Leaders Real Madrid stumbled to a 1-1 draw at Real Betis on Saturday as Aitor Ruibal’s brilliant strike cancelled out Jude Bellingham’s league-best 12th goal of the season.

Bellingham slotted Madrid ahead at the Benito Villamarin early in the second half after combining magnificently with Brahim Diaz.

But Ruibal drilled an angled shot into the top corner from outside the area to earn Betis a point and extend their unbeaten run in La Liga to 11 matches.

Madrid pulled one point clear of Girona but could lose top spot on Sunday if the surprise challengers beat neighbours Barcelona in a Catalan derby.

Carlo Ancelotti’s side thought they had taken the lead when Diaz turned in from close range on 16 minutes after a superb exchange between Bellingham and Rodrygo.

Bellingham backheeled the ball towards Rodrygo who slid the ball between the legs of a defender. An attempted clearance ricocheted off Rodrygo and left Diaz with a tap-in, but the Brazilian was offside in the build-up.

Chasing a fifth successive home league win, Betis twice went close as Ayoze Perez saw an attempt well saved by Andriy Lunin before Willian Jose bent an effort narrowly wide of the far post.

Betis goalkeeper Rui Silva clawed behind a long-range drive from Luka Modric, but he was powerless to stop Bellingham breaking the deadlock eight minutes after half-time.

The England midfielder retrieved the ball deep in Betis territory near the touchline, finding Diaz and chesting down the scooped return pass as he strode into the box and stroked past Silva.

Madrid’s lead lasted only 13 minutes as Ruibal was afforded far too much time and space before he rifled home from 20 metres, grabbing his first league goal in a two-and-a-half years.

Both teams pushed for a winner and former Madrid attacker Isco nearly undid his old club when he headed against the post.

Joselu dribbled an effort agonisingly wide in stoppage time at the other end before Lunin tipped over centre-back Chadi Riad’s header with the last touch of the game.

Source: AFP

A Ghanaian MP has apologised to Manchester United footballer Harry Maguire after mocking him last year.

MP Isaac Adongo was debating the budget when he compared Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia’s economic management to Maguire’s performances on the pitch.

Maguire has come in for heavy criticism from some fans but fellow footballers have come to his defence.

On Tuesday, Mr Adongo said he wanted to correct the record and hailed Maguire as a “transformational footballer”.

He was a “key player” for Manchester United, Mr Adongo said during a budget debate.

But he did not let up in his criticism of Vice-President Bawumia.

“As for our Maguire, he is now at the IMF, with a cup in hand,” he added.

Mr Bawumia is the head of the government’s economic management team as Ghana faces its most severe economic crisis in years.

As government debt has soared, the country had to take a $3bn (£2.4bn) loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In December 2022 inflation in Ghana reached a record 54% but has since fallen to around 35%.

A year ago Mr Adongo compared Mr Bawumia to Harry Maguire, who Mr Adongo said “became the biggest threat at the centre of the Manchester United defence”.

The video of the speech was widely shared on social media.

It came amid a torrent of criticism of the footballer.

England manager Gareth Southgate has condemned the mockery as “ridiculous treatment” and said he’s been “an absolute stalwart” for the team.

Mr Maguire’s mother also defended her son and said the abuse he has faced has been “disgraceful” and “unacceptable”.

Some Ghanaians have been reacting to Mr Adongo’s apology, saying that the Manchester United player has really improved, but the same cannot be said of the managers of the Ghanaian economy.

Others feel such a comparison should not have been made.

According to Mr Adongo, the Ghanaian government has had to increase taxes and tariffs on services as part of the agreement with the IMF.

This caused widespread anger among voters and triggered protests over the rising cost of living and unemployment in the country.

Despite this, Ghana’s governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has selected Mr Bawumia as its candidate for the 2024 elections.

He will be the first Muslim to contest the presidency under the NPP’s banner since multi-party democracy was restored in 1992.

Mr Bawumia has promised to lead a “united and energised” NPP into the election and that it is “the only party that can transform Ghana”.

Source: BBC

Manchester United on Thursday reported a Premier League record revenue figure of £648.4 million ($784 million) for the year ending June 30.

The figure is 11 percent up from the previous year and beats the previous league record set by United in 2019.

The record earnings come despite the fact United played in the Europa League, rather than the more lucrative Champions League, last season.

The club have also predicted revenue for the 2023/24 period would be between £650 million and £680 million.

The announcement comes at a time when the founder of the INEOS chemicals company, Jim Ratcliffe, is reported to be close to securing a 25 percent stake in the club.

During the 2022/23 season, the period covered by the latest results, Manchester United men’s team finished third in the Premier League and won the League Cup.

The women’s team finished second in the Women’s Super League and were runners-up in the FA Cup.

The men’s team, who have not won the Premier League since 2013, are currently eighth in the table ahead of their clash against champions Manchester City on Sunday.

Source: AFP

Juventus and France midfielder Paul Pogba’s ‘B’ sample has confirmed the presence of testosterone, a source close to the case told AFP on Friday.

The 30-year-old former Manchester United player, a World Cup winner in 2018, faces a ban of up to four years.

The original test by the Italian anti-doping agency (Nado) showed the presence of testosterone metabolites.

On Friday, Pogba learned that the analysis of his B sample, carried out on Thursday, had produced the same result.

The player’s entourage declined to comment.

Under the World Anti-Doping Code, Pogba is liable to a four-year suspension, which could be halved if he proves that he was not at fault.

The ban could even be limited to a few months if the use of the substance took place “out of competition and is not related to his level of performance”.

Pogba’s representatives said last month that the testosterone came from a food supplement prescribed by a doctor he consulted in the United States.

Testosterone promotes muscle development.

Contacted by AFP, Nado was unable to confirm this information “due to a decision by the Italian privacy authority”.

Source: AFP

Reigning champions City are well on course to qualify for the knockout stages after successfully negotiating their hardest test in Group G to beat Leipzig 3-1 away.

Phil Foden finished off a fine move to put City ahead midway through the first half, only for Lois Openda to equalise just after the interval.

Foden then hit the bar from a free-kick and it looked like Pep Guardiola’s side might have to settle for a point until substitute Julian Alvarez found the top corner with a superb strike on 84 minutes.

Alvarez then turned provider for Jeremy Doku to make it 3-1 in stoppage time as City made it two wins out of two in the competition this season.

“We played a fantastic game in all departments. Everyone was perfect,” Guardiola told TNT Sports.

Red Star Belgrade and Young Boys got off the mark in the same group with a 2-2 draw in Serbia, where Osman Bukari grabbed an 88th-minute equaliser for the home team.

Cherif Ndiaye had given Red Star the lead but Young Boys — who face City next — drew level through Filip Ugrinic and then went ahead courtesy of a Cedric Itten penalty.

Source: AFP

Police on Thursday raided Spain’s football refereeing headquarters as part of a probe into claims FC Barcelona paid for favourable decisions in a fresh blow for Spain’s scandal-hit football association.

The search was ordered by the judge investigating the so-called Negreira case involving payments allegedly made to a firm owned by a former top refereeing official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.

Police began the search early on Thursday at the offices of the CTA referees’ technical committee located at the RFEF football federation headquarters on the outskirts of Madrid.

A Barcelona court ordered the search “as part of the investigation into the suspect payments made by the Catalan club” to Negreira, a statement said.

Prosecutors suspect that between 2001 and 2018, Barca paid millions of euros to Negreira’s company Dasnil 95 to secure favourable refereeing decisions from corrupt officials.

While the club admits making payments to Dasnil, it said the firm was paid to advise it on refereeing matters. It denies all wrongdoing.

Also Thursday, magistrate Joaquin Aguirre said he would investigate the club and several of its former directors for bribery.

The fact that Barcelona paid “one of the CTA’s three vice presidents through intermediary companies” is not in dispute, the judge wrote in his decision.

The payments, which lasted about 18 years, grew steadily “from an initial 70,000 euros a year to 700,000 euros” and stopped when Negreira left his position in 2018, he wrote.

“It stands to reason that the payments by FC Barcelona satisfied the club’s interests given their duration and annual increase,” Aguirre said.

“The payments resulted in refereeing decisions sought by FC Barcelona in such a way that must have involved unfair treatment of other teams and consequently systemic corruption across Spanish refereeing as a whole.”

Police investigators were looking into the scope of the graft, he said.

‘Illegal acts favouring Barca’

Prosecutors in March opened a corruption investigation over the affair, naming FC Barcelona and four others: Negreira, his son Javier Enriquez, and two of Barcelona’s former presidents, Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.

They allege Barca paid more than 7.3 million euros to Negreira who was a vice president at the CTA between 1994 and 2018.

The payments stopped when Negreira left the CTA following a reshuffle at the RFEF.

When the money stopped, Negreira sent a letter to Bartomeu, Barca’s president at the time, threatening to reveal information that would “seriously harm the club” if it didn’t pay up.

It was clear from the letter that Negreira “was aware that there had been illegal acts that favoured FC Barcelona that were quite serious”, the judge said.

The investigation began in spring 2022 when Spain’s tax authorities identified irregularities in payments made by Dasnil 95 between 2016 and 2018.

The raid comes as Spain’s football federation is struggling to manage a crisis triggered by the World Cup kiss scandal in which its now disgraced former chief Luis Rubiales forcibly kissed midfielder Jenni Hermoso.

Source: AFP

Mauricio Pochettino has pleaded for more time as he scrambles for solutions to Chelsea’s mounting crisis. But how patient will the owners be?

The Blues, European champions only two years ago, are a lowly 14th in the Premier League table, just four points above the relegation zone, after one win in their first six matches.

Their latest setback was a 1-0 defeat against Aston Villa on Sunday, with Ollie Watkins scoring the winner after the dismissal of Chelsea defender Malo Gusto.

Last year, Chelsea mustered their lowest points tally of the Premier League era but they have made an even more dire start to the current campaign.

“Give me time,” Pochettino pleaded after Sunday’s match, urging the club’s American owners to back him.

“They (the owners) are disappointed, they arrived at the club and are so excited to build a project.

“Of course they feel disappointed but at the same time they need to support the plan.”

Pochettino was confirmed as the new man in the Stamford Bridge hot seat in May — becoming the third permanent boss since Todd Boehly’s consortium bought the west London club from Roman Abramovich in 2022.

Boehly backed his manager by bankrolling another huge spending spree during the summer transfer window, taking Chelsea’s outlay on new players in just over a year beyond £1 billion ($1.2 billion).

But the return on their investment has been pitiful during a period of churn and upheaval on and off the pitch.

Goal-shy Chelsea

Chelsea have mustered just five goals in their first six league matches — and three of those came in the 3-0 win against newly promoted Luton.

They have failed to score in 13 Premier League matches in 2023 — more than any other side.

The frustrated Pochettino bemoaned his team’s lack of luck in the Villa defeat, saying the only thing missing was goals.

“We need to be aware about what is going on but in some way we need to be calm because the team is creating, the team is alive, the team is fighting every single action,” he said.

Pochettino can point to a lengthy injury list as a partial explanation for Chelsea’s blunt attack.

He lost France forward Christopher Nkunku to a serious knee injury in a pre-season friendly, but others including Mykhailo Mudryk, Nicolas Jackson, Raheem Sterling and Cole Palmer have failed to deliver.

The former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain boss will be painfully aware that Chelsea are not a patient club — the hire-and-fire culture of the Abramovich era persists under Boehly’s leadership.

Chelsea sacked Thomas Tuchel in the early weeks of last season, and Graham Potter suffered the same fate in April, axed after less than seven months in charge when the club were 11th in the table.

Pochettino enhanced his reputation during his five-year stint at Tottenham, subsequently taking charge at PSG, where he won the Ligue 1 title.

However, he failed to meet PSG’s primary goal of winning the Champions League, leaving his managerial CV still relatively light on silverware compared with some of his Premier League counterparts.

Next up for Chelsea are in-form Brighton, who travel to Stamford Bridge on Wednesday for a League Cup third round tie.

They then face local rivals Fulham in the Premier League, with matches looming against Arsenal, Tottenham and champions Manchester City.

The Villa fans delighted in the discomfort of the Chelsea boss at the weekend, chanting that he would be “sacked in the morning”.

There are no signs that the club hierarchy are preparing to pull the trigger yet, but they may feel compelled to act soon unless there is a dramatic improvement.

Source: AFP

FIFA suspended Luis Rubiales as president of Spain’s football federation on Saturday for kissing Spanish Women’s World Cup player Jenni Hermoso on the lips, and banned him from making contact with her.

“(We) decided today to provisionally suspend Mr. Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities at national and international level,” world football’s governing body said in a statement.

FIFA’s suspension of Spanish federation (RFEF) president Rubiales will last 90 days, while they undertake disciplinary proceedings against the 46-year-old.

They added that both Rubiales and the RFEF are prohibited from contacting Hermoso and those close to her.

FIFA’s move was the latest development in a deepening row between Rubiales and the RFEF and Hermoso and her Spain teammates which the players say has tarnished the glory of their World Cup win in Australia last Sunday.

Hermoso said in a statement on Friday that Rubiales and the federation put “continuous pressure” on her and her family and friends to make her appear alongside Rubiales in a video in which he apologised for his kiss, but she declined.

Rubiales refused to resign at an emergency RFEF meeting on Friday and on Saturday, the federation threatened to take legal action over Hermoso’s “lies” about the kiss.

Hermoso said “at no time” did she consent to the kiss following the 1-0 win against England in Sydney, which Rubiales described as “mutual, euphoric and consensual”.

The RFEF responded, saying they would “demonstrate each of the lies that have been spread, whether in the name of the player, if that is the case, or by the player herself”.

It would take “as many legal actions as necessary to defend the honour of the President of the RFEF.”

Hermoso, 33, along with 80 other Spain players, including the entire World Cup winning squad, said they were going on strike and would not play for the national team until the “leadership” changed.

That was a reaction to Rubiales refusing to resign despite unprecedented criticism. He claims he is the target of a “social assassination”.

Hermoso hit back strongly against his claims the kiss was consensual, saying she felt “vulnerable and the victim of an assault”.

“I want to clarify that at no time did I consent to the kiss that he gave me and in no case did I seek to lift up the president,” she said in the statement released through her Futpro union.

The RFEF published a series of images on their website attempting to demonstrate that Hermoso did in fact lift up Rubiales, as “the first demonstration that the facts exposed by Mr. President are absolutely true”.

Their threat of legal action appeared targeted at not just Hermoso and Futpro, but anybody who may have damaged “the president’s honourability”.

The Spanish government confirmed earlier Saturday they had also started a process which may allow them to suspend Rubiales from his post next week.

‘Abuse is abuse’

Hermoso’s union Futpro said the 81 players were striking to help foster change.

Players from World Cup runners-up England released a statement in support of Hermoso on their social networks, signed “The Lionesses”.

“Unacceptable actions allowed to happen by a sexist and patriarchal organisation. Abuse is abuse and we have all seen the truth,” it read.

“We all stand with you, Jenni Hermoso, and all players of the Spanish team.”

Before the tournament 15 Spain players had taken a similar stance against the federation and coach Jorge Vilda, but many relented and three were part of the World Cup team.

Many players, including double Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, showed their support for Hermoso on social media on Friday, some including the phrase “it’s over” — potentially referring to Rubiales’ leadership of Spanish football.

Now Putellas, Hermoso, the World Cup’s player of the tournament Aitana Bonmati and others say they will not play for Spain again until Rubiales and potentially others leave their posts.

In its statement on Saturday, the federation appeared to send a thinly veiled threat to the striking players.

“The RFEF respects, as it has always respected, the decisions of the players who wish to participate or not with the Spanish national team in international matches, although it is clear national team duty is an obligation for all federated persons if they are called up,” the RFEF said.

Source: AFP

Romelu Lukaku has revealed he is set to sign for Roma from Chelsea, according to Belgian media on Saturday, as the two clubs try to hammer out a loan deal.

Newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported that Belgium striker Lukaku has said he is to move to the Italian capital.

“I’m nervous. Tomorrow (Sunday) I’m flying to Rome to sign (for Roma),” HLN quoted him as saying at a youth tournament in which his son made his Anderlecht debut.

Italian media report the two clubs are yet to agree a deal as the Serie A club want to loan Lukaku for around five million euros ($5.4 million), lower than Chelsea’s valuation.

Sky Sport in Italy report that Roma’s sporting director Tiago Pinto has denied that negotiations would be done in time for Lukaku to travel to Italy on Sunday.

Chelsea have been trying to offload outcast Lukaku all summer but neither Inter Milan — where he was loaned by the Blues last summer — nor Juventus decided to sign the Belgium striker.

Inter were deep in talks with Chelsea but reportedly gave up on the 30-year-old after they discovered he had been secretly talking to their biggest rivals Juventus and AC Milan.

Last month Inter captain Lautaro Martinez said he had been “disappointed” by Lukaku for hiding from his teammates and refusing to answer calls before the deal broke down.

Meanwhile Juve would have had to sell Serbia striker Dusan Vlahovic in order to sign Lukaku, a move which supporters vocally opposed all pre-season and during their 3-0 win at Udinese last weekend.

With a permanent sale now off the table less than a week before the end of the summer transfer window Chelsea are talking to Roma about another loan, with the Italian club’s American owners travelling to London on Friday to negotiate a deal.

Roma are at Verona on later Saturday and are set to start with an attack of Paulo Dybala and Italy’s Andrea Belotti, who also played together at Palermo.

Earlier on Saturday Roma confirmed the signing of Iran forward Sardar Azmoun on loan from Bayer Leverkusen.

Roma said they have brought in Azmoun, 28, “on a temporary basis until 30 June 2024” with “the option to make the transfer permanent”.

Azmoun, who has 45 goals in 71 appearances for his country, arrives after a difficult spell in Germany where he only scored five times since moving to Leverkusen in January 2021.

Source: AFP