The best part of every season's start is looking around the sunny Daytona starting grid and seeing every uniform, every pit box and every car sparkling. As Rusty Wallace once said, "Daytona 500 prerace is the happiest place on the planet, and the cleanest. And that lasts about one lap." Because then begins all of those rubs and pit stops and rain delays and fuses lit and fistfights that spend the next nine months dishing out stains of sweat and oil, with a little blood and champagne mixed in for good measure.
the founder and CEO of fitness technology company Whoop has found himself thrust into the center of a global controversy after his startup 's products became the unlikely breakout star of this year's Australian Open. It was not a typical viral moment. It happened after the top tennis players in the world across the women's and men's game, Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz, and Jannick Sinner, were all asked by umpires to remove their Whoop fitness devices from their wrists during the middle of their matches.
His investigation took listeners deep inside the closed world of Irish rowing, a world where winning medals mattered more than athlete welfare, and where silence was expected, not questioned. And this week, the controversy reached a new level. The chief executive of Rowing Ireland did not attend an Oireachtas committee hearing into the safeguarding of high-performance athletes at the organisation in what was described as an "extraordinary meeting before it ever started".
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced it has updated the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure to reflect recent eligibility guidance; The New York Times has sued Perplexity AI for copyright and trademark infringement; AGs from seven U.S. states sent a letter to the College Sports Commission calling out its "cartoonishly villainous" university participation agreement; Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) made negative remarks about the Commerce Department's proposals on government equity in
With the draw for the 2026 Fifa World Cup set to take place on Friday, a report examining the participation of athletes convicted of sexual offences at major sporting events has highlighted significant distrust of international sports governing bodies in how they deal with these situations. The report, titled No One Wants to Talk About It, is the result of interviews with elite athletes directly affected by sexual abuse.
Joan Laporta's current term at Barcelona has been largely aimed at lifting the club from the financial mess they were in at the time of his arrival. After all, the club were sinking into debt when he took over as the president. Through well-negotiated salary revisions, player sales and economic levers, Laporta brought Barcelona back to a competitive level on the field and close to the financial 1:1 rule, although they still have not hit the aforementioned balance yet. The club's situation and means of getting out of it, however, have generated significant debate in recent times.
Trust is the invisible currency of sports. Without it, even the most spectacular athletic achievements lose their meaning, reduced to mere spectacle divorced from the integrity that gives competition its soul. In an era when sports governance faces unprecedented scrutiny-from match-fixing scandals to judging controversies-the systems that build and maintain trust have never been more critical. For decades, tennis officiating has operated as a laboratory for trust-building under extreme pressure, developing frameworks that extend far beyond the baseline and into broader leadership contexts.
Association under fire for its lavish non-football spending The FAI paid public relations and corporate advisory firm Teneo €242,302 for services in 2024 - almost €100,000 more than the projected spend at the beginning of the year. Figures seen by the Sunday Independent reveal the extent of the cash-strapped association's spending on third-party communications experts, with Teneo receiving €148,400 in 2023 when the budget allowed for €90,000.
That system once formed the backbone of Indian football. District and state leagues fed into national tournaments, and professional players could climb step by step from district clubs to state teams and eventually the national setup. The Indian Super League (ISL) changed all that, breaking away from the national system more than a decade ago. It has been drifting further from the base of the pyramid that once produced its players ever since.
French female boxers have been barred from competing at the inaugural World Boxing Championships in Liverpool after failing to meet a deadline for a genetic sex test that the French boxing federation (FFBoxe) said was incompatible with French law. World Boxing, which issued a list of competitors for Thursday's opening rounds with no French entrants included, said it would not comment on individual cases but added it had warned all federations of the policy.
Kharlan expressed her outrage and disappointment regarding the FIE's decision to relax neutrality rules, allowing Russian military athletes to participate in competitions. "It's one of the propaganda tools of the army," she stated, highlighting the direct link between these athletes and the Russian military aggression in Ukraine. She expressed deep concern about the implications for the sport, indicating that the integrity of fencing is at risk due to Russian influence and governance issues surrounding the FIE.
The Liberal Democrats have proposed an amendment to the Football Governance Bill ensuring that at least 10 Premier League games are available free-to-air each season. This amendment includes significant events like the League Cup Final and play-off finals from other divisions, aiming to increase public access to top-flight football without subscription fees.
