Coral ditches Cheltenham Festival as Reeves tax rises on gambling bite January 28, 2026 Betting giant Coral has ditched the Cheltenham Festival after over 50 years due to government taxes on gambling. Duty on UK horse racing wagers was exempted from Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget last autumn but taxes on remote sports betting will be hiked from 15 per cent to 25 per cent in 2027. Coral’s parent firm [...]
Tottenham chiefs lobby Uefa to increase Champions League squad size January 28, 2026 Tottenham Hotspur are lobbying Uefa to increase Champions League squad sizes after Thomas Frank was forced to drop Mathys Tel for the second time this season. Tel, who joined the club in a £30m deal last summer, was cut from Tottenham’s squad before last week’s 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund to enable Dominic Solanke’s return [...]
Sights on Man and Ridge to land spoils in Sandown mud January 27, 2026 THERE’S plenty of high-quality action to look forward to this Saturday, with the first of two days from the Dublin Racing Festival as well as strong domestic cards from Sandown and Musselburgh. At Leopardstown, Willie Mullins’ Galopin Des Champs has the chance to make history by winning a fourth straight Irish Gold Cup (3.30pm) to [...]
Devil’s the numero Uno pick for the Albert Bartlett January 27, 2026 WITH Cheltenham Trials Day now in the rear-view mirror, we grow ever closer to the Festival, with the next meeting at Prestbury Park the big four days in March. Last Saturday’s action in Gloucestershire was informative on several fronts from an ante-post perspective, but it’s a race from Doncaster that has thrown up a Festival [...]
McMonagle to continue Hong Kong Romance at the Valley January 27, 2026 RACING in Hong Kong is back with another all-action nine-race programme at Happy Valley today, including the highly competitive Class Three O’Brien Handicap (2.15pm) over nine furlongs. You can guarantee the celebrations in trainer David Hayes’ household would have gone on long into the night following the success of superstar Ka Ying Rising at [...]
Bunta Baby can be main beneficiary of pace burn up January 27, 2026 CASPAR Fownes’ stable will have breathed a collective sigh of relief when Flying Luck won the finale at Sha Tin on Sunday. The ‘King of the Valley’ had been finding winners hard to come by in recent times and would have needed a pick-me-up, before arriving at his favourite venue with a strong raiding party [...]
Exclusive: Parliament must scrutinise Prem Rugby franchise plans, MP says January 27, 2026 The government has been called upon to scrutinise Prem Rugby’s franchise plan, which promises to be the biggest shake-up of the domestic game since professionalisation. It comes as the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is also accused of passing the buck over Covid loans to English professional rugby. Liberal Democrat MP Edward Morello told [...]
ICE a ‘militia’, says Milan mayor as agency sends agents to Winter Olympics January 27, 2026 The mayor of Winter Olympics host city Milan has called US ICE agents being sent to the Games part of a “militia” that is “not welcome”. The US immigration agency, which has been at the centre of two fatal shootings in Minneapolis in recent weeks, is sending agents to the Winter Olympics to support American [...]
Darts, private equity and fuelling the booming sport’s growth in America January 27, 2026 Nodor Group CEO Tom Brown and PDC chief Matt Porter on private equity in darts and how to realise the sport’s potential in North America. To the south-east of Nairobi, a world away from Alexandra Palace, 2,000 Kenyans are working diligently to feed the global explosion in popularity of darts. There, at the Nodor Group’s [...]
2030 World Cup final to be held in Spain not Morocco, claims Spanish FA January 27, 2026 Spain’s football federation, the RFEF, is confident that it will stage the final of the 2030 World Cup despite co-hosts Morocco building the biggest stadium on the planet for the tournament. RFEF president Rafael Louzan believes Morocco’s hopes of holding the final at the 115,000-capacity Grand Stade Hassan II have been dented by the country’s [...]