Joseph Watts also given four-year football ban after admitting to assault at end of north London derby
A 35-year-old man has been ordered to pay compensation to the Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale after assaulting him at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at the end of the north London derby.
Ramsdale, 24, was kicked in the back shortly after Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-0 in a Premier League match on 15 January.
Continue reading...Hollywood actor in Welsh town to watch team co-owned by fellow actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
Will Ferrell was pictured having a pint of beer with football fans on his first visit to Wrexham to watch the local team, co-owned by fellow Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds, continue their winning run in the National League.
Pictures posted on social media showed Ferrell enjoying a drink in The Turf pub, which featured in the Disney+ documentary about the north Wales club, Welcome to Wrexham.
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia’s tourist authority is to sponsor football’s Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this year, despite the country’s history of oppression of women’s rights.
Fifa is expected to confirm that Visit Saudi will join international brands such as Adidas, Coca-Cola and Visa in attaching its name to the 32-team tournament that will kick off in front of an expected 50,000 supporters at Auckland’s Eden Park on 20 July.
Continue reading...Wife of Leicester City footballer posts picture on Instagram praising ‘brilliant’ Lincolnshire fire service
A gym at the home of Rebekah and Jamie Vardy has been destroyed by fire.
The wife of the Leicester City footballer posted a picture on Instagram of two of her children smiling at the camera having climbed inside a fire engine as she praised the “brilliant Lincolnshire fire and rescue service”.
Continue reading...Video with DJ Bizarrap ridiculing footballer’s new relationship racks up 63m views in 24 hours
A savage new song by Shakira in which the Colombian star, philanthropist and committed believer in the veracity of hips ridicules her former partner Gerard Piqué has logged more than 63m YouTube views in 24 hours, making it the most watched new Latin song in the platform’s history.
Shakira and Piqué, who played football for Barcelona, Manchester United and the Spanish national team, separated last year after more than a decade and have two children. The former centre-back, 35, has since begun a relationship with a 23-year-old woman, Clara Chía.
Continue reading...The 23-year-old footballer was fatally stabbed at the Crane nightclub in Birmingham on Boxing Day
Schoolchildren have paid tribute to a man who was stabbed to death on a nightclub dancefloor on Boxing Day, by forming a guard of honour.
Cody Fisher, a 23-year-old footballer, was fatally stabbed at the Crane nightclub in Digbeth, Birmingham, just before midnight on 26 December.
Continue reading...Few of the country’s previous World Cup winners traveled to pay homage to the football legend
Some of Brazil’s best-known footballers have faced a furious backlash as fans and pundits questioned why they had failed to attend ceremonies bidding farewell to Pelé.
Hundreds of thousands of people waited for hours under a burning sun on Monday to file past the recently deceased soccer legend’s coffin at Santos’ Vila Belmiro ground.
Continue reading...Coffin of Brazilian footballer, who died aged 82, taken to cemetery near stadium where he began career
The Brazilian footballer Pelé has been buried in the port city where he began his career nearly 70 years ago, with the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, flying in to lament the “irreparable loss”.
Pelé, who died last week age 82, scored most of his 1,283 goals for Santos football club and it was at a cemetery near the team’s Vila Belmiro stadium where he was laid to rest on Tuesday afternoon after an emotional three-hour procession through town.
Continue reading...Tehran parliament told plan was for national football team to defect on pitch in Qatar but plot was foiled
The UK was plotting for the Iranian national football team to defect on the pitch at the World Cup in Qatar, the minister of sport and youth has told the Iranian parliament, without providing any evidence.
The sports minister, Hamid Sajjadi, told MPs the country’s enemies had attempted “the height of sedition”. He said the “Old Fox”, by which he meant the UK, had planned for Iran’s players to walk off the pitch at specified moments and seek to defect.
Continue reading...Family and friends stand over open coffin in Santos, as Fifa president asks countries to name stadiums after football legend
Thousands of mourners braved punishing heat to pay their final tribute to footballing legend Pelé on Monday as the president of Fifa said he would ask every member country to name a stadium after the recently deceased Brazilian player.
Fans lined up outside the 106-year-old Vila Belmiro ground in Santos – the city in south-eastern Brazil where Pelé first made his name as a star goal scorer in the 1950s – overnight and at about 10am mourners began filing past the coffin that had been placed under a shaded tent in the middle of the field.
Continue reading...Players briefly held after raid on mixed-gender party, as elsewhere dissident Keyvan Samimi is released from prison
Iranian police briefly detained several top-tier football players in a raid on a New Year’s Eve party east of Tehran, where men and women allegedly mingled and alcohol was served in violation of an Islamic ban, according to Iranian media reports.
News of the brief arrests of the players, who were not identified, came as the release was announced of the Iranian dissident journalist Keyvan Samimi, who was jailed in December 2020 for “plotting against national security”.
Continue reading...England captain Leah Williamson is one of four Euro 2022 winners to be recognised in the New Year honours list.
The Arsenal defender lifted the Lionesses’ first major trophy after the team’s 2-1 extra-time defeat of Germany at Wembley to earn the only piece of silverware for an England senior side since the men’s team’s World Cup triumph in 1966. The 25-year-old becomes an OBE, while her teammates Beth Mead, Ellen White and Lucy Bronze have been awarded MBEs. The head coach Sarina Wiegman has also been awarded an honorary CBE.
Continue reading...Brian May and Grayson Perry are knighted, Denise Lewis is made a dame and Frank Skinner becomes MBE
The fashion designer Mary Quant, the Lionesses and the Queen guitarist Brian May are among those recognised in the first new year honours of the king’s reign.
Quant, 92, who as one of the most influential fashion figures in the swinging 60s popularised the miniskirt and hot pants, becomes a Companion of Honour, one of the top honours.
Continue reading...Huge crowds expected for funeral of footballing great as well as the inauguration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
Brazil has been gearing up for one of the most monumental new years in its history as the South America nation prepared to both welcome a new president and say goodbye to one of its most famous sons.
Huge crowds are expected in Brasilia on 1 January to see Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva inaugurated for a four-year term, while a day later football fans will gather in Santos to bid farewell to Pelé, the football legend who died on Thursday.
Continue reading...The Brazilian star makes the front pages of newspapers around the world on Friday, as they mourn a legend of the game
The death of Brazilian footballing virtuoso Pelé, at the age of 82, makes headlines in newspapers all over the world on Friday.
The Guardian carries an image of the star sat upon the shoulders of his teammates and fans after Brazil’s victory in the 1970 World Cup final in Mexico City.
Continue reading...A retired businessman recalls the time when, in 1958, the then-17-year-old World Cup footballer practised at his school
Renato Carvalho was 11 years old when he met Pelé for the first and only time.
It was 1958 and he was a schoolboy in a small city called Poços de Caldas. To the amazement of him and his friends, the Brazilian team were preparing for the World Cup on his school pitch.
Continue reading...Pelé, the Brazilian virtuoso whose captivating skill and athleticism ensured he was universally regarded as one of football’s greatest players, has died at the age of 82.
Pelé, who had a colon tumour removed in 2021, was readmitted to Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo in November amid deteriorating health. A hospital statement on Thursday confirmed the death of “our dear King of Football” at 3.27pm local time, “due to the failure of multiple organs, a result of the progression of cancer of colon associated with his previous clinical condition.”
Continue reading...Arnold to meet Football Australia chiefs in early January as L’Equipe puts him in top spot following last-16 achievement
Graham Arnold will sit down with Football Australia chiefs in early January to thrash out a new deal that is expected to see him remain in charge of the Socceroos, with the coach’s bargaining power having received a fillip after he was named the best coach of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Highly regarded sports newspaper L’Equipe put the out-of-contract Australian in top spot on its rankings, above the likes of Lionel Scaloni of Argentina and France’s Didier Deschamps.
Continue reading...Two Melbourne Victory fans involved in the AAMI Park pitch invasion that resulted in Melbourne City goalkeeper Thomas Glover being injured have received life bans from Football Australia.
Saturday night’s violence forced the abandonment of the A-League Men derby.
Continue reading...More than a million people were in the streets of Buenos Aires celebrating the victory, according to estimates from authorities
Around the Obelisk in Buenos Aires, revellers in football shirts, hats, wigs and face-paint in the Argentinian colours danced long into the night to drums and sound systems blaring cumbia and reggaeton.
Young people climbed fences, light posts and the giant BA sign at the foot of the monument. It was an ecstatic tribute to a World Cup victory this country had been waiting for ever since this football-mad nation last carried the trophy home in 1986.
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