rumbling back to life”.

Competitive sports are a reliable foundation on which to build solid comedy and drama. The great thing about these eight superb shows is that you don’t need to know much of anything at all about sports to enjoy them.

‘Sports Night’ (1998-2000)

Creator Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived but beloved cult classic followed the hosts and producers of a fictional nightly sports recap show trying to compete with ESPN’s pioneering “SportsCenter.” Josh Charles starred in a breakout role as the show’s co-host Dan Rydell, alongside Casey McCall (Peter Krause), as the pair and executive producer Dana Whitaker (Felicity Huffman) chase the ESPN ratings behemoth.

Looking back, it is truly hard to believe that ABC saddled the series and its witty, fast-moving dialogue with a laugh track in its first season. A show “populated by characters whose jobs define who they are,” it was “full of walk-and-talks, clipboards and very important meetings,” said Ciara Moloney at Paste Magazine. The result was “unadulterated Sorkin — with all of his strengths and none of his weaknesses.” (Prime Video)

‘Friday Night Lights’ (2006-2011)

Adapted from the hit 2004 film, “Friday Night Lights” is an intimate look at a Texas high school football team and one of the last truly magnificent network television shows before the streaming era gave us the concept of “prestige TV.” Kyle Chandler is the show’s moral center as Coach Eric Taylor, whose team is the pride of fictional Dillon, Texas. Connie Britton plays his wife, Tami, and the strength of the pair’s performances covered up for some uneven acting from the high school ensemble. The first season of the show was “great in the way of a poem or painting, great in the way of art with a single obsessive creator who doesn’t have to consult with a committee and has months or years to go back and agonize over line breaks and the color red,” said Virginia Heffernan at The New York Times. (Prime Video)

‘The League’ (2009-2015)

Fantasy sports are an enormous, if niche, industry, and FX’s “The League” might be the only sports show ever to focus on a group of friends and their sometimes relationship-wrecking obsession with this odd little hobby. Mark Duplass stars as Pete, the reigning champ of the titular fantasy football league when the show starts, and Katie Aselton is a consistent standout as football savant Jenny, who competes in the league with her husband, Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi).

Featuring “time-honored elements of screwball comedy,” the best humor in this fantastic series comes not from the league but “from equal opportunity humiliation that is the basis of their friendships,” said David Wiegand at SFGate. Like the amoral gang in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” no one in “The League” ever grows or learns — and that’s part of the fun. (Disney+)

‘Eastbound & Down’ (2009-2013)

Washed-up major-leaguer Kenny Powers (Danny McBride) returns to his hometown to take a job as a substitute gym teacher after yapping his way out of professional baseball in creators Ben Best, Jody Hill and Danny McBrides’s cringe-inducing HBO Max comedy. The show’s gamble is that rather than a redemption arc, Powers’ “very public crash and burn is only the beginning of his downward spiral,” said Wired, exacerbated by him having the “capacity to care about and even love others, but he’ll sacrifice anyone if it means he can step back into the spotlight.” Harboring dreams of returning to baseball, he crashes with his brother Dustin (John Hawkes) and tries to reconnect with high school flame, April (Katy Mixon). (HBO Max)

‘GLOW’ (2017-2019)

The 1980s-set “GLOW” gave us three superb seasons of wrestling and drama before Netflix axed it. Alison Brie is Ruth Wilder, an aspiring actress in Los Angeles whose career is going nowhere. She accepts an invitation to audition for the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, where she is cast along with her estranged friend, Debbie Eagan (Betty Gilpin), and directed by aging film director Sam Sylvia (Marc Maron), who looks like he would rather be literally anywhere else.

But when Ruth takes on the moniker “Zoya the Destroya” she transforms her professional life and finds a path she can really throw herself into while trying to repair the damage to her relationship with Debbie. Together their exploits create a “quiet and simple masterpiece that deserves to be the most popular show on television,” said Matt Gannon at TV Wasteland. (Netflix)

‘Brockmire’ (2017-2020)

A decade after a drunken, on-air meltdown caused him to lose his job as a major league baseball announcer, Jim Brockmire (Hank Azaria) returns stateside to take a job with the woebegone, minor league Morristown Frackers. The team’s owner, Jules James (Amanda Peet), thinks that hiring the washed-up Brockmire will put her team and its rust belt town on the map.

This somewhat familiar set-up is elevated by the show’s surreal sense of humor, as well as by the foul-mouthed Brockmire’s endless antics. The show works “both as a snapshot of this aging oddity of Americana and a universal story about a washed-up person coming to terms with himself,” said Sonia Saraiya at Variety. (Netflix)

‘Ted Lasso’ (2020-)

When it debuted on August 14, 2020, the world was six months into the miserable Covid-19 pandemic, and the Apple TV+ dramedy was not only a poignant, low-stakes lifeline for millions of viewers, it also put the relatively new streamer on the map with its first big hit. Jason Sudeikis plays the title character, a U.S. college football coach who agrees to accept a bizarre job offer to manage a fictional English Premiere League soccer team, AFC Richmond.

Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) acquired the team in a divorce from her gross ex-husband and wants to run it into the ground to spite him only to find that she can’t resist Lasso’s aw-shucks charm and that his leadership sparks a renewal led by veteran star Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein). Sudeikis’ Lasso is “practically impossible not to like,” said Nick Harley at Den of Geek, and the “easy charms of a well-executed, feel-good sports story make it a breezy, low-effort watch that just about anyone can enjoy.” (Apple TV+)

‘Heated Rivalry’ (2025)

This discourse-driving hit is set during the Obama years (Yes, 2017 is now the stuff of period pieces) and depicts a secret, steamy romance between Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), two young stars who break into fictional Major League Hockey at the same time for different clubs. Early in the series, their romance takes place mostly in hotels as the pair struggle with how they might be perceived if word gets out, especially the Russian Rozanov, whose home country is considerably more dangerous for gay men than Hollander’s.

The sex is “plentiful, quite explicit, and, I’ll say it, pretty hot,” said Naomi Fry at The New Yorker. But a bigger “part of the pleasure for viewers” is the “show’s plainspoken articulation of desire, when the love that dare not speak its name finally does.” (HBO Max)

The Premier League has turned a “tactical corner”, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian. Corners and set-pieces generally are back in fashion, much to the annoyance of some fans who claim they are the antithesis of the beautiful game.

Clubs are employing specialist set-piece coaches, and players are celebrating winning corners, allowing them to perform their well-rehearsed routines in front of goal. After years of “strategy and technique”, and the dominance of patient, possession-based football, fans are concerned that packed penalty areas and the all-in wrestling between opposing players is ruining the spectacle of the English game.

‘It doesn’t feel right’

Most of what goes on from dead-ball situations “is not strictly against the rules per se”, but it’s a question of optics, said Football 365. Players can stand where they want, and have no obligation to move to allow others to challenge for the ball. The issue is that when “12-14 players” are all doing the same thing in such an enclosed space, it “jars with what the game is supposed to be. It doesn’t feel right.”

Tony Pulis, who managed Stoke City and Crystal Palace in the Premier League in the late 2000s and 2010s, was known for his “pragmatic” approach, he said on the BBC. “I was seen as a dinosaur for my focus on dead-ball situations and long throws”, but “I knew back then how important they were”.

Premier League leaders Arsenal have led the way in the resurgence of set-pieces. Their 37 league goals from corners since the start of the 2023-24 season far eclipsing the next-best 26 by German side Borussia Monchengladbach out of all teams in Europe’s top five leagues.

Some people are “snobbish” about the role of set-pieces in the game, said Pulis, but “the expectation, and the pressure they put on the opposition, is amazing”. Ignore the inevitable criticism, “what matters is winning”.

The “suddenness” of the change in approach from English teams has been “remarkable” but this “present trend will fade away”, said Wilson in The Guardian. The obsession with possession-based tactics, as well as widening financial inequality, has led to opposition teams defending in a compact “low block”, feeling unable to compete skill-wise. A “reversion to something more physical” in the game certainly poses a threat, but in a game of tactical cycles “this too will pass”.

‘Action is needed’

Some scenes in the recent game between Everton and Manchester United were an “absolute disgrace”, said Martin Samuel in The Times. We have grown used to a “melee of grabbing, holding, pushing, pulling, grappling, backing in” penalty areas. The game has become dominated by a “supposedly unsolvable wrestling issue” and fans are not happy about it.

Nothing is being done to safeguard the “beautiful game”. Governing bodies “obsess over trivia and the trivial”, exemplified by the International Football Association Board prioritising things like five-second countdowns for goal-kicks. “No group is less qualified to decide on football’s rules than Ifab”, and it has already made a “mess” of video replays, offside and handball rulings.

“Enough already,” said Graham Scott, a former Premier League referee, in The Telegraph. Corners are “ruining the spectacle” of football with all the “wrestling, grappling and holding”, but referees have a “nearly impossible job to decide who is truly to blame”. Occasionally, a clear pull or obstruction in the fracas around the six-yard box is “black and white, but there are more than 50 shades of grey in between”. With fans having little “appetite” for lengthy VAR delays, officials must “walk a tightrope” to decide what is “fair and foul”.

So “action is needed”. To try to fix the issue, “I would imitate hockey by forcing teams to place a certain number of players in the other half” to reduce congestion. In a “more radical move”, defenders could be inside the six-yard box and attackers outside it when a corner is taken, separating them entirely.

What happened

The 2026 Winter Olympics concluded in Italy Sunday with a closing ceremony in Verona’s 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater. Verona is about halfway between Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the two host cities for the Games, and people in the stadium watched via video link as the Olympic flames were extinguished in each city’s cauldron. In the final competition of the Games, the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Canada in overtime Sunday to win their first Olympic gold medal since 1980.

Who said what

“Thank you Italy, for these magical Games,” International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry said, in Italian, at the closing ceremony. “You delivered a new kind of Winter Games and you set a very high standard for the future.” If the “opening ceremony emphasized the unprecedented spread-out nature of these Games,” The Athletic said, “the closing ceremony brought them back together.” It “opened with a whimsical tribute to Italian lyric opera,” and included aerial ballet, Italian rock and a DJ set, before ending with a light show, The Associated Press said.

Italy won its highest Winter Olympics medal count ever — 30, including 10 gold — putting it in third place behind Norway (41 medals, including 18 gold) and the U.S. (33 medals, including 12 gold). It was a “Winter Olympics to remember,” with “drama, thrills, moments of hilarity and plenty of gripping medal action,” CNN said. And the concluding “frenetic” men’s hockey final was “an instant classic.”

What next?

The Winter Olympic baton “now passes to the French Alps, which are expected to follow a similar blueprint of using multiple existing winter sports venues in 2030,” Reuters said. But first, the Milan Cortina Paralympics will begin March 6 with an opening ceremony in the same Verona Arena, and Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics.

In an Olympic event as fast as downhill skiing or speed skating, the margin between winners and losers can be measured by thousandths of a second.

Careers are “forever altered by that tiny difference”, said NBC News. There is a “baseline expectation” that “every result must be perfect”. And that is “determined by the most important team at the Olympics you don’t know about”: the Games’ timekeepers.

‘Tiny calibrations of a split second’

Swiss watchmaker Omega has been the official timekeeper of every Olympic event for nearly 100 years, initially chosen for the 1932 Los Angeles games as it was the only watch brand capable of providing accurate timing to the nearest tenth of a second.

The company dispatched one “intrepid watchmaker” from its Swiss headquarters with 30 high-precision stopwatches in his suitcase, said The Times. “Each night he would take the stopwatches back to his hotel room and recalibrate them, before handing them back to race officials the next morning.”

Omega now provides the timing for all 116 events, including (for the first time this year) ski mountaineering. The intervening years have, of course, seen “extraordinary technical developments”. Omega arrived in Paris for the 2024 Summer Games with “the most advanced tech it has ever delivered”: 350 tonnes of equipment, including 200km of cables, hundreds of scoreboards, and 550 professional timekeepers. The days of a ribbon breaking across a winning runner’s chest are “long gone”. World records are now regularly broken; margins of winning come down to “tiny calibrations of a split second”.

No margin for error

“We’ve come quite a long way since one watchmaker travelled” from Bienne, said Forbes. Planning for the current Milano-Cortina Games began three years ago, with more than 300 timekeepers and 130 tons of equipment dedicated to the Games, including high-speed cameras that can capture up to 40,000 digital images per second. This information can then be fed into AI models specifically programmed for each sport to produce graphic recreations of every movement. Judges have access to that data instantly – and this year, for the first time, so will viewers.

“For a person who is following action sports not on TV every weekend but once every four years, it’s very difficult to understand the differences in performances,” said Alain Zobrist, chief executive of Omega Timing. We are “trying to explain where these differences are and how these differences may impact the judging.”

But the final call is still human: an operator looks at a monitor with footage from the finish-line cameras, and “manually places a cursor where the athlete crosses the finish”, said NBC News.

“What you cannot learn is the pressure that comes with it when you operate it,” said Zobrist. “We take a lot of pride doing it, but it also humbles us a lot.” Billions of people are watching and waiting for the results to appear. An operator knows they’re “not allowed” to make mistakes; “as soon as you push that enter button, the result is released and public”.

Olympic time-keeping has grown so complex that preparations are well underway for the return of the games to Los Angeles in 2028. The only device still used that hasn’t changed since 1932? “A metal bell is still rung by hand to mark a race’s last lap.”

The International Olympic Committee has boasted that Milano-Cortina 2026 is “the most gender-balanced Olympic Winter Games in history”. But there’s actually one sport women don’t even get to try.

For all the claims about “the highest level of female participation in Winter Games history”, the door is “slammed shut” for women in Nordic combined, said The Independent. The three Olympic events where athletes compete in both ski jumping and cross-country skiing are strictly men-only, despite there being equivalent women’s World Cup and World Championship events.

‘Misogynistic mindset’

Nordic combined has been part of the Winter Olympics since its beginnings in 1924. It requires precision, courage, strength and endurance to follow the “daredevil thrill” of ski jumping with a “physically exhausting cross-country ski race”, said The Associated Press. It makes for a “two-day event unlike any other”.

Cross-country skiing has centuries-old origins in Scandinavian military training, which could be a partial explanation for the “misogynistic mindset” towards Nordic combined, said ABC News. But it’s the combination with ski jumping that seems to be the decisive factor. While women had to wait until 1952 to compete in single-discipline cross-country events at the Winter Olympics, they were barred from ski jumping until the early 2000s. For decades, they were “deemed too fragile to stand up to the rigours of repeatedly hurtling themselves off the side of a mountain”. And it’s only at these 2026 Games that women ski-jumpers will be allowed to jump off the same large hill as the men.

To complicate matters for those campaigning against Nordic combined’s Olympic gender imbalance, the sport as a whole is “in jeopardy” – because it “doesn’t have a big following” and only “a small number of countries dominate the podium”, said AP. The IOC has “put the entire sport on notice”, said The New York Times, telling it to boost the number of participating athletes, “the size of the audience” and “the diversity” of competing countries or “risk falling off the Olympic programme altogether”.

The women of Nordic combined are not just “stuck sitting on the sidelines” while the men compete, they are “relying on the men’s performance to keep the sport’s future in the Games alive”.

‘Glacial pace’ of change

Women have had a long fight for fair inclusion in the Olympics. They were excluded entirely from the first modern summer Olympics in 1896 and, when they were allowed to compete in Paris four years later, their participation was limited to a handful of sports, such as tennis, archery and croquet. Slowly, the exclusions for women have been mostly eliminated but the Winter Olympics, in particular, has changed “at a glacial pace”, said The Independent.

Female athletes staged a protest a fortnight ago at the Nordic combined World Cup, in Seefeld, Austria. They held up their ski poles at the starting line in the shape of an X, symbolising “no exceptions” for women’s inclusion at the Winter Games.

“I do what every single other athlete does,” US Nordic combined skier Annika Malacinski told The Washington Post. “I work my ass off to be where I am. And yet there’s one group of people telling me I’m not doing it hard enough.” I cried for eight hours when I found out the IOC wouldn’t open Nordic skiing up to us at Milano-Cortina but I will continue to campaign for inclusion at the French Alps 2030 Winter Olympic Games.

The 2026 Winter Olympics officially kick off with the opening ceremony at San Siro Stadium in Milan this evening.

The Games are officially branded Milano Cortina 2026 and are spread across northern Italy, with Milan serving as the primary city host. It’s been 70 years since the Olympic Flame first arrived in Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is co-hosting and anchoring the mountain events.

Now, viewers can look forward to new events, political controversies... and a rumpus over some suspicious packages.

Skimo

The new event of ski mountaineering – known as skimo – sees athletes “run up a mountain and ski back down it again” in what “may or may not be best understood as an elaborate metaphor for the human condition”, said The Guardian. Let’s hope it “does as well as ski ballet, bandy, and military patrol”, and “some of the other sports” the Winter Games has “offered over the years”.

Ice Agents

Tension has been growing in Italy, after it was confirmed that the US immigration enforcement agency, whose officers fatally shot two people in Minneapolis, would be sending agents to “bolster security”, said ITV News.

There’s been “outrage” in Italy, but the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said that the Ice agents who were coming were not “those with machine guns and their faces covered”. They are coming because “it’s the department responsible for counter-terrorism”, he said.

Unlikely stars

As Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards showed in the 1980s, Olympic winners “aren’t always on the podium”, said ITV News. This year’s “unexpected heroes” could include the US ice dancer Maxim Naumov, who hopes to honour his parents and life-long coaches, who were killed in a plane crash in Washington DC a year ago.

The Jamaican bobsleigh team will continue the country’s “legacy” in a sport that helped inspire the Disney film, “Cool Runnings”. The speed skater Jutta Leerdam, fiancee of influencer Jake Paul, is struggling to be seen as heroic: she’s already been accused of “diva” antics for taking a “private jet” to Italy, reported the Daily Mail.

Individual Neutral Athletes

Athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports have been banned from many tournaments since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. So, as at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Russian and Belarusian athletes will only be allowed to compete as “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN).

But several Russian athletes approved to compete as neutrals “have links to activity supporting the war in Ukraine”, said BBC Sport. For example, Petr Gumennik, a figure skater, has recently worked with and been coached by Ilya Averbukh, who has been sanctioned by Ukraine.

Family dynasty

The three Macuga sisters will be “looking to take over the Olympic skiing world”, said NBC: Lauren, an Alpine skier; Alli, who takes parts in moguls; and Sam, a ski jumper. To add to the family feel, their younger brother, Daniel, is an “up-and-coming competitor” in Alpine skiing.

A 17-year-old skier will join his 46-year-old mother in Mexico’s tiny Winter Olympic team in Italy. Alpine skier Lasse Gaxiola has been named Mexico’s fifth athlete for the Winter Olympics. He will compete in the same sport as his mother, the veteran Olympian Sarah Schleper.

Penis scandal 

Claims that ski jumpers are using penis injections to fly further are being investigated by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Bild reported concerns that male athletes might inject hyaluronic acid into their penises, in a bid to increase the size of their genitalia, allowing them larger ski-suits which could improve aerodynamics.

A study in the scientific journal Frontiers found that adding 2cm to the circumference of a suit would reduce drag by 4% and increase lift by 5%. So theoretically, a 2cm enhancement in suit size would give an extra 5.6m in jump length. Olympians competing at the Game will have their crotches “microchipped” in “an effort to crackdown on cheating”, claimed The Sun.

While millions will tune in to watch the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots battle it out in Super Bowl LX, just as many are excited for Bad Bunny’s highly anticipated halftime show. The Puerto Rican singer is the latest in a long line of superstar musicians to make their mark at the Big Game. From Prince to Katy Perry, Super Bowl halftime shows have a long history of memorable moments.

Historical firsts

While modern Super Bowls are thought of as platforms for major acts, this wasn’t always the case; the majority of early halftime shows were performed by college marching bands. The first major pop group to headline a Super Bowl was New Kids on the Block, who performed during the game in 1991. The boy band performed alongside a choir of kids singing songs like “It’s a Small World.” But while the show was historic, it was also not well-received, even by the band. “I don’t know how much pride I take in the actual performance,” frontman Donnie Wahlberg once told Playboy. “But I take pride in the fact that we were the first ones to do it.”

When pop stars began regularly performing at the Super Bowl, they were exclusively English-language singers — until 1999, when Gloria Estefan headlined the halftime show. Estefan had previously made an appearance at the 1992 Super Bowl show, and as “part of the ‘A Celebration of Soul, Salsa and Swing’ halftime show in Miami, Estefan performed her single ‘Oye,’ which blends Spanish and English lyrics,” said ESPN. Ahead of Bad Bunny’s performance, Estefan also had some advice for the Latino singer. “Enjoy every second because it really goes by so fast,” she said to E! News. “In those minutes, he’s gonna have the ability to impact the world.”

While the Super Bowl is a uniquely American phenomenon, another barrier was broken in 2000 when Phil Collins became the first non-U.S. citizen to headline the halftime show. The British singer, known for his work with the rock band Genesis as well as solo songs like “In the Air Tonight,” performed alongside Christina Aguilera and Enrique Iglesias. After this, the floodgates opened for a slew of British icons to perform at Super Bowls, including Paul McCartney, The Who and The Rolling Stones.

Record-breaking performances

Given the hype and cultural status of the Super Bowl, it should be no surprise that the halftime show is often one of the year’s most-watched events. Millions of people tune in annually, but one concert stands above the others: Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 performance is the most-watched Super Bowl halftime show in history. Lamar’s show was watched by an estimated 133.5 million people, according to Billboard. The rapper “came into the gig riding sky high” following a big Grammys weekend and “wowed viewers with intensely satisfying versions” of his songs, said The Mercury News, including his hit diss track “Not Like Us.”

And while The Weeknd’s 2021 performance didn’t include a diss track, it does carry another distinction: It’s the most expensive halftime show of all time. The total cost was reportedly a staggering $17 million. Performing at the Super Bowl is so desirable that the Canadian performer “used $7 million of his own money to fund his incredible production,” said the South China Morning Post. This is “on top of the estimated $10 million the NFL is believed to allow for a halftime show budget.” The high price shouldn’t be surprising; airing a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl “costs about $8 million on average,” according to USA Today, and some companies are “paying $10 million or more.”

These shows are also known for incorporating many big-name artists into one act. This was never more apparent than during the 2022 halftime show, which featured the largest ensemble of performers at a Super Bowl. The show, which honored host city Los Angeles’ rap roots, was headlined by Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem and Kendrick Lamar, with a surprise appearance by 50 Cent. The “spectacular, high-energy performance was a powerful celebration of hip hop and its evolution over the last three decades,” said Time, and also “marked the first time the halftime show lineup consisted entirely of hip hop headliners.”

Super Bowl superlatives

While Tom Brady is widely considered the football GOAT, there has been debate as to which halftime show can truly be called “the greatest.” However, many analysts consider the 2007 performance featuring Prince to be the best Super Bowl halftime show ever. There was a “great deal of anticipation for Prince’s performance,” said The Athletic, and the legendary singer delivered, as “no one before nor after has gotten close to him.” His rendition of his iconic song “Purple Rain,” which happened to occur during a rainstorm, created a “performance for the ages.”

Not all superlatives are positive; many shocking and unexpected moments have happened at halftime shows, too. The most jaw-dropping incident likely came during the 2004 show featuring Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake. During the pair’s performance, Timberlake accidentally ripped a piece of Jackson’s shirt, which “saw her right breast briefly exposed to 70,000 in-person spectators and more than 140 million TV viewers,” said The Guardian. The controversial moment “left Jackson, then 37, blacklisted from a significant portion of the music industry for years,” though she would later have a career resurgence.

And for as many halftime shows that have been lauded, there have also been some that have been questioned. The 2015 show, headlined by Katy Perry, is often considered the “campiest” in Super Bowl history. The show was filled with “Perry’s top songs, an entrance on top of a lion,” and costumes described as peak camp, said 303 Magazine. Given Perry’s history of concert performances, her Super Bowl outing “wasn’t too different than what we’ve seen from Perry previously.” But for many, it “seemed like they broadcast from one of Perry’s concerts instead of planning something new.”

Super Bowl shows have also had their fair share of daring, sometimes even death-defying moments. When it comes to stunts, many people think of Rihanna’s 2023 Super Bowl halftime show, when she entered the stadium from above on a platform suspended by cables. From there, the Barbadian singer carried out a 13-minute intense dance routine to rave reviews. But it was only when the show started that viewers realized Rihanna was also doing all of this while pregnant. Overall, the performance garnered critical acclaim, as Rihanna “graciously granted us a medley of her biggest hits,“ said Buzzfeed News.

The United States is sending a powerhouse group to compete in figure skating when the 2026 Winter Olympics begin in Italy in February. While the U.S. has always been dominant in the sport (Americans brought home the gold in both the men’s and team events during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing), this year’s roster has even loftier expectations.

Expected to dominate

Heading into the 2026 U.S. figure skating championships, where the Olympic team is chosen, many felt the U.S. would be “selecting the greatest American skating team to ever compete at the Olympic Games,” said USA Today. The selection of the final team showed this “potential was affirmed,” as the U.S. lineup is “strong and deep, with medal favorites in four of the five events.”

Much of the hype has centered around the women on the team, who delivered at the U.S. championships with “one sensational program after another,” said ESPN. These skaters are being called among the strongest ever seen on a U.S. team — a team that already features star alumni like Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi and Dorothy Hamill. The men on the team are equally dominant this year. Still, this is all concerning U.S. singles, as “pairs has been the lone weak spot, and the country hasn’t won an Olympic medal in the event since 1988.”

‘A mix of seasoned veterans and rising stars’

The U.S. team still must prove how strong it will be, and how many medals it can rack up, as it heads to Italy with a “mix of seasoned veterans and rising stars,” said NPR. There are 16 total skaters, including men’s single skaters Ilia Malinin, Maxim Naumov and Andrew Torgashev. Malinin is considered the U.S. superstar, seen as “Team USA’s best hope for men’s figure skating gold, as one of the sport’s most revolutionary athletes.” He is the son of Uzbek Olympians and has a “penchant for gravity-defying quadruple jumps.” Naumov, another top skater, is dedicating his Olympic performance to his parents, who died in the Washington, D.C., plane crash in January 2025.

The women’s single skaters, Amber Glenn, Isabeau Levito and Alysa Liu, are equally impressive. Glenn “just won her third consecutive U.S. title” and at the age of 26, will be the “oldest U.S. ladies’ singles skater to compete at the Olympics since 1927,” said CNN. Liu retired at age 16 following her first Olympics, but “last season, she came out of retirement — and shockingly won the world championship.” She was the first American woman in 19 years to win the world title.

All eyes will also be on the ice dancing this year, as the U.S. looks to dominate in that category as well. The “three-time defending world champions in the ice dance,” married couple Madison Chock and Evan Bates, will “head to Milan as the gold medal favorites,” said The Athletic. The pair has won “just about everything else in ice dance except for an Olympic medal,” though they did take home a gold medal in the team event in 2022. The other ice dance duos, Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik, and Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko, are also considered strong competitors.

The investigation into a widely decried ban on Israeli football fans from a match in Birmingham last year has become a search for someone to blame.

The West Midlands Police (WMP) classified the Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture against local team Aston Villa in November as “high risk”, due to violence after a previous Maccabi Tel Aviv match in Amsterdam. On that basis, the Birmingham Safety Advisory Group (which police are part of) barred Maccabi fans from attending, provoking widespread accusations of antisemitism – including by Keir Starmer. It has since emerged that the WMP’s report referenced a Maccabi match against West Ham that never took place, apparently due to an artificial intelligence hallucination.

Chief Constable Craig Guildford twice told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the WMP doesn’t use AI. He insisted the match had been identified through a Google search. But today he wrote to the committee apologising, and admitted the inclusion of the match “arose as a result” of an officer using the AI tool Microsoft Copilot. MPs are calling for Guildford’s resignation.

What did the commentators say?

“Despite denials at two separate hearings, it turns out they did use AI to produce their dodgy ‘intelligence’ dossier,” Conservative MP Nick Timothy, who has repeatedly criticised Guildford since the ban, posted on X.

This admission is “hugely embarrassing” for Guildford, said the BBC’s UK correspondent Daniel Sandford. But that is not his “biggest problem”. The WMP is accused of “mishandling intelligence” and then “doubling down” on the decision.

Behind that is the accusation that the safety advisory group “pandered to anti-Israeli and pro-Palestinian voices within the community”, said the BBC’s Midlands correspondent Phil Mackie. That has “created a huge political headache” for both WMP and Birmingham City Council.

Each revelation “proves more damning” than the last, said The Wall Street Journal. They “confirm what many suspected” last October: WMP were “more afraid of local Islamists than they were of Israeli fans”. “In other words, British police gave local Islamists an antisemitic heckler’s veto.”

“Central to the WMP case” is what Dutch police told them, said The Guardian. The WMP says this is what “led them to believe Maccabi fans had been perpetrators of violence” after the Ajax match in 2024. But Dutch police appeared to contradict the WMP’s claim. Indeed, most of the victims of the violence were Maccabi fans.

The “narrative” spun by WMP – that the Israeli fans were too dangerous to host – “has slowly been unravelling”, said The Spectator’s assistant editor Madeline Grant. Hilariously, a phrase which kept coming up during the WMP officers’ evidence to the HAC was “an absence of intelligence”. “Of the truth of that there could be no doubt.” They “make Inspector Clouseau look like Poirot, Marple and Holmes rolled into one”.

“Something is rotten” in the WMP, said The Telegraph. Senior officers “misled the public” and “produced false intelligence in order to demonise Israeli fans, while disguising the real reason for the ban: fear of Islamist intimidation and a potential riot”.

A “secret dossier” proves the police “covered up threats against Israeli players” by “Asian youths looking for a fight”. The team were “constantly in danger of mob violence”. Police even consulted Green Lane Mosque before the match – “notorious for hosting radical preachers”. Guildford’s position “now looks unsustainable”.

Birmingham’s SAG also warrants scrutiny, said The Times. It includes several councillors who have “publicly opposed Israel’s participation in sports”. More broadly, the situation “gives an illuminating and depressing insight into how power is wielded in Britain today”. Guildford should admit the ban was “the result not of real intelligence but intense lobbying”. He “failed to discharge his duty with due impartiality and should resign”. “If not, the home secretary must show him the red card.”

What next?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who ordered the policing inspectorate to investigate the WMP’s handling, is considering the findings of the first part of their inquiry and delivered a statement to the House of Commons today, saying she no longer has confidence in Guildford.

Guildford, however, is “digging in” and will refuse to quit, according to The Times. “He wants due process, he won’t accept it,” a source told the paper. “He’s lawyering up.” Only Simon Foster, the West Midlands police and crime commissioner (who appointed Guildford), has the power to sack him – and Foster claims MPs on the home affairs select committee are “biased against Guildford”.

“Ruben Amorim has shown that there is only so far a manager can push it,” said Sky News. The Manchester United head coach was shown a red card yesterday, only 14 months after joining from Sporting Lisbon.

After Sunday’s 1-1 draw against Leeds United, Amorim “inflamed tensions” with the Old Trafford hierarchy, telling the club’s director of football Jason Wilcox and scouting team to “do their jobs” as he had come to the club to be the manager, not the coach.

Just like Enzo Maresca, who left Chelsea on New Year’s Day, “challenging the leadership in public has ended in the sack”.

‘Inevitable and predictable’

Amorim’s sacking was “inevitable and predictable”, said Sky Sports. The Portuguese was the 10th manager appointed since Alex Ferguson left the club in 2013; the United hierarchy was “desperate to give him a full season in charge before judging him” – partly because of the £12 million cost of sacking him and also to avoid the “recurring instability” of ever-changing leadership.

“Ruben needs to demonstrate he is a great coach over three years,” United minority owner Jim Ratcliffe told The Times’ The Business podcast in October. “We have to be patient. We have a long-term plan. It isn’t a light switch.”

But United’s results since Amorim took charge were “so poor, they never afforded the club’s bosses, or Amorim, the luxury of time”, said Sky Sports. Last season United finished 15th – their lowest since the mid-1970s – and were heavily criticised after losing the Europa League final to Spurs. This season, after spending more than £200 million on “attacking talent” last summer, the results have still been “awful”.

Despite “signs of progress” and a “charismatic approach that charmed supporters”, Amorim “must be considered United’s worst permanent manager of the post-Ferguson era”, said The Guardian. United are “adamant there have been no power clashes” and that Amorim was “sacked due to a lack of progress”. But the Old Trafford bosses “cannot have liked” his comments.

“I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach of Manchester United,” Amorim said. “I know that my name is not Tuchel, it’s not Conte, it’s not Mourinho, but I’m the manager of Manchester United and it’s going to be like this for 18 months or when the board decides to change.”

‘Bitter fracture’

Former United defender Gary Neville told Sky Sports that Amorim’s words were “something similar” to those of Maresca before he left Chelsea. Maresca said in mid-December that he’d endured “the worst 48 hours of his career at the club”.

The Italian arrived at Stamford Bridge from Leicester in 2024 and led the Blues to Uefa Conference League glory in his first season, as well as a fourth-place Premier League finish, “sealing a return to the Champions League”, said the Daily Mirror. “He followed that up with a run to glory in the Club World Cup, beating Paris Saint-Germain in the final.” As recently as November, Chelsea were second in the league table, and Maresca won manager of the month.

But on New Year’s Day, he “dramatically left his role” after “an irretrievable breakdown in his relationship with the club’s board”, said The Sun. He had signed a five-year deal with a further 12-month option, worth about £4 million per season, but the “bitter fracture” with the Chelsea hierarchy, including co-owner Todd Boehly, and confrontations over who should start games and substitutions, “left him feeling he could not stay in SW6”. A 2-2 home draw with Bournemouth “brought the final rupture”. Maresca walked out of Stamford Bridge without speaking to his players and forfeiting a potential £14 million payout.

Chelsea have “cycled through” four managers and two interim bosses in less than four years, and are now hunting for their fifth full-time head coach of the Boehly era. But Maresca’s decision to forego his payout means he’s immediately available for work. He is now, according to Sporting Life, one of the favourites to replace Amorim at United.

Unprepared, arrogant, immature. These are just some of the words being used to describe England’s approach down under that saw them lose the Ashes to Australia after just three Test matches and 11 days of cricket.

In the three and half years since Brendon McCullum took over as coach of the England men’s team, the so-called “Bazball” philosophy he pioneered with captain Ben Stokes “told us that nothing was impossible, that no run chase was too big, that no situation was irretrievable, that no ambition was too haughty”, said the Daily Mail.

England’s final capitulation in Adelaide on Sunday “felt like more than the end of just a game of cricket. It felt like the end of an idea. It felt like that part of a revolution where an ideal bows to realpolitik and the thrill of the new is lost forever.”

A tale of two openers

“Perhaps nobody embodies the emasculation of this England team on this tour, and the emasculation of the philosophy that has underpinned their challenge” more than England opener Ben Duckett, said former England captain Mike Atherton in The Times.

The “unorthodox, rasping opener” who “prides himself on how few balls he leaves at the top of the order” has racked up a grand total of 97 runs over the course of six innings in Australia, being dismissed for a golden duck in the second Test.

Contrast this with the famed England opener of yesteryear, Geoffrey Boycott, who won two tours of Australia and drew the other two. “Never really known for going on the attack as a player,” the now 85-year-old “has been on the offensive as England has laboured through this Ashes tour”, said the ABC.

In a scathing assessment of Bazball, Boycott hammered the team as “irresponsible, rubbish and too far up their backsides to care” and claimed “hubris has taken over from common sense”.

‘Bazball as we knew it is in the skip’

Bazball was named after coach McCullum, whose nickname is Baz. In its “pure form”, it “defined Test cricket as a game of batting intent”, said The Guardian, but “as Australia have demonstrated, it is above all a bowling game”.

While there is “no disgrace at all in losing to these opponents”, England’s “failure lies in the nature of that defeat, in losing not just quickly but sloppily, losing in a way that speaks to a basic lack of tension and discipline, a refusal not just to do your homework, but to recognise that homework exists at all”.

After Adelaide, McCullum was quick to hold his hand up and admit that “we haven’t got everything right” in the series, including England’s much-criticised preparations and failure to play any proper warm-up matches.

This rare moment of introspection “is a massive step forward” for the England coach, said the BBC’s chief cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew, but “Bazball as we knew it is in the skip”.

It “now resembles something hollowed out”, said the Daily Mail. Over the course of three “sobering, humbling Test defeats, a philosophy that once carried all along with it but has become divisive and polarising, has had its soul ripped out and its entrails pored over by those who are now happy to say they always feared it would end like this”.

Attention will inevitably now turn to the futures of McCullum, managing director Rob Key and even Stokes. They may try to claim England’s “death-or-glory style can be retooled and rise again”, said Reuters. “In reality, it is unlikely to survive the bitter post-mortem that looms at the end of a series that had promised so much and has, to date, yielded so little.”

“Marty Supreme” is the “best film of the year, and exactly the jolt the coming Oscars season needed”, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph.

Timothée Chalamet stars as Marty Mauser, a “ping-pong prodigy” who “bounces frenetically around 1950s New York, as if being thwacked back and forth” by a pair of invisible bats. Working in his uncle’s shoe shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, he has “impregnated” his married girlfriend (a “superb” Odessa A’zion), and dreams of becoming a world-class table tennis star.

Loosely based on the life of US table tennis champion Marty Reisman, Josh Safdie’s “whip-crack comedy” follows Mauser as he saves up and travels to London for a competition at Wembley, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. After talking his way into a free room at the Ritz, he develops an “erotic obsession” with fellow guest and retired film star Kay Stone, “for which role Gwyneth Paltrow has very stylishly come out of retirement”.

“‘Marty Supreme’ doesn’t behave like a sports movie.” You won’t find any lengthy training montage sequences here and Mauser is “always a reprehensible character whom no one really trusts”. But the film thrums with the “fanatical energy of a 149-minute ping-pong rally” and the “rhythm and spirit of table tennis” course through every scene. “The pure craziness is a marvel.”

Powered by a “shimmering, surging electro score by Daniel Lopatin” and “energetically shot on grainy, desaturated 35mm by expert cinematographer Darius Khondji”, this is “not your usual handsomely staid period drama”, said Jamie Graham in Empire. “There’s a giddy messiness and electrifying volatility to the crazed plotting”, and the film whizzes by in a thrilling blur of “overlapping dialogue, serrated cutting and sweaty close-ups”.

The movie is packed with “unexpected turns”, said the BBC’s Caryn James. Mauser is “not some clichéd, lovable scamp” but an “arrogant” and “scrawny young man with a pencil moustache”. Chalamet’s “on-screen charm” and his character’s “bravado” are “captivating”, even when Mauser’s behaviour “is at its worst”.

The film’s two-and-a-half hour running time is a “flaw”: while many of the sequences are entertaining, some feel like “indulgent detours”. And it deserved an ending that is “much more inventive”. Still, it’s a “bracing and original” film, and has such “scope, ambition and humour” that these issues are “easy to overlook”.

“What a film this is,” said Collin in The Telegraph. From start to finish, Safdie’s movie had me “vibrating like a tuning fork. It’s a joyous salute to life’s beautiful cacophony.”

There’s no disputing that Diego Maradona was one of the world’s greatest footballers. But it’s still hotly debated whether or not the Argentine star’s death, five years ago this week, could have been prevented.

Maradona’s family believes it should have been. They are “demanding justice so that he can rest in peace”, said El País. A second trial of seven health professionals, accused of negligent homicide relating to the former footballer’s death at the age of 60, will begin in March, after the first trial dramatically collapsed earlier this year.

Died ‘practically alone’

Maradona, captain of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup-winning team, died in a rented house just outside Buenos Aires on 25 November 2020. He was recovering from surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain. “The news that his heart had stopped beating plunged Argentina into collective grief,” said El País.

“No one was prepared,” said CNN. In Argentina, the pain was “atrocious”. His death “managed to unite in desolation a country deeply divided”. Hundreds of thousands attended his funeral, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Adults cried like children”, and the sounds of their weeping mixed with the noise of disturbances – “shouts from the police and hooligans”. His funeral “resembled his life: it was chaos”.

Maradona had “dodged death so many times” during decades of cocaine and alcohol addiction. He seemed to have “indestructible genetics”. But “one of the most famous human beings on the planet” died “practically alone, under medical care that is suspected of being, at the very least, deficient”.

Seven doctors and nurses were accused of “homicide with possible intent”: pursuing a course of action despite knowing it could lead to the patient’s death. Prosecutors alleged that the medical attention Maradona received was grossly negligent. Gianinna Maradona, one of his daughters, said the doctors had promised “serious home care” but what ensued was “a disastrous charade”.

‘Treated like an animal’

The case against the medical team centres on the decision to allow Maradona to recuperate from brain surgery at home “with minimal supervision and medical equipment, instead of a medical facility”, said The Guardian.

The original trial “exposed chilling claims about the footballer’s death”, said The Sun, including allegations that he was “treated like an animal” by his medics. Chief prosecutor Patricio Ferrari said Maradona spent his last days in a “house of horror”. He “shocked the room” with a “grim” photo of Maradona “lying on his back with his bloated stomach exposed”.

The post-mortem report concluded that Maradona had died from acute pulmonary oedema secondary to an acute exacerbation of chronic heart failure. His heart, the court was told, weighed “more than twice the normal size.”

Maradona had suffered at least 12 hours of extreme pain before dying, one of the experts who performed the post-mortem examination told the court. His heart “was completely covered with fat and blood clots, which indicate agony”, said forensic medic Carlos Cassinelli. He had “been collecting water” for days; this was “something foreseeable. Any doctor examining a patient would find this.”

But, months in, the trial dramatically collapsed in scandal. One of the three judges had secretly authorised recordings of legal proceedings for “Divine Justice”, a documentary about the case that would feature her as the star. Julieta Makintach recused herself, and the two remaining judges chose to annul the trial rather than replace her. This month, Makintach was fired and disqualified from holding any judicial position in the future.

The defendants, who deny all the accusations, will stand trial again in March. If they are found guilty, they face a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.

Maradona continues to captivate Argentina. Banks have issued a special silver coin ahead of the 2026 World Cup, commemorating his so-called “Goal of the Century” against England in the quarter-finals of the 1986 World Cup.

“Please do not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle,” said Fifa president Gianni Infantino before the last men’s World Cup in Qatar. That didn’t stop Qatar being accused of using the tournament to sportswash its poor human rights record.

Next up is Donald Trump, who is showing every intention of exploiting the 2026 World Cup – to be hosted by the US, Canada and Mexico – to push his Maga agenda. Ever the showman, “Trump will make sure he is front and centre at this tournament”, said Alexander Abnos in The Guardian – even “in spots where he has no business or where his involvement may be seen as uncouth or inappropriate”.

Host cities threat

Having claimed credit for securing the tournament for North America back in his first term, the US president has repeatedly sought to insert himself into the World Cup narrative since returning to the White House.

He has recently used “safety concerns” to suggest he may ask Fifa to relocate matches away from Democratic-run US host cities, including Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles. “The governors are going to have to behave. The mayors are going to have to behave,” he warned.

Moving World Cup games away from a selected host city would be an “extraordinary decision that has little, if any, precedent”, said CNN. All the host cities were announced in 2022 and they have already lavished “time and money” on “infrastructure improvements, security planning and extensive plans to host an influx of millions of visitors”. Trump’s suggested alternative, against the background of his sending federal law enforcement agencies into Democratic-controlled areas “to crack down on illegal immigration and crime”, is for the host cities to “invite the National Guard” in now.

At a conference with Infantino in the White House, to discuss World Cup plans, Trump also told reporters he would be “OK” about ordering strikes against co-hosts Mexico as part of his ongoing war on drug trafficking. “They know how I stand,” he said.

Peace prize

Trump has struck up a bromance with Infantino – and critics say they share the same megalomaniac traits. This week’s visit to the White House was Infantino’s sixth this year, and he surprised many by accompanying the US president to Egypt for the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal.

Infantino will use next month’s World Cup draw in Washington D.C. to award the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize, conceived to reward “individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and, by doing so, have united people across the world”. Fifa have disclosed no details about the process for choosing the winner and, if Trump receives the award, as expected, “it’s likely to add to the perception that it’s been created in response to the US president not winning the Nobel Peace Prize”, said The Associated Press.

The timing of the award and Infantino’s “proximity to the president” have “raised questions about whether FIFA is adhering to its own rules on political neutrality”, said The New York Times.

“Indelible, sublime moments will still happen” at next year’s World Cup, said Abnos in The Guardian. “But those moments will be punctuated by Trump – eternally encroaching on even the most elevated of emotional experiences.”

YouTuber Jake Paul will go toe-to-toe with Britain’s former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in Miami next month in a bout that promoters have billed as the “most dangerous” contest of the influencer’s boxing career.

Joshua, 36, will be “the first active, elite-level champion” that Paul has faced in the ring, said the BBC, and there are already serious concerns about his safety.

Defying belief 

This will be Paul’s “14th fight since turning pro five years ago – with the 28-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer having won all but one so far”, said The Sun. But taking on Joshua is a “whole different kettle of fish”.

The two-time world heavyweight champion has agreed to shed several pounds to meet the agreed weight limit of 245lb (17st 7lb) for the 19 December bout. But Joshua is five inches taller and around four stone heavier than his cruiserweight rival. Boxing fans are already “worried” about Paul’s chances of “actually surviving the fight”.

In the UK such a match-up would be “banned” because of the “serious safety fears”, said The Telegraph. This “shocking” plan “defies belief” and “breaks so many codes for the sport”. Joshua “is too big, too strong, too experienced and – genuinely – too dangerous for Paul even to think about fighting”; this is nothing more than a “money heist”. It is being billed as a £140 million fight, with Joshua reportedly set to earn more than £30 million from the Netflix-streamed event.

Paul has “always had delusions of grandeur as a novice pro”, said The Guardian, but boxing “may have to consider its own culpability” should he be “badly hurt and end up in hospital” after this “fully sanctioned bout”. But “the suspicion remains” that it will “be a more controlled arrangement”. That “gut reaction” is confirmed by the fact that the fight has been limited to eight rounds.

‘Laughing stock’

Behind the “initial shock” of the apparent mismatch, the two fighters have more in common than it may appear in that both “have found themselves at a crossroads”, said the Daily Mail. Paul has been “on the search for a more credible opponent” after his bout with WBA lightweight champion Gervonta Davis was cancelled, while Joshua “will be looking to shake off 13 months of ring-rust”.

Joshua has put himself in a “no-win situation” by accepting the challenge, said former world champion Johnny Nelson on Sky Sports. If Paul “lasts the distance, what does that tell you” about Joshua? But if he “goes in there and knocks him out, then you would say that’s to be expected”.

Boxing’s credibility has already “taken a hit because of difficulties arranging fights at the highest level” and an “influx” of cash from Saudi Arabia, said the BBC. For some, influencer fights represent an avenue to “attract new fans” and help “safeguard the future of the sport”, but “others argue they render it a laughing stock”.

If and when the pair do come face to face, Joshua “surely wipes Paul out in a flash”, said Boxing 24/7. “If not, well, the boxing world will have officially gone mad!” This is “what we’re afraid of” – the sport “becoming more and more a circus”.

The sumo ring has always been a “sacred” arena where “only men may tread, bound by centuries of ritual and pride”, said The Japan Times. But now that Japan has elected its first female prime minister, the question arises: “If she can stand at the centre of power, why not in the centre of the ring?”

It won’t be long before this thorny question faces a “real-world test”. On 23 November, Sanae Takaichi will have to decide whether to break with tradition and step into the sumo ring (dohyo), to present the trophy to the Grand Sumo champion in Fukuoka.

‘Off-limits’ for women

Sumo rings remain “off-limits” to women and girls. Known as nyonin kinsei (female exclusion), the practice is rooted in Shinto beliefs around impurity – “particularly the idea that blood from death, childbirth or menstruation can defile what is sacred”.

The ban has sparked controversy for decades. In 1990, Mayumi Moriyama, Japan’s first female cabinet minister, asked the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) if she could present a trophy on behalf of the prime minister. Her request was rejected. Ten years later, Osaka’s then governor, Fuse Ohta, “was forced to present a prize to the champion of the annual Osaka tournament on a walkway next to the dohyo”, said The Guardian.

More recently, in 2018, the local mayor suffered a stroke during a speech in a sumo arena in Maizuru, near Kyoto. A female nurse was among the spectators who “rushed on to the ring to administer first aid”. The referee repeatedly called for her to leave the dohyo, and officials “sprinkled ‘purifying salt’ on the wrestling surface”, although they later denied this was because of her presence. Still, the incident sparked an “outcry” and the JSA chair was “forced to apologise”. But days later, Tomoko Nakagawa (the then mayor of Takarazuka), was made to deliver a speech to the side of a ring, telling spectators she was “mortified” by her treatment as a woman.

Barring women from the sumo ring is “part of a broader societal affliction”, said The Economist. Japan ranks 118th out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s global gender gap index. “That is better than Saudi Arabia but worse than Bahrain.”

Away from sport, until the 2000s women were “prohibited from tunnel construction sites owing to the belief that their presence would make the female mountain god jealous and bring misfortune”, and are still banned from climbing some sacred mountains, including Mount Ōmine in Yoshino-Kumano National Park.

‘Quiet resistance’

Despite its deeply conservative roots, sumo is facing “quiet resistance”, said The Associated Press. While professional sumo remains out of bounds for women, a “small but growing group of more than 600 wrestlers is making strides at the amateur level in Japan”. Like men, they wear the traditional loincloth – but instead of competing bare-chested, they wear it over shorts or leotards.

As the Grand Sumo tournament draws to its conclusion, some hope the appointment of Takaichi as PM could “herald change”, said The Economist. Will she finally “break the taboo?” If Japan’s prime minister were to step into the dohyo, it would be a “symbolic victory for women’s rights campaigners”, said The Guardian.

But Takaichi, a social conservative who opposes women having the right to keep their maiden name after marriage, looks unlikely to rock the boat. “The prime minister wishes to respect sumo tradition and culture”, said Minoru Kihara, the chief cabinet secretary. “The government has not yet made a decision on the matter.”

The JSA said it had formed a panel to look into the issues back in 2018, but it has yet to reach its conclusion. “Sumo is still hiding behind vague words like ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’”, Nakagawa told The Japan Times. “That era is over. If we let this moment slip by, nothing will ever change.”

It was a “very emotional day”, David Beckham said yesterday as he was knighted by King Charles during a ceremony at Windsor Castle.

The knighthood, which the former Manchester United and England star described as his “proudest moment”, brings to a successful end the “20-year campaign” he has waged for the honour, said The Telegraph.

Leaked emails

It’s “no secret” that Becks was “gasping for a knighthood for a long time”, said The Spectator. Nor that he “worked tirelessly for one”. In 2003, he was made an OBE for services to football, but he didn’t seem satisfied with that honour.

In 2005, he was part of the delegation that Britain dispatched to Singapore in a bid to secure the 2012 Olympics for London. Thanks to the success of that bid, he was put forward for a knighthood in 2011, but this was vetoed when he was linked to a tax avoidance scheme. Sources close to Beckham said he had no knowledge of the scheme.

There were other issues. Royal watchers said the Beckhams had offended Prince Philip when he and his wife Victoria sat on gold thrones at their 1999 wedding. In 2017, hacked emails suggested he had described the Honours Committee as a “disgrace” and “unappreciative c**ts”. His representatives said that the some of the leaked messages had been doctored and taken out of context.

Royal welcome

”I couldn’t be prouder,” the former England captain said after finally receiving his long-awaited knighthood. “People know how patriotic I am. I love my country. I’ve always said how important the monarchy is to my family.”

Beckham got closer to the royals when he bonded with Prince William as the two men spearheaded England’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 World Cup. The Beckhams also attended Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in 2018. Four years later, he was praised for queuing for 12 hours alongside other members of the public to pay his respects at Queen Elizabeth’s coffin.

Last year, the Beckhams attended a banquet to mark the state visit of the Emir of Qatar, hosted by King Charles and Queen Camilla at Buckingham Palace. Friends said he was “humbled” to receive the invitation. An ambassador for the King’s Foundation, Beckham has worn the King’s Rose, created in collaboration with the charity, and named after the monarch, in his lapel. He has also revealed that he shares the king’s interest in gardening, and asked Charles for “beekeeping tips” when he met him at the Highgrove Estate in May last year.

India’s first victory in cricket’s Women’s World Cup will have huge ramifications for global order of the sport.

Harmanpreet Kaur’s team beat South Africa by 52 runs in yesterday’s final, in front of a deafening 45,000-strong crowd in Navi Mumbai – ending Australia’s decade-long dominance in the sport. With this milestone win, India’s women cricketers have “turned long-cherished dreams into reality” and “etched their names in history”, said The Hindustan Times.

It’s a “a wake-up call” for the rest of the world, and a win that could “spell the end for women’s cricket as we know it”, said Sonia Twigg in The Telegraph. India has become the the first country other than Australia or England to win a Women’s World Cup since 2000, and, with greater funding and increased home support, “it is hard to believe” their women cricketers “will stop there”.

‘New levels of stardom’

As Kaur clung on to her match-winning catch, India’s women cricketers entered a “brave new world”, said P.K. Ajith Kumar in The Hindu. Star players like Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma and Shafali Verma have become “household names” overnight, and been propelled to “new levels of stardom across India”.

For Verma, the final’s Player of the Match, the path to yesterday’s success has been marked by significant setbacks. That “rollercoaster ride” began in the “conservative northern state of Haryana”, where, as a girl, she cut her hair short so she could play in the boys’ team, said Agence France-Presse. Her fearless batting soon led to her international debut at the age of 15, and she became the youngest cricketer to play in a women’s T20 for India. But she had recently fallen out of favour with the selectors, and was only in Sunday's final because a teammate had injured her ankle. Her 87 runs (from 78 balls) included her first 50 in three years – and made her, at 21 years and 278 days, the youngest person ever to hit a half-century in a Women’s World Cup final.

India were “late to develop the women’s game”, said Twigg in The Telegraph, and the last time the Women’s World Cup was held in India, in 2013, it “made barely a ripple” on the country’s consciousness. The national team was put up in a “budget hotel”, and had to warm up against under-16 and under-19 boys’ teams. The publicised venue for the final – Mumbai’s historic Wankhede Stadium – was even changed at the last minute to accommodate the men’s domestic Ranji Trophy final.

Belief ‘that women deserved more’

India’s victory on Sunday owes much to star performances by Verma and by Sharma (named Player of the Tournament) but many also attribute the team’s success to major administrative and strategic overhauls behind the scenes.

India’s win was a “vindication” for policy changes that “dared to believe women deserved more”, said Amar Sunil Panicker in India Today. In October 2022, the Board of Control for Cricket in India unanimously passed a resolution for pay parity between men and women. Women’s cricket in India was once defined by the “exceptionalism” of a few individuals who “succeeded despite the system”. Now, “for perhaps the first time, success feels like the result of the system working for them”.

More money is entering the women’s game globally, too. The Australian women’s Big Bash League doubled their team salary cap in 2023 and, last week, the organisers of The Hundred competition in England and Wales announced a 100% increase in the women’s salary pot for the 2026 season – though these salaries are still significantly behind those offered to male players.

Senior ministers are discussing whether to overturn the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending their club’s Europa League game with Aston Villa next month over safety concerns.

West Midlands Police said they classified the 6 November fixture as “high risk” after “violent clashes and hate crime offences” took place in Amsterdam last November when Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax.

Following an outcry over the initial decision to prevent Maccabi supporters from travelling to Birmingham, Keir Starmer said it was “wrong” and insisted his government “will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets”. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said discussions are happening “at pace, across government”.

Lisa Nandy, the culture, media and sport secretary, is “meeting officials to discuss what more can be done to try and find a way through to resolve this, and what more can be done to allow fans to attend the game safely”.

What did the commentators say?

The “sick ban” is “an admission that Britain is no longer a safe place for Jews”, said Brendan O’Neill on Spiked. “Because the usual suspects – the keffiyeh cocks, gurning Islamists, hard-right Jew haters who pose as ‘critics of Israel’ – might turn up and scream blue murder at these visiting devils from Israel, the Israelis themselves must be kept out.”

This is a “shaming moment”, said Oliver Brown in The Telegraph. “You might think” that the priority would be to “crack down on the virulent antisemitism” that’s made it “dangerous for Israelis to attend matches in this country”. But “sadly”, the police have chosen the “cruder response” of “simply banning Maccabi followers from coming at all”.

In the aftermath of last year’s Ajax game, Dutch police said that Maccabi fans tore down a Palestinian flag and burned it, and shouted “f**k you, Palestine”. They also chanted that there were “no children” left in Gaza, said National World. Fans of the Israeli club faced hate crime attacks in the Dutch capital.

This isn’t the first time that a club’s fans have been banned on safety grounds from travelling to a European tie, said The Guardian. Last month, Ajax fans were not allowed to attend a Champions League match in Marseille and Naples banned Eintracht Frankfurt fans from their club’s game with Napoli. In January, police arrested 17 Dutch fans at the border after France banned Feyenoord fans from travelling to their Champions League tie in Lille.

Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said on X that he welcomed the ban. It’s “clear that there were latent safety risks” around the game, and although sporting events “should be enjoyed by all”, there are “rare instances” where the “political dynamics” surrounding the spectacle “cannot be ignored”.

In these examples, “drastic action must be taken to ensure the safety of fans, players, staff and local residents”.

What next?

Senior government figures met today to discuss the ban. Ian Murray, the science and technology minister, said the officials were gathering to “see if there’s a way through” the issue.

“We can’t allow a country to become a place where we’re excluding people from public events,” said Murray, though he added that it is an “operational issue for the police” and “government doesn’t get involved in operational issues for the police”.

“Picture tennis doubles” and then “increase the intensity by around 15%”, said Marie Le Conte in The Observer. Padel is taking the world of sport by storm, with players of all skill levels romping across its “claustrophobic” courts wielding rackets akin to “those zappy things you can use to obliterate mosquitoes”.

Described by the Lawn Tennis Association last year as the world’s fastest-growing sport, padel originated in Mexico in 1969. Enrique and Viviana Corcuera wanted to build a tennis court in their backyard in Acapulco but didn’t have quite enough space. A smaller space surrounded by a wall soon became the world’s first padel court.

Almost 50 years later, padel is played by more than 30 million amateurs in nearly 150 countries, according to the International Padel Federation. In Britain, around 1,500 courts have sprung up since the start of the pandemic – a “exponential pattern of growth” that could see it “overtake tennis in Britain just as it already has in Spain”, said The Telegraph.

‘Magnetism of padel’

Part of padel’s appeal is its accessibility – “absolute beginners can enjoy a match within minutes of picking up a bat”. Players “tend to be more exuberant” and the game more approachable. “It’s a fun sport, a very sociable sport,” said Jamie Murray, one of Britain’s leading tennis doubles players. “It’s a lot easier to get started in the game than tennis.”

And demand for the sport defies its lofty price point. While public tennis courts can be used for as little as £5 per hour, or even for free for those willing to provide their own equipment, padel court hire typically starts at around £30 an hour, and can go much higher. But “the magnetism of padel” is such that hundreds of thousands of people played the sport at least once last year.

“There’s no glory” in getting into long-established sports like football or rugby as an adult, but attending a padel match for the first time “felt like an opportunity to get in on the ground floor”, said Le Conte. But even if there was something charming about the atmosphere, “I have to confess, somewhat guiltily, that I do prefer the glitz and glamour” of tennis.

‘Like a rifle shot’

“As a self-confessed tennis head” who thought padel might feel familiar, “I imagined a game close to squash but with the lightness of ping pong and the clipped etiquette of tennis”, said Arabella Byrne in The Spectator. “How wrong I was.”

The lenient scoring system takes away the tension, while players “grunt and lurch around holding carbon fibre bats that look like squashed colanders”. The whole spectacle “is deeply uncivilised, like a dinner party with paper plates”.

But this hasn’t stopped celebrities like David Beckham, Prince William and Lionel Messi from picking up a racket at a time when tennis and squash are diminishing in popularity. Padel “must be doing something right”, however, said Byrne. “Its low barriers to entry” give it a broad appeal and even the promise of “accessible flirting”.

However, the appeal of padel is lost on some residents living close to the newly erected courts appearing up and down the country. Padel involves firing plastic balls into glass walls, a combination that produces a loud, sometimes jarring noise.

“We’ve had tennis courts here for years and they’re brilliant,” Bob Wilkinson, a Harrogate resident who lives near a recently opened padel court, told BBC Radio York. “Padel courts, it’s like a rifle shot.”

It was ironic that, on the day when the European team broke their 13-year Ryder Cup away-win “duck”, US fans bizarrely tried to distract them with “a squeaky duck toy”, said Sky News. But that was the least of the countless insults, slurs and raucous interruptions aimed at Team Europe during golf's premier team competition.

Europe managed to withstand a fierce late comeback from their US hosts at the Bethpage Black course in New York, where “bitterness and toxicity were off the scale”, to win their first Ryder Cup on American soil since 2012.

Golf is “generally a genteel and polite game”, loaded with “many unwritten rules of etiquette”, said CNN, and the scenes at Bethpage this weekend will have led many to conclude that its fans have gone way “too far”.

‘Anything now goes’

One of the most historic competitions in sport has been “appropriated by a nauseating coarseness”, said The Times, giving it the air of the “stag party from hell”. As the weekend drew on, the wife of Masters-winner Rory McIlroy was “called a whore” and had drinks “thrown at her”, and the wife of his teammate Shane Lowry received “dog’s abuse”.

The tone was set early, and not just by fans attending the event. On Saturday, MC Heather McMahan, a comedian and actor, led repeated chants of “Fuck you, Rory!” on the first tee. She later apologised and stepped down from her role for the rest of proceedings.

Europe’s fans are not squeaky clean. They are known to drink a lot and cheer bad shots but it would be “disingenuous” to try to compare their behaviour to the “bile of Bethpage”, said The Times. American fans’ “misguided belief” that “anything now goes” risks marring the “beauty of the Ryder Cup”.

The “ugliness” of US fans’ behaviour was symptomatic of a darker, tribal thread running through “Trump’s all-caps America”, said The Guardian. Hordes of spectators gathered round the greens, bellowing “YEW-ESS-AY! YEW-ESS-AY!” at every European falter, drifting from “partisan into venomous” as the contest developed.

The atmosphere at Bethpage had long been trailed as a “snarling, uniquely American cauldron” that would “rattle Europe”. But “the idiots took it literally”, hurling “homophobic slurs” and “boos during backswings”, and aiming “cheap shots dripping with tiresome stereotypes” at McIlroy in particular.

‘Bedlam at Bethpage’

You would be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world with “obnoxious golf fans quite like America”, said The Independent. And, combined with a “sincerely troubling security presence”, this year’s Ryder Cup match turned into a “travelling bear pit”.

Men “with hats and guns emerged through the trees” mid-round as if they were “quashing an insurgency”. As Lowry celebrated Europe’s win on the 18th green, two fans were “hauled out of the grandstand by police for fighting”, providing a “fitting end to a day of bedlam at Bethpage.”

Organising body the PGA of America did beef up security for the final day, with police officers trailing the players and messages of a “zero tolerance approach to abusive shouting” flashing up on the big screens, said the BBC. But in future competitions, “enforcement has to be swift, visible and consequential or it becomes permission by another name”, said The Guardian. “You can fill a grandstand without emptying your standards.”

President Donald Trump has traveled a lot since retaking office, but unlike the rallies that characterized his first term, Trump has largely used his time away from Washington, D.C., to hang out at sporting events. Trump’s second term has seen him attend the most recent iterations of the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, FIFA Club World Cup and the U.S. Open, as well as several UFC fights.

As with almost everywhere he goes, Trump has been met at these events with a mix of boos and cheers (ABC and ESPN were reportedly asked to mute the booing at the U.S. Open but declined to do so). Some feel that his attendance at these events has less to do with sports and more to do with politics.

What did the commentators say?

Trump’s idea behind going to the sporting events is a “strategy as old as human civilization,” said Kara Alaimo, a communications professor at Farleigh Dickinson University, to CNN. In Ancient Rome, leaders would host gladiator tournaments to “keep the people entertained and keep their focus off of what their government was doing.”

This type of strategy is “helpful for Trump because it’s keeping the spotlight off of two big things,” Alaimo said to CNN. The first is the “problems that Americans are facing,” and the second is that “so many Americans disagree with the policies that Trump has proposed or is pursuing.”

This could also be part of a ploy to gain more control over American institutions, experts say. As president, Trump has “asserted his dominance over politics, higher education and corporations,” and sports is “another venue he is trying to influence,” said The Boston Globe. While “most presidents have tried to use sports to unite a divided nation, he uses them to press a political advantage,” Tom Knecht, a political science professor at Westmont College, told the Globe.

Trump is “much more partisan in his approach to politics, and he is also much more willing to try to use the power of the White House to accomplish actual changes in the sporting world,” Knecht told the Globe. This presidential affinity for sports isn’t new, as “notable presidential involvement in American sports dates back to at least 1905."

But unlike prior presidents, Trump himself “loves being part of the professional sports world,” said The Athletic. He “seems intent on being America’s Commander in Chief of Sports, imposing his worldview on an area of society that has heretofore resisted such efforts.”

What next?

Trump will continue to attend sporting events; the president has claimed he will be in attendance for the Ryder Cup golf tournament in New York in September. This is unsurprising given that golf is the game Trump is most associated with. Bryson DeChambeau, a golfer who has previously played with Trump, was also “appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition,” said CNN, among a slew of other athletes.

Trump is also bringing sports to him: The president has teamed with UFC head Dana White to host a UFC match at the White House in 2026. The event will be a “mixed martial arts throwdown to be watched by thousands of spectators” with “fighter weigh-ins and a press conference” at the Lincoln Memorial, said The Wall Street Journal. Smaller sporting events have been hosted at the White House, but “nothing, though, approaches the scale Trump is attempting.”

Five years after its launch, the Hundred still "gets up people's noses", said Lawrence Booth in the Daily Mail. Traditionalists haven't reconciled themselves to its scoring format, nor to the way it condemns county cricket to virtual irrelevance during August. When the competition follows a particularly "epic" Test series – like this summer's contest between England and India – the purists' distaste merely grows.

Yet, even its critics were given pause for thought in June, when the sale of the eight Hundred franchises "raised £520 million for English cricket". Given how cash-strapped the domestic game has become (two years ago, the collective debt of county cricket reportedly stood at £333.6 million), that's a hugely valuable sum. The Hundred was established, in part, to provide a financial lifeline to county cricket – and it appears to be fulfilling that role.

This year's Hundred, which concluded on Sunday with a third straight victory for Oval Invincibles in the men's final, and a first win for Northern Superchargers in the women's, was marked by a sense of "real progress", said Will Macpherson in The Telegraph. TV viewing figures "bounced back after a drop last year"; there was a notable lift in standards, with the competition attracting stronger players than ever – the young English talent Davina Perrin, for instance, who scored a "breakthrough century" in the women's eliminator. And the crowd for the women's final – 22,542 – was the "highest ever".

All this bodes well for next year, when the competition, under its new owners, is expected to be significantly revamped: there will be "new team names, a player auction with bigger salaries, new kits, possibly a tweaked format". The new owners talk, loftily, of turning the Hundred into a rival for Wimbledon. Such a goal may not be feasible – but what's clear is that the Hundred has been more successful than many predicted, and is here to stay.

At the edge of suburban swimming pools and tropical beaches, "mermaiding" enthusiasts are donning mono-fin tails and wiggling towards the water. What began as a novelty at fantasy conventions in the 1980s has now spawned active communities around the world, as well as courses and qualifications, focusing on a tail-propelled dolphin kick and breath-holding techniques.

For the love of pod

Like wild swimming but with added sparkle, mermaiding is a new way to escape life's stresses and channel your free spirit. Taking to the water in multi-coloured mermaid tails and "seashell crowns" offers aficionados a "refuge from the stressors of work and other aspects of everyday life", said The Washington Post. It's about "finding a place where you can let your guard down and actually get in touch with your inner child and play", part-time mermaid Colleen McCartney told the paper. "That's not a space that exists very often."

Some "merfolk" describe their "pods" as similar to the close-knit circles of drag-ball culture, and the online mermaiding scene has a lot of overlap with fantasy, LGBT and body positivity communities, said i-D magazine. Every swim is documented with group "shellfies", and professional mermaids stage elaborate underwater photo shoots with rainbow wigs and glittering costumes.

Kaila Yu, a certified free diver and scuba diver, was sceptical before she took lessons at the Four Seasons hotel in Bora Bora. "I'd first encountered professional mermaiding on my Instagram feed. I thought it was performative, pretentious, and girly," she said in Business Insider. Yu was soon won over by the challenge and the joy of feeling like a "real-life mermaid", swimming among schools of shimmering tropical fish, "each flutter" of pelvis and hips "awakening my feminine energy".

'Aquatic joy'

Margaux Caillier, a French artistic swimmer who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics, offers mermaiding lessons in the sea near Biarritz. "In the swimming pool, what I hate" is doing length after length, she told Olympics.com. Mermaiding is "like a dream", by contrast. "It's accessible to everyone" because "there is no synochronisation between arms and legs. It's just the body going with the water, that's all." Caillier's lessons are increasingly in demand at bridal showers and, on at least one occasion, a stag party.

Mermaiding is not an official Olympic sport – yet – but the Merlympics promise "less pressure, more aquatic joy". Categories at this year's event in Wolfsburg, Germany, included the 50m Speed Challenge, Underwater Rescue Drill, Best Underwater Picture (which is all about form, pose and bubble control) and Performance, a creative choreography category.

Flitting through the sea doesn't come cheap, however: custom silicone tails "usually weigh about 10kg to 15kg and cost upward of £1,500", said i-D magazine. Fabric and neoprene are cheaper but make swimming more difficult. And not every swimming pool welcomes mermaid tails.

Not quite ready to make your U.S. Open debut but still want to unleash your inner Coco Gauff or Carlos Alcaraz? Head to one of these eight hotels serving up impressive tennis offerings.

Borgo dei Conti Resort, Perugia, Italy

Borgo dei Conti has had many lives. Once a 13th-century fortress, it was also the 19th-century estate of Count Rossi Scotti before becoming the secluded resort it is today. Tucked away in the Umbrian countryside, this "deeply romantic" property doubles as parkland, and its synthetic fabric tennis court is surrounded by tall trees and shrubs, said the Michelin Guide. There's also a court for padel, a hybrid of tennis and squash, and a "serene" full-service spa with a Finnish sauna and Turkish bath.

Cambridge Beaches, Somerset Village, Bermuda

Activities at Cambridge Beaches "range from the chill to the thrill," with tennis landing squarely in the middle, said The Telegraph. This is a vibrant property, and the blue and green tennis courts pop against the pretty pink buildings, turquoise ocean and "perfectly manicured" grounds. In between sets, cool off in the infinity pool, play a game or two of croquet, or go snorkeling.

Cromlix, Stirling, Scotland

Make some magic on the court at Cromlix, the charming Victorian estate owned by tennis great Andy Murray and his wife, Kim. The "regal" property "emits a sense of nobility," and this feels palpable on the tennis court painted in Wimbledon colors with an umpire's chair used in a charity match between him and Roger Federer, said Vogue. Check the schedule to see if Murray's mother, Judy, is coaching during your stay, and make room in your schedule to walk the sprawling grounds and find some friendly competition in the billiards room.

Enchantment Resort, Sedona, Arizona

Try not to let the incredible views from Enchantment Resort's tennis courts distract you from your game. Sedona is known for its "colorful red-rock landscape," and Enchantment is on the outskirts of town, "set right among all the beauty," said Travel and Leisure. Take in the sights during a friendly match, Cardio Tennis clinic or private lesson. Afterward, cool off in the pool and go to the Artist Cottage for a pottery or wood-burning class.

Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Antibes, France

An "icon of the French Riviera," Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc is the go-to escape for those seeking respite in "bucolic surroundings," said The Hollywood Reporter. It has long been a haven for tennis lovers, who head to the five clay courts for a day of play underneath pines, palms and olive trees. Book a private session with a coach to refine your skills, then go for a dip in the cliffside saltwater infinity pool.

Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa, Rancho Santa Fe, California

Spring, summer, fall or winter, come to Rancho Valencia Resort & Spa any time of year, and you will hear the familiar thwack of tennis balls being smashed across nets. This enclave is the "epicenter of country club California cool," with the resort's 12 plexipave, three European red clay and four pickleball courts surrounded by gardens and citrus groves, said Vogue. Guests can also try their hand at padel and take lessons from pros before exploring the rest of the resort, a "terracotta, tile and adobe dream."

Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa, Lahaina, Hawaii

Feel the ocean breeze as you practice your serve and perfect your forehand. Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa's three tennis and pickleball courts are steps away from Ka'anapali Beach, offering "seaside bliss," said Time Out. Keep the good times rolling by "lazing about the massive lagoon-style pool" and jumping into the ocean for turtle watching and snorkeling at Black Rock.

Singita Castleton, Sabi Sand Game Reserve, South Africa

At the Singita Castleton, prepare to "experience a match like no other," said Country Life. The luxe lodge sits within the 45,000-acre Sabi Sand Game Reserve, and its tennis court is "surrounded by the sounds and sights of the African bushveld." Because of the property's location, there are several one-of-a-kind amenities also available, like a visit to Sabi Sand's anti-poaching canine unit.

The US Open has staged its new quickfire mixed doubles event at Flushing Meadows in New York this week, but not everyone is happy about the changes.

The format, which boasts an increased prize pot of $1 million and shorter matches, took place during "fan week", which precedes the US Open singles tournaments, and offers places to top singles players over doubles specialists.

The two-day competition has attracted huge attention thanks to the big names competing, with the likes of Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz, as well as Olga Danilovic and Novak Djokovic, teaming up.

'Gimmicky sporting reformat'

The new 16-pairs format was hailed as an "exciting prospect" when it was revealed in February, offering tennis fans the chance to see the "world’s top male and female players competing alongside one another", said The Independent.

Even so, it's "difficult to shake the thought that this event has the feel of an exhibition" with its "quickfire scoring system" and the fact it was to take place "prior to the official US Open start date". The idea is in "deep contrast to the tradition and prestige which usually is the hallmark of any Grand Slam event".

You can see why the "truncated nature of matches" and "generous prize money" have attracted the top stars, but it does feel like in the "era of the great gimmicky sporting reformat, tennis finally has its turn", said The Telegraph.

The matches are best of three sets, with sets of up to four games, rather than the usual six. And there is no "advantage" point at deuce; the winner of the next point wins the game. But the very first match showed, however, that this "shortened, starry format has a future".

Doubles specialists prove point

The loudest objection has been that seasoned mixed doubles players have "lost an opportunity to win a Grand Slam" and "an avenue to make money", said Flashscore.

"But the facts are, people just don't watch doubles" and "supporters are only really drawn to their favourite singles player". Taking the "emotion out of it", the previous format "doesn't really make any sense" for players, who are "earning a fifth of the prize money, but they're not being watched".

Ultimately, it was Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani, the "only doubles specialist team" in the 16 pairs, who beat the "singles superstars" and took home the $1 million prize last night, said The Guardian.

The Italians had been determined to prove the value of doubles players and "made their points clear". But so did the US Open organisers. Their aim was to "create a bigger stage" for a format "deemed obsolete" and the interest it has subsequently generated is "undeniable".

And the 25,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium was almost full for yesterday's semi-finals and final, "with only a slither of empty seats at the very back", said the BBC.

Al-Ahli Tripoli were crowned champions of the Libyan Premier League last week not in Tripoli, or even Libya, but in Milan.

Political instability and logistical issues have made it difficult to host matches safely in Libya, and the fact the newly crowned champions' 2-0 victory over rivals Al-Hilal Benghazi took place in Italy was the latest example of a "curious collaboration" between the two nations, said The New York Times.

Explosive enmity

The play-off games between Libya's top six clubs have been held in closed stadiums in Italy in front of a handful of invited guests, to minimise the possibility of conflict.

But the game between Al-Ahli Tripoli and Al Ittihad "descended into a melee" that saw "rival players and staff members kicking and punching one another, forcing the police to move in", said The New York Times. The on-pitch clash mirrored the "security and political crisis" that "continues to plague" Libya more than 10 years after the "bloody overthrow" of Colonel Gaddafi.

Libya's football league is split between an eastern and western conference, with the top sides in each division facing each other in a play-off to decide the overall winner. But with the west and east of Libya run by separate and mutually hostile governments – the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, and the breakaway government headquartered in Benghazi – staging the tournament within Libya is not possible.

"Primarily, they would be worried about the security of it," Tim Eaton, a researcher at the Chatham House think tank, told The New York Times. "And it's not like they would accept to play it on one side or the other."

For the second year running, the play-offs have been held in Italy, an arrangement secured last year by Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose battle to stop migrant crossings to Italy relies on the co-operation of Libya's coastguard.

Authentic farce

The road to Sunday's final "hasn't been an easy journey", said La Gazzetta dello Sport. Even though all six games were played behind closed doors, organisers have had to contend with "hordes of fans always ready for confrontation, even including some officials", necessitating "a significant deployment of security forces".

The play-offs have been "widely described" as a "failure and a disgrace on all levels", said The Libya Observer. Players have complained of "poor hotels" and "inadequate training facilities", while Italian authorities allege "delays by Libyan officials in paying stadium and hotel fees", as well as "unsportsmanlike incidents" during games, where officials from the rival governments have often been seated almost side by side.

And while Italy has "taken up the role of neutral arbiter", it still can't "escape" the political divides that "roil" Libya, said The New York Times. Last year's final in Rome ended in farcical scenes when the championship was won by Al-Nasr, whose president is the son of Khalifa Haftar, the dictator who rules eastern Libya.

In protest at the EU's refusal to recognise the Benghazi regime, the team refused to walk on to the pitch to receive their medals, leaving Italian dignitaries standing in an empty field. An "impromptu celebration" was held in a car park outside.

Hulk Hogan brought the over-the-top theatricality of pro wrestling into mainstream American culture. A comic book character come to life, the 6-foot-7, 320-pound mustachioed colossus would enter the arena to the song "Real American," cup his hand to his ear to encourage the crowd's roars, flex the bulging biceps he called "24-inch pythons," and rip off his shirt before facing his opponent. As the face of Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation, he was everywhere in the 1980s and 90s—appearing in commercials, sitcoms, and even his own animated series. His Main Event bout against Andre the Giant was watched by more than 33 million people. His advice to "Hulkamaniacs" was always simple: "Train, say your prayers, eat your vitamins, be true to yourself, and true to your country."

Born weighing "a formidable 10 pounds, 7 ounces," said the Los Angeles Times, Terry Gene Bollea got his bulk from his construction-worker father and his showmanship from his dance-teacher mother. Growing up in Tampa, he was a star pitcher in Little League and then a bass player in local bands, but he longed to break into wrestling. Approached by wrestling scouts in 1976, he went pro the following year and joined the WWF in 1983. His charisma and McMahon's promotional talents proved "a formula for success." Hogan headlined eight Wrestlemania events, starred in three movies, and had a recurring stint on The A-Team, all while hawking endless merchandise and doing plenty of charity work. The Make-a-Wish Foundation named him its most requested celebrity in 1992, "and he reportedly visited as many as 20 sick children a week."

Yet "weightlifting alone" wasn't responsible for Hogan's beefy physique, said The Times (U.K.). McMahon was tried for drug trafficking in 1994, and Hogan admitted to steroid use. He jumped to World Championship Wrestling for a few years, playing a heel, or wrestling villain, before returning to his home league and persona. Decades later he was embroiled in a "completely different, but no less sensational" scandal, said Rolling Stone. In 2012, gossipy news site Gawker ran a clip of a sex tape featuring a 2006 encounter between Hogan and Heather Clem, who was married to Florida shock jock "Bubba the Love Sponge." With the financial help of tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Hogan sued and won $31 million in 2016, which bankrupted Gawker. During the appeals process, "another tape leaked," which showed Hogan, ranting about his daughter's Black ex-boyfriend, making "liberal use of the N-word." The WWE (by this time renamed from WWF) promptly terminated his contract and wiped him from its Hall of Fame. But "the punishment didn't last long," and he was reinstated in 2018.

Hogan "remained in the spotlight" to the end, said The New York Times. A longtime friend of wrestling fan Donald Trump, he gave a well-received endorsement speech at the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee. Tearing off his Hulk Hogan shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt underneath, he roared, "Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!"

Cats are said to have nine lives but England's Lionesses "seem to have an infinite number" as they once again secured a place in the Euros final, said the BBC.

Frequently "written off", the team has struggled with a host of issues both on and off the pitch, from scrutiny about form and injuries to players being racially abused online. It led head coach Sarina Wiegman to insist there was "no crisis" despite the "unsettling period".

Against Italy in the semi-final, "defeat was beckoning" once more, said The Telegraph, but this is a team that "just never know when to give up". Despite the odds, the Lionesses "found a way to get through", securing the team's third consecutive major final appearance.

'Frail, exposed, outgunned'

For England, the build-up to the Euros, where they are the defending champions, was "tumultuous", said the BBC. "Distractions off the pitch" included two senior players – Mary Earps and Fran Kirby – announcing their retirements, and then captain Millie Bright withdrew from the squad saying she couldn't "give 100% mentally or physically".

"Frail, exposed and outgunned", according to The Times, the Lionesses lost their opening group game, to France. The holders' campaign was "on its last life".

With the pressure on, England came out fighting. Impressive wins over the Netherlands and Wales brought a quarter-final against Sweden, but there they reverted to type. Two-nil down after 25 minutes, they clawed their way back to 2-2 and then survived the "weirdest penalty shootout ever", with the worst conversion rate in women's Euros history, said ESPN.

A first-half goal from Italy in the semi-final seemingly left England "devoid of inspiration", said The Athletic. Yet, "with all hope seemingly lost", goals from substitutes Michelle Agyemang and Chloe Kelly saved the Lionesses "again".

"Can anyone stop a team this determined not to go home?"

'Comeback queens'

While they have reached the final, the Lionesses' "flagging and flailing" performances have not inspired confidence, said The Guardian. Delivering little else other than "slow-cooked panic" and 11th-hour redemption, the team has "one more chance" to shine.

"Win or lose on Sunday", it's time to reassess the "future" of this team. Weigman should abandon her "staunch loyalty to her class of 2022" in favour of new blood such as Agyemang, Aggie Beever-Jones and Grace Clinton.

Yet England's path to the final has consistently defied logic. Opposition teams have given them "chance after chance" to save themselves, despite often lacklustre performances, said The Telegraph.

While it's "doubtful" such opportunities will be afforded to them by Spain in the final, you simply "cannot bet against" these "comeback queens".

The Euros might feel a little quieter after Sweden was knocked out at the quarter-final stage by England's Lionesses last night.

A group of Swedish football fans have been bringing colour, noise and a party atmosphere to the Uefa Women's European Championship in Switzerland.

The "Soft Hooligans" were formed after the 2017 women's Euros. We wanted to do something to "create a loud and inclusive culture around women's football", the group's founder, Estrid Kjellman, told London's The Standard. And, despite the use of "hooligans" in their name, the group is all about "good vibes and good vibes only".

'Like we were completely crazy'

Soft Hooligans have been "creating an atmosphere that's worlds away from past women's Euros", using "marching, drumming, and cheering, with boisterous show tunes" to support their team, said Jezebel.

Kjellman and her family were shocked at how "incredibly dead" the stands were at Euro 2017. When we cheered on the Swedish team, people "looked at us as if we were completely crazy", she told France24. "We joked that we were hooligans. And then we were like, 'But we're not like other hooligans, we're soft hooligans.'" And so the group was born, with a Facebook post soon recruiting others.

The group now has more than 5,000 members and, although it is not formally organised, the members come together under the same goal of loud and colourful support of the national team. You can spot them by their "drums, megaphones, banners and flags", including huge tifo displays featuring portraits of Swedish players, said The Guardian. The group's "core values", said France24, are that "everyone should feel welcome".

'A long way to go'

Soft Hooligans has not been without its detractors, facing "mockery online over its name" as well as being "ridiculed for not following the so-called norms of supporter culture", said The Guardian. But the group's swelling ranks mirror the rising interest in women's football, with a "record-breaking number of applications for tickets from Swedish fans for the Euros", up 70% from the last tournament in 2022.

There is still some way to go before interest in women's football reaches parity with men's football, though. Only between 11% and 20% of people surveyed across a selection of six European countries said they were interested in women's football, according to a recent YouGov poll, compared with between 32% and 40% who said they had an interest in football in general.

Kjellman agrees that women's football is "still very marginalised" but she remains "optimistic about younger generations", said France 24. "Women's football is much more accepted today," she said, and the "culture in the stands is also a big part of making it more and more interesting to go to women's football matches".

Despite Formula 1 being a cultural touchstone for millions across Europe, the sport has historically struggled to gain significant traction in the United States. That has been flipped upside down in recent years. The open-wheel racing organization is gaining steam in the U.S., where NASCAR has long dominated the auto racing market.

Thanks to some key marketing and business decisions, Formula 1 has finally cracked the code on getting eyeballs and market share in the U.S. Crucially, the Netflix show "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" introduced millions of Americans to the sport. But while Formula 1 has undoubtedly experienced an increase in its U.S. viewership, some industry experts say there may be nowhere left for it to go.

How popular is Formula 1 in the US?

Formula 1 fandom in the U.S. has been growing rapidly over the past few years. The 2025 Global F1 Fan Survey, performed by the organization itself, polled Formula 1 fans in 186 countries. Of all of these nations, the U.S. "accounts for the largest share of respondents of any individual country," said the survey.

Younger audiences have largely been pushing this wave of Formula 1 popularity, and in the U.S., at least 70% of Gen Z fans "engage with F1 content daily," said the survey. Many fans seem to enjoy the races not only on television, but also in person. Among all U.S. respondents to the survey, at least "73% plan to attend a US race in the future" and "37% have purchased F1 merchandise."

In all, there are about "52 million F1 fans in America, an increase of more than 10% from 2024," said Motorsport.com. On ESPN, which broadcasts races in the U.S., the network's "live race audience has doubled since 2018 and so far this year there has been a noticeable increase in viewers for the opening five rounds of the championship."

Why has Formula 1 become more popular in the US?

The Netflix series "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" certainly played a role, and has been "credited with everything from helping F1 crack the U.S. to rejuvenating the sport itself," said CNBC. But the "Netflix effect" is only part of the reason why Formula 1 has taken off stateside.

Formula 1 has made inroads in the U.S. due to a "blend of pivotal elements — strategic maneuvers that recalibrated its course, collaborative efforts that enhanced captivating broadcasts and the burgeoning emergence of American talents" in a sport still dominated by Europeans, said USA Today. One notable decision that precipitated Formula 1's rise was the "expansion of Formula 1 races going beyond the United States Grand Prix, growing from two events in 2017 to three by 2023." These circuits "played a pivotal role in enhancing the sport's appeal" and "didn't just host races; they became epicenters of electrifying events."

American companies have also been getting in on the action by partnering with Formula 1 races and teams, creating sponsorships to draw in more fans. Since "2018, the number of American-based partners has more than doubled," said Bjorn Stenbacka of Spomotion Analytics to Motorsport.com. To "see the reach of American brands, Ferrari is a great example." Ferrari's racing division, Scuderia Ferrari, is widely considered the most iconic and popular Formula 1 team in history, and Italy has been the "number one country on its partnership list" from the beginning. But in 2024, the "U.S. passed Italy — a historical switch — and this year, so far Italy and the U.S. are equal."

Today, the team is officially known as Scuderia Ferrari HP after a branding deal with American technology company HP. All of these factors combined have resulted in a major boom in U.S. viewership. The 2024 Miami Grand Prix "attracted the largest live U.S. television audience on record for F1 as an average of 3.1 million viewers watched," said ESPN. As with other races, younger people made up a majority of the viewership; the "audience in the persons ages 18-49 demographic averaged 1.3 million."

Has this popularity plateaued?

Despite Formula 1's obvious U.S. growth, there are concerns that its popularity may have reached its peak. This was especially evident after the 2023 racing season, because while "attendance at live events stayed relatively strong in 2023, American TV ratings tumbled a bit," said The Athletic. The numbers increased in 2024, but there are still viewership oddities, particularly when it comes to the Miami Grand Prix.

That race "averaged 3.1 million viewers (a record for an F1 event)" in 2024, but "this year the number was about 30% lower, though that still makes it the year's most viewed race," said Bloomberg. However, there may be a simple explanation for why Formula 1 saw a tapering off: a lack of competition on the course.

This is largely because of the on-track supremacy of Max Verstappen. The 27-year-old Dutch-Belgian phenom has become a dominant force driving for Red Bull Racing and has become the face of Formula 1. Throughout 2023 and 2024, there was "consternation within the sport that Verstappen's stranglehold on the competition could jeopardize F1's hard-fought expansion of its U.S. fan base," said Front Office Sports. Verstappen drove to victory so regularly (particularly in 2023 when he won 19 out of 22 races) that any race he is a part of is "never going to be the best to watch, and the only exciting races have been the ones that Max is not in," said McLaren driver Lando Norris.

But while Verstappen dominated in 2023 and 2024, his 2025 has been far less successful, and he has only won two Formula 1 races in the first half of the year. This means that the races are getting more competitive and as a result, viewership could rise again. Verstappen's "lack of dominance has been a positive development toward making the sport feel less formulaic," said Bloomberg. And a tapered fandom could be burst wide open if an American were to see the kind of on-track successes that Europeans do.

If "you do get a U.S. driver and they are flamboyant, loud and successful, which is the most important piece, it could unlock a new level of viewership," John Suchenski, ESPN's senior director for programming and acquisitions, told Bloomberg. "I don't think it's necessary for the sport to thrive, because it does well with these international stars and the teams' brands are so strong, but it's an opportunity for growth if it were to happen."

The odds that an American driver dominates Formula 1 are probably low. A U.S. driver has not won a Formula 1 race in nearly five decades — Mario Andretti was the last to do so in 1978. While 58 American-born drivers have participated in Formula 1 races, the sport does not currently have any drivers born in the United States.

Kirsty Coventry broke several barriers when she became the president of the International Olympic Committee on Monday, as she is both the first woman and first African person to hold the position. Coventry's election to run the IOC shouldn't come as much of a surprise given her long history in Olympic athletics as a former competitive swimmer. But she will also be taking over an IOC with several looming questions, which could make her tenure as president a crucial one.

Coventry's career

Coventry, 41, was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, and learned to swim at a young age. After high school, she accepted a scholarship to swim for Auburn University in Alabama and continued honing her skills in the water, according to the South African swim history database.

The athlete went on to compete in swimming events at five Olympics, winning two gold medals, four silver medals and one bronze medal. This makes Coventry the "most decorated Olympian from Africa, having won seven of Zimbabwe's eight Olympic medals to date," said Business Insider Africa. Coventry is also a five-time world record holder, according to her alma mater.

IOC president

As Coventry settles into her new role, she will be "expected to move quickly to shape the organization," said the Sports Business Journal. This includes focusing on commercial evolution and sponsorship deals for the Olympics, as the "media landscape fragments and sponsors seek greater involvement to leverage their assets." Spearheading the next decade of Olympic Games is also a priority, with hosts for the Summer and Winter Games set through 2034.

The most pressing matter will likely involve dealing with the Olympics on the world stage, especially regarding controversial issues. This includes questions over gender roles, as the "first Summer Games under a female presidency will be the first with a majority of athlete quota places for women," said The Associated Press. Coventry "often states the importance of 'Olympic Values,' which include gender parity, inclusion and inspiring young people through sports," which she will likely prioritize during her tenure.

But Coventry has also taken less clear stances on other matters; when "asked whether she thinks trans women should be allowed to compete in women's competitions, she was evasive," said Deutsche Welle. She also "avoided going too far out on a limb on another hot topic before the IOC election: the possibility of Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at the Olympics." Russian athletes have been banned from competing under the Russian flag since 2017, and the Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended since 2023. At "some point in Coventry's presidency, Russia could possibly return fully to the Olympic family," but it is "unclear exactly when," said the AP.

As she gets started on her to-do list, Coventry "may end up being a lot more independent and interesting" than the IOC was expecting, said The Guardian. While the new president is "likely to enjoy a honeymoon period, she knows there are landmines lurking everywhere." Even the "biggest of beasts would struggle to lead a mammoth organization that not only runs the Olympics but is a cheerleader, funder and regulator for much of sport."

But Coventry is up for the challenge. "The way in which I like to lead is with collaboration," she told reporters. "All those people who may look at me and see one thing, kind of excites me. Because I think that they won't see what is coming."

"Scratching around for form and struggling with tonsillitis" is how Britain's Wimbledon hopeful Jack Draper is feeling before the biggest tournament of them all next week, said the Daily Mail.

Draper "was a bubbling volcano of emotion" during his semi-final at Queen's Club in London. When his Czech opponent Jiri Lehecka "hammered a backhand past him for the decisive break of serve", the 23-year-old Draper "erupted, smacking his racket into an advertising hoarding".

"I don't condone that behaviour but that’s where I was at today," said Draper, who is ranked No.4 in the world. "When you're not feeling great, your energy is really low, you use everything you can to get yourself up."

'Fighting spirit' or 'missed opportunity'?

Queen's was Draper’s first grass-court tournament of the season, and he had been "trying to find rhythm and comfort", said The Guardian. But Lehecka "bulldozed everything in his path", beating the home favourite 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 to set up a final with Carlos Alcaraz.

Despite the loss, Draper's showing at Queen's, which included wins over Alexei Popyrin and Brandon Nakashima, was promising and he will go into Wimbledon as the fourth seed in the men's singles.

Some fans believe his performance at Queen's has "affirmed a vital point" that could work in his favour when Wimbledon kicks off next week, said The Observer: he has a "fighting spirit, and will scrap when a match lurches away from him". For others, however, the fact that Draper "missed a gilded opportunity against an opponent ranked 30 in the world" may prompt them to view his Wimbledon chances "more realistically".

A challenger to Alcaraz?

The challenge Draper will face at Wimbledon is clear. Spain's Carlos Alcaraz "is on another level", said The i Paper, having won Queen's and the French Open back-to-back and now aiming for his third straight Wimbledon title. Draper's seeding means he would escape a match-up with Alcaraz until at least the semi-final, but beating him over five sets is a "daunting" prospect.

Still, he has done it before. He is the only player to beat Alcaraz on grass in the last two years. "Draper is absolutely a contender to win Wimbledon," said Sky Sports. “He is definitely a contender to make the final."

But the question remains whether Draper can pull off a mammoth feat in overcoming Alcaraz, who remarkably is only No.2 in the world, and the current No.1, Jannik Sinner. The chances of Draper being able to beat both of them "back-to-back" at Wimbledon seems "unlikely" right now. But "maybe in the future".

A racegoer was hospitalised and hundreds more were treated at Royal Ascot's medical centre as a heatwave brought sizzling conditions to this year's meeting.

News coverage was of how "lengthy queues" formed at the water dispensers as spectators in top hats and tails "sweltered", said The Telegraph, marking a change from last year's gathering, when police made 36 arrests for assault, drink driving and possession of class A drugs.

'Defecating on doorsteps'

Ascot is a "picture-postcard" British town, Josh Saunders said in The Sun in 2023, but residents have found themselves "bracing themselves for bedlam" during Royal Ascot in recent years. Locals told Saunders they faced "pissed-up revellers urinating on their properties, defecating on doorsteps and brazenly snorting cocaine off walls". "Yobs" had brawled in the street and the litter left behind attracted "vermin".

It's not just Royal Ascot that hits the headlines for the wrong reasons. Ladies Day at the Grand National festival is meant to be "one of the most glamorous days" in the racing calendar, wrote John Jones on Wales Online, but it's become "debauched", with fights at the 2024 event. "Shocking" pictures included a "suited man with blood pouring out of his mouth" shaping up to hit another racegoer.

Police warnings that there would be zero tolerance for misbehaviour at this year's Grand National fell on deaf ears as racegoers began "pouring their own pints" after being "left shocked" by the cost of drinks, wrote Zac Campbell on Mail Online. Four pints of Guinness set fans back a "staggering" £31.20, a glass of Prosecco was £12, while a bottle cost £46.

Cheltenham Festival also saw "fights, drinking and harassment" in 2024, said ITV News, but drinking rules were actually "relaxed" at the meeting this year in a bid to address a "sales slump", said Will Humphries in The Times. Where boozers were previously "corralled into bars with TV screens and segregated hospitality areas", this year people were allowed to "take their drinks trackside".

Drinks "on the lawns and within sight of the running rail" was expected to "infuriate" more traditional racegoers, who "simply want to focus on the horses", said Greg Wood in The Guardian. An 80-year-old woman told Humphries that "there was a man so drunk at 10am that he was wobbling around", while a 76-year-old man said it was a "shame" that the racing wasn't enough "for some people" and that drinking "seems to take over" in the "modern world".

'Snob and mob'

The increased drunkenness at racing events has attracted attention beyond Britain: compiling a gallery of racegoing debauchery for the US site Defector, Kathryn Xu noted that "extremely drunk, extremely dressed-up" English people had misbehaved at the 2024 Grand National.

But it's not booze that's ruining racing, wrote Arabella Byrne in The Spectator, it's the middle classes. Ascot "ought to be" a "proper knees-up", except "it's not" because the organisers have engaged in "aggressive commercialisation", transforming the meeting into an "exercise in manicured social segregation led by the Middleton classes".

This is a shame, she added, because "horsey and racing circles" have always been based on a mix that's "one of the great curiosities of English social life: snob and mob". In fact, "true toffs" prefer the experience to be a "bit more bonkers and a lot more louche".

Elite footballers are being treated "like entertainers, not performers", a coach working with a major Premier League club told The Athletic in March.

With the calendar of fixtures for top teams becoming ever more congested, it's "little wonder the game is starting to snap, mostly in the form of players’ hamstrings", said The Independent.

Breaking point

"Football is at a breaking point," said ESPN last August, at the start of the "longest-ever" season in the game's history. With a new Club World Cup adding to the "workload" of the top players and an expanded Champions League meaning eight group games rather than the previous six, players are having to deal with "more games, more competition" and "significantly less rest". And that comes with a corresponding impact on their "physical and psychological reserves".

Speaking to the European Leagues General Assembly in March 2024, the Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said that it "stands to reason" that if you "overload the calendar and the players", eventually "something has to give".

The words proved prophetic: injury lists have been "getting longer and also staying like that for longer", in "direct correlation" with the increased fixture list, said The Independent. Data from the Premier League showed that 60% of hamstring-related injuries during the season had kept the player out of action for a month or more, while between 2019 and 2023, just 40% of such injuries kept a player out for such a long period of time.

The style of football as well as the amount of fixtures is also a contributing factor. The popularity of "pressing" tactics means many players are regularly covering the equivalent of six miles per game. There's also a financial imperative. With around 80% of wages going to star players, coaches "inevitably lean towards" trying to play their big signings as much as possible.

Training tweaks

FIFPro, the global footballers' union, working in conjunction with performance experts, said that professional players should not play more than 55 matches in a season. A study by FIFPro followed 1,500 professional footballers in various countries over the 2023/24 season and found that almost a third (31%) played more than the recommended 55 matches.

Unable to control the fixture demands, clubs are looking at what happens on the training field. Although it may appear counterintuitive, tests have suggested that overtraining can have a negative impact on performance. Some clubs have embraced the "less is more" mindset, with only two scheduled training sessions during two-game weeks. Liverpool have started to schedule longer but less intense sessions instead of shorter, tougher sessions.

But with the expanded 2026 World Cup looming, there's even the potential for industrial action. Footballers have "yet to collectively walk out in protest" over any issue, said ESPN, but there are "historical precedents" of strike action in the NBA and NFL.

"If no one is looking after you, you need to look after yourself," said Maheta Molango, CEO of the Professional Footballers' Association, the players' union in England. "If you don't protect the people who ultimately drive the industry, you're going to end up having a problem."

The one-year countdown to the Fifa World Cup 26 begins today and the biggest men's football tournament on the planet is already beset with controversy.

The 23rd World Cup will be co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada, with America taking the lion's share of the venues. But Donald Trump's recent travel ban on citizens of 12 countries, as well as his attacks on the two co-hosts and the intensifying immigration raids, have created immense uncertainty about safety and logistics. And with Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, an attendee at Trump's inauguration, announcing an expanded format and an unprecedented half-time musical show during the final, it's being dubbed the "Maga World Cup".

'The Donald Trump World Cup'

The US administration's new travel policy does make exceptions for "any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, travelling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event". But there are no exceptions for travelling fans from the "banned" countries. And, for other fans, there are widespread concerns about long wait times for foreign visitor visas, the impact of the administration's swingeing cuts to federal departments, and crumbling public transport in host cities.

It's clear that Infantino has "fully draped the tournament around one of his favourite strongmen", said Leander Schaerlaeckens, a lecturer in sports media, in The Guardian. The 2026 World Cup will be "leveraged for the glorification of a leader to a degree not seen since Benito Mussolini dominated the 1934 World Cup in Italy". This tournament will "be remembered as The Donald Trump World Cup (trademark pending)".

England and Wales are halfway through their qualifiers while Scotland and Northern Ireland are yet to start, so it remains to be seen which home nations will make it to the World Cup. But yesterday, in a friendly match, England were beaten 3-1 by Senegal: their first loss to an African team in 22 matches. New coach Thomas Tuchel "felt the full fury" of supporters after the "embarrassing defeat" said the BBC's chief football writer Phil McNulty. England, quarter-finalists in the 2022 World Cup, were "abysmal" and, if that performance is an "realistic indicator" of their hopes next summer, Tuchel will "need to conjure up a miracle".

'Logistical headaches', 'meaningless games'

All the teams who qualify will already face one difficulty in the US, said The Independent's chief football writer Miguel Delaney. The "absurd" size of the tournament, taking place across three geographical zones (west, central and eastern), means "logistical headaches" for teams looking for a base with training facilities.

And the tournament format could be an even bigger headache. There will be 48 teams playing, split into 12 groups of four. The first 17 days of the almost six-week tournament will just be matches in those 12 groups; only after that will the 48 teams be narrowed to 32, so "70% of the tournament will be spent eliminating a third of the field". There is "a genuine danger everyone will be fatigued by the quarter-finals."

Every World Cup expansion since the 1930s has come under similar criticism, and there are certainly advantages for the smaller countries who manage to qualify. But all the extra matches mirror the wider problem of "congestion" in the modern football calendar, and the rise of "so many meaningless games, or competitive games where everyone is shattered".

Some senior industry figures are "openly comparing" Fifa to Disney, which flooded the market with more and more films from franchises like Marvel and Star Wars: successful at first but ultimately diluting the content – and the profits. "Somehow," one senior football source told the paper, "Infantino has made football's premium tournament worse. It's going to be an absolute mess."

The man widely considered to be the greatest sumo wrestler in history has resigned, compounding a bruising few years for Japan's ancient sport.

Last week Hakuho Sho left the Japan Sumo Association (JSA), the sport's governing body, the latest in a series of resignations among yokozuna, the highest-ranking wrestlers. Now, only four of the 10 most recently retired grand champions are still in the JSA.

"It's a significant loss of high-level experience and one that hurts sumo's efforts to both find and keep young talent in the sport," said The Japan Times. And the resignation of Hakuho – the most decorated wrestler in sumo history "by a significant margin", as well as a "major recruiter of talent" – is the "biggest blow of all".

'Sullied' samurai values

The origins of sumo date back more than 1,000 years, but Japan is the only place where it is "contested on a professional level", said The Independent. It is widely considered Japan's national sport, with many "ritual elements" connected to the indigenous religion, Shinto. Sumo is "highly regimented"; many wrestlers live in training facilities where "food and dress are controlled by ancient traditions".

Sumo "prides itself on being a repository of the samurai values of courage, determination and loyalty", said The Times. But that image has been "sullied" in recent years. The sport has been "plagued" by scandals involving "violence, match-fixing and mismanagement". Japan's dramatically falling birth rate has also "hurt sumo". According to government data released this week, Japan's birth rate dropped by 5.7% between 2023 and 2024. Last spring only 34 people applied to become wrestlers – known as rikishi – down from 160 at the peak in 1992. To "lure young recruits", the governing body relaxed the minimum standards for height and weight.

One wrestler's ascendance is seen as a "chance to increase the sport's popularity", and distance it from its controversies. Sumo may have its "smiling 30-stone champion": Onosato.

Onosato was promoted to the rank of yokozuna last month, "completing a meteoric rise to the summit" of sumo in a record span of just 13 tournaments, said The Guardian. Born Daiki Nakamura, he is the 75th yokozuna in sumo's history, and at age 24 the youngest since 1994. He's also the first Japanese-born sumo wrestler since 2017; in recent years Mongolian-born athletes like Hakuho have "dominated". His rise has been "widely hailed both for its symbolic significance and his calm, composed style".

"I hope he leads by example and lifts the entire world of sumo," said Nishonoseki, Onosato's stablemaster, who competed as Kisenosato.

A few big buts

But wrestlers who exert "total dominance" inside the ring often struggle with the strict rules and conventions of sumo, said The Japan Times. They are regularly "chastised".

Still, official censure or "condemnation by the media" is "easier to handle when you are top of the world and raking in trophies and prize money". But "it's a completely different situation when the limelight and all the perks are suddenly gone".

For wrestlers such as Hakuho, sumo is all they know. There are "few, if any, opportunities to develop the kind of skills and mechanisms needed to cope with the emotional turmoil that comes from such a sudden shift".

What makes the adjustment even harder is the "rigid nature of life" after retirement from sumo. For those who choose to remain with the JSA as coaches or stablemasters, there is "still little freedom in how they choose to live their lives day to day".

Now, after Hakuho's resignation, the future of his namesake event is unclear. The Hakuho Cup is "arguably the most important sumo tournament in the world" for children and adolescents.

For Onosato, like numerous current wrestlers, the cup was a "major milestone and motivator". It provides "invaluable experience for children from numerous countries", and was a link between amateur and professional sumo.

The JSA will "continue to survive and thrive", but it's hard to argue that "sumo hasn't been lessened without its most decorated champion". For the sake of its future, sumo should "figure out a way to stem the tide of such high-profile departures".

Over 20 years after receiving his OBE, David Beckham is set to finally receive a knighthood in the King's birthday honours.

The former footballer, who turned 50 last month, will be knighted after having "struck up a firm friendship with King Charles", reported The Sun.

One thing is for sure, Beckham has "certainly put the hours in" said Alexander Larman in The Spectator. "Not since Mohamed al-Fayed’s (doomed) attempts to obtain a British passport has anyone so assiduously cultivated a friendship with the royal family in order to achieve their desires."

Last year, Beckham "revealed he had swapped beekeeping tips with the King before being given an ambassadorial role with the monarch's charity", said The Telegraph, while he has "repeatedly rubbed shoulders with the King and Queen, and wore a new rose named in the King's honour when he met them at the Chelsea Flower Show last month".

A long time coming

"Year after year", Beckham had been notably absent from the honours list, said the Daily Mirror. Despite being the face of British sport for over a decade, as far back as 2011 Beckham's nomination for a knighthood was rejected outright after his tax affairs were deemed too complex and controversial to allow him to be made a Sir.

Then in 2017, it seemed as if "his chances were dashed" for good "when explosive emails were leaked where he reportedly lashed out at the Honours Committee for not including him on the list", said the Mirror.

After some much-needed diplomacy, and a huge amount of charity work, many thought a knighthood "would finally come in 2022, after he spent 13 hours queuing with the public to pay his respects at Queen Elizabeth's coffin", said The Sun. But Beckham again missed out. Then, to add insult to injury, The Sun reported that Beckham was overlooked again last December with the honour instead going to Gareth Southgate, the former England manager.

'Seemingly Teflon'

Despite his "fame, wealth and good looks", Beckham "has not always been his own greatest advocate", said The Spectator's Larman. In fact, "there has always been a faint ridiculousness to him, as if Frank Spencer had inhabited the body of Brad Pitt".

But this knighthood is testament to the fact that Beckham's brand is "seemingly Teflon", said The Telegraph's Marianka Swain. Despite "some major reputational blows, from the 1998 World Cup sending off and Rebecca Loos' 2004 claims of an extramarital affair to controversy over the Qatar-hosted 2022 World Cup", the former footballer "is entering his golden years more professionally successful and adored than ever".

The people who know Beckham best "talk about someone who shows absolutely no signs of slowing up and is utterly determined, with the help of some very skilful people around him, to keep building his own brand", said The Athletic's Daniel Taylor. But while he has often got what he wanted, the knighthood is something "he has craved for longer than he would probably wish to remember". If it is to be "Arise, Sir Goldenballs" then "it just might be the birthday present he wanted above all".

A new sport is slowly becoming a sensation, and it combines two pastimes that seem to be polar opposites: chessboxing. The game is exactly what it sounds like, as it combines chess and boxing to create a new spectacle. But while the sport is starting to grow in popularity, many people have not yet heard of chessboxing — and many still don't understand it.

What is chessboxing?

Chessboxing, as you might expect, intersperses rounds of chess with boxing. The sport generally "consists of 11 alternating rounds — six of chess and five of boxing — and each one lasts three minutes," said Chess.com. This is broken up by one-minute breaks. During the chess matches, a "single game is played with each player limited to a time control of nine minutes with no increment."

The "winner is determined by checkmate, resignation, knockout or disqualification by the referee." If a player does not win during the chess games, then whoever has more points throughout the boxing rounds becomes the winner.

Where is chessboxing being played?

Chessboxing tournaments are happening in various countries. In India, where chessboxing is "fast gaining popularity," the sport is said to have "developed from an image of men boxing on a chessboard in a 1992 comic book," said the South China Morning Post. The sport has since grown to span several continents; the "first European championship took place in Berlin in 2005."

But others "believe the sport's provenance can be traced to the 1970s in London, when two brothers grabbed headlines for playing chess after a few rounds of boxing at their gym," said the Post. Since then, various tournaments have popped up throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

Why is it gaining steam?

Chessboxing has become big because the major events are "top-tier in terms of entertainment, lighting, professional hosts, live streaming to multiple countries, all that kind of stuff that you would see in other kinds of sporting events," Matt Thomas, a world champion chessboxer, told USA Today. The sport is a "beautiful yin-and-yang and it's multifaceted, and I think that's really exciting to watch and be a part of."

Chessboxing has taken off particularly well in Europe because it "took lessons from boxing and wrestling in the way it presents the sport," chessboxing promoter Gavin Paterson said to The Economist. The "boxing impacts the chess and vice versa," creating a popular choice for people who want a unique entertainment option.

The advent of digital streaming has also helped chessboxing become more influential. Many "well-known YouTubers and other internet celebrities have tried to conquer professional boxing, much to the annoyance of purists and the delight of promoters who can market the bouts to younger, very online viewers," said Rolling Stone. At the same time, the "pro chess community has seen escalated drama around some of the world's top players, with match walkouts, accusations of corruption, huge lawsuits and outlandish theories about cheating."

Popular online stars like Twitch streamer Ludwig have "played on both trends," said Rolling Stone. Another "stunt saw YouTubers Cherdleys and Myth go head-to-head in chessboxing — though neither of them knows how to play chess." But this didn't seem to matter, as the "blend of strategic gameplay, physical violence, hyped color commentary and gonzo gimmicks struck a chord with people more accustomed to conventional esports streaming."

Everton's motto proudly declares that "nothing but the best is good enough", said The Guardian. The Premier League club's decision to move to a "sparkling new stadium" at Liverpool's Bramley-Moore Dock is an ambitious attempt to live up to those words.

After 133 years at nearby Goodison Park, the men's team will on Sunday play their final match at the ground, which will become home to Everton's women's team. The move brings hopes for the "birth of a new club", after years spent languishing in mid-table or worse in the Premier League.

'Catalyst for regeneration'

A new stadium has become "akin to a financial free kick" for clubs, said The Guardian, promising not only increased capacity for loyal fans, but "chunky revenue streams for decades to come".

For Everton, such plans are already in the works, said Liverpool's The Post. The "52,888-seater behemoth" is already being talked about as a venue for non-sporting events such as concerts and conferences. That income could help with everything from "signing footballers to new contracts" for existing players.

The club forecasts that the Bramley-Moore Dock ground will bring a "£1 billion boost to the city's economy", said Sky Sports, "and provide up to 15,000 jobs for local people (12,000 during the construction phase)". It estimates that 1.4 million people will visit the city each year to attend matches there.

But that ambition comes with a cost. Liverpool was stripped of its Unesco World Heritage status in 2021 because of the recent development along the city's historic waterfront, which includes Everton's new stadium.

The club's near neighbours Liverpool chose to scrap plans to explore the "profitable opportunites" offered by a new stadium in favour of substantial redevelopment of their existing ground at Anfield, said Football Ground Map. In so doing, they chose the best of both worlds: Anfield retained its reputation as a football "fortress" while the additional investment cemented a future promising "sustained success".

'Glory of Goodison Park'

But while the "commercial reasoning" behind abandoning one's "ancestral home" is hard to ignore, it's unlikely fans will find the "glory of Goodison Park" elsewhere, said former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy in the Daily Mail.

History offers cautionary tales. West Ham's transfer from Upton Park to the London Stadium in 2016 made big promises but delivered a "very dull atmosphere", said The Athletic. The nostalgic aroma of "onions, burgers and chips" was replaced by a "sanitised" and "apathetic" experience for fans.

Arsenal's challenges were similar, as a move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium in 2006 was supposed to usher in a new era of dominance. But as the manager at the time, Arsène Wenger, later admitted, "we left our soul at Highbury", said ESPN in 2020.

Everton will be acutely aware of these pitfalls. But whether its brand new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock will be an "asset or albatross" remains to be seen, said The Post.

Snacking on sunflower seeds is Spain's "national vice", said The Times. To many, they are "as Spanish as paella".

Eating pipas, which requires snackers to "deftly crack open the shells with their teeth and spit them out", is "associated with conviviality" – as well as occupying the hands of "those of a nervioso, or anxious, disposition".

But among Spanish football fans, the passion is such that one club has been forced to ban the snack from its stadium. The discarded shells "clog drains and pipes", "deteriorate the seats" and contribute to the erosion of the concrete floor, second division side Elche said in a statement. If that wasn't enough, they also "attract infestations of rats and pigeons".

'Horrible habit'

In Spain's football stadiums, pipas are the traditional "snack of choice", said Feast magazine. The "hard-core" snackers seem to "split and eat the seeds in a single swift movement without any trouble".

They're so popular that you might find yourself "wading through" discarded shells from previous games to get to your seat. Sometimes they're left there for weeks, until the floor is "literally covered in a grey carpet of salted shells that crunch under your foot like dead beetles".

"Despite the constant efforts of the club's cleaning teams, it is unfeasible to completely remove the waste after every match," Elche said in the statement. The club says the ban demonstrates "their commitment to sustainability", said The Athletic. Some clubs have also started composting the shells, but others have gone a step further.

In 2023, Valencia stopped selling seeds after its "iconic" Mestalla Stadium became infested with a "swarm of rats", attracted by the "horrible habit of chucking the shells on the floor", said The Sun. "Aggrieved locals" had also complained to the club about the noise of the machines used to sweep shells out of the stands. Fans bringing their pipas from home were urged to also bring a bag for the shells.

Spain's 'football foreplay'

"Pipas are not just snacks, they're Spain's football foreplay," said Athlon Sports. "Fans chomp through nail-biters, launching shells like confetti at a squirrel’s stag party." But Elche's cleaners "faced shell-mageddon weekly, with drains gagging and pressure washers sobbing". The janitors were "one husk away from torching the pitch in protest".

Match-goers, "once free to crack-crack-spit their beloved pipas like caffeinated woodpeckers, now face a nutty nightmare". The ban on these "salty sirens" has left traditionalists "spitting mad", and "cracked the fanbase wide open". "No pipas? Might as well ban joy!" said one, who was "probably carving a seed shrine".

But one fan told The Times that Elche's ban was "the best thing they could have done". They added: "Now they have to enforce the ban on smoking."

The "long-overdue" moment of an Asian player winning the World Snooker Championship for the first time "was supposed to be one of unalloyed joy", said Luke Baker in The Independent. But there is an "air of hesitancy around the celebrations".

China's Zhao Xintong "cut a swathe through qualifying and the main stage" in Sheffield to set up a final against Mark Williams, the Welshman "gunning for his fourth Crucible title". But Williams "proved no match" for the 28-year-old, who ended with 18 frames to 12 on Monday in "comfortable fashion", becoming the first Asian player to pocket the £500,000 in prize money. "So far, so fairytale."

But Zhao, nicknamed The Cyclone, was only competing as an amateur because he'd recently returned from a 20-month ban for his involvement in snooker's biggest match-fixing scandal, making him the "most complicated" champion in the sport's history.

Snooker's 'dark side'

It is "surprising" that Zhao is China's first world snooker champion, said The i Paper. The game arrived in China in the 1980s, taking off after it became part of the Asian Games in 1998, but now the country boasts about 300,000 snooker clubs. Out of the last 32 players at this year's World Championship, a "record" 10 were Chinese.

During the Covid pandemic, Ding Junhui (the first Chinese player to become world no. 1, in 2014) set up a snooker academy – a "kind of finishing school" – in South Yorkshire. Nearby Sheffield, home of the World Championship, became an "outpost of Chinese snooker". And that was where and when "snooker's dark side took hold".

In early 2023, 10 Chinese players were charged with varying degrees of match-fixing. Many were under significant financial pressure from travelling abroad to compete in tournaments, as well as "ill-judged gambling and betting habits", according to the independent report. Unable to return home due to the pandemic, they had become "lonely and isolated". "Established players Liang Wenbo and Li Hang capitalised on their vulnerability", said The i Paper. Those two were banned for life for their part in the "biggest scandal in the sport's history".

Zhao was the most high-profile player involved, having won the "prestigious" UK Championship in 2021 and reaching No. 9 in world rankings. But the report painted him as a "victim of sorts". He alone among the 10 did not personally fix any matches, but accepted charges of being party to another player fixing two matches, and betting on matches himself. He was "not a ringleader"; he felt he had "no other option".

'The game's missed him'

Zhao was given a 30-month suspension, reduced to 20 months after an early admission and guilty plea. He was forced to start from scratch as an amateur, playing qualifying school tournaments to earn a tour card.

"Two years ago I made a little mistake, now I've come back," Zhao told the BBC's Jamie Broughton in November last year. "I've practised every day. I knew I would come back so I need to keep confident in myself."

He apologised publicly, "bemoaning his own stupidity and pledged to come back to the game – in the backwaters of the amateur ranks – a better man", said The Times. Since he returned in September, he has won 47 of his 49 matches, and as a qualifier his journey to the world title was "longer than any other player in Crucible history", taking in nine rounds and 172 frames. "There can be little doubt that he has earned it."

Zhao rejoins the professional circuit next season as world no. 11 – but he is technically still banned from playing in China until July, as his sentence there wasn't reduced. It will "make for an awkward piece of small print to gloss over when he flies back to his homeland" today.

Although an estimated 150 million people in China watched the final, it still "remains to be seen" whether Zhao will be "lauded as a national hero", said the Daily Mail. But Ronnie O'Sullivan, arguably the greatest living player – who Zhao demolished in the semi-finals – remains one of his "staunchest supporters".

"The game's missed him," said O'Sullivan. Zhao's win "will just be amazing for snooker, and his life as well".