LIV Golf 2023: Year zero for LIV’s league format promises new dimension to circuit February 23, 2023 It is easy to forget amid the razzmatazz and rancour that characterised the first season of LIV Golf that its central tenet and primary point of difference to the game’s legacy tours was always that it was to be a US sport-style league featuring permanent franchises battling out over the course of a season for [...]
Why teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva could now be facing a four-year ban February 22, 2023 Teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva could face a four-year ban after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to reconsider her case. A 15-year-old Valieva helped Russia to win team gold at the Winter Olympics in Beijing a year ago, but the medals have still not been awarded as [...]
3pm blackout: Broadcasters open to talks over scrapping UK’s ban on showing live football on Saturday afternoon February 21, 2023 English football’s 3pm blackout could come under further pressure after broadcasters indicated a willingness to discuss scrapping the ban on televising live games on a Saturday afternoon. Executives in charge of TNT Sports, the new joint venture between BT Group and Warner Bros Discovery, say they will consider showing Saturday afternoon fixtures if league chiefs [...]
BT Sport to become TNT Sports: Here’s what it means for price, programming and existing customers February 21, 2023 BT Sport is to be rebranded as TNT Sports in the first major development of the joint venture between BT Group and Warner Bros Discovery. Under the rebrand, which will take place in July, programming will stay largely the same, with TNT Sports remaining centred around live Premier League and Champions League football, domestic and [...]
Wales coach Warren Gatland calls for compromise as strike threatens England Six Nations match February 21, 2023 Wales rugby coach Warren Gatland has called on his players and the country’s union to compromise in a contract stand-off that has cast doubt on Saturday’s Six Nations match with England. Gatland cancelled a training session and delayed naming his team for the weekend fixture as a result of the row, and insists that the [...]
LIV Golf adds another former European Ryder Cup star as Thomas Pieters joins Saudi-backed league February 21, 2023 LIV Golf has confirmed the 48 players who will be competing in its first season as a team-based league, with Thomas Pieters among the new signings. After an eight-leg invitational series in its debut season last year, the Saudi-backed big-money circuit returns this week in Mayakoba, Mexico, which will host the first stop on an [...]
Manchester United bidders want public statement from Glazers to show they are serious about selling the club February 20, 2023 Manchester United suitors want the Glazer family to go public with their plans for the club and quell concerns that they are not serious about a possible £5bn sale. British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar both confirmed submitting bids to buy the Premier League club last week, [...]
Former City lawyer tasked with reviewing demise of Wasps and Worcester Warriors in Premiership Rugby financial review February 20, 2023 Legal heavyweight Sir Nigel Boardman, a former partner at City law firm Slaughter and May, has been appointed to lead a review of the financial crisis engulfing Premiership Rugby. Boardman, 72, led the government inquiry into the Greensill Capital lobbying row in 2021 and last year called time on a near-50-year stint with the Magic [...]
Ed Warner: The European Super League isn’t dead yet – and it’s because of the Premier League February 16, 2023 “Laughable”, “all hot air”, “flimsy”, a “walking corpse”. So has English football, on a mostly unattributable basis, dismissed the attempt to breathe new life into the European Super League concept which unraveled so swiftly and spectacularly two years ago. But sat on this side of the English Channel, we would say that, wouldn’t we? Is [...]
Barcelona deny wrongdoing after £1m referee payments allegations emerge on eve of Manchester United tie February 15, 2023 Barcelona have strenuously denied any wrongdoing on the eve of their Europa League meeting with Manchester United after it emerged they paid a referees’ chief more than £1m. Spanish media reported that the club’s payments to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira were being investigated by local prosecutors over possible tax irregularities. Barca said the fees paid [...]