The World Taekwondo Federation has finally rebranded but it is far from the only sporting entity to cause controversy with an initialism or abbreviationThe World Taekwondo Federation did the inevitable last weekend, changing its name to escape the “negative connotations” of its initialism.World Taekwondo, as it is now officially known, first considered changing its name in 2015 but decided to give it another 18 months before accepting that the ubiquitous online abbreviation was going nowhere. The new slogan? It is “Taekwondo For All”. Thanks for asking. Related: Forget dancing horses, surfing and BMX – the Olympic Games need eSports Continue reading...
Reading, Sheffield Wednesday and (almost certainly) Fulham sealed play-off places, Wigan went down and it’s still tight all round in League Two• Blackburn Rovers took the fight for Championship survival to the final day of the season with a 1-0 win over Aston Villa at Ewood Park, courtesy of Danny Graham steering home after 54 minutes. The win brought Rovers level with Nottingham Forest, who lost 2-0 at QPR, confirming Rangers’ safety in the process. Both sides have 48 points; Forest host Ipswich in their final game, and Blackburn head to Brentford. Related: Harry Redknapp’s 10-man Birmingham City sink Huddersfield Related: League One finale: what’s at stake in the promotion and relegation battles #EFL media advisory - @leytonorientfc v @ColU_Official...
Christian Benteke can put one over Jürgen Klopp and Vincent Kompany may prove decisive against Arsenal but what of Harry Redknapp in a Second City derby?By Saturday night Antonio Conte will be living in a new reality. The only question is: which one? Scenario A is that his team will be well on their way to crowning his debut season in England with a domestic double. They will have secured a place in the FA Cup final and crushed the uprising of pesky Tottenham Hotspur, who will be so dispirited by the reminder of their place in the natural order of things that they will lose all belief in a title challenge and spend the rest of the season sulking...
Forget what pundits say: foreign managers do better in across all four divisions of English football – even though clubs seem to hold them to higher standards“What does he know about the Premier League?” Two decades on from Arsène Wenger’s arrival from Japan it remains a sneer posed as a question whenever an unknown overseas manager comes to England. Paul Merson and Phil Thompson’s visceral reaction to Marco Silva becoming Hull City manager in January was hardly unique.Lawrie McMenemy had the same response when Mauricio Pochettino took over at Southampton. It barely matters that under Silva’s watch Hull have a fighting chance of staying up or that Pochettino rapidly proved himself far superior to the man he replaced, Nigel Adkins....
Sunday’s final at Wembley will be well attended but that has been far from the norm since the Football League allowed under-23 teams to competeDespite vastly reduced numbers going through the turnstiles for the early rounds of this season’s revamped Checkatrade Trophy, more than 72,000 tickets have been sold for the final, between Coventry City and Oxford United. Sunday’s crowd at Wembley will fall short of the record for a Football League Trophy denouement – 80,841 watched Wolves beat Burnley in 1988 – but it is a significant increase on the 59,230 supporters who attended last year’s decider, when Oxford lost a thriller 3-2 to Barnsley.The Football League is likely to see Sunday’s attendance as vindication for its much-maligned overhaul...