The extent of the women’s team’s financial situation was most apparent during the summer.

Sorensen said they turned down a pre-season trip to Australia, not because of finances but logistics. However, he admitted it was “a gamble we can’t afford”.

Everton had to sell highly-rated Sweden midfielder Hanna Bennison to Juventus in order to bring in much-needed funds.

They missed out on players in the Japanese market – who Sorensen said he had scouted years previously – because top clubs offered higher salaries.

Stringent rules on non-EU players coming to the WSL can also be a barrier for clubs like Everton. Foreign players have to meet certain requirements to be eligible to play in England and that limits the talent pool – something West Ham have also endured.

Sevilla duo Inma Gabarro and Toni Payne were among Everton’s highest-profile signings, while existing WSL-based players Honoka Hayashi, Melissa Lawley and Veatriki Sarri were seen as ‘low-risk’ options who did not need time to adapt.

Sorensen said during the summer transfer window the club “can’t just go out and spend a lot of money so we have to be super-smart”.

In reality, the budget for the women’s team has not decreased since 2021 – when former manager Willie Kirk targeted a top-three finish.

However, the market has become more expensive since then. Transfer fees are now common, while player salaries have increased.

Everton Women’s chief executive officer Alan McTavish, director of football Kevin Thelwell and Sorensen are already working on recruitment for January – but fans are growing impatient and want the lack of squad depth addressing.

“Immediate investment in recruitment is essential. We have such a ridiculously unbalanced squad,” said supporter MacFarlane.

“The pressure on these players is huge, especially on some of the younger players, having to play out of position all over the pitch – this simply is not good enough.”

MacFarlane also calls for future development of the club’s Walton Hall Park stadium, which he says will help “grow the fanbase and attract new supporters”.

Mike Perry vs. Conor McGregor? At least one of them thinks the fight is bound to be booked.

In a preview clip for an upcoming documentary produced by Dirty Boxing, Perry is shown expressing his ire for McGregor when the UFC superstar’s name is brought up. McGregor and Perry are both key members of BKFC, with Perry being the bare-knuckle boxing promotion’s most popular fighter and McGregor a part-owner, but they’ve rarely seen eye to eye.

Following Perry’s loss to Jake Paul in a boxing match this past July, McGregor went as far as to tweet that Perry was “fired” from BKFC. At the mention of a possible fight with McGregor, Perry didn’t mince words.

“That needs to happen.”

Perry rose to prominence as a member of the UFC roster with his brash personality and impressive punching power, though he parted ways from that promotion in 2021 with a 7-8 record. He hit the ground running when he joined BKFC later that year, defeating Julian Lane, and then rattling off consecutive wins over Michael Page, former UFC champions Luke Rockhold and Eddie Alvarez, and most recently Thiago Alves.

With each victory, “Platinum” has gained even more popularity, which makes him even more annoyed that McGregor has been stealing his shine.

“What’s making me mad is everybody sucking his balls,” Perry said. “Like he’s already fought for them. Like, ‘Hi, did y’all forget that I’m the reason y’all are pumped up right now?’ I fought five times for y’all, and and you all ain’t showing me no [love].”

Perry also took a shot at BKFC 175-pound champion Dave Mundell for sharing a picture of himself with McGregor on social media. The two are are old rivals from their MMA days, with Perry owning a knockout win of Mundell from 2016.

“And then Dave Mundell posting shaking Conor’s hand, like, you sucking it, bro,” Perry said. “So I knocked you out twice, you bum. Yeah, you heard me.”

The first episode of the Down & Dirty documentary premieres Friday at 2 p.m. ET on the Dirty Boxing YouTube channel. Watch a trailer for the six-part series below.

Duck. Jon Jones wants Alex Pereira next, not Tom Aspinall.

Then Again… Dana White says Jones (or Stipe Miocic) WILL fight Aspinall before it’s said and done.

PPV. The UFC is set for new broadcasting ground, but it looks like pay-per-view is here to stay.

Compete. Kamaru Usman isn’t letting a shared gym get in the way of a potential fight with Shavkat Rakhmonov.

KO. Dricus du Plessis thinks he could put Alex Pereira down in a striking battle.

Chaos. Colby Covington eyes matchups with Jack Della Maddalena, Shavkat Rakhmonov, and… Paddy Pimblett?

Crossover? BKFC star Kai Stewart would love to throw down with fellow Montana native Sean O’Malley.

Between the Links.

Dead leg challenge.

Chris Holdsworth’s new YouTube channel.

UFC Vegas 100 media day.

The MMA Vivisection. Zane Simon and Connor Ruebusch look ahead to Saturday’s illustrious UFC Vegas 100 card.

Cheeky.

Still the GOAT.

Square up.

No lies detected.

UFC Vegas 100. Wow. We made it, everyone.

Comment with your favorite APEX memories below and please, try not to get too emotional.

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @AlexanderKlee or @JedKMeshew on Twitter and let us know about it. Also, follow MMAFighting on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and like us on Facebook.

In a Formula 1 season dominated by technical intrigue between the top squads, attention was grabbed at the Brazilian Grand Prix by suspicions over a potential trick involving the internal water cooling of tyres.

The speculation follows hot on the heels of wild rumours we have seen throughout 2024 of asymmetric braking systems, flexi front wings, McLaren’s ‘mini-DRS’ and Red Bull’s front bib adjuster as the battle between F1’s big teams gets ever more intense.

One of the games played when performance closes up at the front is to try to hold back the performance of your main rival through politicking, rather than waste effort trying to pursue something similar – which would cost a lot more resource.

This latest story revolves around questions Red Bull has had over whether some teams might be adding a very small quantity of liquid when inflating their tyres, in order to help control temperatures.

While the accusations are centred on several unidentified teams – sources suggest that Red Bull’s main interest involves closest rival McLaren – which has denied any behaviour like this.

It comes with Red Bull being well versed in the tactic, because it is understood to have employed it in the past before doing so was outlawed in an FIA technical directive a few years ago.

However, this is where the matter could fall into a bit of a grey area because TDs are only advisory – and it is ultimately down to the stewards to interpret the wordings of the regulations as they see fit to determine if teams have breached the rules.

Pirelli tyres on the car of Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

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And in this case, F1’s technical rules regarding tyre treatment only detail the removal of moisture from the tyres – not adding it.

Article 10.8.4 states:
a. Tyres may only be inflated with air or nitrogen.
b. Any process the intent of which is to reduce the amount of moisture in the tyre and/or in its inflation gas is forbidden.

So in theory, inflating the tyres with moist air does not appear to be strictly prohibited.

From Pirelli’s perspective, it supplies the teams with tyres that are inflated with ‘dry air’ inside.

Head of car racing and F1 Mario Isola said: “We have a dryer connected to our system, and they get all the tyres with dry air, as in the regulation. In the technical directive, it’s written that any modification to this is forbidden, and it’s quite clear.”

Red Bull however approached the governing body regarding this matter, because it believes teams may have been able to seek some advantage from altering the air’s composition and inject some cooling liquid – either water or another substance – through the valve.

Evidence of this tactic was alleged to have been spotted with water and watermarks seen inside some rims after tyres had been stripped at Pirelli’s base post-race in Singapore.

Sets of Medium and Hard Pirelli tyres used by McLaren

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

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The motivation appears simple as Pirelli’s tyres are sensitive to temperature and they are designed to thermally degrade over the course of its lifespan.

This results in the teams and drivers constantly trying to find the right balance between the bulk and tread temperature of the tyre. If a driver can keep the tyres cooler than their rivals, so they do not spike out of the operating window, then that results in improved performance and increased stint length.

A considerable amount of time, money and effort is expended by the teams to understand and harness the relationship between the associated components that can impact the tyre’s thermal degradation.

The wheel rim is now a spec component, supplied to all the teams by BBS, which means that any tricks, such as knurling on the wheel rim’s surface, changing spoke design and altering the geometries of the surfaces can no longer take place.

Meanwhile, the outer wheel cover and a great deal of the brake duct fence design are also specified, further limiting how they can be used for individual aerodynamic or thermodynamic benefit.

However, the brake assembly and internal drum design, while more limited than it has been in the past, still provides a playground for the engineers in terms of how they manage the heat generated by the brakes and how it is transferred to the tyre’s bulk temperature, via the wheel rim.

Each team has its own methods for dealing with the heat exchange between components, which obviously means some will do so better than others.

The introduction of a coolant into the tyre would be expected to help with this process, as it will alter the humidity level, which should in-turn impact the bulk temperature and pressure.

The most likely upshot here is that the temperature will be less than if it was just pure dry air, but there will also be a parallel increase in pressure.

This might look like a net loss in the short term, as teams traditionally try to run as close to the minimum tyre pressures prescribed by Pirelli as possible, as that should yield more performance.

However, given that this regulation set favours a car that’s less sensitive to ride height fluctuation but also requires cars to be as low as possible to reap benefits, it might make sense to have more pressure than might otherwise be ideal.

This is a sentiment echoed by Mario Isola, who suggests that teams have opted for a similar direction in the past, in order to gain aerodynamic performance at the short term detriment of a loss of grip from the tyre.

“I remember a few years ago most of the teams were increasing the front pressure to have a stiffer tyre and go lower with the ride height,” he said.

“They accepted to have this smaller contact patch, because the aero set-up of the car was better. So the balance between the two was about performance – because of the downforce they were able to achieve”.

It is understood that the FIA inspected tyres and rims closely at the Brazilian Grand Prix to see if there was any evidence of extra moisture – but nothing was found.

And while this increased focus will almost certainly mean that if anyone was playing around with this tactic then they will not be doing it any more, it will not stop intrigue over whether anyone got away with it earlier in the year.

SOME much-loved European Grands Prix face the prospect of hosting races on a rotational basis sooner rather than later.

F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali teased that he “had some news to share” as a few European circuits prepare to learn their fate.

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A selection of Europe’s finest tracks might be forced to hold races on a bi-annual basis, starting in 2026.

Domenicali has revealed that some events will have to forego their year-by-year pattern with another event.

With a record-breaking 24 rounds already crammed onto the F1 calendar, the scope for adding new venues is now arguably smaller than ever.

The former Lamborghini CEO said: “We have some news to share very, very soon with regard to the possibility in the mid-term to have some rotational European Grand Prix and some other new options coming later.

“This is something that, of course, we will clarify in the due course. It is true that we have a large demand of new possible venues that want to come in.

“We believe that the balance we have in terms of numbers [of races] is the right one, so 24 is the balanced number that we feel is right.

“I do believe that all the propositions that are coming on our table are giving us the possibility to make even better choices for our future.”

Many of the European circuits are some of the most popular on the calendar, with the Belgian, Italian and British Grands Prix high on the list of the most exciting races each season.

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F1 now spans across four different continents, with the FIA keen to further grow the sport’s presence in the United States with three races – in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas – currently held there.

There are also talks about a further race in South America and a return to South Africa for the first time since 1993.

Rwanda have also pleaded for the chance to host a Grand Prix.

Representatives of the Rwanda Development Board travelled to Monaco earlier this year to meet with the FIA.

In fact, seven-time world champ Lewis Hamilton stressed that F1 can not continue to “ignore Africa”.

Monaco is also up for renewal after 2025 but a rotational option for the famed principality race is thought to be unlikely.

Zandvoort in the Netherlands has long been linked with a rotational deal with Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.

Zandvoort could also swap yearly with Barcelona – while Monza and Imola in Italy might share hosting duties for the Italian Grand Prix.

Madrid joins the calendar in 2026 with a city street circuit, while races at Silverstone, Budapest and Austria have long-term deals into the 2030s.

And fans are largely less than happy with the proposals.

Taking to X one wrote: “It’s the start. Classic staple F1 tracks will be replaced by soulless street circuits that have the biggest wallets.”

A second added: “Rotate the street tracks, these cars are not made for narrow street circuits!”

A third said: “That actually makes a championship harder. There’s removed predictability of development.”

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LAS VEGAS – MMA Junkie is on scene and reporting live from Friday’s official UFC Fight Night 247 (ESPN+) fighter weigh-ins at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, which kick off at noon ET (9 a.m. PT).

Among those weighing in are welterweight standouts Neil Magny (29-12 MMA, 22-11 UFC) and Carlos Prates (20-6 MMA, 3-0 UFC), who meet in the main event, and Bernardo Sopaj (11-3 MMA, 0-1 UFC) and Ricky Turcios (12-4 MMA, 2-2 UFC), who fight in the bantamweight co-feature.

The full UFC Fight Night 247 weigh-in results include:

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, 7 p.m. ET)

• Neil Magny () vs. Carlos Prates ()
• Bernardo Sopaj () vs. Ricky Turcios ()
• Reinier de Ridder () vs. Gerald Meerschaert ()
• Luana Pinheiro () vs. Gillian Robertson ()
• Mansur Abdul-Malik () vs. Dusko Todorovic ()

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, 4 p.m. ET)

• Denise Gomes () vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz ()
• Gaston Bolanos () vs. Cortavious Romious ()
• Zach Scroggin () vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos ()
• Charlie Radtke () vs. Matthew Semelsberger ()
• Da’Mon Blackshear () vs. Cody Stamann ()
• Tresean Gore () vs. Antonio Trocoli ()
• Melissa Mullins () vs. Klaudia Sygula ()

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 247.