German champions Bayern Munich are close to signing former World and European champion Xabi Alonso from Champions League winners Real Madrid.
IMAGES from the English Premier League matches played on Saturday
India's batting sensation Virat Kohli, named player of the tournament, is also the most valuable player of World T20 2016. With a fifty and two wickets, England's Joe Root is just behind him.
Australia won the ICC cricket World Cup for a record fifth time when they beat New Zealand by seven wickets in the final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.
South Africa set New Zealand a daunting target of 298 runs in 43 overs.
Watch the trailers and predict the winner.
Images from Day 3 of the French Open in Paris on Tuesday
Chelsea's slim hopes of winning the Premier League all but evaporated in the Stamford Bridge sunshine on Sunday as Norwich City ground out a 0-0 draw that left them hanging on to top- flight status by their fingernails.
Karolina Pliskova lost her cool over a line call and bashed a hole into the umpire's chair with her racket after suffering a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 defeat by Maria Sakkari in the Italian Open second round on Wednesday.
The International Cricket Council released the provisional squads of the 12 teams for next year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand on Friday. However, co-hosts Australia and minnows Ireland decided against releasing the provisional list although they submitted 30 names to the parent body within the stipulated deadline.
Chelsea were given a stiff examination by Stoke City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday before extending their lead at the top of the Premier League.
A B de Villiers still heads Rediff.com's Most Valuable Players ratings for the World Cup.
From the UK to Poland, each of these festivals attract the best of crowds. Have you booked your tickets yet?
Toni Kroos struck with a fierce long-range shot a minute from time to give Germany a 1-0 victory over Spain in a friendly between two injury-depleted European heavyweights in Vigo on Tuesday.
As we write this we still await the crucial India-Australia knock-out in Mohali. But India's individual performances in the T20 World Cup so far haven't been truly impressive. A look at the most valuable player index (MVPI) table reveals that there's no Indian player in the top 20. MVPI merges a player's batting + bowling + fielding performance into a single 'run equivalent'. The formula to compute the MVP is devised to reward batsmen who score runs at a high strike rate, bowlers who take wickets at low economy rate and fielders who field the best (take a lot of catches and participate in run-outs). Since this is a relatively low scoring tournament we have assumed a team's par score to be 150, and each wicket to be worth 15 'runs'. It isn't a surprise that players from New Zealand dominate the rankings so far, although Joe Root tops the table after his 83 in 44 balls against South Africa.
Wayne Rooney struck with a 74th-minute free kick to give England a 1-0 win over 10-man Estonia in a Euro 2016 Group E qualifier on Sunday and move to within six goals of Bobby Charlton's record tally of 49.
Jose Mourinho maintained his hold over Arsene Wenger with leaders Chelsea enjoying a routine 2-0 win over Arsenal on Sunday after the two old adversaries became involved in an ugly touchline spat.
The protracted disagreement between Cardiff City chairman Vincent Tan and manager Malky Mackay reached its inevitable conclusion on Friday when the Scot was sacked seven months after winning promotion to the Premier League.
Virat Kohli remained the highest-placed Indian batsman at fourth even as Shikhar Dhawan rose a rung to sixth in the latest ICC ODI rankings.
Nadal, who got a first-round bye, defeated Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-4 to advance.
South Africa's AB de Villiers and Sri Lanka's Kumar Sangakkara will take their battle for the coveted No 1 spot in the Reliance ICC Player Rankings for ODI batsmen to Sydney when they go head-to-head in the first quarter-final of the World Cup.
Substantial gains can still be made with good policies and initiatives.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
The players auctions for this year's IPL is scheduled for this weekend. Rajneesh Gupta looks at the players retained and released by the teams for IPL 2017.
The third and final cricket One Day International between India and South Africa was abandoned after rains intervened at the innings break to leave the home side with a 2-0 series win in Centurion.
Poland's Magdalena Fularczyk-Kozlowska and Natalia Madaj edged past Britain's Katherine Grainger and Victoria Thornley in the final meters of the race to snatch the gold medal in the women's double sculls at the Olympic rowing regatta on Thursday. The nail-biter saw the two boats neck-and-neck for much of the race. Britain led Poland by just .64 seconds at the halfway mark and appeared poised to win.
De Boer, who lasted only 77 days as Crystal Palace manager after losing his first four league games in charge with no goals scored, said in an interview on BT Sport that it was "a pity" Mourinho was Rashford's manager because he was not getting enough chances.
India's Olympic aspirations failed to blossom in the face of personal egos of star tennis players even as the legend of Sania Mirza continued to grow and an ageless Leander Paes basked in personal glory in 2016.
Captain Fantastic Paul McGinley hailed "a great team performance" after Europe crushed the US in the Ryder Cup foursomes for the second day running to gallop into a commanding 10-6 lead on Saturday.
India's Leander Paes and his German partner Alexander Zverev went down to the Spanish duo of Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez in a men's doubles first round match to bow out of the Cincinnati Open.
Chelsea's Diego Costa continued his stunning start to life in the Premier League with a hat-trick in a 4-2 comeback win over Swansea City on Saturday that left champions Manchester City staring up the table after a 2-2 draw at Arsenal.
England stormed into the final of the ICC World Twenty20 with a comprehensive seven-wicket victory over New Zealand, riding on opener Jason Roy's blazing 78.
'In Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani has essentially found a Rajkumar Hirani story buried inside Sanjay Dutt's life.' 'Now if you think that's scary, sample the alternative: Perhaps Sanjay Dutt had been living his life to suit the narrative of a Rajkumar Hirani film,' says Sreehari Nair.
Roger Federer showed flashes of his best but Novak Djokovic exposed the Swiss maestro's fading powers with a three-set victory at the ATP World Tour Finals on Tuesday.
Third seed Rafael Nadal battled through mid-match cramps for more than an hour before he lurched into the third round of the Australian Open with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-7(2), 6-3, 7-5 victory over American qualifier Tim Smyzcek.
City are 18 points clear of second-placed Liverpool after beating Chelsea 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday and need just four wins from their final nine games to be sure of the title.
Henry Blofeld, who charmed the cricket world for more than 40 years, bids farewell to the microphone come September. Haresh Pandya salutes the Master.
As the top 10 teams prepare to battle for the World T20 crown, Rajneesh Gupta breaks down each squad's T20 performance and their showing in previous editions of the event.
Just two actors on stage capturing love, jealousy, possessiveness, class issues and guilt in 90 minutes... a highly entertaining musical set in 19th century Paris. Arthur J Pais/Rediff.com reports from New York on Love Letters and Can-Can.
The death of Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight champion known as much for his political activism as his boxing brilliance, triggered a worldwide outpouring of affection and admiration for one of the best-known figures of the 20th century.
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