分类： sports

LONDON, AFP – It is a downfall that has shaken English football: a decade on from one of the most extraordinary underdog triumphs the sport has ever seen, former Premier League champions Leicester City have been relegated to England’s third-tier League One, marking only the second time the club has dropped this low in its 140-year history.

The fateful result came on a tense Tuesday night at the King Power Stadium, where Leicester hosted Hull City needing all three points to keep their faint survival hopes alive. The script unfolded with heartbreak for the Foxes faithful: Hull took an early lead through Liam Millar’s 18th-minute strike, before a 52nd-minute penalty from James Justin drew Leicester level. Two minutes later, Luke Thomas put the hosts ahead, sparking fleeting hopes of a dramatic great escape. Those dreams were snuffed out just 11 minutes later, when Oli McBurnie netted Hull’s second equalizer to secure a 2-2 draw.

With just two matches remaining in the 2024-25 Championship season, second-from-bottom Leicester sit seven points adrift of safety, confirming their drop to League One – the club’s first appearance in the third tier since the 2008-09 campaign. The milestone caps a stunning three-year decline for a side that defied 5000-1 odds to lift the Premier League title in 2016, one of the most iconic fairy-tale achievements in modern football.

In the immediate aftermath of the relegation confirmation, interim manager Gary Rowett called on the club to confront the scale of the failure and learn from its mistakes. “We have to learn. I think the club have to accept this is the horrible part of the journey of a football club,” Rowett told reporters. “This club won the Premier League not too many moons ago. That was an incredible high at the time for the fans, for everyone associated with the club. I think everyone saw that as an amazing achievement. I think we can be equally as disappointed with how poor this moment is.”

This relegation marks Leicester’s third drop in four seasons: the club exited the Premier League in 2023, slipped from the top flight again in 2025, and now faces the unpalatable prospect of facing lower-league sides including Bromley, Mansfield Town and Wycombe Wanderers next term. The 2016 title triumph, masterminded by Claudio Ranieri with a squad led by Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez and N’Golo Kanté, was followed by a run to the Champions League quarter-finals in 2017 and an FA Cup title in 2021 – a golden era that now feels like a distant memory.

“The bigger picture is you don’t get relegated over three or four games, you get relegated over a season,” Rowett added. “The club has to rise again but it has to learn its lessons because it’s certainly been a season of an awful lot of regret.”

Analysts and fans point to a string of missteps on and off the pitch that led to the club’s historic collapse. Relegation from the Premier League in 2023 was widely expected to act as a wake-up call for Thai owner Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha and under-fire sporting director Jon Rudkin, but the club’s hierarchy failed to address critical structural flaws in the squad and business model.

Compounding on-pitch struggles, Leicester’s ruinous financial management resulted in a six-point deduction this season for breaching the EFL’s spending rules. The departure of Jamie Vardy at the end of last season severed the final remaining link to the title-winning 2015-16 squad, leaving the side without the talismanic leadership that had carried it through years of top-flight football.

The club’s management chaos only compounded their problems. Marti Cifuentes was hired in the summer to mount a promotion push, but struggled to right the ship of an unbalanced, inexperienced squad and was sacked in January. Interim manager Andy King was unable to reverse the club’s slide, with relegation fears turning to near-certainty after Leicester blew a 3-0 first-half lead to lose 4-3 to promotion-chasing Southampton.

By the time Rowett, a former Leicester defender, was appointed in February, the Foxes were already two points adrift of safety, and he has managed just one win from 12 matches in charge. A pattern of boardroom misdecision stretches back years: Ranieri, the architect of the 2016 title, was infamously sacked just months after lifting the trophy, and successive managers including Craig Shakespeare, Claude Puel and most recently Brendan Rodgers – who delivered the 2021 FA Cup and two top-five Premier League finishes – were unable to stem the long-term decline before also being dismissed.

Elsewhere in Tuesday’s Championship action, Coventry City secured the league title with a resounding 5-1 victory over Portsmouth. Frank Lampard’s side already sealed promotion back to the Premier League on Friday, ending a 25-year absence from the top flight. Millwall climbed into second place with a 3-1 away win over Stoke City, while fourth-placed Southampton’s bid for automatic promotion was hit by a 2-2 draw against Bristol City.

In a critical La Liga fixture held on Tuesday at Madrid’s home ground, Carlo Ancelotti’s side claimed a hard-fought 2-1 victory over low-tier Alaves, keeping their distant title challenge against Barcelona on track. The match marked a welcome end to a frustrating two-match winless drought for the 14-time European champions, who entered the fixture under pressure to pick up full points to stay in the title race.

It was France superstar Kylian Mbappe who broke the deadlock in the 30th minute, netting his first league goal since early February. The striker’s effort took a deflection off an Alaves defender, wrong-footing the goalkeeper and rolling into the back of the net to hand Madrid the opening lead.

Early in the second half, Brazilian winger Vinicius Junior doubled the hosts’ advantage with a powerful long-range strike that left the Alaves shot-stopper with no chance to save. The two-goal cushion proved necessary, as Alaves substitute Toni Martinez pulled one back for the visitors in stoppage time, setting up a nervy final few minutes for Madrid. The home side held on to secure all three points, however.

The result moves Madrid back to within six points of current La Liga leaders Barcelona, who are set to host Celta Vigo in their latest league fixture on Wednesday. Barring a slip-up from the league leaders, Madrid will remain in second place regardless of Wednesday’s result, but the three points have kept their slim title hopes alive heading into the final stretch of the season.

In other Tuesday night La Liga action, Real Betis pulled off a comeback 3-2 away win against Girona, with Rodrigo Riquelme scoring the game-winning goal with just 10 minutes left to play. At Athletic Bilbao’s San Mamés stadium, Gorka Guruzeta’s first-half finish was enough to secure a 1-0 victory over Osasuna. Finally, Mallorca and Valencia shared the points in a 1-1 draw at Mallorca’s home ground.

MADRID, Spain — The opening day of main draw action at the 2025 Madrid Open delivered a slew of unexpected results on Tuesday, headlined by an upset of tennis legend Venus Williams at the hands of local wildcard hopeful Kaitlin Quevedo. The 45-year-old seven-time Grand Slam champion, who was competing in her first clay-court event in five years, could not find her rhythm against the 20-year-old, falling in straight sets 6-2, 6-4.

Currently ranked 479th in the WTA global rankings, Williams’ first-round exit extends a disappointing 2025 season to date, marking her seventh consecutive loss in competitive matches this year. Play on the iconic Estadio Manolo Santana was hampered by gusty cross-court wind, which contributed to a string of unforced errors from both competitors. Quevedo, ranked 140th in the world and competing in her first ever WTA 1000 main draw, proved far more consistent through the choppy conditions, taking the first set comfortably.

Williams appeared to turn the tide early in the second set, jumping out to a commanding 3-0 lead, but a sudden rain shower forced a stoppage as crews closed the centre court roof. When play resumed, Quevedo shifted into high gear, winning five straight games to close out the match and book her spot in the tournament’s second round.

Williams was not the only high-profile name to exit early on Spanish clay. Former world number two Paula Badosa, a native of Spain competing in her hometown tournament, was eliminated in a three-set battle against Julia Grabher. Badosa dropped the opening set in a tiebreak 7-3, bounced back to take the second set 6-4, but collapsed in the final set, surrendering six consecutive games to lose 0-6, bowing out in the first round.

Another former Grand Slam semifinalist also suffered a shocking early exit: 2023 Roland Garros semifinalist Beatriz Haddad Maia was dominated 6-1, 6-1 by Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, never finding traction in the lopsided defeat. In another opening round clash, 2024 French Open breakout star Lois Boisson struggled mightily in her first match back from a long injury layoff, falling 6-1, 6-3 to American Peyton Stearns in just 63 minutes on court. Boisson, who stunned the tennis world by reaching the Roland Garros semifinals last year as the world number 361, had not competed since September and only managed to win four games total against Stearns.

With the victory, Stearns advances to a highly anticipated second round matchup against top-ranked defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, who has claimed the Madrid Open title three times in her career.

Nearly three years after the sudden passing of Argentine football icon Diego Maradona, his daughter Gianinna Maradona took the stand in a San Isidro, Argentina courtroom Tuesday, delivering emotional testimony alleging widespread, damaging manipulation of her family by Maradona’s medical circle in the days leading up to his November 2020 death. Her appearance is a key moment in the ongoing retrial of seven medical professionals, who stand accused of gross negligence that directly contributed to the 60-year-old legend’s fatal heart failure.

Maradona died just two weeks after undergoing emergency surgery to remove a brain blood clot, while recovering at a rented private home in Tigre, a suburb of Buenos Aires. At trial, Gianinna detailed how the core medical team — including neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov and nurse Carlos Diaz — pressured her and her siblings to agree to at-home convalescence instead of ongoing care in a monitored hospital facility. She told the court the clinicians framed home recovery as the only safe, medically sound option, promising the residence would be outfitted with all necessary life-sustaining equipment to manage Maradona’s post-operative care.

Gianinna said she and her siblings placed full trust in the team’s medical guidance, a decision that has left her family permanently fractured. “I trusted these three people, who only manipulated us and left my son without a grandfather,” she told the courtroom, her voice breaking with emotion. Over the course of her 90-minute testimony, she fought back tears while recalling the chaotic moments after Maradona suffered cardiac arrest, when she rushed to his side only to be told by ambulance responders that resuscitation efforts were futile.

At the center of the trial is a critical question: did the medical team’s choice to move Maradona out of a clinical care setting for at-home recovery put the football star’s life at unnecessary risk? The defendants have pushed back against the charges, arguing that Maradona, who struggled publicly with substance addictions to cocaine and alcohol for decades, died of natural causes unrelated to their care decisions.

If convicted on charges of homicide with possible intent — a legal designation for actions taken with full knowledge that they could result in another person’s death — each of the seven defendants faces a prison sentence ranging from 8 to 25 years.

Maradona, whose unforgettable performances led Argentina to a 1986 FIFA World Cup title, cemented his status as one of the most talented and iconic athletes in the history of global football. His death in 2020, which came at the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic, sent the entire nation of Argentina into a period of national mourning. Despite public social distancing restrictions in place at the time, tens of thousands of grieving fans gathered in Buenos Aires to view Maradona’s casket lying in state at the presidential palace, a testament to the deep cultural impact of the star.

This is not the first legal proceeding over Maradona’s death. The initial trial was scrapped entirely last year, after investigators uncovered that one of the presiding judges had secretly participated in an unauthorized documentary about the case, creating a catastrophic conflict of interest. The current retrial, overseen by an entirely new panel of judges, launched last week and is projected to run for a minimum of three months as prosecutors and defense attorneys present evidence and testimony.

A top-tier domestic cricket match in the Caribbean has been called off entirely after unpredictable playing conditions left players at serious risk of injury, marking a major disruption to the 2026 West Indies Championship. The abandoned second-round contest, held at Antigua’s iconic Sir Viv Richards Stadium, pitted the home team Leeward Islands Hurricanes against the Trinidad and Tobago Red Force, with play stopped permanently during the opening session of the match’s third day.

The chain of events that led to the abandonment began when Leeward Islands batter Jeremiah Louis was hit by a delivery from Red Force fast bowler Jayden Seales. The incident drew immediate attention to the erratic behavior of the pitch, which had begun producing inconsistent, unpredictable bounces that put batters in constant danger. On-field umpires Leslie Reifer and Zahid Bassarath quickly called a halt to play and raised their safety concerns to match referee Johnathan Blades, who launched immediate consultations to resolve the issue.

At the time of the stoppage, the Leeward Islands held a 96-run overall lead, with seven wickets down for 140 runs in their second innings. Following medical evaluation, Louis was transported to a local hospital for assessment of a potential concussion. Cricket West Indies (CWI) later confirmed that the batter remained in stable condition after receiving prompt treatment from on-site medical staff.

In an official statement released after the decision, CWI clarified that the abandonment followed all official competition rules. After talks with the venue’s curator, officials determined that the problematic pitch could not be repaired to a safe standard without creating an unfair competitive advantage for one side. With no path to safely resume play, the match was formally declared a draw. Both squads will receive the full points they had accumulated in the contest up to the point of the stoppage, aligned with the championship’s published playing conditions.

The announcement also addressed lingering concerns about the upcoming championship final, scheduled to be hosted at the Sir Viv Richards Stadium between May 17 and 20. CWI moved quickly to reassure players, fans and stakeholders that no further matches will be held at the venue before the final, and that all necessary resources and groundskeeping expertise will be deployed to prepare a safe, high-quality playing surface for the title decider.

Officials added context to note that the damaged pitch used for this match is just one of six playing surfaces available at the Sir Viv Richards complex, and is distinct from the pitch used for an earlier series fixture between Guyana and the Windward Islands. CWI reaffirmed its commitment to prioritizing player safety across all its hosted events, and pledged to uphold rigorous standards for pitch preparation and match operations at every venue throughout the 2026 championship.