Category: 6. Sports

Soccer officials in Oceania hope a new western Pacific-based competition might enable the region to better compete on the global stage and establish a blueprint for others to follow.

The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) on Friday announced eight preferred clubs that will participate in its first ever OFC Professional League in January if they successfully complete the final stages of the licensing and compliance process.

New Zealand, the premier power in the confederation, has two: Auckland FC and Christchurch United. Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea are represented respectively by Bula Boys, Solomon Kings and Hekari United.

There is also Vanuatu FC and Tahiti United. South Melbourne joins from Australia, although the nation left the OFC in 2006 to join the Asian Football Confederation.

The small populations scattered across the islands of Oceania make it difficult for countries to develop their own infrastructures and challenge on the international stage.

“This is the first ever professional league specifically for the Oceania region,” league manager Stuart Larman told The Associated Press. “It provides a professional pathway for players, coaches, referees and administrators, something that will help all hone their skills and competitiveness.”

A chance to play more matches is a priority.

“When I first traveled around the member associations of the OFC, I was told that the best players tend to have two or three highly competitive matches in a year,” said Larman. “The league guarantees that high level competition for at least 17 matches per club every season.”

More competition could help at the 2029 FIFA Club World Cup.

At the 2025 edition, Auckland City, the OFC’s highest-ranked club, lost 10-0 to Bayern Munich and 6-0 to Benfica, although it went on to draw 1-1 with Boca Juniors of Argentina.

The new league will provide a way to qualify for the 2029 tournament.

“The league will certainly provide the conditions for the OFC representatives to be best prepared in FIFA competitions,” said Larman.

It should help raise standards off the field, too.

“The licensing metrics required by the OFC will necessitate the selected clubs to implement professional governance, infrastructure, and sporting standards,” James Kitching, a former senior FIFA and AFC executive, told AP. “Those flow-on effects may include increased training compensation and solidarity mechanism payments to clubs, or even payment of transfer fees.”

If everything goes according to plan, there could be new regional leagues springing up elsewhere in the world, especially as the governing body’s attitude has changed.

“FIFA has taken a much more liberal and flexible approach to the traditional ‘same country, same league’ model that is common across world football,” Kitching added. “The cross-border model could be potentially adopted in several regions of the world, whether for sporting, commercial, infrastructure or other reasons.”

The OFC Professional League will be officially launched in Auckland at the end of October.

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

August has been a very good month for Pakistani footballers securing deals in Europe, and women’s team striker Mariam Mahmood has added her name to the list after signing with Wrexham AFC Women.

The Welsh club confirmed the signing, with the Pakistan international penning a one‑year deal to play in the first tier of women’s football in Wales.

The 21‑year‑old’s arrival was announced alongside new teammates Josie Smith and Hannah Snape, further bolstering Wrexham’s squad following recent additions Katie Barker and Jodie Bartle.

Mariam Mahmood, who rose through the youth ranks at West Brom, made 80 first‑team appearances under head coach Jenny Sugarman. She has already established herself on the international stage for Pakistan, memorably scoring twice in a 2–1 win over Kyrgyzstan during the AFC Women’s Asian Cup qualifiers—a performance that turned heads across Asia.

Speaking after the signing, Mahmood expressed her excitement: “I’m delighted to be signing. It’s such a big club, with a good fan base and a lot of potential. I’m really excited to be joining.”

Wrexham AFC Women compete in the Adran Premier, the top tier of women’s football in Wales. The team is part of Wrexham A.F.C., which has gained notoriety in recent years after being purchased by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.

Mariam Mahmood’s move is seen as another positive sign for Pakistan women’s football, which has been steadily gaining momentum as more players secure professional contracts abroad.

Backed by the club’s growing global profile, Wrexham’s women’s team will look to Mariam Mahmood’s attacking flair to push them to new heights in the coming season, which starts in September.

The infamous IPL 2008 ‘slapgate’ incident between Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth became fresh in the memories of the Indian cricket fans once again after former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi shared the unseen footage in a podcast recently. One of the darkest incidents in the history of the IPL, then Mumbai Indians cricketer Harbhajan Singh had slapped Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) pacer Sreesanth at the end of the game in Mohali on the night of April 25.

While no video of the incident came out in public, an image of Sreesanth crying uncontrollably dominated the media space for all these years. While Harbhajan was suspended for the remainder of the season and also got a five-ODI ban from BCCI as a part of punishment, the former India off-spinner had time and again apologized to Sreesanth and his family.

At a time when both the cricketers and their families have moved on from the incident, Modi’s video has once again complicated things. However, one question that came up in everyone’s mind was why the video was hidden for close to two decades?

According to cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle, the video was kept hidden to save the image of the IPL, which was at his nascent stage at that point of time. Making the video public would have had a negative impact on the league.

“Interesting that the Harbhajan-Sreesanth video has found its way out after 17 years. Very few of us had seen it and we had given our word that it would stay out of the public domain because the IPL was in its first year and it wouldn’t have been the best bit of news for it,” Bhogle wrote on X.

Why only Lalit Modi had IPL 2008 slapgate video?

According to Modi, the video was captured by one of his security cameras since the broadcasting cameras had been shut off following the game. “As players were exchanging handshakes, Bhajji just looked at Sreesanth, said something, and gave him a backhander. That’s what the footage shows. I’ve had it for 18 years,” Modi said at Beyond23 Cricket Podcast with former Australian captain Michael Clarke.

However, Modi’s recent act didn’t go well with Sreesanth’s wife Bhuvneshwari, who called both the former IPL boss and Clarke “inhumane and heartless”. She stated that the video will heavily impact both the families after having moved on from the incident. Interestingly, ex-cricketers have restrained from commenting on the matter, keeping in mind the privacy of both Sreesanth and Harbhajan. 

The opening match of the Tri‑Nation T20 Series between Pakistan and Afghanistan in Sharjah was reportedly overshadowed once again by security concerns after groups of Afghan fans allegedly entered the stadium without tickets.

According to local media reports citing eyewitness accounts, a dedicated gate for spectators was broken down as ticketless supporters forced their way into the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

The organizers of the tri‑series had already prepared for potential trouble, especially during Pakistan Afghanistan matches, given previous altercations between the two sets of fans. They had assigned separate enclosures, entry points, and even ticket colors: green for Pakistani supporters and blue for Afghan supporters.

Afghanistan’s captain, Rashid Khan, had also pleaded with supporters on both sides to refrain from creating unsavory scenes. Despite these arrangements, the breach reportedly occurred before the game got underway, raising fresh questions about crowd control at high‑stakes fixtures between the two teams.

The sides are scheduled to face off once more in the tri‑series, with a potential final between them also on the cards. All eyes will now be on how authorities address this fresh challenge in the coming games.

While the crowd incident drew headlines off the field, Pakistan produced a commanding performance on it, defeating Afghanistan by 39 runs to open the series on a winning note.

The Tri‑Nation event continues today, with Pakistan facing hosts United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the second match of the tournament.

Taylor Townsend capped a whirlwind 48 hours at the US Open with one of the finest performances of her career, upsetting No 5 seed Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-2 under the lights on Arthur Ashe Stadium to reach the fourth round in New York for the first time since 2019 and equal her best performance at any major.

The 29-year-old American, ranked outside the top 100 in singles but world No 1 in doubles, steadied herself after a nervy start and won four of five games to take the opening set. She then took complete control after getting broken early in the second, continuing to rush the net and ride the energy of a raucous crowd to win the last six games on the trot and close out a straight-sets win in 76 minutes. It was third career win over of a top-10 opponent, along with victories over Simona Halep here in 2019 and Jessica Pegula in Rome last year.

A former world No 1 junior from Georgia who reinvented herself as a doubles star, she won 21 of 29 points when she came forward and struck nearly four times as many winners (23) as Andreeva (six). “God damn, this feels so good,” she said afterwards. “Welcome to the show.”

Townsend has become one of the tournament’s central figures since her second-round win over Jelena Ostapenko, after which she revealed that the Latvian told her she had “no class” and “no education”. The comments, which Ostapenko justified as a reaction to Townsend not apologizing for a shot that clipped the net cord, prompted accusations of racism.

“I also want to say thank you to everyone who supported me over these last 48 hours,” Townsend told the Ashe crowd. “It’s bigger than me. It’s about the message, it’s about the representation, it’s about being bold and being able to show up as yourself and I did that tonight. You guys saw the real Taylor Townsend tonight.”

Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka were among those who publicly came to Townsend‘s defense over the past two days, with Osaka calling Ostapenko’s alleged comment “one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority-white sport”. After Friday’s triumph, Townsend said handling the fallout was easier than some might think. “It hasn’t been hard at all,” she said. “I said to my team, I’m made for this type of stuff. It wasn’t hard, because I stood in my truth. I didn’t have to defend anything that I said. What I said, I said, and I meant.

“When it’s time to do the job, it’s time to do the job. And that’s what I think is a testament to being professional, being able to block out what’s on the outside and when you step in the lines you handle business.”

The Ostapenko controversy also tapped into a deeper history. In 2012 the USTA asked Townsend, then 16 and the world’s top junior, to sit out the US Open girls’ event and denied her wild cards into the main draw or qualifying because of concerns over her fitness. The move, condemned by Serena Williams, Martina Navratilova and Lindsay Davenport, forced her mother to pay her way and ultimately led Townsend to leave the federation’s program to work with Zina Garrison.

That the same player once deemed “not ready” for Ashe could return years later to topple one of the sport’s prodigies on the biggest stage spoke to the depth of her resilience. Already a Wimbledon and Australian Open doubles champion alongside Katerina Siniakova, Townsend proved on Friday she still has the power to make her mark in singles.

Townsend said the night felt worlds away from her breakthrough win over Halep six years earlier on the same stage. “In 2019 I felt like I was climbing and trying to get over the hump … it helped validate me as a player,” she said. “This time it just feels completely different. I wasn’t searching for anything, I wasn’t looking, trying to find answers. I had all the answers in here.”

For Andreeva, an 18-year-old who for years has been earmarked as a future slam winner, the defeat brought an end to a season of consistency at the biggest tournaments, where she had reached the second week at each of the first three majors of the year, including the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. The Russian, who claimed WTA 1000 titles at Dubai and Indian Wells earlier in 2025 and reached a career-high ranking of No 5, was simply outplayed in the end as Townsend fed off the Ashe crowd and her confidence mounted.

Townsend will next face the unseeded Czech Barbora Krejcikova, who upset 10th seed Emma Navarro in three sets earlier Friday, for a place in the last eight. For a longtime fan favorite whose Instagram following has roughly doubled over the past week, it will offer her widest audience yet.

“This is some people’s first time finding out who Taylor Townsend is,” she said. “People being able to see me now, but then being able to go back and follow my journey and figure out how I got here, I think that’s super cool. I’m just truly showing up as myself, and I think people see that and I think it’s cool they like what I see. I think I’m pretty cool. I think I’m funny. I think that’s all that matters.”

Not long after Townsend completed her match, fourth seed Taylor Fritz ground out a 7-6 (3), 6-7 (11), 6-4, 6-4 victory over Swiss qualifier Jerome Kym next door on Armstrong, salvaging what had been a brutal day for the American men.

Earlier, sixth seed Ben Shelton and 17th seed Frances Tiafoe were both eliminated within an hour of each other, leaving Fritz and Tommy Paul as the only US men left standing in singles. Paul, the No 14 seed, will face Kazakhstan’s 23rd seed Alexander Bublik on Saturday on Ashe.

Vito Wong To-lam said he wanted to blaze a trail for young Hong Kong talent after the teenage winger joined CD San Roque de Lepe in Spain.

Only last year, Wong was questioning his football future after his previous club RCFC, where he made his local Premier League debut at 16, opted to self-relegate.

BC Rangers provided a lifeline and after “learning a lot about mentality” over the past 12 months, Wong earned his big European break.

“I hope I can inspire other young players in Hong Kong to step outside their comfort zones and play in another country,” Wong said.

“I feel excited and scared … I hope this move will change my life and that I can stay in Spain and push to a higher league.”

Last summer, Wong spent around two weeks training with the now La Liga team Real Oviedo. After going to Argentina in December for trials with professional clubs, a contract offer from second division Ferro Carril Oeste fell through because he had not turned 18.

Manchester City travel to the Amex Stadium to take on Brighton on Sunday.

Manchester City will make the long trip to the south coast to take on Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premier League on Sunday.

Pep Guardiola will be determined for his side to bounce back to winning ways following their disappointing 2-0 defeat at home to Tottenham.

Goals from Brennan Johnson and Joao Palhinha condemned City to defeat at the Etihad Stadium and they won’t want to lose too much ground on the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal early in the season.

As such, Guardiola may make some changes to the side that started against Spurs, with most of the pre-match agenda surrounding who will start in goal.

James Trafford impressed on debut in the win over Wolves but looked shaky against Spurs and was ultimately culpable for their second goal.

Guardiola has said he will make a decision on Saturday over who he will start in goal but given the speculation surrounding Ederson and a possible move to Galatasaray, it would perhaps be foolish not to persist with Trafford at the Amex Stadium.

Manu Akanji and Nathan Ake have also been linked with moves away before Monday’s deadline and with Josko Gvardiol injured, the back four of Rico Lewis, John Stones, Ruben Dias and Rayan Ait-Nouri should remain unchanged.

Rodri’s comeback from injury continues to be monitored carefully and after he was called up to the Spain squad for the September internationals, it would be a surprise if City bring him back into the side.

As such, Nico Gonzalez and Tijjani Reijnders will continue to be paired together in midfield, with Bernardo Silva, Rayan Cherki and Omar Marmoush lining up in front of them.

Erling Haaland will lead the line with his Norwegian compatriot Oscar Bobb dropping out of the side.

Man City predicted XI vs Brighton: Trafford; Lewis, Stones, Dias, Ait-Nouri; Gonzalez, Reijnders; Silva, Cherki, Marmoush; Haaland

Aryna Sabalenka evened the score with Leylah Fernandez at the U.S. Open with a 6-3 7-6(2) win on Friday to keep alive her hopes of becoming the first player since Serena Williams to win consecutive titles at Flushing Meadows.

The world number one had unfinished business with the Canadian, who stunned Sabalenka in straight sets in the 2021 semi-finals en route to her runners-up finish in their only previous meeting.

There would be no repeat of that shock on Friday, with Sabalenka overcoming early jitters on Louis Armstrong Stadium, surviving a marathon opening game that featured three break points before finding her rhythm.

Fernandez refused to go quietly and forced a second-set tiebreak before the Belarusian’s power prevailed.

Sabalenka’s victory extends her perfect U.S. Open third-round record to 6-0. The win also brings her within four victories of matching Serena Williams’ feat of winning consecutive U.S. Open titles achieved more than a decade ago.

The match began with Fernandez earning multiple break points in the opening game, but Sabalenka’s resilience shone through as she saved them all before eventually holding serve.

That early test seemed to settle the world number one, who broke Fernandez’s serve in the fourth game and never looked back in the first set.

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“I really wanted this revenge,” Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. “I’m very happy with the win.”

The second set proved far more competitive with both players trading holds until a tiebreak, where Sabalenka’s experience told as she raced to a 6-1 lead before sealing victory with a forehand winner.

Published on Aug 30, 2025

Pakistan kicked off their tri-nation T20I campaign in style, securing a commanding 39-run victory over Afghanistan in Sharjah. A composed half-century from captain Salman Agha and a fiery four-wicket haul from Haris Rauf, including a game-changing double-wicket maiden, highlighted Pakistan’s dominance in the tournament opener. The win not only gave Pakistan early momentum but also served as crucial preparation ahead of the Asia Cup 2025.

Salman Agha’s Captain’s Knock Anchors Pakistan’s Innings

After winning the toss and opting to bat, Pakistan knew a solid start was vital on a Sharjah surface that had something for both batters and bowlers. Sahibzada Farhan set the tone with a blistering 21 off just 10 deliveries, smashing Fazalhaq Farooqi and Azmatullah Omarzai to give Pakistan quick runs in the powerplay. Although Afghanistan’s spinners managed to slow the scoring in the middle overs, the platform was set.

That’s when Salman Agha stepped up with a captain’s knock. Walking in at a tricky phase, Salman not only absorbed the pressure but also counter-attacked at the right moments. His fearless approach against Rashid Khan, Afghanistan’s talisman and arguably the best T20 bowler in the world, shifted the momentum. Salman dispatched Rashid for two massive sixes in a 17-run over, signaling Pakistan’s intent to attack.

Salman’s unbeaten 53 off 36 deliveries, laced with three boundaries and as many sixes, ensured Pakistan finished strongly. Contributions from Mohammad Nawaz (21 off 11) and Faheem Ashraf (14 off 5) added the finishing touches, propelling Pakistan to 182 for 7 in 20 overs—a total that proved beyond Afghanistan’s reach.

Haris Rauf’s Double-Wicket Maiden Breaks Afghanistan

Chasing 183, Afghanistan began with promise. Rahmanullah Gurbaz showcased his trademark aggression, smashing 38 off 27 balls, including a breathtaking six off Haris Rauf that sailed deep into the stands. With Atal and Darwish Rasooli holding steady, Afghanistan looked well-positioned at 93 for 2 after 11 overs, needing just 90 runs off the last nine overs.

But cricket, especially T20 cricket, changes in a flash—and Haris Rauf ensured it changed Pakistan’s way. Returning for his second spell, the speedster bowled with blistering pace, touching the 150kph mark. In the 12th over, he delivered a sensational double-wicket maiden, dismissing Atal and Karim Janat in quick succession. That spell ripped the heart out of Afghanistan’s chase.

From 93/2, Afghanistan collapsed dramatically to 97/7, losing five wickets for just four runs in 16 balls. The collapse featured crucial wickets from Sufiyan Muqeem, who trapped Rasooli and Nabi, while Nawaz accounted for Omarzai. Afghanistan’s middle order simply had no answers against Pakistan’s relentless attack.

Rashid Khan’s Cameo in Vain

Afghanistan’s only resistance came from skipper Rashid Khan, who played a sparkling cameo of 39 off just 16 deliveries. With four sixes and two boundaries, Rashid briefly entertained the Sharjah crowd and gave his side faint hope of a miracle. But with the required rate soaring, his counterattack was little more than a consolation.

Haris Rauf eventually finished with 4 for 31, underlining his reputation as Pakistan’s go-to bowler in crunch situations. Afghanistan were bowled out for 143 in 19.2 overs, handing Pakistan a comfortable 39-run win.

Key Takeaways for Pakistan Ahead of Asia Cup 2025

This victory was more than just two points in a tri-series—it was a statement of intent from Pakistan. Salman Agha’s leadership, his composure with the bat, and the fearless finishing touches from Nawaz and Faheem highlighted the batting depth. Meanwhile, Rauf’s pace, coupled with contributions from Afridi and Muqeem, showcased a bowling unit capable of dismantling strong batting line-ups.

For Afghanistan, however, the defeat raised familiar concerns. Their over-reliance on Gurbaz and Rashid Khan continues to hurt, while their middle-order fragility remains a glaring weakness. Unless addressed quickly, it could prove costly in the upcoming Asia Cup 2025.