Sports & Casinos UK

Captain Alex Greenwood said ‘nothing comes close’ to club’s £10m facility built specifically for women’s teamWhether it is the chopsticks in the canteen with individually engraved names on for Manchester City’s Japanese players, the bespoke pineapple and mango recovery shakes made for Khadija “Bunny” Shaw to satisfy her taste buds or the underwater treadmill allowing players to watch Sky Sports News while in the recovery pool, it is not difficult to understand why the squad say they love their new women’s team headquarters.The £10m state-of-the-art building, designed for the first team at the City Football Academy adjacent to their Joie Stadium home ground, has everything from hamstring strength testing kit in the gym to a barista-style coffee machine in the canteen, all aimed at maximising performance for female athletes. Along one corridor is printed: “We will find a way to win …” – a mantra repeated by the head coach, Andrée Jeglertz, regularly this season. They hope this facility will help make winning a habit. Continue reading...

El Paso Locomotive describe forward as ‘a great addition’Fernández portrayed Dani Rojas in the hit TV showThe Ted Lasso actor Cristo Fernández has taken his role as a footballer from the small screen to the soccer pitch after signing a professional contract with the US second-tier side El Paso Locomotive FC.Fernández, who played youth football in Mexico before stepping away from the sport at the age of 15 owing to a knee injury, portrayed Dani Rojas in the hit Apple TV+ show about a British team with a US coach. Continue reading...

The DP World Tour putting its G4D disabled tour in cold storage does not fit the growing the game narrative, the Englishman arguesKipp Popert is a man on a mission. The 27-year‑old Englishman, who tops the disabled world rankings, uses one word a lot: “opportunity”. Popert was “shocked” to hear from the DP World Tour that its G4D circuit, which staged a handful of tournaments per year for disabled players between 2022 and 2025, has been placed into cold storage.The G4D Open, a tournament for 80 golfers with disabilities, will be staged at Celtic Manor from Thursday. It takes place thousands of miles from Pennsylvania and this week’s US PGA Championship, which last year bestowed $3.4m (£2.5m) on Scottie Scheffler. Even the main platform for players in this domain does not offer prize money. It is not Popert’s way to lambast anyone. He instead calmly articulates the impact of that move. Continue reading...

Plus: winning two titles in the same season, trophies with family connections and an easy routes to finalsMail us with your all of your questions and answers“Carlisle and Barrow will play each other next season in the Cumbrian derby in the National League,” writes Peter Hutchinson. “The clubs are located at opposite ends of Cumbria and the distance between the two grounds is some 78 miles [by car]. Does this make it the greatest distance between two teams involved in a ‘derby’?A couple of clarifications: answers here will feature the shortest distances by car. The second, perhaps more important, point is that we are excluding matches that are simply rivalries. Specifically, we are looking for matches between teams that are linked based upon their proximity or geography, rather than, say, a ‘clásico’ between Real Madrid and Barcelona, which is essentially a historical rivalry in which the distance between the two teams is largely irrelevant (save for being in the same country).Can you find a derby based on proximity or geography with teams more than 386 miles apart? Emails to the usual place: knowledge@theguardian.com. Continue reading...

Discussion over racing should include those working in the sport and fans, along with MPs and animal rights campaignersThe Green party surged to record results at local and national level in last week’s elections, prompting Zack Polanski, the party’s leader, to suggest that two-party politics is “dead and buried”. Ladbrokes, meanwhile, subsequently cut the odds about the Green party winning the most seats at the next general election to 12-1, while an overall majority for the Greens is priced at 28-1.Not likely, in other words but, at the same time, far from impossible. In the case of a majority for Polanski’s party, it is roughly the same price as Moon Chime, the winner of the big handicap hurdle at Haydock last Saturday. However the party fares in terms of seat numbers, the Green voice in the next parliament, in three years’ time or possibly fewer, seems sure to be significantly louder than ever before. Continue reading...

In an exclusive interview the Brazil coach talks about being in charge of ‘the most important national team’, how to get the best out of Vinícius Júnior and what he learned at MadridIs Carlo Ancelotti an ambitious man? The Italian leans back and smiles. “Me? I’m not ambitious. Why? Why are you asking that?” The reason for the question is simple: the 66-year-old is one of the most successful managers ever, with five Champions League wins and league titles in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. But he still wants more. Last May he was appointed Brazil head coach with one objective: to win the World Cup.“I’m not obsessed with winning,” Ancelotti says. “What I have is a passion for enjoying the moments that football has given me. I’m not obsessed with winning the World Cup, but I have the pleasure and passion to enjoy the moment I’m living in, leading the most important national team in the world.” Continue reading...

Middlesbrough coach accuses rivals of ‘disgraceful’ actEckert insists Saints are taking allegations ‘very seriously’Southampton’s head coach, Tonda Eckert, insisted the club are taking allegations of cheating “very seriously” after they advanced to the Championship playoff final against Hull at Middlesbrough’s expense amid the backdrop of so-called spygate. Shea Charles’s 116th-minute cross-shot sealed victory in extra time to earn a place in the Wembley showpiece on 23 May, but Southampton face the prospect of punishment from an independent disciplinary commission after being charged with breaching two counts of the English Football League’s regulations.A visibly emotional Kim Hellberg accused Southampton of “disgraceful” behaviour after Middlesbrough’s defeat at St Mary’s as tensions escalated. The head coach reiterated that Boro believe a financial punishment would be inadequate. At one point, after Luke Ayling reported a discriminatory comment made by Southampton’s captain, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Eckert appeared to agitate towards Hellberg on the touchline, only to be separated by the fourth official, Tom Nield, though afterwards Hellberg played down the incident between the head coaches. Continue reading...

Collins, a pioneer for inclusion and an ambassador for the NBA, died after eight-month battle with glioblastomaJason Collins, the retired NBA player who made history as the league’s first openly gay athlete, has died after a short battle with stage 4 glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, his family announced on Tuesday. He was 47.“Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar,” Collins’ family said in a statement released through the NBA. “We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.” Continue reading...

Manager says ‘referees didn’t do their job’ in FA Cup finalsKhusanov and Rodri doubts for crucial match with PalacePep Guardiola believes officiating decisions are a “flip of a coin” and constantly urges his Manchester City players to perform better in order to overcome this.Refereeing and the use of the video assistant referee are being scrutinised once more after Callum Wilson’s late disallowed goal in West Ham’s 1-0 defeat by Arsenal at the London Stadium on Sunday. The decision came after the referee Chris Kavanagh awarded the strike before being advised by the game’s VAR, Darren England, to review the incident at the pitchside monitor. On doing so, Kavanagh ruled the goal out for a foul on Arsenal’s goalkeeper, David Raya. Continue reading...

Club president launches scathing attack on media No mention of turmoil, fights or José Mourinho“Good afternoon, I regret to inform you that I’m not going to resign.” In a hot, packed press room at Valdebebas before an audience hurriedly summoned to witness a news conference so bizarre that they could barely believe what they were seeing, Florentino Pérez sat at a desk with a phone that he kept looking at and some papers that he didn’t, and announced that he was calling presidential elections at Real Madrid. What he didn’t announce was a date, an electoral commission, the resignation that is required for polling to actually happen, or indeed any details at all.There was nothing about Madrid’s on-field issues either, nothing about the coach, no mention of José Mourinho, no explanation for the season they have just suffered. “I’m not here to talk about sporting issues,” Pérez said. Instead, he was there to deliver a surreal, repetitive rant that lasted over an hour, way after his own staff had tried to bring it to a close. A room of people, including the directors in the front row and lined up against one wall, looked at each other: yes, this was actually happening. Pérez went on and on, and on, the incoherent ramblings of a 79-year-old man who insisted “my health is perfect”. Continue reading...