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England batter Ollie Pope pulls out of the draft for the Afghanistan Premier League. Pope had been due to be the only centrally contracted England player in the running for the inaugural edition of the APL, which is set to take place in the United Arab Emirates later this year. On Monday, when England's latest batch of contracts were confirmed, director of cricket Rob Key said he would not play.

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Report published on Tuesday before consultation period It will have recommendations to improve sustainability The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) is to recommend clubs introduce greater cost controls in its long-awaited State of the Game report, to be published on Tuesday. The 250-page draft report, with a final version to follow in the spring after an eight-week public consultation beginning this week, will paint a damning picture of the financial state.

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It’s not just that the club’s recent charges themselves are unprecedented – it’s the language used to describe them too Sign up for our free newsletter here The language of football is a fine and highly nuanced dialect. The majority of people involved in the game speak it with a high degree of sophistication. Minor deviations from the familiar, almost imperceptible to outsiders, can set off alarm bells: what’s really.

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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says it is "far from ideal" that Piero Hincapie and Martin Zubimendi were injured in a post-match training session. A training session was held after Saturday's match at Emirates Stadium for players who either did not feature in or did not play the full 90 minutes against Leeds. Ecuador defender Hincapie was carried off by goalkeeper Illan Meslier during the session, and Arteta later confirmed Spain.

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Alexander Zverev is guaranteed to finish his transformational 2026 season as the world number one after Carlos Alcaraz suffers a surprise defeat in Shanghai. German Zverev was on course to climb above current world number one Jannik Sinner, who has been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury. Alcaraz still had a mathematical chance of stopping Zverev until he was beaten 7-5 7-6 (7-4) by.

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Robinson, Duckett and Smith get one-year deals Eric Simons hired as Test fast-bowling coach Rob Key believes he can now “map out the next two years” for the England men’s teams, having handed out a record 39 central contracts and unveiled new split coaching setups under Stephen Fleming and Brendon McCullum that he hopes will produce homegrown candidates for the top roles in future. The retirement of Ben Stokes mid-summer,.