Molineux tributes for Jota and Silva
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The Guardian
30 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Chelsea face doubts over registering signings with Uefa after £27m fine
Chelsea, Aston Villa and Barcelona have been fined by Uefa for breaking financial rules. Chelsea have been hit with a €31m (£27m) fine, with a potential further €60m looming over the next four years if they fail to comply with regulations again. They also face doubts over whether they will be able to register new signings in European competitions over the next two seasons. Villa have been fined a total of €11m with a further €15m suspended for the next three years. Barcelona have been fined €15m and are also at risk of further conditional penalties. Chelsea's punishment leaves them under pressure to make sales this summer before their return to the Champions League. Uefa's judgment included the detail that Chelsea would be forbidden from including new players in their squad for Europe next season and in 2026-27 unless they can show they have generated a cost saving with sale of players against acquisitions. Chelsea have bought Liam Delap for £30m and João Pedro in a deal worth up to £60m. They have agreed a deal to sign the Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens and will add Palmeiras's Estêvão Willian to their squad after the Club World Cup. Chelsea were already looking to make sales and are open to offers for Noni Madueke and Christopher Nkunku. A number of others, including João Félix and Raheem Sterling, have no future at the club. Sterling has two years left on a contract worth £325,000 a week. Chelsea and Villa breached Uefa's football earnings and squad-cost rules (SCR), the latter of which limits clubs operating in European competition to spending 80% of their revenue on player costs. Villa face being fined €5m for every year they breach financial rules. A new three-year cycle started in 2024-25. Villa are confident they can absorb the fine and strengthen Unai Emery's squad while agreeing to move in line with SCR. Villa and Uefa are understood to have agreed a 'glide path' to meet their targets. Villa, who are also confident of avoiding a possible points deduction from the Premier League after moving to sell their women's team to comply with financial rules, are adamant they do not need to sell key players. The future of Emiliano Martínez, however, is uncertain, and while Aston Villa are yet to receive a bid for the Argentina goalkeeper, they are braced for further interest in the 32-year-old, who is under contract until 2029., Chelsea, Manchester United and Atlético Madrid, are thought to hold an interest in the World Cup-winner. Reducing the wage bill is a priority for Villa. YesterdayOn Friday, the club confirmed they have terminated the contract of Philippe Coutinho, who has signed permanently for Vasco de Gama, his boyhood club. Villa want to trim the squad and offload fringe players, with Kaine Kesler-Hayden joining Coventry in a £3.5m deal and Emiliano Buendia, Louie Barry and Alex Moreno also poised to leave. Lyon (€12.5m), Besiktas (€900,000) Panathinaikos (€400,000) and Hajduk Split (€300,000) have also been sanctioned by Uefa.
Daily Mail
35 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
NFL star Stephon Gilmore recalls moment furious Bill Belichick left him in tears with brutal criticism
North Carolina football players: You've been warned. Head coach Bill Belichick doesn't care if you're a top recruit or, for that matter, Tom Brady. The first-year Tar Heels generalissimo will skewer anyone in front of the entire team for the slightest mistake. And if there's any doubt, just ask former NFL Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore, who was nearly brought to tears during one film session. 'He killed me one day, bro,' Gilmore told The Money Down podcast. 'It was when I first got there.' The cornerback was New England's big offseason acquisition in 2017, and although he would contribute to the Patriots' sixth Super Bowl win the following season, he had yet to find his footing in Foxboro. That all changed after an early-season game in which he failed to defend a 'bunch route,' which refers to a tight grouping of receivers along the line of scrimmage. 'I got picked,' Gilmore said, explaining he was bumped off his assignment by another receiver. Belichick apparently wasn't very sympathetic. 'Bro, he killed me the next meeting,' Gilmore said. 'I almost cried, how he did me. I ain't going to lie to you. I went to the bathroom, like man, bro.' Of course, there's a reason behind Belichick's tactics, as Gilmore soon discovered. 'I can tell you one thing,' Gilmore said. 'I ain't never got picked again after that.' Gilmore, who remains a free agent after playing in Minnesota last season, is far from Belichick's only victim. Even Brady got an earful, as remembered by former teammate and Hall-of-Fame receiver Randy Moss. 'Bill tore Brady's head completely off. Decapitated Brady,' Moss said during an episode of Apple TV's Patriots documentary, 'The Dynasty.' 'He said, "You guys are telling me that my Hall of Fame quarterback cannot complete a five-yard out?"' Brady, it seems, was a frequent target of Belichick's before their 2020 split. 'When I first got to New England, I was surprised how Belichick had treated Brady,' Patriots wide receiver Donté Stallworth remembered during The Dynasty. '[He] turns around, he looks at Brady, and he says, "What the (expletive) is this (expletive)?" 'He plays it again, and he looks back halfway, and he turns, and he says, "I can get Johnny f***ing Foxboro from down the street to make a better pass than this."' Long-time Brady teammate Matthew Slater had similar memories. Quoting Belichick, Slater said: 'The quarterback play here is just awful. This stinks.' Slater continued in first person: 'I'm sitting there, I'm sure my mouth is wide-open because I'm like, "That's Tom Brady. This guy has won four Super Bowls." But I think that speaks to Bill, right? 'To him, nobody is bigger than the team. He's gonna coach everybody the same because he feels like that's going to give the team the best chance for success, and honestly he's not worried about hurting anyone's feelings. He really doesn't care. If you're offended, get out, I'll find somebody else.'
The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Emma Raducanu tipped for a top-10 return after running Aryna Sabalenka close
Emma Raducanu came up just short on an electrifying night on Centre Court before being tipped to return to the top 10 by opponent Aryna Sabalenka. Raducanu reminded the tennis world what a special talent she is to push the top seed in a 7-6 (6) 6-4 defeat under the roof in a raucous atmosphere. The first set alone took 74 minutes, with Raducanu saving seven set points and creating one of her own, while she led 4-1 in the second before Sabalenka recovered to set up a fourth-round clash with Elise Mertens. Raducanu will now drop to British number three behind Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal, who is the last home woman left in singles, but that will not be the case for long if she can maintain this level. The former US Open champion has made it her goal to close the gap to the world's best and, having lost twice heavily to Iga Swiatek in the other two grand slams this year, she can feel very differently after her performance here. 'She played such incredible tennis and she pushed me really hard to get this win,' said Sabalenka. 'I fight for every point like crazy. 'I'm super happy to see her healthy and back on track. I'm pretty sure that she will be back in the top 10 soon.' For the second time in just over 24 hours, a leading British hope came into the press room with eyes red from tears, but, unlike Jack Draper, Raducanu will leave Wimbledon feeling she is closer to the very top rather than further away. 'It's hard to take a loss like that,' said Raducanu, who revealed she had sought solace in a locker room KitKat. 'At the same time, I'm playing Aryna, who is number one in the world, a great champion. I have to be proud of my effort today. 'It's nice of her to say that, but I think it was pretty clear the difference. In the big moments, she was able to convert, she was able to hit some incredible shots. I just need to keep working and get back to the drawing board and improve a lot more. 'It does give me confidence because I think the problem before was that I felt like I was gulfs away from the very top. Having a match like that where I had chances in both sets, it does give me confidence.' Unlike Draper, Raducanu is naturally at home on grass, with her exceptional ability to take the ball early, particularly on return, mitigating her lack of pure power. She gave Sabalenka a decent run for her money in their only previous meeting, in Indian Wells last spring, and a clean return winner off a second serve in the opening game showed the Belarusian that she very much meant business. Raducanu broke to lead 4-2 before ceding her advantage in a rush of errors – something she later blamed on problems with string tension in the indoor conditions. A remarkable 10th game saw Sabalenka fail to take seven set points, six of them through backhand errors, and the home crowd were on their feet when Raducanu broke to lead 6-5. But Sabalenka is a much stronger mental competitor these days and she played a classy game to break back before saving a set point in the tie-break with the coolest of drop shots. Raducanu dealt with the disappointment of losing the set extremely well and hit a purple patch to move into a 4-1 lead. She played her best tennis of the match to create a chance for the double break but just missed a forehand long, giving Sabalenka the chink of light she needed to power through to the next round. 'I don't think I could have made different choices, I think I should have just executed better,' added Raducanu, who will now turn her attention to the North American hard court swing. 'I'll probably find it tough to sleep tonight, or I'll be so exhausted and crash, I don't know. It's going to take me a few days to process that. But at the same time it really motivates me.'
