Saudi Arabia is out to disrupt world football and Europe will cede its glamour if the emirate pulls it off

Saudi Arabia is out to disrupt world football and Europe will cede its glamour if the emirate pulls it off

There are real fears that investing in the top four clubs will lead to a two-tier league. However, organisers are confident there will be a trickle-down effect, with players previously at the ‘big four’ moving to mid-tier sides as global superstars arrive. Plans for the 2023-24 season will see each of the four PIF-owned teams target a minimum of three world-renowned names per club. A smaller number of world-renowned players are expected to be distributed among the other sides in the league.

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Doctors tell of how governments and Big Pharma reduced medics to bystanders as drugs makers raked in ‘insane’ profits

Doctors tell of how governments and Big Pharma reduced medics to bystanders as drugs makers raked in ‘insane’ profits

As the names of pharmaceutical giants such as Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, GSK (formerly GlaxoSmithKline), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others flashed across the screen, Lafay said: “It’s really tough because we’re all owned at this point. It’s easier for me to come on camera maybe and say some things like this because I am an independent practitioner now. If you don’t have your [own] practice, then you really can’t help people. And I think that is where a lot of [practitioners’] fear comes from, the fear of not being employed.”

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Mr Perfect and Mr 32 Minutes are Guardiola’s nicknames earned for meticulousness but his dad, Valenti, jokes son can’t even change a bulb

Mr Perfect and Mr 32 Minutes are Guardiola’s nicknames earned for meticulousness but his dad, Valenti, jokes son can’t even change a bulb

Now 92, his father, who lives in the impressive, orange-brick villa he built, told me this week that the long journey to Istanbul was beyond him, although he had managed to be in Manchester to see City lift the Premier League trophy.

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Champions League: In the footsteps of Josep Guardiola’s pilgrimage from sleepy Santpedor town to the peppy grandmaster of Man City

Champions League: In the footsteps of Josep Guardiola’s pilgrimage from sleepy Santpedor town to the peppy grandmaster of Man City

Jose Mourinho might think he’s the Special One, but Guardiola, who not only wins more, but wins more aesthetically, is the real deal. Watching his teams, with their ever-evolving tactics, their supremacy is such that they often appear to have an extra player on the field. Away from the training pitch, however, he is no less fascinating.

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A humanitarian agency suspends operations in DRC after staff  steal $900,000 meant for 1,700 families in South Kivu

A humanitarian agency suspends operations in DRC after staff  steal $900,000 meant for 1,700 families in South Kivu

An estimated 5.7 million people are displaced in DRC, and there are more than 100 armed movements in the country’s east, where South Kivu is situated. The humanitarian situation has been worsened by an insurgency by the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group.

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With 60 per cent of its citizens overweight, obese or diabetic Saudi Arabia now taps into football icons to fight menace  

With 60 per cent of its citizens overweight, obese or diabetic Saudi Arabia now taps into football icons to fight menace  

There is undoubtedly a public health benefit. Seventy per cent of the population are aged under 35, with the government keen to improve the statistic that some 60 per cent of the population are overweight or obese. One aim, given by Al-Misehal, is to increase the number of registered male players from 21,000 to over 200,000. He did not mention a target for female players.

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Inside Arab world plan to pull rag from under Western cultural dominion, expand the emirate via sports

Inside Arab world plan to pull rag from under Western cultural dominion, expand the emirate via sports

Saudi Arabia’s announcement will also bring controversy. The nation has a terrible human rights record, homosexuality is illegal and there are severe restrictions on freedom of speech and women’s rights. This relaunch will bring accusations of ‘sportswashing’ – that by repackaging its flagship competition for global consumption, Saudi Arabia is attempting to repackage its reputation in front of a global audience.

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Bombing of Fulani herders underlines pattern of deadly military assaults in Nigeria ‘overseen’ by US and Britain

Bombing of Fulani herders underlines pattern of deadly military assaults in Nigeria ‘overseen’ by US and Britain

Clashes between farmers and semi-nomadic herders have killed more than 3,600 people since 2016 in parts of Nigeria, according to a report published by London-based Amnesty International in December 2018. The violence is often painted as ethnic or religious in nature: chiefly Muslim Fulani herders clashing with mainly Christian farmers. But many experts say climate change and expanding agriculture are creating competition – and conflicts – over access to water and land, regardless of faith or ethnicity.

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Bombing, killing of Fulani herders raises human rights concerns about US’ supplies to Nigerian military  

Bombing, killing of Fulani herders raises human rights concerns about US’ supplies to Nigerian military  

The airstrike near the village of Akwanaja provides a stark example of a broader trend: The nation’s military, which is backed by the United States, the UK and other non-Western allies in a long war against Islamist insurgents in the northeast, has been unleashing deadly aerial assaults for years in other parts of the country.

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Technology-fuelled racism in football is a haunting throwback to 1980s-style monkey chants and banana-throwing in stadiums

Technology-fuelled racism in football is a haunting throwback to 1980s-style monkey chants and banana-throwing in stadiums

A report last year from Fifa, the governing body of world soccer, showed that more than 50 per cent of players competing in two international tournaments in 2021 – the African Cup of Nations and the European Championship – received some form of discriminatory abuse in more than 400,000 posts on social media. More than a third were of a racist nature.

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