business

In the NBA, villainy rarely looks like chaos. It often arrives in the form of billionaires who believe their power serves a greater good. The NBA’s old guard of terrible owners – Donald Sterling, Glen Taylor and Robert Sarver – have mostly exited the stage, having offloaded their controlling stakes in recent years. Even James … Read more

The A-League Men will introduce a stricter salary cap to prevent clubs from engaging in a “player-spend arms race” under major reforms designed to ensure the competition’s long-term viability. The competition’s operator Australian Professional Leagues (APL) is on track to break even this year, which would prevent another drop in distributions to clubs, many of … Read more

It was the 57th minute when Unai Emery made a series of small circles with his hands as the pulses of everyone else in this stadium began to race that little bit quicker. Emery tapped his temples, reminding his Aston Villa players to stay focused, but, really, who was he kidding? Ezri Konsa had just … Read more

“Who was the first player to have a red card rescinded after a game?” asks Masai Graham. In September 1969, Northampton Town played away to Swansea in the old Division Four, which is an intro nobody expected to be reading in the year 2025. After 66 minutes their forward Frank Large, frustrated after the referee … Read more

What a night it was for Arsenal. A Champions League quarter-final at home to holders and perennial winners Real Madrid, and a resounding 3-0 victory. Two stunning free-kicks from Declan Rice and another impressive finish from Mikel Merino put them in a commanding position but, crucially, it was only the first leg. Real Madrid did … Read more

“This man is my hero,” Michael Watson says simply as he turns to Peter Hamlyn, the neurosurgeon who saved his life and carried out seven operations on the stricken boxer’s brain in the aftermath of his fight against Chris Eubank in September 1991. “We are like family, me and Peter, and we have unusual banter. Peter … Read more

A man who claims to be a “direct descendant of the Kings of France” has lost his legal bid to wrest control of the fleur-de-lis symbol from the New Orleans Saints, after a US appeals court found he had no standing to challenge the team’s decades-old trademark. Michel J Messier of Rutland, Vermont, argued that … Read more

In the end, it was comfortable enough for Barcelona, despite Serhou Guirassy’s hat-trick. They weren’t able to hold the ball and command through possession as they might have liked but they always had clear water. There were spells, though, when they were distinctly uneasy and, but for an own goal that came at just the … Read more

Unai Emery will always shudder at mention of La Remontada. It came to define his time as the manager of Paris Saint-Germain, the inexplicable Champions League defeat by Luis Enrique’s Barcelona in 2017 after his team had held a 4-0 first-leg lead. Barcelona would end up needing three goals with 88 minutes of the second … Read more

TAKE A LUKA THIS With bitter rivals Cardiff in the Championship drop zone and their club comfortably ensconced in mid-table after three wins put paid to any lingering relegation concerns, Swansea City fans could have been forgiven for being delighted even before news broke that Luka Modric had become a minority shareholder in their club. … Read more