Sports & Casinos UK

⚽️ Updates from the 7.30pm GMT KO at the London Stadium⚽️ FA Cup fifth round: talking points | Email Daniel1 min Brentford set us away. Given the side Nuno’s sent out, they’ll surely fancy themselves.Our teams come out, Brentford wearing their away pyjamas. Continue reading...

Home affairs minister confirms US president Donald Trump’s overnight comments on social media that the players had been ‘taken care of’Middle East crisis – live updatesFive members of the Iranian women’s football team have been granted humanitarian visas in Australia, with the federal government offering assistance to other players.The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, confirmed the dramatic offer on Tuesday morning, hours after US President Donald Trump posted about their plight on social media. Continue reading...

Loss against Galatasaray in September summed up Slot’s struggles, creating a template he is still working to remedyIt is not the first time Liverpool have come to Istanbul looking for unlikely salvation. There is not a final on the line as there was 21 years ago, but a last-16 tie against Galatasaray feels almost as decisive for their season and possibly for the long-term future of Arne Slot, even as he marks his 100th game as manager.It’s not even the first time Liverpool have come to Istanbul this season: their 1-0 reverse against Galatasaray in September was their second loss in a run of nine defeats in 12 games from which their season has never recovered. They are in much better form now, but will be without Alisson after he suffered a minor problem in training. Continue reading...

Pair also bet on Jones to receive yellow card Players overlapped for one season at Columbus CrewMajor League Soccer announced on Monday that it has given Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah lifetime bans for “extensive” gambling, including on games involving their own teams. In one instance, the pair won a bet that Jones would receive a yellow card.MLS said it had received “suspicious betting alerts” and retained a law firm to investigate. The players were placed on administrative leave in late October 2025 as the review ran its course. Eventually, the investigation found that both players betted on soccer extensively throughout the 2024 and 2025 seasons, including on their own teams. Continue reading...

Ben Spencer defends tactic despite three straight lossesMinimal changes expected for final Six Nations gameEngland have vowed to double down on their kick-heavy gameplan against France on Saturday despite their drastic decline in recent weeks. It is a move that risks further provoking the anger of their supporters.Steve Borthwick and his side have come under intense scrutiny after last week’s first defeat by Italy and the manner in which they stuck rigidly to their kicking strategy left fans irate. England have kicked the most times and for the most metres of all the Six Nations teams and while it was a tactic that paid dividends last autumn when they were on a 12-match winning run, it is no longer having the desired effect. Continue reading...

QB agreed $212.4m extension with team in 2024Falcons reportedly interested in taking on QBKansas City set to beef up running gameMike Evans joins 49ers after leaving Tampa BayThe Miami Dolphins are moving on from Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback they drafted with the fifth overall pick in 2020 in hopes of turning the franchise’s fortunes around.“As we move forward, we will be focused on infusing competition across the roster and establishing a strong foundation for this team as we work towards building a sustained winner,” Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan said in a statement on Monday. Continue reading...

UK’s outstanding jumps rider is winless at the festival but says this could be his year, and explains the challenge of riding so many winnersSean Bowen can claim to be the best jockey in jumps racing by some distance. Next month he will be confirmed as champion jockey for the second successive year as, on 210 victories so far, he is 107 ahead of Harry Skelton, his closest rival. Bowen is already looking ahead to next season, where he harbours serious ambitions of becoming the first jump jockey to ride 300 winners in a single campaign. These are staggering numbers that stand in stark contrast to his miserable record at the Cheltenham festival.The Welshman smiles more than any other jockey I’ve met – for he operates in a gruelling trade full of hard and often taciturn men who are all fated to lose far more often than they win. But Bowen has a remarkably phlegmatic outlook that means he grins when I read out his meagre statistics from the Cheltenham festival. Apart from not having a winner in 52 rides, the average starting price of those horses was 40-1. Continue reading...

First minister decries ‘severe danger’ after quarter-finalBan on away fans for Glasgow clashes to be revisitedLarge numbers of away supporters in games between Rangers and Celtic have been called unsafe by the police officer in charge of investigating Sunday’s Ibrox trouble, incidents described by Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, as “completely and utterly unacceptable”.On-field clashes after Celtic’s Scottish Cup quarter-final triumph on penalties appear to have ended any hopes of traditional allocations returning to the Glasgow derby fixture on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. Celtic had about 7,500 fans inside Ibrox for the first time since 2018 and dozens spilled on to the pitch to celebrate their shootout triumph. More than 100 Rangers fans also invaded the pitch and charged towards the Broomloan Stand. Several police officers, stewards and members of the public were injured and nine arrests had been made inside 24 hours, with “significantly” more expected. Continue reading...

Murashkovskyi benefits from artificial intelligence support‘I used it as a psychologist, coach and sometimes as a doctor’Team Ukraine have hit the ground running at the Winter Paralympics, standing second in the medal table after three days of competition. Their resolve and determination has been inspirational to many, but one athlete has revealed a secret weapon in their search for a competitive edge.Maksym Murashkovskyi, who won ­silver in the men’s visually impaired biathlon on Sunday and did not miss a shot, has been ­working with ­OpenAI’s large language model. “For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,” he said. “It was not only ­tactics. It was half of my ­training plan, ­motivation, etc. So it was a huge ­volume of all of my training. I used it as a psychologist, coach and, sometimes, as a doctor.” Continue reading...

Five players have reportedly sought asylum in Australia but neither decision was easy amid a volatile situation in the Middle East Their forward was once suspended when her head scarf slipped off during a goal celebration. Their youngest player is just 18. Another once worked as a personal trainer overseas. These are the women of the Iran football team, who are at the centre of an international diplomatic incident, even as the US and Israel rain missiles down on their family back home.The team was holed up in a hotel on the Gold Coast, where they played their third and final match of the Women’s Asian Cup on Sunday, before five of them reportedly managed to slip therir handlers and seek asylum under police protection in Australia. It was not clear whether the other members of the squad had left for Iran as planned. Continue reading...