WORLD

Top European leagues are set to oppose FIFA plans for adding more teams and playing days at the 2022 World Cup. FIFA president Gianni Infantino wants to study a 48-team tournament plan that would add 16 teams, 16 extra games and at least four days to the scheduled 28-day event kicking off in November 2022 in Qatar. That schedule would ...

It was only two years ago that Paul Pogba came to Manchester United on a then-world record transfer fee of £89 million (~US$130 million), but now the club’s manager, Jose Mourinho, may be ready to sell the French midfielder this summer, according to the Daily Mail. Manchester United currently sits second in the Premier League table, but they are 16 ...

TOTTENHAM are ready to conduct their transfer business early this summer in a bid to get some pre-World Cup bargains. The club have a recent history of completing deals late in the window but now are prepared to change tact believing that fees will rise after the tournament in Russia gets underway in mid-June. New chief scout Steve Hitchen has ...

MANCHESTER UNITED legend Gary Neville says Jose Mourinho has issues within his squad that he cannot solve. Neville was speaking 24 hours after Manchester United’s shock 1-0 home defeat to basement club West Brom. The loss handed Manchester City the Premier League title, just eight days after United beat City at the Etihad to delay the inevitable. Jose Mourinho blamed ...

Eintracht Frankfurt midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng says his departure from Schalke felt “like a punch in the face” with the clubs to clash in Wednesday’s German Cup semi-final. Boateng, 31, still carries bad memories after being released by Schalke in December 2015, six months after he was suspended over a “lack of mutual trust”, as the club put it. Boateng did ...

The UK’s cyber-defence watchdog has confirmed it has blacklisted one of China’s leading state-owned companies. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has written to UK telecoms providers warning them that the use of ZTE’s equipment and services could pose a national security risk. The move coincides with a US government ban preventing American businesses from selling components to the Shenzhen-based ...

State-sponsored Russian hackers are actively seeking to hijack essential internet hardware, US and UK intelligence agencies say. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security issued a joint alert warning of a global campaign. The alert details methods used to compromise the networking equipment used to move traffic across the net. This ...

Facebook has banned the American white nationalist who popularised the term “alternative right”. Richard Spencer’s page on the social network was removed on Friday along with two other pages he controlled: that of his National Policy Institute think tank, and one promoting his AltRight.com news analysis website. Facebook has not commented, but the BBC understands the blocks are permanent. Mr ...

The latest warning of Russian intrusions is another sign that cyber-space is becoming one of the focal points for growing tension between Russia and the West. But so far, much of the talk about cyber-war remains hypothetical rather than real. It is true that Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is on high alert for the possibility of some kind ...

Russia has denied interfering with evidence at the site of the suspected Syrian chemical attack, which led to Western air strikes on Saturday. In an interview for BBC’s Hardtalk, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “I can guarantee that Russia has not tampered with the site.” The US raised concern at the international chemical weapons agency. International inspectors will be ...