The Guardian

Liverpool to pay £100m plus £2om in add-ons France winger has been main summer transfer target Liverpool are closing in on a £120m deal for Bradley Barcola following a breakthrough in talks with Paris Saint-Germain. Barcola has been Liverpool’s main transfer target all summer only for PSG’s £145m valuation to prove a significant hurdle. However, further negotiations on Thursday night ended in an …

Today’s fluff knows how to live Ollie Watkins is on his way out and Nicolas Jackson is about to arrive but not all is straightforward in the world of Aston Villa’s transfer plans . Crystal Palace are doing their level best to hijack a move for Club Brugge centre-back Joel Ordóñez and have entered into talks for the Ecuadorian. This has forced Unai Emery and friends to seek an alternative, leading…

AFL sanctions Cats for failing to lodge variation to player’s contract Andrew Dillon says league would not accept same deal lodged today A schism has emerged at the top of the AFL over whether clubs can avoid future liability for head injuries, despite the league fining Geelong $140,000 for failing to lodge the concussion waiver signed by defender Jake Kolodjashnij. The Cats sanction was made of …

Sky could share content with ITV in next rights cycle Tests in England have been behind paywall since 2006 The England and Wales Cricket Board is planning to offer more rights packages to free-to-air broadcasters in the next set of TV contracts beginning in 2029, with the aim of broadening the sport’s appeal. While the ECB will not follow Cricket Australia by offering a bespoke free-to-air packag…

The women’s singles champion at SW19 on her off-court passions, growing up in Czechia, and the aftermath of achieving her dream Linda Noskova has spent almost her entire life working towards mastering her sport. She began travelling around Czechia, Europe and then the world for tournaments before she was a teenager. Her life decisions have revolved around tennis for as long as she can remember. T…

Before the IBF world heavyweight title clash with Filip Hrgovic on Saturday, Barry Jones and Andy Lee analyse the unbeaten fighter On Saturday night the 21-year-old Moses Itauma expects to become the second-youngest world heavyweight champion in history, after Mike Tyson, when he fights Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic for the IBF title at the O2 Arena in London. In an attempt to sift through the hype and…

Bruno Fernandes is the only surviving attacker from Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s attempt to bridge gap to rivals in 2021 Five years is a long time in football. Manchester United’s summer of 2021 is now remembered as the turning point in Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s reign; the sentimental decision to sign Cristiano Ronaldo the headline act as United set off on the wrong course after a few years of building stea…

Around this time last week Matthias Jaissle wore a sorrowful look as he spoke of his “disappointment” at the “negativity” surrounding a transitional young Newcastle side. Fast forward seven days and a team slightly unlucky to have been held to a draw at home by Liverpool last Sunday have now provided Jaissle with his first competitive win since replacing Eddie Howe as head coach. It is safe to sa…

The WNBA has attracted grifters who care little for basketball – and whose latest stunt exposes the hollowness of their supposed concern I regret to inform you that yet another dildo has hit a WNBA court. The Chicago Sky v Golden State Valkyries game was sullied by sex toys being chucked on to the playing surface on Friday . Aren’t we tired of all this yet? To paraphrase the Sky’s Natasha Cloud ,…

Possession numbers, the intense physicality and the pure rhythm of games all felt noticeably new as the season began There has been something oddly narcotic and moreish about the drip‑drip of fresh Pep Guardiola content either side of the start of the new Premier League season. Eras come and go. Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But four‑part Amazon Prime documentaries make angels of us all. …

The failure to replace Robert Sánchez remains a mystery but the new-look front three should buy time for the new manager’s principles to bed in After a weekend on which pretty much every potential challenger to Arsenal had demonstrated their flaws , there was a sense, perhaps even a need, for Chelsea to emerge as a serious contender – if only to prevent the title race becoming a procession. And w…

Joe Root’s side have golden chance to claim first series win since 2024 but are dealing with familiar off-field issues Here we go again, then. It feels like every Test involving England these days is one of critical importance in some way or other. On one level, this is good for business, showing the depth of interest compared with other, ahem, products. But it is not necessarily a good thing for…

League ends flag football and skills competitions Only original 88 selections will earn Pro Bowl status Players to be honored at Super Bowl week in LA The NFL is ending the Pro Bowl Games after repeated format changes to its annual all-star event. Beginning ⁠with the 2026 season, 88 Pro Bowlers will be selected but the NFL no longer plans to stage an ⁠AFC-NFC game, a ⁠flag-football matchup ​or an…

Boston was one of the finest players in the sport’s history Wigan plan series of tributes in Thursday’s Hull KR clash Andy ­Burnham says he is “heart­broken” by the death of Sir Billy ­Boston after the prime minister led tri­butes to the rugby league icon. Boston died on Tuesday at the age of 92. He was one of the sport’s all‑time great players, scoring almost 500 tries during an illustrious care…

The San Francisco 49ers owner’s arrest in Ohio over the weekend was quickly put behind him. Others are not so lucky The Wheat Hill Mobile Home Community sits off state Route 170, on the edge of East Palestine, Ohio, a town most Americans only learned about because a train derailed there in February 2023 and released toxic chemicals into the creek . I grew up in a trailer park like this one, and k…