Category Sports News

The Premier League has requested an investigation into co-owner Todd Boehly’s involvement with the ticket-reselling website Vivid Seats, according to Chelsea Supporters’ Trust.

The group reiterates a previous complaint that Boehly’s involvement in Vivid Seats as a director and investor, as well as having a 13% stake in Chelsea, is “a clear conflict of interest” and “a breach of trust.”

It also highlights Vivid’s status as an “unauthorised ticketing website” by the Premier League, which allows fans from abroad to purchase tickets unofficially for between £90 and £20,000.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) of the government has also received evidence against CST.

It stated in the letter that “Many CST members have written to us in response to this connection.

Mr. Boehly’s relationship with Vivid Seats, a director and part-owner of Chelsea FC, is completely inappropriate and significantly undermines Chelsea FC’s efforts to combat ticket touting.

The CST has contacted Mr. Boehly directly and given him numerous opportunities to address supporters’ concerns both publicly and privately.

However, neither Mr. Boehly nor his representatives have responded to these inquiries, and tickets are still for sale on Vivid Seats’ website.

According to the official website of Chelsea, “ticket touting is prohibited and any purchases made unofficially will be invalid,” with fans being denied entry to the stadium.

Users in the UK are not permitted to use Vivid, but it is legal to do so abroad. Despite a pop-up disclaimer warning that reads “tickets for the EPL games are not currently available for purchase in your location,” BBC Sport has been able to confirm that the website allows UK-based users to purchase tickets.

BBC Sport has contacted Chelsea, Boehly’s representatives, and Vivid for comment.

The CST letter added that the club’s pledge to stop ticket tampering encouraged it and that it has also been supported by the Football Supporters’ Association. Season ticket holders have received an email outlining a number of actions being taken, but it is not named Vivid Seats or any other ticket resellers.

Stamford Bridge’s “flat” atmosphere was previously highlighted by previous manager Mauricio Pochettino and later refrained from being addressed by current head coach Enzo Maresca.

The British and Irish Lions may negotiate with leading French clubs to allow players to be released early for the Australian tour this summer.

The Top 14 play-offs that clash with the Lions’ itinerary include Blair Kinghorn, Jack Willis, Ben White, Kyle Sinckler, and Jack White.

According to Lions head coach Andy Farrell, who spoke to Rugby Union Weekly, “A team in France might be open to a discussion about letting people go early.”

The Top 14 final, which marks the French rugby domestic season’s climax, takes place on June 28 in Paris.

The Lions’ first game on Australian soil will be against Perth’s Western Force on the same day, on the other side of the world.

Without travel and jet lag, the Top 14 finalist is unlikely to represent the Lions before their match against the Waratahs on July 5, just before Australia’s first Test.

The Lions have precedent in negotiations regarding the club’s early signings in France.

Before they left for Australia, Welsh prop Gethin Jenkins, whose contract with Toulon was about to expire, was given the go-ahead to join Warren Gatland’s Lions.

Owen Farrell returned for his part in Racing 92’s Saturday away victory over Clermont Auvergne after two months out with an injury.

The 33-year-old fly-half, who has 112 England caps and has three seasons with the Lions, may return to action right away after the final round of regular-season Top 14 games on June 7 because Racing are 12th in the table and in a difficult position to earn a play-off spot.

The captain’s appointment wasn’t revealed until shortly before the squad’s announcement on May 8th, according to head coach Farrell, who estimated there could be six candidates for the Lions captaincy.

He said, “The list contains maybe four, five, or six.”

When you narrow it down, “you want to fit this number to fit the schedule, what you need, and which hybrid players can play in different positions,” and then you take into account who the leaders are, how the dynamics of a leadership group are, and how they are going to be themselves and able to be comfortable in and around all that.

Instead of jumping right in, it takes a little bit of a process.

Farrell also confirmed that each member of his coaching team still has the final say in what they do.

Prior to his assistants’ appointment, he earlier on Wednesday revealed Simon Easterby, Richard Wigglesworth, John Dalziel, Andrew Goodman, and John Fogarty.

England and Ireland’s attacking teams are run by Wigglesworth and Goodman, respectively.

Archie Vaughan was born in 2005, when his father, Michael, famously led England to glory in the Ashes, but his legacy still lives on.

Although Vaughan, 19, who is set to start his second full season with Somerset, has a surname etched in cricket history, there are undoubtedly expectations that come with it.

The teenager is composed and modest, determined to improve on a breakout season that saw him bat 33.71 with the bat in the County Championship, take 15 wickets with his off-spin, including two five-wicket hauls, and be named England Under-19s captain in January against South Africa.

Vaughan told BBC Sport, “The pressure of expectation is just outside noise, and it certainly doesn’t come from my dad.”

He has had a significant impact, but what I admire most is how he takes a step back and simply lets me enjoy it, letting my coaches do it. I can’t thank him enough for allowing me to be my own man instead of letting me be myself.

Vaughan is aware of the significance and impact it had on the generations before him, despite the fact that he claims to have not seen any footage of the iconic 2005 series with his father.

The other characters in that series also bear the famous surname. Rocky Flintoff, the son of former all-rounder Andrew, has attracted a lot of praise for his bat-as-against-lancashire and England Lions performances.

At the under-19 level, there has already been a Vaughan-Flintoff reunion, and Vaughan believes it is beneficial to have some well-known cricketing fathers as partners.

He said, “We’ve been playing together since we were kids, and we’ve had a few conversations about it.”

Being only 16 and subject to so much noise and attention, it must be a big challenge for him. Someone else should be in the same boat, which is nice.

Vaughan’s success with the ball was unexpected because he had spent most of his youth playing the bat and scoring against Surrey, who had lost the county championship in September. His best performance came in September when he scored 11-140 against Surrey, who finished third overall.

The England Under-19s’ Youth Test against South Africa, which Vaughan won by 10 wickets, was his opening match of 2025.

Given that he only bowled seam before during the Covid-19 lockdown, he turned to bowling spin out of boredom.

Vaughan remarked, “It definitely caught me by surprise.”

“I’d still probably say I’m a batter, but I’ll continue to work hard, and it’s just about managing my expectations.”

I’ve been batting for as long as I can remember, whereas I haven’t been bowling for very long because I started it improperly in my back garden during lockdown.

Vaughan acknowledges that his family gave him the “great opportunity” to attend Millfield School and pursue his cricketing ambitions, but he is incredibly motivated to make the most of it.

Vaughan is confident in other areas, despite the fact that he is not drawn to comparisons to his father’s batting and captaincy.

He continued, “I’m pretty certain I’m a better off-spinner than him.” And I’m undoubtedly a better fielder.

Paul O’Connell has been named Ireland’s interim head coach for the summer tour of Georgia and Portugal after Simon Easterby was appointed to the British and Irish Lions coaching team.

Defence coach Easterby was given the Ireland interim head coach for the recent Six Nations because Andy Farrell is on a sabbatical from the role as he prepares to lead the Lions in Australia.

However, Farrell, as expected, has named Easterby in a Lions coaching team which will also have further Ireland representation in scrum coach John Fogarty and backs coach Andrew Goodman.

This led the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) to confirm later that forwards coach O’Connell, 45, will take charge of the Ireland squad in the Tests against Georgia and Portugal which take place on 5 July and 12 July.

IRFU performance director David Humphreys congratulated Easterby, Fogarty and Goodman on their inclusion in the Lions coaching team.

“It is a huge statement of faith in their skillsets and standing within the wider game, and I have no doubt that they will contribute greatly to a successful Lions tour,” said Humphreys.

“Simon’s appointment means that an opportunity arises for a new interim head coach for the two-match summer tour to Georgia and Portugal and I’m delighted that Paul O’Connell will assume the role for this tour.”

The remainder of the Ireland coaching team for the summer Tests will be announced next week.

The venues and kick-off times for the two games are yet to be confirmed.

Ireland’s tour squad is likely to be considerably understrength with a large contingent of regulars expected to be in contention for Lions selection.

Munster great O’Connell, who won 108 Ireland caps and played on three Lions tours including the 2009 series where he captained the side in South Africa, was appointed Ireland forwards coach in 2021 after Easterby switched to the defence coach role.

In any previous World Cup, there would be genuine fear about Brazil failing to qualify. Not this time.

In an expanded competition, with six South American teams making it through automatically, Brazil have a six-point cushion over a Venezuela team who have just registered their first victory in 10 games.

With four rounds to go, it is impossible to see Brazil not making the cut. But that is hardly the point.

For Brazil, World Cup qualification now serves one purpose – it provides a sequence of competitive matches during which they hope to build a side capable of winning the trophy. And with just over a year to go until 2026, that looks a long way off.

It is easy to forget how good Brazil were in the last World Cup, where they lost in the quarter-finals on penalties to a Croatia team whose only shot on goal in the match took a cruel deflection.

The Qatar 2022 Brazil side were solid – goalkeeper Alisson could have taken a deckchair out for most of the games – with flashes of brilliance. They could have won that competition.

So why have they fallen back so much? How can a team packed with so many good players form such a dismal unit?

Tuesday’s prolonged humiliation did not come out of the blue.

In game after game the team have looked disjointed, without clear strategies for progressing the ball down the field, and suffering from the possibility of being both outplayed and outnumbered in central midfield.

Individual talent has papered over the cracks – like on Thursday, when a stoppage-time Vinicius Jr special gave them a victory over Colombia their play had not really deserved.

But it can’t happen all the time.

And if the film is bad, especially if the cast is impressive, the director must be to blame.

There is a crisis in Brazilian coaching. It is hard to produce coaches when there is no time to train and no job security. That is the reality of domestic Brazilian football, and helps explain why almost all of the successful coaches in the country are now foreign – either Argentine or, especially, Portuguese.

The national boss – for now anyway – Dorival Jr is a product of the domestic game, with more than four decades’ experience as player and coach.

But on the international stage he comes across as a decent man thoroughly out of his depth.

Did he really think he could travel to Argentina and play two men in central midfield? Why not drop deep and create space for the counter-attack, as he did a year ago against England at Wembley? And when cool heads were required, his team came across as a bag of nerves, all too willing to get involved in cheap spats.

Of the three duties of the coach – pick the team, determine the strategy and set the emotional tone – Dorival failed dismally, and it is very hard to see how he can keep his job.

Whoever comes in – or Dorival if he manages to hang on – will have to deal with a simple observation – central midfield is not an optional extra.

It is an area where Brazil have had a problem for a while – a consequence of the 1990s trend of splitting the middle of the park into a pair of midfielders who only defend and a duo who mostly attack. It was at this point Brazilian play lost much of its former fluency, instead investing in rapid breaks down the flanks.

It is in this context that the problems of Lucas Paqueta are so significant.

The West Ham midfielder was on the verge of becoming a big-money Manchester City signing when scandal struck, and his career – now threatened – has not recovered.

The absence of Paqueta almost certainly led to Dorival building his hopes for these international dates around the return of Neymar – which, predictably, turned out to be ludicrously premature.

After so long out injured, it was only to be expected that Neymar would run into muscular problems, and he will need much more time on the field to ease his way back to a level where he can tip the balance.

At 33, he is an unknown quantity. But there is a gaping hole in the team for the type of deep-lying playmaker role he could fill.

Romantics might recall 2002, when Ronaldo looked all washed up only to make a triumphant return from injury and carry a Brazil side that almost failed to qualify all the way to World Cup title number five.

They are still waiting for number six.