If Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner, is not pondering what on earth he is doing on the LIV Tour, he should beEstablishing the precise thoughts of Brooks Koepka is a knotty business. This is the individual who, before last year’s US Open, barked at a line of questioning relating to his potential involvement in the breakaway LIV Tour. No sooner had dust settled on Matt Fitzpatrick’s famous Brookline success than Koepka was unveiled as a LIV recruit. Koepka’s earlier podium protesting identified him as little more than a phony.Oh to be inside the mind of Koepka now. As Scottie Scheffler returned to No 1 in the world courtesy of a dominant victory at a packed Phoenix Open, focus immediately...
Huge spree on Fernández, Mudryk, Nkunku and Madueke raises more questions about the coherence of Boehly’s plansAmortisation over a long-term deal. Heavily incentivised contracts. A couple of relatively quiet windows before Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club. There’s been a lot written over the past few months about how Chelsea can afford a spree that will hit £620m when the Christopher Nkunku deal happens next June. But perhaps the bigger question is why? What on earth are they doing?Structure the deals as cleverly as you like, that money still has to be paid at some point. Chelsea’s spending has been of the sort you would expect from a megalomaniac billionaire taking over a club, when the point is...
The football analyst has consistently leveraged his ample platform and gravitas against reproductive rights and LGBTQ people – and it doesn’t seem like NBC or the NFL careNo sports league does more than the National Football League to encourage the stereotype of the glass-chewing, expletive-spewing coach. Tony Dungy, though, was more Kenneth Parcell than Bill Parcells – a soft-spoken, clean-cut ex-defensive back whose winning pedigree and strategic ingenuity rightly earned him pride of place among the titans of his profession. That Dungy is also a Black pioneer makes him especially useful to commissioner Roger Goodell’s efforts to “protect the [NFL] shield” from the seasonal assaults on its undying legacy of racial and gender inequality. Since transitioning to a lofty post-retirement...
Rebel tour has lost momentum heading into 2023 leaving those tempted by the riches promised facing an uncertain futureIt is telling that discussion around Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to the Saudi Arabian league focuses on the player’s inexorable slide towards footballing oblivion. Ronaldo was unveiled at the end of a year in which at least 147 people had been executed in Saudi Arabia, according to the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights. Ronaldo’s 526 million Instagram and 106 million Twitter followers will now be afforded updates from Al Nassr as football obsessives debate his on-field decline. The Saudis have bought one of the game’s iconic figures, meaning goals and assists barely matter. Neither does the source of Ronaldo’s weekly wage. Sportswashing...
The true feelings of those in charge at Augusta remain hard to read but one thing is clear – locking out players is not good for businessThe air of mystique surrounding Augusta National ensures a captive audience even when there is precious little to say. It would have been major news had the host club of the Masters announced that LIV rebels would be banned from the 87th staging of the major. Instead, in somewhat grudging and opaque terms, the tournament chairman, Fred Ridley, confirmed LIV players already eligible for April in Georgia – 16 of them, to be precise – will not encounter roadblocks at the end of Magnolia Lane.The Masters is looking after itself. This is the same...