IN ENGLAND
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Referee Anthony Taylor has announced his retirement with immediate effect, highlighting the impact of the intense pressure of the role.

Taylor, enjoyed a 20-year career spanning 831 matches, with his final game being Spain’s 1-0 win over Portugal in the World Cup last 16th on 6th July.

A prison officer before becoming a professional referee, he was first added to the Football League list at the start of the 2006-07 season.

Promotion to the Premier League followed in 2010, where he took charge of four hundred and thirty-two top-flight matches and officiated every major domestic cup final.

In total, he officiated six hundred and sixty-eight matches in the professional game in England.
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Chelsea midfielder, Enzo Fernandez has claimed Argentina represented their nation in the best possible way during the World Cup, despite ugly scenes during and after their final loss to Spain.

Fernandez was sent off late in normal time for two yellow cards and Spain won one-nil after extra time in New Jersey.

A statement on social media, the Chelsea midfielder did not mention the red card and said as time goes by, there is something much bigger than just a result.
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Chelsea is interested in signing England defender John Stones on a free transfer following his departure from Manchester City.

The west London side have joined Inter Milan in considering a move for the 32-year-old, who became a free agent when his City contract expired at the end of June.

Chelsea are also in talks to sign Crystal Palace defender Maxence Lacroix while assessing other options in the market, including Como’s Jacobo Ramon.

They are also looking to sell central defenders to make space in their squad for potential new arrivals.
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Aston Villa is in advanced talks to sign Alejandro Garnacho on loan, with a potential obligation to buy.

The Argentina winger, was made available for sale by Chelsea for forty-three million pounds last month, but the club are open to a move that could see him leave permanently, under certain conditions, even if it initially takes the form of a loan.

It follows Chelsea agreeing a record one hundred and seventeen million pounds fee for Morgan Rogers from Villa on Saturday night.

Since then, both Garnacho and striker Nicolas Jackson, available for sixty-five million pounds, were discussed in a separate deal that would see them move in the opposite direction to Villa Park.

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Bournemouth midfielder, Alex Scott has rejected a new contract amid interest from rival Premier League clubs in the England Under-21 international.

The Cherries made it a summer priority to tie Scott down to fresh terms, but as things stand there is no agreement.

Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham, Manchester City and Chelsea have an interest in Scott.

The 22-year-old, who joined Bournemouth from Bristol City in 2023 for twenty-five million pounds, has two years left on his current deal with the Premier League side.
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Ipswich Town have continued their preparations for their return to the Premier League by completing the twenty million pounds signing of Ghana winger Abdul Fatawu from Leicester City.

The 22-year-old signed a five-year contract and joins Gary O’Neil’s side after scoring sixteen goals in one hundred  games for Leicester since joining from Sporting in 2023.

Fatawu arrived at Portman Road with Ipswich willing to allow winger Jaden Philogene to leave, with the 24-year-old attracting interest from Europe.

Defender Cedric Kipre and forward Chuba Akpom also signed on a permanent basis following successful loans last season while goalkeeper Kayne van Oevelen arrived from Dutch side FC Volendam.

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A consortium led by British-Indian millionaire businessman, Amit Bhatia has expressed an interest in buying a minority stake in Liverpool.

Bhatia, the son-in-law of the Indian billionaire businessman Lakshmi Mittal, was director and co-owner at QPR for 18 seasons but stepped down from the board and relinquished ownership of the club on Tuesday.

The deal has not yet been finalised with FSG.

If the investment was to proceed, it would follow a similar structure to a deal made in 2023, when Fenway Sports Group sold a minority stake in the Reds to global sports investment firm Dynasty.

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Former Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson says Kevin Keegan carried the love of the game on his sleeve as he paid a fond tribute to his former rival.

Keegan’s death aged 75 was announced on Monday and Ferguson, recalling their managerial battles, praised the former Newcastle United manager for the impact he made with the Tyneside club.

Ferguson recalled that the pair bumped into each other at Wentworth Golf Club a few weeks after the end of the season and there was no animosity as they spent time together.
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IN NIGERIA
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Super Falcons’ camp in Casablanca has received another boost with the arrival of forward Folashade Ijamilusi, taking the number of players at the team’s Hotel Marriott base to twenty-three.

Ijamilusi, who plays for Chinese club Liaoning Shenyang Shenbei Hefeng, landed in Casablanca to join Justine Madugu’s squad ahead of the 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.

The former Nigeria youth international was one of the standout performers during the Super Falcons’ triumphant WAFCON campaign, scoring twice, including the crucial equaliser in Nigeria’s dramatic three-two comeback victory over hosts Morocco in the final.

The defending champions have continued their preparations at the La Noria Club in Casablanca before relocating to Morocco’s administrative capital, Rabat, where they will play all their Group C matches.

Nigeria will begin the defence of their continental title against Malawi next Tuesday before taking on Zambia and Egypt in their remaining group fixtures.

Ahead of the tournament, the Super Falcons will attend the official team arrival meeting with representatives of the Confederation of African Football and the Local Organising Committee on Saturday, 25th July.

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Nigeria’s Flying Eagles have settled into their base in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire, ahead of this year’s WAFU B Under-twenty Championship, which kicks off this weekend.

The defending champions arrived in Abidjan, the Ivorian capital, before continuing their journey to Yamoussoukro by road.

The Nigerian contingent is lodged at the Trio Corridor Hotel and will begin their title defence against Ghana’s Black Satellites at the Lycée Scientifique.

Abdu Maikaba’s side will next face Togo’s Sparrow Hawks on Thursday before rounding off their group-stage campaign against Burkina Faso’s Young Stallions on Sunday, 2nd August.

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Ahead of the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, Team Nigeria’s sprint contingent has received another major boost as Favour Ashe delivered an impressive victory at the BFTAA Open in Lee Valley, England.

The Nigerian speedster cruised to victory in the men’s one hundred metres final, clocking 10.06 seconds with a plus two point six metres tailwind to finish ahead of Great Britain’s Nicholas Walsh, who ran 10.11 seconds, while Ade Adewale of Great Britain placed third in 10.19 seconds.

Ashe’s performance comes at the perfect time for Team Nigeria as he prepares to lead the country’s charge in the men’s four by one hundred metres relay.

The athletics competition begins on Thursday, 23rd July.

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Niger Republic, Mali and Burkina Faso have announced their intention to jointly host the 2032 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON.

The Nigerien Football Federation said the Confederation of African Football, CAF had accepted a joint expression of interest submitted by the three countries.

The declaration represents the first stage of the bidding process and does not mean the countries have officially been awarded the tournament.

The three football federations presented the project following a meeting with CAF President Patrice Motsepe in the United States during the closing stages of the 2026 World Cup.

The proposed bid would bring together the three members of the Alliance of Sahel States for one of Africa’s largest sporting events.

CAF formally opened the bidding process for the 2028, 2032 and 2036 editions earlier this month, inviting all 54 member associations to submit proposals.

The governing body said bids would be evaluated covering technical, financial and legal requirements.

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OTHER LEAGUES
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La Liga President, Javier Tebas has called for Fifa president Gianni Infantino to step down, claiming the world governing body is destroying the football industry.

The head of the Spanish league also criticised World Cup hydration breaks, the final’s lengthy half-time interval, the postponement of a suspension for United States striker Folarin Balogun, and the future possibility of a 64-team summer tournament.

He stated that the 56-year-old has the support of national federations, and claimed Fifa’s election system is rotten at its core.

The head of Spain’s top flight was in the US to see his country win the 2026 World Cup.

Infantino is expected to be re-elected for a fourth term at Fifa’s March congress, although Tebas believes Infantino could have been brought down as a consequence of his involvement in the case around Balogun.

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Former Portugal manager, Fernando Santos has praised Bernardo Silva, calling him a phenomenon and asserting that Real Madrid fans will love his talent and tactical intelligence under José Mourinho.

Santos, who managed Bernardo Silva at the international level, spoke highly of the player’s abilities as both an athlete and a person following his move to the Spanish capital.

While he generally avoids making direct comparisons, Santos acknowledged stylistic similarities between Bernardo and Real Madrid legend Luka Modrić, particularly regarding their immense technical ability and work ethic for the team.

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Argentina goalkeeper, Emi Martinez says he is considering whether it is time to step aside from international football after his side’s one-nil defeat to Spain in the World Cup final.

The 33-year-old won sixty-seven caps for his country and played every minute of Argentina’s eight World Cup games, keeping two clean sheets and conceding eight goals.

He was a World Cup winner in 2022, also claiming the golden glove award as the tournament’s outstanding goalkeeper.

Martinez played for Aston Villa since 2020 and has a contract until 2029, but has been linked to a move to Italian side Juventus this summer.

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Rangers and Celtic face disciplinary charges over the unrest that followed their Scottish Cup meeting at Ibrox in March, with a review warning that the ugly scenes came within a very small margin of becoming a violent mass confrontation.

The Scottish FA issued identical notices of complaints to both clubs as it published the independent review on the events surrounding the quarter-final tie.

Both are accused of breaching the SFA’s rule 37, which centres on good order and security and unacceptable conduct.

The rule covers policies and procedures and whether clubs take appropriate measures to identify and deal with supporters who engage in unacceptable conduct.

The clubs face hearings on 13th August.

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Saudi club Al-Hilal has agreed a deal worth sixty million pounds to sign winger Crysencio Summerville from West Ham.

The Netherlands international, has has clearance to undergo a medical after deal worth fifty-five million pounds and a further five million pounds in add-ons was accepted by the Hammers.

West Ham had previously rejected an offer in the region of forty million pounds for Summerville, who was also reportedly a target for Aston Villa, but a move to the Riyadh-based club is now expected.

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Sporting have received an enquiry from Nottingham Forest for centre-back Ousmane Diomande.

Sources in Portugal say they received expressions of interest from the Midlands club for the Ivory Coast international, but they have stopped short of an official bid.

Diomande is known to have a sixty-eight point two million pounds release clause in his contract but could be available for less this summer.

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OTHER SPORTS
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In Cricket, Ben Stokes grabbed the headlines once again with a typically gutsy century on his return to competitive action for the first time since retiring from Test cricket three weeks ago.

He even defied severe cramp to help Durham beat Derbyshire in the One-Day Cup.

The all-rounder was playing his first List A game for his county for nearly 12 years and displayed all of his hallmark grit as he battled repeated bouts of cramp – collapsing in pain as he reached his fifty – to drag his side to their target of 257 with a superb unbeaten knock of 108.

Ben Aitchison’s two early wickets pegged Durham back but Stokes found good support from Will Rhodes (45), Colin Ackermann and Ollie Robinson, as he hobbled past three figures to complete a stunning domestic return and seal a five-wicket win.

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In Rugby, Former Wales, British and Irish Lions full-back Leigh Halfpenny has committed his coaching career to Cardiff.

The 37-year-old was Wales’ kicking coach during the recent three-game Nations Championship summer campaign.

But, having ended his glittering playing career as a Cardiff player-coach as the 2025-26 season came to a close, Halfpenny will remain at the Arms Park working with their senior players and aspiring academy talent as a skills coach.

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In Golf, LIV Golf has suffered another blow with the announcement of a global alliance between the leading men’s professional tours.

Masters champion Rory McIlroy has welcomed the partnership that the PGA Tour and DP World Tour have struck with the Asian Tour, which had been linked with the LIV circuit.

LIV, whose next event starts at the JCB Club in Staffordshire on Thursday, is already reeling from the withdrawal of Saudi Arabian financial backing after the Kingdom ploughed in more than £3.75bn to bankroll its first three years.

The PGA Tour and DP World Tour’s new partnership with the Asian Tour was confirmed in meetings at last week’s Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

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In Athletics, Remco Evenepoel cut Tadej Pogacar’s lead at the top of the general classification by twenty-eight seconds with a dominant victory in the time-trial on stage 16 of the Tour de France.

Olympic champion Evenepoel completed the twenty-six point one kilometres course along the shores of Lake Geneva in thirty-two thirty-two minutes and nineteen seconds.

It was the 26-year-old Belgian’s second successive stage victory after he triumphed on Sunday’s mountainous 15th stage.

Evenepoel acknowledged it was pretty special to secure his fourth Tour stage victory overall on Belgium’s national day.
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

There are three ways to ultimate success:

The first way is to be kind.

The second way is to be kind.

The third way is to be kind… words from Mister Rogers.