Category Sports News

Nottingham Forest have asked Uefa for clarity after expressing their concerns over Crystal Palace’s Europa League place.

The Eagles won the FA Cup to qualify for Europe for the first time in their history, but Uefa must decide if they have breached its multi-club ownership rules.

Uefa’s final ruling will centre on American businessman John Textor, owner of Eagle Football – which holds a 43% stake in Palace.

Eagle Football also owns a 77% stake in French side Lyon, who – like Palace – have qualified for next season’s Europa League.

Uefa’s rules state “no individual or legal entity” can hold a majority of shareholder voting rights at two clubs in the same European tournament.

Forest finished seventh in the Premier League, earning a Europa Conference League play-off spot, but stand to gain if Palace are unable to compete in Europe and could be lifted to the Europa League.

Sources have told BBC Sport they have issued their reservations to Uefa.

Uefa’s regulations are in place to prevent collusion between clubs. Palace’s argument is their historic FA Cup win – beating Manchester City 1-0 last month – and European qualification was an achievement accomplished entirely on their own merit.

The club have insisted they are an entity which operates entirely independently, not within the structures of a multi-club model.

Palace also say there has been no employee, backroom staff or coach sharing with Lyon, no dialogue, no collaborative strategy, no combined partnerships, sponsorships or commercial deals and no collective scouting, analysis or software collaborations.

Forest have avoided this issue after owner Evangelos Marinakis diluted his control of the club.

The Greek businessman also controls Olympiakos, as well as Portuguese side Rio Ave and, at the time, Forest and Olympiakos were both on course to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Forest complied with the rules after Uefa changed the date to 1 March for clubs to highlight potential issues in ownership structures as it was becoming unmanageable to go through the checks required from the previous deadline of 1 June.

The first and second qualification rounds of the Europa League and Conference League are in July.

At that point Palace had not acted despite qualification through the FA Cup being a possibility.

BBC Sport contacted Uefa and Palace who declined to comment.

The World Cup of Darts gets under way on Thursday and teenage sensation Luke Littler will be making his debut in the competition.

In the international doubles tournament in Leverkusen, Germany, Littler and world number one Luke Humphries will pair up to represent England.

England are the defending champions, with Humphries winning it alongside former world champion Michael Smith in 2024.

The two players in each team will throw three darts each and alternate throughout the match.

Each team consists of the two best-ranked players from each nation based on the Professional Darts Corporation’s Order of Merit on 7 May.

The four top-ranked nations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – have received a bye into the second round, which will consist of 16 nations.

Dutch world number three Michael van Gerwen opted not to play in the competition, effectively costing the Netherlands a spot in the second round.

The other 12 spots will be determined via the results of the group stage, where 36 teams will compete.

Those 36 nations have been split into 12 round-robin groups of three, with the group winners advancing to the second round.

The top 16 nations were seeded, with the nations ranked between five and 12 separated in the groups to face two unseeded nations in the group stage.

A total of 80 players from 40 nations are taking part.

The numbers next to each nation indicate the seeding.

Through to the second round

Group stage

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Group E

Group F

Group G

Group H

Group I

Group J

Group K

Group L

All rounds are played as one-off doubles matches.

During the group stage all matches are played in a best-of-seven-legs format.

In the second round, quarter-finals and semi-finals, matches are best of 15 legs.

The 36 group stage matches will be played on Thursday and Friday.

Thursday’s session starts at 18:00 BST. Friday’s afternoon session starts at 11:00 and the evening session at 18:00.

All 12 second-round matches will be played on Saturday.

The afternoon session starts at 12:00 and the evening session at 18:00.

The quarter-finals, semi-finals and final will take place on Sunday.

A total prize pot of £450,000 is available.

The winning team will earn a combined £80,000, with the runners-up taking £50,000.

All teams in the group stage are guaranteed at least £4,000, while teams in the knockout rounds will earn a minimum of £9,000.

Prize money (per team)

The first edition of the World Cup of Darts was in 2010 and it became an annual competition from 2012.

Five different nations have won the competition and there have been eight different winning pairs.

Phil Taylor and Adrian Lewis won it four times for England, and Van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld three times for the Netherlands.

Of the teams competing at the 2025 World Cup, Scotland’s Anderson and Wright, Wales’ Clayton and Price and Australia’s Heta and Whitlock have won the World Cup.

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Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola said he is “so scared” by the “painful” war in Gaza as he delivered an emotional speech.

It is 20 months since Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented Hamas-led cross-border attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,880 people have been killed in Gaza since, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Guardiola, 54, was speaking as he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester on Monday.

“It’s so painful what we see in Gaza. It hurts my whole body,” said Guardiola in clips of his speech shared on social media.

“Let me be clear, it’s not about ideology. It’s not about whether I’m right, or you’re wrong. It’s just about the love of life, about the care of your neighbour.

“Maybe we think that we see the boys and girls of four years old being killed by the bomb or being killed at the hospital because it’s not a hospital anymore. It’s not our business.

Guardiola has never been afraid of airing his political views, having frequently spoken of his support for pro-Catalan independence.

In 2018, he was fined £20,000 by the Football Association for “wearing a political message” pitchside – a yellow ribbon to support imprisoned politicians in his native Catalonia, having previously being warned he was in breach of regulations.

The year before, he joined thousands of protesters in Barcelona calling for independence in the region.

Guardiola was awarded the honorary degree for his success with City – having won 18 trophies in his nine years at the club – as well as the work of his family foundation, the Guardiola Sala Foundation, which “strives to support the most disadvantaged” in society.

“Maybe this image feels far away from where we are living now, and you might ask what we can do,” said Guardiola, who added he was also “deeply troubled” by the wars in Sudan and Ukraine.

“There is a story I’m reminded of. A forest is on fire. All the animals live terrified, helpless. But a small bird flies back and forth to the sea, carrying drops of water in its little beak.

“A snake laughs, and asks: ‘Why bro? You will never put the fire out.’ The bird replies: ‘Yes, I know.’ ‘Then why do you do it again and again?’, the snake asks once again. ‘I’m just doing my part,’ the bird replies for the last time.

“The bird knows it won’t stop the fire, but it refused to do nothing.

“In a world that often tells us we are too small to make a difference, that story reminds me the power of one is not about the scale, it’s about choice, about showing up, about refusing to be silent or still when it matters most.”

Others within football have previously spoken out about the Israel-Gaza war.

In October 2023, Liverpool and Egypt forward Mohamed Salah called on “world leaders to come together to prevent further slaughter of innocent souls”.

In the same month, Dutch winger Anwar El Ghazi had his contract at Mainz terminated for a perceived pro-Palestine post he made on social media.

Last year, El Ghazi – now at Cardiff City – pledged 500,000 euros of his pay-off from Mainz to “fund projects for the children in Gaza”.

They helped Jurgen Klopp mastermind Liverpool’s Champions League and Premier League triumphs and go toe-to-toe with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in one of the Premier League’s great rivalries.

Now after finishing without a trophy for the first time since 2017, Guardiola has recruited Pepijn Lijnders and James French to his backroom team as part of a rebuild at Etihad Stadium.

Lijnders, who was Klopp’s number two for the second half of his successful spell at Liverpool, has been confirmed as Guardiola’s new assistant manager.

French, who was a key member of Klopp’s backroom staff as opposition analyst, has been appointed City’s set-piece coach.

Their appointments follow the departures of three key coaches at the end of last season – including Guardiola’s first-team assistants Juanma Lillo and Inigo Dominguez.

Lijnders, 42, left Liverpool at the same time as Klopp at the end of the 2023-24 season.

The Dutchman took over as manager of Red Bull Salzburg in May 2024 but departed the Austrian club within seven months after only 29 games in charge.

Lijnders initially arrived at Anfield under former boss Brendan Rodgers in 2014 but left in 2018 to manage Dutch side NEC Nijmegen in the Eredivisie.

He was dismissed at the end of that season though, and became Klopp’s assistant in 2019 in the wake of Zeljko Buvac’s departure.

As well as lifting the Premier League and Champions League with the Reds, he also won the FA Cup, two League Cups, the Fifa Club World Cup, the Uefa Super Cup and the Community Shield.

Scrum-halves Charlie Bracken and Will Porter have been named in an England training squad for a four-day camp, while Northampton full-back George Furbank will continue his rehabilitation from concussion as part of the get-together at Pennyhill Park.

Saracens’ Bracken – the eldest son of 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Kyran – is in the senior squad for the first time after representing England Under-20s and spending part of this season on loan at Championship side Ampthill.

The 21-year-old is yet to make a Premiership start, having mainly acted as back-up to South African Ivan van Zyl.

Harlequins’ Porter, 26, has been rewarded for his impressive form for England A with a chance to work with the senior squad.

Coach Steve Borthwick is without several scrum-half options, with first-choice Alex Mitchell selected for the British and Irish Lions while Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet and Bath’s Ben Spencer are preparing for Saturday’s Premiership final and Bristol’s Harry Randall is injured.

Northampton’s 22-year-old second row Tom Lockett – who has played alongside Bracken at age-grade level and Porter during the second-string’s win over Ireland in February – is included along with Bristol prop George Kloska.

With Jamie George helping the Lions prepare for the tour of Australia that Luke Cowan-Dickie has been selected for, Northampton’s Curtis Langdon, Bristol’s Gabriel Oghre and Saracens’ Theo Dan are named as hookers.

Furbank was forced off early in Northampton’s Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles last month after being concussed.

He has had a season interrupted by injury after fracturing his arm in a win over South Africa’s Bulls in December that meant he missed the 2025 Six Nations.

Exeter wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who has not played since suffering a shoulder dislocation in December, will also use the camp to work his way back to match fitness.

Forwards:

Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Richard Capstick (Exeter), Arthur Clark (Gloucester), Alex Coles (Northampton), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Ben Curry (Sale), Theo Dan (Saracens), Trevor Davison (Northampton), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Afolabi Fasogbon (Gloucester), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Manny Iyogun (Northampton), Jack Kenningham (Harlequins), George Kloska (Bristol), Curtis Langdon (Northampton), Tom Lockett (Northampton), Gabriel Oghre (Bristol), Tom Pearson (Northampton), Bevan Rodd (Sale), Tom Willis (Saracens).

Backs:

Charlie Atkinson (Gloucester), Seb Atkinson (Gloucester), Oscar Beard (Harlequins), Charlie Bracken (Saracens), Joe Carpenter (Sale), Fraser Dingwall (Northampton), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter), George Ford (Sale), Rekeiti Ma’asi-White (Sale), Cadan Murley (Harlequins), Luke Northmore (Harlequins), Will Porter (Harlequins), Raffi Quirke (Sale), Tom Roebuck (Sale), Henry Slade (Exeter), Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton).

Rehabilitation: George Furbank (Northampton).

Scrum-halves Charlie Bracken and Will Porter have been named in an England training squad for a four-day camp, while Northampton full-back George Furbank will continue his rehabilitation from concussion as part of the get-together at Pennyhill Park.

Saracens’ Bracken – the eldest son of 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Kyran – is in the senior squad for the first time after representing England Under-20s and spending part of this season on loan at Championship side Ampthill.

The 21-year-old is yet to make a Premiership start, having mainly acted as back-up to South African Ivan van Zyl.

Harlequins’ Porter, 26, has been rewarded for impressive form for England A with promotion to the senior squad.

Coach Steve Borthwick is without several scrum-half options, with first-choice Alex Mitchell selected for the British and Irish Lions while Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet and Bath’s Ben Spencer are preparing for Saturday’s Premiership final and Bristol’s Harry Randall is injured.

Northampton’s 22-year-old second row Tom Lockett – who has played alongside Bracken at age-grade level and Porter during the second-string’s win over Ireland in February – is included along with Bristol prop George Kloska.

With Jamie George helping the Lions prepare for the tour of Australia that Luke Cowan-Dickie has been selected for, Northampton’s Curtis Langdon, Bristol’s Gabriel Oghre and Saracens’ Theo Dan are named as hookers.

Furbank was forced off early in Northampton’s Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles last month after being concussed.

He has had a season interrupted by injury after fracturing his arm in a win over South Africa’s Bulls in December and missing the 2025 Six Nations.

Exeter wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who has not played since suffering a shoulder dislocation in December, will also use the camp to work his way back to match fitness.

Forwards:

Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Richard Capstick (Exeter), Arthur Clark (Gloucester), Alex Coles (Northampton), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Ben Curry (Sale), Theo Dan (Saracens), Trevor Davison (Northampton), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Afolabi Fasogbon (Gloucester), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Manny Iyogun (Northampton), Jack Kenningham (Harlequins), George Kloska (Bristol), Curtis Langdon (Northampton), Tom Lockett (Northampton), Gabriel Oghre (Bristol), Tom Pearson (Northampton), Bevan Rodd (Sale), Tom Willis (Saracens).

Backs:

Charlie Atkinson (Gloucester), Seb Atkinson (Gloucester), Oscar Beard (Harlequins), Charlie Bracken (Saracens), Joe Carpenter (Sale), Fraser Dingwall (Northampton), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter), George Ford (Sale), Rekeiti Ma’asi-White (Sale), Cadan Murley (Harlequins), Luke Northmore (Harlequins), Will Porter (Harlequins), Raffi Quirke (Sale), Tom Roebuck (Sale), Henry Slade (Exeter), Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton).

Rehabilitation: George Furbank (Northampton).