Talk of a Makhachev retirement has moved from rumor to something close to a stated plan. UFC welterweight champion Islam Makhachev said on X that his next fight will be “one of the last in my career,” a remark that has put a rough timeline on the end of one of the most dominant runs in the sport’s history.

What Makhachev actually said

The 35-year-old Russian stopped short of announcing an exact exit date. He framed the next bout as a final statement. “They say Prates is too dangerous for me and Morales is too good for me,” he wrote. “So I want to face the best of them and prove to the world once again who is the best in the world.” That means he is targeting the winner of the interim welterweight title fight between Brazil’s Carlos Prates and Ecuador’s Michael Morales.

The wording matters. “One of the last” leaves room for more than one fight, so this is not a formal retirement announcement. Still, it is his clearest signal yet that the end of his career is near.

A record streak and a near-perfect résumé

Makhachev arrives at this point with a strong case for being one of the greatest fighters the UFC has produced. He beat Ireland’s Ian Machado Garry by unanimous decision at UFC 330 in Philadelphia in August to defend his welterweight belt. It was his 17th straight UFC win, which took him past Anderson Silva’s long-standing record for the longest streak in the promotion’s history. The former lightweight champion is 29-1 overall and is ranked the UFC’s pound-for-pound number one.

UFC chief Dana White has said Makhachev is “on the right path” to being regarded as the promotion’s greatest ever. A Makhachev retirement while still champion, and still unbeaten in the UFC for years, would give that argument a tidy ending.

The scheduling dispute behind the interim title

The announcement comes amid a public disagreement over timing. White said Makhachev was originally due to defend against Prates in January but chose to wait until after Ramadan. Al Jazeera reports that Makhachev will observe the holy month in February and early March 2027 and return in the second quarter.

White was blunt about it. “On average, Islam fights like once a year,” he said, adding that “you can’t hold up divisions like this.” He created the interim title bout to keep the division moving, saying the fight “makes sense.” The champion has since described it as the way to find “the true worthy contender.”

The fighters who will decide his next opponent

Prates and Morales meet on 30 January 2027 at UFC 336 in Toronto, where Al Jazeera says the fight is the co-main event. Prates, 33, has knocked out his last three opponents. Morales, 27, is 19-0 as a professional. One is a proven finisher and the other is unbeaten, which gives Makhachev the style contrast he seems to want for a closing chapter.

The remaining questions are practical. It is unclear how many fights Makhachev has in mind, and the dates for his return depend on the interim result and his Ramadan break. For now, the Makhachev retirement story rests on a single sentence from the champion, but it gives fans a likely end point for a record-setting career.

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File photo: Islam Makhachev 2022 UFC belt.png by Новости ННТ, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

A thousandth of a second separated Lando Norris from Kimi Antonelli at the top of the timesheets in Mexico GP final practice, and it left the weekend’s pole-position fight wide open. The reigning world champion edged the man poised to succeed him, with the result landing just hours before qualifying at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

A margin too small to read anything into

Antonelli had set the benchmark with a 1m17.601s, shortly after voicing his irritation over Max Verstappen getting in his way at Turn 1. He looked set to improve, going purple in the first sector of his next push, but never completed the lap. That gave Norris the opening, and the McLaren driver took it by the narrowest possible margin to post the fastest time of the weekend so far.

Charles Leclerc was 0.117s back in third after a late improvement, with Norris’s team-mate Oscar Piastri fourth. Verstappen, struggling with his brakes, was fifth and 0.351s off the pace. Sky Sports described a “genuine three-team fight” for pole, while Autosport pointed to the closeness of the four leading teams.

Ferrari’s potential versus its practice pace

Leclerc had led both Friday sessions, so third place felt like a step back for Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton had lost track time in FP2 with engine trouble but briefly topped the medium-tyre runs on Saturday morning with a 1m18.162s. An untidy final sector on his soft-tyre lap left him sixth, more than four tenths adrift. Mercedes’ George Russell was seventh, having complained of a lack of grip at Turn 12, the right-hander leading into the Foro Sol stadium.

Sky Sports’ analysts argued Ferrari still hold more potential than they showed. Leclerc was visibly sliding the car on most of his flying laps, and Jamie Chadwick said the team struggled to deliver on the first soft-tyre laps, “when it counts”. There is a recent precedent too: Ferrari topped every practice session in Austin last week, then faded in qualifying as Antonelli took pole.

Title within reach for Antonelli

The stakes are high for the 20-year-old Mercedes driver. He needs only a top-nine finish on Sunday to become Formula 1’s youngest world champion, and has reportedly promised to win the title in style. Norris’s narrow victory in Mexico GP final practice means he heads into qualifying with a point to prove as the man being succeeded.

Penalties, engine trouble and a Haas shake-up

Verstappen cannot take pole whatever he does in qualifying. He and Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson each carry a one-place grid penalty for their FP2 collision, which the stewards called “unacceptable”. Both drivers admitted the clash was “unnecessary and clumsy”. Lawson finished ninth in the session, narrowly ahead of rookie team-mate Arvid Lindblad in tenth. Verstappen said the incident was “not smart” for someone in Lawson’s position, with the New Zealander not yet confirmed at Racing Bulls for next season.

Verstappen’s team-mate Isack Hadjar was eighth, and called his Red Bull “the worst car I’ve driven this weekend”. Away from the track, the FIA gave the 22-year-old a formal warning after footage showed him pushing aside a fan who was trying to take a selfie. The stewards said he was reacting to “an uninvited and rather aggressive act” by someone who was “invading his personal space without consent”.

Reliability problems hit the midfield. Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto set no time after a power unit problem on his out-lap, with smoke seen from the engine. Home favourite Sergio Perez also failed to set a lap, and Cadillac said it would make a “precautionary engine change” before qualifying.

The biggest surprise came from Haas, which replaced Esteban Ocon with Ryo Hirakawa for the rest of the weekend. The team offered no explanation, though Sky Sports reported it confirmed Ocon was not ill. Ocon had a heated radio exchange with his race engineer in FP2, and he is already due to leave Haas at the end of the season. Hirakawa, a Le Mans 24 Hours winner making his race-weekend debut at 32, finished 19th, about six tenths behind team-mate Oliver Bearman. Haas has not said who will drive in Brazil next weekend.

With tyre runs yet to deliver anyone’s best lap, qualifying looks set to be decided by who strings a clean first soft-tyre lap together under pressure.

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File photo: 2025 Japan GP – McLaren – Lando Norris – FP1.jpg by Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

One leg of darts, 15 throws and a £501,000 cheque: that was the outcome of Netflix’s Beat Luke Littler in Manchester on Friday night, when Fallon Sherrock became the only contestant to topple the reigning world champion.

Sherrock, 32, won the bull to throw first, hit a 180 (only the third maximum of the night) and finished on double 20. Littler, 19, had beaten 14 challengers before her. He called it “world class” and noted that winning the bull and going out in 15 darts was exactly what a challenger needed to do. Sherrock’s win ended the event immediately, so the five amateurs still waiting never got their turn.

A prize second only to Littler’s own

According to Sky Sports and the Independent, the payout is the second-biggest in darts history. Only Littler has taken home more from one prize pot, the £1m he earned for his second world title in January. For comparison, Sherrock won £25,000 for reaching the third round of the 2019 PDC World Championship, the run that made her the first woman to win a match at the event and earned her the nickname “The Queen of the Palace”. She was awarded an MBE in 2023.

Sherrock said her son Rory was in the crowd. “It’s his first time at anything and he has seen me win,” she said. Sixteen-time world champion Phil Taylor called the win “life-changing” and said it could clear a mortgage.

The criticism over who counts as an amateur

The victory came with an argument attached. Netflix billed the show as giving “amateurs a chance at life-changing money”, and Sherrock’s name on the list drew criticism on social media because of her profile. She qualified under the rules because she has never held a PDC Tour Card.

She admitted the backlash was “tough”. “I wouldn’t class myself as a pro really, because all I do is just play darts for the enjoyment of it,” she said. She added that people forget she was still playing World Darts Federation events when she made her Worlds breakthrough. Her reaction after winning was: “I’m just so happy to overcome all the hate and win.”

PDC president Barry Hearn, who sat on the audition panel, defended her place. “She’s entitled to enter. Why should she be denied?” he asked. He argued that a field of 20 people who could barely throw a dart would make poor television, and said the aim was “excellence competing against excellence”. Other contestants ranged from the world’s top-ranked WDF player to a bin man, an Australian jockey and a Nando’s manager.

How the field was built

The scale of the project was considerable. Some 25,000 people applied. Hopefuls first had to get down from 501 in 24 darts or fewer, then face an interview panel that included Taylor, Hearn and pundit Laura Turner. Sixteen players were picked outright, while the most experienced were paired off and put to a Netflix viewer vote. Sherrock took 75% against Germany’s Jarod Becker to earn her place.

Not everyone’s night ended well. Ireland’s Pearse Mackle, a 21-year-old student from County Cavan, was close to winning but missed the bullseye he needed.

The format fits a growing trend of amateurs-versus-stars spectacles. The Australian Open’s one-point tennis slam produced a A$1m winner who beat Jannik Sinner, and 100 amateur drivers recently raced Max Verstappen at Silverstone. Hearn linked the Netflix event to Littler’s arrival. “Luke Littler gave me the one thing I was missing, he gave me that young audience,” he said, adding that Beat Luke Littler was “a statement on where darts has become”.

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File photo: Fallon Sherrock – 2022 (cropped).jpg by Sven Mandel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Aston Villa legal action against Jamie Carragher was announced on Friday, and by Saturday the pundit had apologised, calling his own language “clumsy and wrong”. The row began with a podcast discussion about Unai Emery and Manchester United, and it escalated quickly into one of the more unusual clashes between a Premier League club and a television pundit in recent memory.

The club’s statement was posted on social media and signed by chairman Nassef Sawiris. “Aston Villa will initiate legal action against Jamie Carragher for his unacceptable insults about the club and its fans,” it read. It ended with a line that gave the dispute a wider meaning: “Aston Villa will not allow anyone to stop our ascension in English and European football.”

What Carragher said on the podcast

The remarks came on the Stick to Football podcast. Carragher was discussing the future of Michael Carrick, whose position at Old Trafford is reported to be in the balance after a dismal start to the season, and whether Emery might replace him. “Surely he would want that opportunity to manage a giant again,” Carragher said of the Villa manager.

He then set out what he called a “chain” in football. Real Madrid, he argued, can take Manchester United’s best player, as they did with Cristiano Ronaldo, while clubs below Villa can be raided by Villa for their managers and players. He told Villa supporters to “shut the f*** up” and added: “Aston Villa will never be Man United.”

Carragher’s defence, then his apology

Carragher first tried to calm things down by saying the comment was a joke. He said it was a response to “the stick Villa fans have given me” for suggesting Emery might fancy the United job. He also said he had praised Emery and Villa for years. On the Overlap Daily he went further, calling Emery the best manager in the league. He said any club in United’s position would ask “what’s the best we can get?”, and that a manager’s ego might push back on being told “that’s your level”. “It’s grown arms and legs,” he said.

That explanation did not end the matter. On Saturday he wrote on X: “I’d like to apologise to Aston Villa, the owners and their fans. My language this week was clumsy and wrong.” He insisted it had been tongue-in-cheek but accepted it “has not come across that way”, and signed off by wishing Villa luck in their home game against Fulham.

What we still don’t know

Several questions remain open. Reuters, cited by Al Jazeera, reported that the club did not say what legal basis it would rely on. Nor is it clear whether the apology will lead Villa to drop the Aston Villa legal action or press on with it. At the time of the Guardian’s report, the club had not responded publicly to the apology.

The sources also do not say what form any claim would take, or whether the club has formally contacted Carragher. Reuters said it asked for comment from both sides at the time of its initial report and did not immediately receive replies.

Why the reaction was so sharp

Villa’s reaction makes more sense given how the club has changed under Emery. Since he arrived four years ago, Villa have reached the Champions League twice and ended a 30-year wait for a trophy by winning the Europa League last season. This season, though, Emery has had to rebuild after six players from the Europa League final side left, some for higher wages and others for a more regular chance at silverware.

Against that background, a line that Villa will “never” match United is likely to land badly with a club and fanbase who see their rise as still in progress. Sawiris’s reference to Villa’s “ascension” suggests the club saw the comments as more than banter.

For Carragher, who works for Sky Sports and CBS, the episode is a reminder that the blunt style of modern football punditry can create real problems when it is aimed at a specific club’s supporters. The apology may help to defuse things, but the future of the Aston Villa legal action rests with the club.

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The Durban Olympic bid is now South Africa’s official route to hosting the first Summer Games on African soil. On Thursday, the country’s Olympic committee named the east-coast city as its preferred candidate for either the 2036 or the 2040 Olympics and Paralympics. Officials could not yet say what it would cost.

The announcement came from Lwandile Simelane, acting president of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. She said Durban would be the main candidate city but that the proposal would probably be a “multi-city bid”, with some events held elsewhere in the country. Johannesburg and Cape Town were also considered before Durban was chosen.

What the Durban Olympic bid is built on

The centrepiece would be the 56,000-seat Moses Mabhida Stadium, which was built for the 2010 football World Cup, the first held in Africa. Durban is South Africa’s third-largest city, home to around 4 million people on the subtropical Indian Ocean coast. Building a bid around an existing venue is a familiar way for candidates to signal restraint, and it sits awkwardly well with the city’s history of financial doubts.

A history of near-misses and cost worries

Durban was floated as an Olympic host more than a decade ago, after the World Cup, but no official bid materialised, largely because of concerns over cost. The city was also stripped of the 2022 Commonwealth Games because it could not provide the financial and other guarantees required. South Africa as a whole has tried before: Cape Town bid unsuccessfully for the 2004 Games.

Against that backdrop, the absence of a price tag stands out. Officials said they were not yet able to offer any estimate of what staging the Games might cost if the bid succeeds. Any credible Durban Olympic bid will eventually have to answer that question, particularly given the earlier Commonwealth Games withdrawal.

A crowded field and a long timetable

South Africa is one of seven countries bidding for the 2036 Games, alongside India, Qatar, South Korea, Germany, Hungary and Turkey. The International Olympic Committee set 31 October as the deadline for national committees to formally declare interest in 2036. Candidates can make virtual presentations to the IOC next month to begin the official process, and the IOC board is due to approve a shortlist in March. The host for 2036 is expected to be chosen in mid-2029.

Notably, South Africa is pitching for either 2036 or 2040, which suggests it may be prepared to wait if a rival is favoured for the earlier date. The sources do not say how the 2040 process would work.

Why it matters for Africa

If successful, South Africa would become the first African host of the Summer Games since the modern Olympics began in 1896. Momentum of a sort is building on the continent: the Youth Olympics open this weekend in Dakar, Senegal, which marks the first Olympic sports event ever held in Africa.

For now, the Durban Olympic bid is an announcement of intent rather than a funded plan. The coming months, from the IOC presentations to the March shortlist, will show whether South Africa can pair its historic pitch with the financial assurances that have eluded Durban before.

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Alexander Zverev took less than an hour to dismiss Britain’s Arthur Fery 6-0 6-2 and book a place in the Vienna semi-finals, just days before he is due to replace Jannik Sinner as world number one. The German top seed has been in commanding form in the Austrian capital, and Friday’s quarter-final offered little resistance.

A repeat of Wimbledon, with the same result

The match was a rematch of this summer’s Wimbledon semi-final, which Zverev also won in straight sets to end Fery’s surprise run at the All England Club. Reports differ slightly on the exact length of Friday’s match, putting it at 58 or 59 minutes, but not on how one-sided it was. Zverev dropped only six points on his own serve, created nine break points and converted five. Sky Sports counted 19 winners from the German.

Fery arrived in Vienna in good spirits after beating former world number five Lorenzo Musetti in the last 16. He needed treatment on his leg near the end of that match, though, and he never looked at his best against Zverev. Both outlets noted that he struggled to make an impact.

Zverev’s praise for Fery

Zverev was generous in victory. He described Fery as a different kind of opponent from the one he faced the previous day, saying the Briton lacks big firepower but “plays tactically extremely well” and is “extremely fast”. He urged Fery not to be too hard on himself. “It is his first year on the Tour and he is doing amazing things,” Zverev said, adding that he hoped Fery would keep his head up. Sky Sports reported that Fery is ranked 35th in the world.

Zverev also said he had struggled to sleep on Thursday night. He had just beaten Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor in the last 16, a result that lifted him above Sinner in the standings.

A rise built on a big year

When the rankings update on Monday, the 29-year-old will become the second German man to reach the top spot, after Boris Becker in 1991. The French Open and US Open champion has taken advantage of injuries to Carlos Alcaraz and Sinner this year to overtake both. He is now chasing a third title of the season, and the Vienna semi-finals will be his 12th last-four appearance of 2026, according to Sky Sports.

His opponent will be either Australian fifth seed Alex de Minaur or Italy’s Matteo Berrettini.

The other half of the draw

The other Vienna semi-finals pairing is a heavyweight one. Second seed Alcaraz, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, beat American Tommy Paul 6-4 7-6 (7-2) and will face third seed Daniil Medvedev. Medvedev beat France’s Adrian Mannarino 6-2 6-3, and the win secured him a place at the season-ending ATP Finals for the seventh time.

The 30-year-old Russian missed last year’s finale after qualifying every year from 2019 to 2024. He has had a resurgent season, with four titles and more than 50 wins for the first time since 2023. He joins Zverev, Alcaraz and Ben Shelton in the eight-man field. Sinner has also qualified but will not play because of injury, leaving four places still to be filled.

Elsewhere, in Tokyo, women’s world number one Elena Rybakina withdrew from her Pan Pacific Open quarter-final against Leylah Fernandez with a neck injury. She had secured the year-end number one ranking only a day earlier. Fernandez advanced by walkover and will face Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova in the semi-finals.

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Charles Leclerc set the pace in first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix on Friday, finishing 0.659 seconds clear of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli in a session where ten rookies took over cars from the regular drivers. The result matters less for its headline than for what it hints at on Sunday. Antonelli is poised to be crowned world champion, and Ferrari look strong at altitude.

Antonelli’s title picture at the Mexico City Grand Prix

The arithmetic strongly favours the young Italian. A ninth-place finish clinches the championship whatever else happens. The only theoretical way to stop him is a win for his Mercedes team-mate George Russell or for Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. Even then, he would need only ninth if Russell wins, or 10th if Hamilton does.

Leclerc’s margin gives Ferrari reason for optimism. Sky Sports pointed to the team’s small turbo working well in the thin air at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Hamilton was fourth after what was described as a scruffy soft-tyre lap. Ferrari were also the only team to run both of their regular drivers in the session, and they are looking for only their third win of the season.

A session full of rookies

Teams often use Mexico City for their mandatory rookie running because the opening session is usually unrepresentative on a dirty track. This weekend is also not a Sprint weekend, and the circuit is considered relatively simple. That explains the unusual order. Mercedes reserve Frederik Vesti, in Russell’s car, was third, less than a tenth behind Antonelli. Ayumu Iwasa was fifth in Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, under a second off the pace on mediums. Pierre Gasly, Fernando Alonso, Oscar Piastri, Oliver Bearman and Arvid Lindblad completed the top ten.

Not every debut went smoothly. Briton Freddie Slater’s first grand prix weekend outing for Audi was cut to 14 laps, about half a normal run, because of reliability problems. He still got out late to set the 19th-fastest time. Sky Sports reported that Audi are under investigation for sending him out with a cooling fan on the car and are likely to face a big fine. Aston Martin’s Jak Crawford stopped on track with a technical problem, and Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar had an early power-unit issue that ruled out serious qualifying simulations. Racing Bulls’ Nikola Tsolov, making his practice debut, finished about a tenth behind Lindblad despite saying that blood flow to his right leg had been restricted by his seat.

Herta reaches the superlicence threshold

The most consequential storyline may be off the timing screens. Colton Herta finished 22nd, but the FIA says he has now covered enough distance to reach the 40 superlicence points required to race in Formula 1. Sky Sports reported that senior figures at Cadillac are keen to give him a 2027 drive. That would threaten Valtteri Bottas’ seat, despite the multi-year deal he signed when he joined the new team. Liam Lawson’s future at Racing Bulls is also unsettled. Tsolov, a Red Bull junior, could become Formula 2 champion, and Red Bull have traditionally promoted their young drivers quickly.

The regular drivers return for second practice on Friday at 10pm UK time, which should give a truer read on whether Ferrari’s pace is genuine and whether Antonelli’s title is as safe as the numbers suggest.

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The Antonelli world title could be settled in Mexico City this Sunday, but the Mercedes driver’s build-up has been interrupted by a viral illness. Kimi Antonelli missed Thursday’s media day at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and the team says he is expected back for Friday’s practice sessions.

Mercedes described him as “feeling under the weather” and said the FIA had excused him from his mandatory media duties “as a precaution” so that he could rest before the weekend. A team spokesperson said they expected him back on Friday. The first practice session starts at 18:30 GMT.

What Antonelli needs to clinch the title

Antonelli arrives with a 123-point lead over team-mate George Russell, and only 125 points remain in the season. He comes off his ninth win of 2026, in the United States Grand Prix in Austin.

The sources describe the arithmetic in slightly different ways, but they agree on the main points. A ninth-place finish or better lets Antonelli take the championship on his own terms. If he finishes lower, or even scores nothing, he can still be champion as long as neither Russell nor Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton wins the race. BBC Sport’s analysis puts it most precisely: ninth would be enough if Russell wins, and 10th would be enough if Hamilton wins.

If he gets there, the Antonelli world title would make him the youngest champion in Formula 1 history. Sky Sports notes he would break Sebastian Vettel’s record by three years. He is 20 and in only his second season in the sport. The Associated Press adds that he would be the first Italian champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.

A season that has turned around

The pace of Antonelli’s rise has been striking. Sky Sports points out that his 2026 campaign came after a difficult rookie year. He has won nine races to Russell’s three, and has generally had the upper hand over his team-mate.

After Austin, Antonelli sounded keen to avoid thinking of the championship as already won. “I’m very well aware it’s very close but the mindset hasn’t changed,” he told Sky Sports F1. “I want to finish the season on a high in order to have high hopes in 2027.”

Russell searches for consistency

Russell spoke to the media on Thursday and was candid about his own season. His wins have come in Australia, Austria and Azerbaijan, but he has rarely mounted a sustained challenge to Antonelli. He said he had never experienced such fluctuating form, pointing to a Baku pole position by 0.8 seconds and a win, followed by an eighth-place finish last week.

“We don’t know why that is. It’s quite strange and certainly scratching our head a little bit,” Russell said. He added that he has moved past the frustration he voiced earlier in the year and is determined not to make “irrational” changes. “These performances are in there. I’ve lost no faith that we can do it because we’ve shown that.”

Bottas also unwell, with Cadillac’s future in question

Antonelli was not the only driver absent. Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas also missed media day, with his team calling him “unwell” and saying a day of rest was a precaution that does not currently affect his participation in the rest of the weekend.

His absence comes amid speculation about his future. Cadillac announced a new deal for Sergio Perez, who stays until at least 2029, without mentioning Bottas. BBC Sport reports that the team is said to be considering promoting American reserve driver Colton Herta. Herta is having his fifth practice outing of the year on Friday, part of the effort to build the mileage needed for an F1 super licence. Sky Sports says Bottas is understood to have a contract running to the end of 2027, and BBC Sport says no decision has been made on Perez’s 2027 team-mate.

For now, the immediate question is simple: whether Antonelli recovers quickly enough to be at full strength. If he does, a ninth-place finish on Sunday would be enough to secure the Antonelli world title in Mexico City.

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File photo: Kimi Antonelli at the Melbourne Walk during the 2026 Australian Grand Prix (028A7923) cropped.jpg by Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Arsenal’s appeal against the Dowman red card has failed, and Mikel Arteta is using the episode to make a point about what the club expects of its brightest teenage talent. The 16-year-old will miss the trips to Liverpool and the games against Hull and Newcastle, and his manager has made clear that being young earns him protection but not exemption.

What happened at Fleetwood

Dowman was sent off five minutes before the end of normal time in Tuesday’s League Cup fourth-round tie, after reacting to a heavy challenge from Fleetwood’s Harrison Neal. The game finished 1-1 and the League Two side won 5-3 on penalties, a result that knocked the Premier League champions out. The Guardian reports that Dowman became the youngest player ever sent off in the competition. The BBC noted that his dismissal ended an Arsenal run of 79 matches without a red card.

As Dowman left the pitch, Arteta was seen having words with him. Some pundits criticised that reaction, and on Friday the manager addressed it for the first time.

Arteta’s defence of his reaction

Arteta said he had not seen the response to his reaction, but insisted context mattered. He said he had warned Dowman before kick-off that he was likely to be targeted. “It was the best reaction ever to be able to be who I am,” he said, comparing it to the way parents can react to their children in ways an outsider might not like. He also said there were “no issues at all” between them and that the pair had spoken on Thursday.

His central message was about standards. “We look after him so much that you cannot imagine,” Arteta said, “but at the same time, we’re going to demand [from] him like anybody else because he needs to earn the right to play.” He added that the other players would expect fairness, since they had to continue with ten men.

A pattern Arteta wants to end

The Fleetwood dismissal was Dowman’s second this month. He was also sent off for England Under-19s in a game against the United States, where he again took some heavy challenges. Arteta said that will continue “because of the way he plays and the way he attracts opponents”. He added that he has made similar mistakes himself and knows how much a red card can change what happens next, so the club must “put an end to it very, very quickly”.

Arsenal had “put every argument on the table” in the appeal, Arteta said. He argued that the panel should have weighed Dowman’s age and the challenges he had received, and that his reaction was “minimal in relation to the action”. He said Arsenal were lucky Dowman had not suffered a broken foot. The FA nonetheless upheld the Dowman red card, and the suspension began immediately.

Team news and what comes next

Arsenal travel to Liverpool on Sunday, level on points with leaders Manchester City, according to AFP. Noni Madueke faces a late fitness test on an ankle problem that kept him out at Fleetwood. Bukayo Saka is not expected back until at least after the international break while the club awaits more news on his thigh injury.

For Dowman, who has made 18 senior appearances and holds several youngest-ever records, the ban is a short pause. Arteta’s message suggests the lesson of the Dowman red card will be a lasting one.

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A Hyrox athlete who kept racing through a sudden bout of diarrhoea in Beijing has said publicly that she got it wrong, just as she prepares to return to competition. Australian Joanna Wietrzyk, 24, told the BBC in her first interview since the incident that “the decision that I made in hindsight was the wrong decision and I’m truly sorry for everyone that I did affect.”

What happened in Beijing

Wietrzyk holds the women’s world record in the sport, with a time of 54:25. She says she went into the September race in Beijing “feeling fresh, feeling really, really good,” but that about halfway through, “everything did transpire.” She later said the cause was a bacterial infection from food poisoning. Photos of her appeared widely online, and she carried on to win the women’s Pro event.

The Mirror reported that organisers removed contaminated equipment and closed off affected lanes. The venue was also set for a deep clean, including carpet replacement, before the next day’s event. Hyrox China has reportedly refunded some competitors’ entry fees.

“My only focus is on racing”

Asked why she did not stop, Wietrzyk pointed to the mindset of elite competition. “As a very competitive person… and an elite athlete that I am, my only focus is on racing,” she said, adding: “Obviously I did put other people at risk.” She said nobody encouraged her to withdraw at the time, but also that “it was my decision to continue racing so I take full responsibility for that.”

Her first public reaction did little to help. She posted a hospital selfie on Instagram captioned “Go hard or go home… a win is a win.” She has since deleted it and says she regrets it, explaining that she was in “flight or fight mode” while seeking treatment. In the week after the race she apologised, forfeited the win and retroactively withdrew from the event. Pressed on whether the apology came too late or was damage limitation, she said she had not expected the scale of exposure and “needed those days to reflect on it and process it.”

How Hyrox has responded

The sport’s governing side has also acknowledged fault. Co-founder Moritz Fürste apologised and said it was a mistake not to react immediately during the race. Hyrox has now introduced rules that let race directors remove any athlete whose vomit, urine or faeces risk contamination or threaten the welfare of themselves or others. That matters in an event held mostly indoors on shared equipment. Hyrox alternates a kilometre of running with exercises such as sled pushes, burpee jumps, rowing and sandbag lunges. Founded in Hamburg in 2017, it has grown rapidly worldwide.

Hyrox also said anyone sending abuse or threats to the athlete would be banned from future events.

A return under scrutiny

Wietrzyk described the backlash as “traumatic” and said she had considered leaving the sport. She suggested she should not have received “such backlash” and said she is “only human,” while acknowledging that she had also received support. She said the episode showed social media can be a very “toxic place.”

She is due to compete in the Elite 15 division in Hamburg on Friday. In an Instagram video from the city she said she was “super excited to go back doing what I love.” She told the BBC she was nervous and hoped the episode would not define her: “I don’t want it to become my identity.” After weeks of reflection, she added, “there is more to life… than just racing and just winning.”

Her return will test whether a sport that has grown quickly can balance competitive drive with the health of everyone sharing the race floor. The rule change suggests the sport no longer wants to leave that decision to the athletes alone.

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