CHELSEA ace Nicolas Jackson addressed the controversial African Player of the Year shortlist that includes some major omissions, such as Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah.
The Confederation of African Football released the list of players who are nominated for this year’s esteemed POTY award but sparked a heated debate.
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Chelsea ace Nicolas Jackson fired back at the controversial African Player of the Year award shortlistCredit: Rex
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Jackson and Liverpool superstar Mohamed Salah were both snubbed from the shortlistCredit: Getty
The list includes Brighton‘s Simon Adingra, Rennes’ Amine Gouiri, Borussia Dortmund’s Serhou Guirassy, Paris Saint-Germain’s Achraf Hakimi, Atalanta’s Ademola Lookman, Marseille’s Chancel Mbemba, Al-Ain’s Soufiane Rahimi, Bayer Leverkusen’s Edmond Tapsoba, Al-Kholood’s William Troost-Ekong and Mamelodi Sundowns’ Ronwen Williams.
However, some big names were left out, such as West Ham‘s Mohammed Kudus, Real Madrid’s Brahim Diaz, Leverkusen’s Victor Boniface as well as Jackson and Salah.
The Chelsea ace was left baffled and took to social media to express his surprise.
Jackson posted on his Instagram story: “What happened?!”
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Salah, 32, stood out for Liverpool once more last season as he won the Carabao Cup and amassed a staggering 25 goals and 14 assists in 44 appearances across all competitions.
The Egypt international broke another record just an hour into the new season only two months ago as he recorded the most opening-day goals in Premier League history.
Senegalese star Jackson, 23, has been on fire for Chelsea this season with five goals and three assists in eight Prem matches.
Ghanaian ace Kudus already counts 16 goals in 55 matches for West Ham after only moving to east London a year ago.
Boniface was among the brightest African stars last season as he played a key role in Leverkusen’s historic Bundesliga triumph, which saw them winning their first ever title undefeated.
The Nigeria international scored 21 goals and produced 10 assists in 34 matches for Xabi Alonso’s side last term.
Mo Salah appears to confirm Liverpool transfer exit live on Sky Sports after ripping Man Utd to shreds
And Moroccan star Diaz helped Real win LaLiga as well as the Champions League.
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But none of those exploits were enough to make the shortlist.
MANCHESTER UNITED chiefs took an embarrassing hit in their efforts to save money after Manchester City rejected their request for a lift to the Ballon d’Or ceremony, according to reports.
New United part owners Ineos have embarked on a cost-cutting crusade since taking control of the football operation at Old Trafford.
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Man Utd chiefs asked Man City if two players could go in their private jet to the Ballon d’OrCredit: PA
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But City chiefs rejected the proposal because the flight was fullCredit: Rex
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Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho are up for the Kopa TrophyCredit: Getty
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The 2024 awards ceremony commences on Monday nightCredit: AP
This saw 250 members of staff let go in the summer and Sir Alex Ferguson chopped from his £2million-a-year role.
The latest efforts to cut costs saw United ask bitter rivals Man City if they could give a lift to Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho to go to the Ballon d’Or ceremony.
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According to the Daily Mail, City have chartered a private jet to take their players over to Paris for the awards show on Monday.
However, City rejected the request from United because the flight was full with their eight nominees.
The report adds that alternative arrangements have now been arranged.
United had placed the request because the idea of sending two players on a private jet was not seen as a good look.
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The club’s carbon-footprint was also said to be a factor.
Sharing flights is a common theme for clubs when players are traveling for international duty from places such as South America.
Premier League champions City have the most players at the awards of any English club.
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They have four players in the men’s section of the awards – Ruben Dias, Phil Foden, Erling Haaland and Rodri – and a further three in the women’s award – Yui Hasegawa, Lauren Hemp and Khadija Shaw.
Manchester United vs Fenerbahce: Player Ratings (1)
Savinho is also up for the Kopa Trophy award, which recognises the best young player, going up against Garnacho and Mainoo.
However, they are set to be left disappointed, with Vinicius Jr the reported favorite to win the men’s award, though Rodri is said to be his closest challenger ahead of 2023 Kopa Trophy winner Jude Bellingham.
Meanwhile, Aitana Bonmatí is the favorite to retain her crown in the women’s award.
UFC 308 goes down Saturday night with perhaps the biggest title fight of the year, and MMA Junkie Radio’s “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” will host a live-streamed watch-along right here at 10 a.m. ET. for the full card.
In the headliner, featherweight champion Ilia Topuria (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) puts his title on the line for the first time when he takes on former champ Max Holloway (26-7 MMA, 22-7 UFC). In the co-feature, Khamzat Chimaev (13-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) meets former champ Robert Whittaker (27-7 MMA, 17-5 UFC) to determine the next top contender at middleweight.
UFC 308 takes place at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi and streams on ESPN+ pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN+.
Below is the complete UFC 308 lineup:
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MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 2 p.m. ET)
Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway – for featherweight title
Khamzat Chimaev vs. Robert Whittaker
Magomed Ankalaev vs. Aleksandar Rakic
Dan Ige vs. Lerone Murphy
Shara Magomedov vs. Armen Petrosyan
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 10 a.m. ET)
Ibo Aslan vs. Raffael Cerqueira
Rafael dos Anjos vs. Geoff Neal
Myktybek Orolbai vs. Mateusz Rebecki
Brunno Ferreira vs. Abus Magomedov
Chris Barnett vs. Kennedy Nzechukwu
Farid Basharat vs. Victor Hugo
Ismail Naurdiev vs. Bruno Silva
Rinat Fakhretdinov vs. Carlos Leal
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 308.
A new episode of MMA Junkie Radio with hosts “Gorgeous” George and “Goze” is released every Monday and Thursday. You can stream or download all episodes over at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, OmnyStudio, and more.
Be sure to visit the MMA Junkie Instagram page and YouTube channel to discuss this and more content with fans of mixed martial arts.
All in all, the opening day of track running at the 2024 Mexico Grand Prix was a frustrating affair for pretty much everyone – except, arguably, Ferrari.
The Scuderia did lose much of FP1 when Ollie Bearman was driving Charles Leclerc’s SF-24, thanks to Alex Albon crashing into the 19-year-old when coming across him in the elongated Esses complex. But when it comes to the times that matter (and there where very few of them to be found on Friday) Ferrari at least showed very well.
Pirelli’s 2025 tyre test took over FP2, with five teams (McLaren, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Sauber) set to get an extra 30 minutes of running for running rookie drivers in FP1. But this was ruined by George Russell’s big FP2 crash, which put a massive dent in Mercedes’ day given it had started so well with the Briton leading the opening session.
Having had poor weather frustrate much of its other tyre testing at non-race events in 2024, Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola was left wondering if organising a test at Lourdes was the only way to get its luck to change on such things.
Here then, is everything we learned at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on the opening day.
Bearman was one of five FP1 rookie drivers in action, but his outing was cut short by a crash with Albon
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
The story of the day
The most interesting element of FP1 was set to be the rookie drivers aboard the cars above, before one of them – Bearman – was involved in one of the day’s two big crashes.
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This was after a first FP1 red flag had occurred when signage from a bridge running across the track’s main straight had been collected by Verstappen (who suffered minor floor damage) and Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes.
Albon lost the rear of his Williams as he lifted off coming across the slower-moving Bearman in Leclerc’s Ferrari at Turn 9 during the early stages. He then smashed into the Ferrari’s left-front corner and did even more damage to his own Williams in the barriers at Turn 10 – such was the speed Albon spun at – that he later missed FP2 entirely.
Russell topped FP1 with a 1m17.998s ahead of Sainz in the remaining Ferrari by 0.317s. Red Bull’s session was marred by Verstappen reporting “something [was] wrong” with his engine and stopping his running five minutes early.
On the 2024 mediums, which in our assessment only concerns Ferrari and Mercedes, the scarlet squad led a not very close comparison of 1m21.357s vs 1m22.371s
In FP2, that engine issue – said to be a “leak somewhere”, by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko – reoccurred aboard the world champion’s RB20. That was even after Red Bull thought it had solved the issue during the break between practice sessions and around the long red-flag caused by Russell’s crash.
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Verstappen therefore only completed four laps in FP2. Russell only did that total too, having lost the rear of his W15 at Turn 8 when he appeared to drag his right-rear too far over the inside kerbs and so his car bottomed out and he was pitched into a spin that ended smashed sideways into the Turn 9 barriers.
These took nearly 25 minutes to rearrange and so the added 30 minutes of FP2 for the Pirelli test was lost. Either side of the stoppage, Sainz improved the first-place benchmark from 1m17.809s to 1m17.699s and was trailed by Oscar Piastri’s McLaren by 0.178s.
Russell suffered his second heavy crash in just over a week after his qualifying shunt in Austin
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
The lost time meant while the rookie-running teams did get out on the weekend’s medium tyres (having used a combination of 2024 C4s and C5s, 2025 versions of those compounds, plus a prototype C6 only given to Williams and RB for the Pirelli test) they could only do so for a handful of laps at the end.
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Norris did use his mediums to rise to fifth in the final FP2 order, while the five rookie-runners were the only drivers able to conduct practice starts in the session.
The decision over McLaren’s Right of Review then took over as the main story on Friday night, as, nearly six hours after the hearing with Austin stewards commenced, the decision was announced that it had been rejected.
This centred on how the stewards felt McLaren’s argument that an error had been made in Norris being penalised as the attacking car when he was so far ahead of Verstappen that he became the defender when the Dutchman shot his Red Bull to the Turn 12 apex – critical under the current racing guidelines – was “unsustainable”.
What the (limited) data tells us
FP2 long-run data is usually fraught with peril when it comes to interpreting how the teams have stacked up in opening practices, but given the Pirelli test dominated the second session on Friday it means they must be treated with even more caution than usual.
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Although the run plans Pirelli mandated means we can know how much fuel was aboard each car during a long run on some 2024 tyres (we’re only looking at the top four teams here), the drivers needing to adjust their approaches and deal with jumping between new and old tyre constructions means they cannot be considered fully representative.
The run plans for the Pirelli test were two performance fliers over five laps with 20kg of fuel aboard for each car, plus two 10-lap stints with 100kg – the second of which were slightly shortened as a result of the red flag (from 12 to eight).
Norris, on the Pirelli test tyres, was one of the few drivers to make it out on the mediums late in FP2
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
On the 2024 mediums, which in our assessment only concerns Ferrari and Mercedes, the scarlet squad led a not very close comparison of 1m21.357s vs 1m22.371s. Leclerc’s second Pirelli long-run (after he’d done a stint on the 2025 mediums) had him ahead of Hamilton by an average of 1.014s.
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In other positive news for Ferrari, and this is important given Pirelli said “teams will have to prepare their cars for qualifying and the race in the space of two hours: FP1 on Friday and FP3 on Saturday” in its press release explanation of how the tyre test would work, Sainz edged the long runs all of top teams completed at FP1’s end.
His average on the hards came in at 1m22.150s, which is another healthy 1.061s ahead of Russell’s best for Mercedes (Antonelli was still doing staccato runs at this stage so not assessed). This points to a fairly hefty fuel discrepancy between Ferrari and Mercedes at that point in the opening session.
Given the aberration of the Pirelli test in FP2 this weekend, extra premium is now placed on nailing set-ups in Saturday’s FP3 offering, as well as gathering extra long-run information
McLaren was third-best on the hards with a 1m23.332s, while Verstappen’s woes meant Perez’s FP1-concluding long-run represented Red Bull’s entry at 1m23.392s.
Looking at the FP2 efforts on the 2024 C5s (the softs used for the rest of this weekend), McLaren edged Red Bull with a 1m21.800s from Norris versus Perez’s 1m22.353s.
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Given the aberration of the Pirelli test in FP2 this weekend, extra premium is now placed on nailing set-ups in Saturday’s FP3 offering, as well as gathering extra long-run information. Any team that has a crash in the ultra-low-downforce, thin-air challenge here – or has any more reliability maladies – will be in serious trouble.
A truncated day of running, but the early signs are showing positively for Ferrari
Watch highlights as England suffer defeat to Germany in an international friendly at Wembley where the teams that contested the Euro 2022 final return to the same stage to deliver a seven-goal thriller.
MMA Fighting has a live stream watch party for Saturday’s UFC 308 event, which takes place at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. In the highly anticipated main event, Ilia Topuria puts the UFC featherweight title on the line for the first time against challenger, and BMF champ Max Holloway.
Join MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck, Jed Meshew, and other special guests to watch along with UFC 308 as the main card happens.
In the co-main event, former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker battles the undefeated Khamzat Chimaev in a five-round bout.
UFC 308 also includes a battle between ranked featherweights Dan Ige and Lerone Murphy, while Magomed Ankalaev and Aleksandar Rakic compete in a potential No. 1 contender bout in the light heavyweight division.
Wales captain Angharad James says her side failed to show their usual “passion and pride” but reiterated that Morgan’s late goal gives them hope for the return leg in Cardiff on Tuesday.
“It’s disappointing. It wasn’t a performance we wanted but it’s half-time (in the tie),” James said.
“We’ve got the home leg on Tuesday and it’s more important than ever so hopefully we can get a big crowd.
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“There are new partnerships that take time to build but there wasn’t the passion or pride we would have liked. We could have given more.
“We will learn from it and we will be better on Tuesday.”
Wales have come close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their last three qualification cycles and Wilkinson believes the players’ huge desire to make history led to them playing “frantically”.
“We played with a franticness that I haven’t seen before and that is where a team that hasn’t quite made it a couple of times, you see that coming out and we are better than that,” she said.
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“They want it so much; this is what I mean when I talk about the naivety of the team on occasion, they get stretched because they dive in to tackles when they shouldn’t, they go chasing and then as soon as they connect as a team you see what they can do.”
Wilkinson felt the 2-1 defeat was the most Wales deserved from a game they were favourites to win.
“We are very fortunate it is a home and away series and we get to bring it home now, we have a one goal deficit to make up,” she added.
“I think we were lucky to go in at half-time at 0-0 and I told the players that. This game has to mean something for the growth of our team. I thought they could have scored and made it 3-0 at one point.
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“As soon as we started playing our football and had them running after us you saw how many chances we created. We’ve got to look for the positives and we are definitely looking forward to getting home in front of our fans and using that energy to spur the team on.”
Wales improved markedly after substitute Jess Fishlock came on, with Wales’ most-capped player and record goalscorer providing the assist for Morgan’s potentially vital late goal.
However, Wilkinson says Wales cannot use the absence of Fishlock – and cap centurion Sophie Ingle who is out until 2025 after ACL surgery – as excuses.
“We have to look at what we were doing in terms of giving ourselves a chance in Cardiff and we started to put pressure on them and had some opportunities and finally getting the ball in the back of the net gives us a confidence going home that I am pleased about,” Wilkinson added.
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“If you don’t have Jess Fishlock on the field she’s a huge miss and the same with Sophie Ingle. It’s a long time (five years) since we were without the pair of them but that is not an excuse, because we have the depth.
“What we were probably lacking was ‘who do you look to when times are tough?’ but the players out on the pitch need to stand tall for Wales.”
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