Saffery Champness alleged to have been auditor for Sale Saracens were fined £5.36m and relegated in 2020 Saracens will consider their position over an alleged undeclared conflict of interest at the centre of the disciplinary process into the 2019 salary cap scandal. The club were fined an unprecedented £5.36m for...
English cricket’s hunger for Indian money has led it into a moral and legal minefield | Barney Ronay
Potential exclusion of Pakistan players in the Hundred could breach UK laws on discrimination and leave the ECB exposed The thing about inviting a tiger round for tea is, for all the excitement, the fur, the teeth, the muscles, they do tend to walk off with your dinner and drink...
European countries fear playing in World Cup will mean financial loss
Costs will increase at extended 2026 tournament Around 10 federations want Fifa to tackle problems A number of European football federations fear they will lose money sending their national teams to the World Cup this summer, with an unusual hike in costs and inconsistencies around tax exemptions among the problems...
Vinícius has last word as Real Madrid wrap up victory over Benfica
Vinícius Júnior ran to the corner and danced again, just as he had done in Lisbon a week ago, but this time all around him there was celebration. There was also relief. With 10 minutes left on a nervous night at the Santiago Bernabéu, he had been set free to...
MPs back UK broadcasters in push to expand sport’s free-to-air ‘crown jewels’
Terrestrial channels seeking more legislative protection Number of Labour MPs are understood to be supportive Public service broadcasters are making renewed attempts to persuade the government to expand the list of televised sport’s free-to-air “crown jewels”. A call from the then BBC director of sport, Barbara Slater, to add the...
The rise of rejection sensitive dysphoria: ‘My chest feels like it’s collapsing’
It makes rejection, teasing or criticism feel unbearable, often prompting a strong physical reaction. Sufferers describe life with a condition that is only just starting to be understood Jenna Turnbull’s chest is tightening. The 36-year-old civil servant, who lives in Cardiff, can picture herself as she speaks: an 11-year-old in...
Norway’s all-conquering Winter Olympians have a message for us all – and it’s not what you think | Cath Bishop
How did a small Nordic country dominate the Games? By making sport fun and not something for kids to suffer Norway’s Olympians stormed the mountains of Milano Cortina and left the rest of the world wondering how a nation of 5.6 million people regularly tops the Winter Olympics medal table,...
Tropical plants flowering months earlier or later because of climate crisis – study
Changes threaten ecosystems as flowering falls out of sync with fruit-eating, seed-dispersing animals and pollinators Tropical flowers are blooming months earlier or later than they used to because of climate breakdown, with potentially “cascading impacts across ecosystems”, according to a study of 8,000 plants dating back 200 years. Researchers looked...
Ayahuasca psychedelic DMT shows promise as depression therapy
Study finds participants saw reduction in depressive symptoms as researchers welcome ‘promising’ results A phase II clinical trial has found dimethyltryptamine (DMT), one of the psychoactive components traditionally used in the Amazonian psychedelic ritual ayahuasca, might be a promising therapy for depression. The psychedelic pharmaceutical company Small Pharma (now Cybin...
How ancient Scottish rocks throw ‘snowball Earth’ theory up in the air
Researchers discover rare periods of a few thousands years when climate unexpectedly awoke from slumber During the ”snowball Earth” period about 700m years ago, Earth’s climate shut down. The planet was encased in ice and insulated from seasonal variations: spring, summer, autumn and winter all stopped. Or at least that...