Early on during his stay in the Californian desert a year ago, Giacomo Naldi allegedly reached into his treatment bag one morning and accidentally brushed his left finger across the blade of a scalpel used to remove calluses, immediately drawing blood. Two days later, after Naldi had removed the bandage from his finger, his colleague … Read more
Phil Mickelson has opened a war of words with a fellow Masters champion, accusing Fred Couples of a “low class jerk move” with comments relating to Brooks Koepka. Speculation has swirled for some time that Koepka, who joined the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV circuit in a $100m deal in 2022, is seeking a return to the … Read more
Fifa has banned the former Gabon youth-team coach Patrick Assoumou Eyi, known as “Capello”, for life after its adjudicatory chamber found him guilty of committing repeated acts of sexual abuse against multiple players. Eyi – who left his post as head coach of Gabon’s under-17 team in 2017 – admitted charges of raping, grooming and … Read more
“Confident, risk-taker and big character,” Catalina “Cata” Coll says without hesitation when asked to describe herself as a player. The much-heralded promise of Barcelona and Spain has now become the present and the future and all it took was one summer. A dreadful ACL tear in February 2022 ended Coll’s season and, with that, her … Read more
Marcus Smith and Henry Slade have been dropped for England’s Six Nations clash with Italy on Sunday with Steve Borthwick overhauling his backline in an effort to kickstart his side’s spluttering attacking. Elliot Daly is preferred at fullback while Fraser Dingwall comes into the side at inside centre as one of five starting Northampton backs … Read more
The start of the run-up to a World Cup is traditionally an upbeat affair. New stadium launches, inclusion-friendly marketing and merch campaigns, the unveiling of a tournament song or quirky mascot: these are the traditional signals by which host nations announce that the big show is approaching. This time, pre-tournament preparations are taking shape a … Read more
“Again? Come on!” Mikel Merino says, with a look that gets across the “Seriously guys” sense of it. But there is laughter, too, from the Arsenal midfielder-cum-emergency-centre-forward because he knows this is how it goes, how it has been for some time, pretty much every time he stops to speak to the media after a … Read more
The Rugby Football League has reimposed salary cap restrictions on Salford Red Devils and summoned their new owners to a meeting on Wednesday to explain why players and staff still have not been paid February wages. Salford faced significant financial difficulty over the winter that led to the club securing a £500,000 advance on their … Read more
The forwards start caterpillaring at the back of the ruck. Alex Mitchell scrapes the ball to the back while the referee shouts, “Use it!” The fans know what comes next … It goes without saying that a successful sports team needs a clear gameplan; tactics agreed before kick-off and refined on the training ground to … Read more
“I’ve just moved house to a nice little village,” Andy Ward says. “Ideally I’d just get a few mowing jobs. That’s all I really need now. I don’t want to go back into cricket. After 40 years, that’s enough for me. I just want to have a bit of time. I want to enjoy summer.” … Read more