GLOBAL ASSOCIATION NEWS
FIFA President, Gianni Infantino has revealed that teams at the expanded 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico will be based in regional clusters during the early rounds to ease travel.
Speaking in Los Angeles to unveil the official logo and branding for the tournament, Infantino said the move was prompted by the scale of the 2026 finals.
For the first time the next World Cup will include 48 teams up from 32 and will be co-hosted by three countries, another first.
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Thai football chiefs apologised and promised “severe punishments” for wrong-doers after brawls marred the final match of the South East Asia Games’ football event against Indonesia in Cambodia.
Indonesia won the under-twenty-three match five-two after extra time, by which time Thailand had been reduced to eight players and the Indonesians to ten.
The sending-offs were in the wake of four red cards and two all-in brawls.
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Confederation of African Football CAF executives will meet in Algiers, Algeria, on Thursday to decide on the qualifying format for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The competition will be hosted by North American countries, Canada, Mexico and USA.
It will be an expanded World Cup with forty-eight teams taking part instead of thirty-two.
Africa will be represented by nine teams at the 2026 mundial.
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The Athletics Integrity Unit AIU says Kenyan athlete and ten-kilometre road race world record-holder Rhonex Kipruto has been provisionally suspended for an anti-doping violation.
Kipruto, who also won a ten thousand metres bronze medal in the 2019 world championships, broke the ten-kilometre road race world record in 2020.
Kipruto had been suspended “for the use of a Prohibited Substance/Method.
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NIGERIA
Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare has felicitated former Nigerian international goalkeeper, Emmanuel Okala on his seventy-two birthday.
Dare said “Emmanuel Okala is truly a rare gem in the game of football, stressing that he contributed a lot to the growth of the game, during his active days.”
Okala was a prominent and towering figure in goal for the Nigerian men’s national football team, called the Green Eagles.
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Flying Eagles head coach, Ladan Bosso has admitted Tuesday’s friendly against Colombia has strengthened the team ahead of their participation at the 2023 FIFA Under-twenty World Cup.
Bosso’s side rallied from two goals down to hold the South Americans to a three-all draw in Buenos Aires.
He stated that the match has bolstered the team mentally and psychologically for the World Cup starting in a few days.
The Flying Eagles are drawn in Group D with Dominican Republic, Italy and Brazil.
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Former Super Eagles winger, Garba Lawal has warned the Flying Eagles to be at their best if they are to make it to the knockout stages of the 2023 FIFA Under-twenty World Cup.
The team secured their place in the competition billed for twentieth May to twelveth June in Argentina after they finished third at the 2023 Under-twenty African Cup of Nations in Egypt.
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Former Golden Eaglets Coach, John Obuh, has apportioned the inability of the team to qualify for the 2023 FIFA Under-seventeen World Cup from the Under-seventeen AFCON in Algeria to inadequate preparation of the team.
According to the former coach of Kwara United, the Golden Eaglets’ performance in Algeria was a reflection of how ill-prepared they were.
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The match official for the Nigeria National League matchday 8 tie between Vandrezzer FC and Warri Wolves has been summoned by the referee committee.
Vandrezzer petitioned the referee body for the display of referee Sunny Chibendu in their one-nil defeat to Warri Wolves at the Eket Stadium, Uyo.
The referee is expected to appear at the conference hall of the Nigeria Football Federation on Friday.
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The Management of Rangers International Football club of Enugu, has debunked claims that head coach Abdulahi Maikaba will be leaving the club at the end of the season.
The secretary of the Flying Antelopes, Ferdinand Ugwuarua, revealed that the club still has a running contract with the gaffer.
Rangers will, this weekend, trade tackles with defending NPFL champions, Rivers United, at the Awka City Stadium.
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Former Celtic striker, John Hartson says Glasgow Rangers should sign former midfielder Joe Aribo from Southampton if the opportunity arises to do so.
Aribo left Rangers for Southampton in the summer transfer window for a guaranteed fee of £6 million but has struggled to settle down in the English Premier League with Southampton.
The Super Eagles star has struggled for game time under three different managers at the club and could exit the club as they prepare for life after the Premier League.
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Heartland are on the verge of qualifying for the Nigeria National League Super Eight playoffs.
The team top the Southern Conference Group B with eighteen points after their one-nil win against Cynosure FC.
With five wins from their last eight matches, Heartland needs just one point to join Katsina United in the Nigeria National League playoff.
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Francis Ngannou is still eyeing a boxing fight in Africa with Anthony Joshua despite signing a new deal with MMA promotion PFL.
Ex-UFC heavyweight champion Ngannou has held talks with a number of leading stars in the squared circle ranks including Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and Joshua over a showdown this year.
With no official progress made beyond initial inquiries, Ngannou today announced that he has signed for MMA label PFL with a view to making his debut in 2024 once he has tied down a boxing fight.
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ENGLAND
Manchester City produced a stunning performance to reach the Champions League final as Bernardo Silva’s double put Real Madrid to the sword in 4-0 thrash, securing a 5-1 aggregate win for the English champions on Wednesday.
Eder Militao’s own goal and Julian Alvarez’s strike in stoppage time rounded off a memorable night for Pep Guardiola’s men as they moved to within three wins of matching Manchester United’s treble in 1998/99.
A fifth Premier League title in six seasons appears a formality with City needing just three points from their final three games, while United await in the FA Cup final third June.
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Coventry City found a way past Middlesbrough in an attritional semi-final second leg to reach the Championship play-off final and keep alive the Sky Blues’ hopes of a Premier League return.
They will face Luton Town in the showpiece decider at Wembley twenty-seventh May.
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Brentford striker Ivan Toney has been banned from football for eight months after he accepted breaking Football Association betting rules.
Toney has also been charged £50,000 and warned about his future conduct for 232 breaches of the FA’s betting rules.
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The Premier League are facing the threat of legal action from their own clubs who have accused them of failing to enforce their own spending rules.
The unhappy clubs are also considering bringing a parallel claim for damages against the Premier League on the grounds that they have not enforced rules which prevent clubs from posting losses of more than one hundred and five million pounds over a three-year period.
Meanwhile, Southampton, Leicester, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Burnley have put the Premier League on notice that they will seek a total of three hundred million pounds in compensation.
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Former Manchester United defender, Rio Ferdinand has questioned the leadership of Arsenal after their Premier League title challenge imploded.
Mikel Arteta’s side have been in pole position to lift the title for the majority of the season, spending two hundred and forty-five days at the top of the table.
Their form has dipped in recent weeks as they picked up just nine points from their past seven games and their challenge collapsed as they were beaten three-nil by Brighton.
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Former Manchester United defender, Jaap Stam, has suggested that his former club should seek to sign Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane over Napoli striker, Victor Osimhen.
Stam believes Kane knows the Premier League very well compared to Osimhen.
Kane and Osimhen have been linked with a summer move to Manchester United.
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Furious Newcastle fans have called for referee Rob Jones to be taken off their crucial Premier League clash with Brighton on Thursday due to concerns about his impartiality.
Newcastle head into the match at St James’ Park knowing that a victory will take them a step closer to a top-four finish, but they are being hunted down by Liverpool, who have won their last seven matches to move to within a point of the Magpies.
Jones has been assigned the game, but is based in the Merseyside area, and some Newcastle supporters are worried about the appointment given where he resides.
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Tottenham are exploring their interest in Feyenoord boss Arne Slot.
The team are on the look for their next head coach and Slot is emerging as a strong candidate after it transpired last week that Julian Naglesmann would not become the club’s next boss.
Tottenham are adamant there is not a top target, but Slot is high in the thoughts of the team’s hierarchy.
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Manchester United and Newcastle have emerged as the likeliest clubs to sign Sadio Mane with Bayern Munich keen to offload the winger following a miserable debut season.
The Senegalese star only joined Bayern Munich last summer in a twenty-seven point four million pounds deal from Liverpool.
Mane had been viewed as a marquee summer signing by the German champions having starred in the Premier League for the Reds.
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Manchester United star, Lisandro Martinez will miss Argentina’s tour of Asia this summer to concentrate on getting fit for the team’s pre-season.
The World Cup winners are scheduled to play Indonesia and China in June but Martinez wants to ensure he is recovered fully from a broken metatarsal which has curtailed a stand-out first season with United.
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Chelsea striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is to return to the Gabon side a year after announcing his international retirement.
Aubameyang retired as his country’s record scorer, with twenty-eight goals in sixty-eight appearances, in May 2022.
The forward said the return was prompted by a meeting with the African country’s president Ali Bongo Ondimba.
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Manchester City defender, Kyle Walker is the Premier League’s quickest player, having been recorded sprinting at twenty-three point three mile per hour in training.
The defender is known for his electric pace, but now aged thirty-two, there may have been some concerns that his speed could be on the wane, as many players have experienced after turning thirty.
The England star remains ahead of the pack, and is faster than any player in the English top-flight in at least the last three seasons.
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Arsenal are preparing a bid that would see them spend heavily on Manchester City’s Portuguese full-back Joao Cancelo.
Mikel Arteta is keen to reinforce his side after a failed Premier League title bid saw them lead for ninety-three per cent of the season but look set to fall short with Manchester City maintaining a four point lead and game in hand at the top.
Arsenal have apparently identified Cancelo who was shipped out on a midseason loan to Bayern Munich after falling out with Pep Guardiola, as a great option to improve their defensive quality.
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Bristol Rovers manager, Joey Barton will serve a three-match ground ban at the start of next season after being found guilty by the Football Association FA, over misconduct charges.
Barton was charged with three misconduct breaches by the FA following Bristol Rover match against Sheffield Wednesday in April.
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OTHER SPORTS
World heavyweight champion, Tyson Fury has fallen outside of the top fifty highest-paid athletes in the world after only fighting once in the last twelve months.
After beating Dillian Whyte at Wembley last April, Fury announced that he intended to retire from boxing and spent eight months away from the ring before opting to return to take on Derek Chisora for a third time in December.
Fury delivered a one-sided beatdown before stopping his old rival in the tenth round, but he has not fought since after talks over an undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk collapsed.
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In Tennis, Novak Djokovic has suffered his earliest exit at the Italian Open since 2013 when he was beaten by rising Danish star Holger Rune in the quarter-finals.
The Serb top seed, who turns thirty-six next week, was beaten 6-2 4-6 6-2 by Rune on the Rome clay.
Djokovic was bidding for his seventh title in the Italian capital as he prepares for the French Open on twenty-eight May.
Seventh seed Rune will play Norwegian fourth seed Casper Ruud or Argentine 24th seed Francisco Cerundolo next.
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In Formula one, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix has been called off this weekend after the region was hit by severe floods.
The decision to pull the race was made on Wednesday by Stefano Domenicali, F1’s chief executive.
Meaning a host of flights will be cancelled and hotel rooms left empty as most of the two thousand or so travelling circus will now not travel to Italy.
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In Cricket, England batter Lauren Winfield-Hill is expecting a “red-hot contest” in this summer’s Ashes series.
The multi-format series starts with a five-day Test match on twenty-second June.
Strong domestic performances saw Winfield-Hill, return to the England side in December 2022 after a ten-month absence.
Meanwhile, Australia currently hold both the 50-over and T20 world titles, the Commonwealth Games title and are unbeaten in four Ashes series.
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In Rugby, Saracens and Sale Sharks will both wear their away kits in the Premiership final twenty-seventh May to avoid a clash for colour-blind viewers.
Sarries, as the top seeds, would have worn their black home strip against the Sharks, who have a maroon away kit.
Colour Blind Awareness recommends avoiding the black against red colour combination for the benefit of supporters with a vision deficiency.
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In Golf, the second men’s major of the season gets under way on Thursday with the one hundred and five US PGA Championship taking place at the iconic Oak Hill Country Club in upstate New York.
A total of ninety-nine of the top one hundred players in the world will tee it up at the tournament, which unlike the Masters, US Open and Open Championship, does not feature any amateur players.
Shaun Micheel, the 2003 champion at Oak Hill, is in the opening group, which will get the championship started with a field of 156 players aiming to lift the Wanamaker Trophy, come Sunday.
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OTHER LEAGUE
Barcelona transfer chief, Mateu Alemany is reconsidering his future and may now snub Aston Villa’s interest to stay with Barcelona.
Alemany looked set to complete his move to Villa Park in the summer after agreeing to take on an unspecified senior role at the club, but appears to have left the Premier League side in the lurch after making a last-minute U-turn.
The move looks to be off, with Alemany has held a meeting with Barcelona to discuss remaining at the Nou Camp instead.
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Italy and Juventus captain Leonardo Bonucci says he will retire from football at the end of next season.
Bonucci won eight Serie A titles over two spells at the Italian club and made his five hundred appearance against Sevilla last week.
He also has one hundred and twenty international caps and was part of the Italy side that beat England to win Euro 2020 in July 2021.
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TODAY’S FIXTURE
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IN ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Newcastle United vs Brighton & Hove Albion
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EUROPA LEAGUE – SEMI-FINAL
Bayer 04 Leverkusen vs Roma
Sevilla vs Juventus
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EUROPA CONFERENCE LEAGUE – SEMI-FINAL
AZ Alkmaar vs West Ham United
FC Basel vs Fiorentina
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