CELEBRITY
MESSI RAGES AS FAILING BARCA LOSE LA LIGA AND RISK GETTING EVEN WORSE
Barcelona made it all about the Champions League and after surrendering La Liga to Real Madrid, now it is all they have left.
Winning the title last season for an eighth time in 11 years was never going to be enough. Winning the double had not been either the year before.
La Liga and the Copa del Rey had become Barca’s default, their domestic dominance taken for granted and then diminished by disappointment in Europe.
A mess of a season could still be saved by the Champions League but even the most optimistic of fans expect the worst against Bayern Munich, Barcelona’s probable opponents in the quarter-finals.
Many, including Lionel Messi, are worried even about getting past Napoli, with the pandemic-delayed last 16 match-up poised at 1-1.
“I said long ago that if we continued in this way, it would be very difficult to win the Champions League and that has been shown to be the case in La Liga too,” said a frustrated Messi after the 2-1 loss to Osasuna on Thursday (July 16).
“If we want to fight for the Champions League we will have to change a lot because otherwise the match against Napoli, we will lose that as well.”
Just over a year on from almost winning the treble, Barcelona look set to finish without a trophy of any kind for the first time in 12 years.
And yet the concern is not so much the many failures of this season but the possibility they could be just the start.
Messi is 33 and his anger is directed primarily at the board, whose leadership has left Barcelona with a team seemingly neither for the present nor the future.
There has been no succession plan for Messi since Neymar joined Paris Saint-Germain in 2018 and that world record fee has been squandered on players that have failed to settle or been sold to balance the books.
Antoine Griezmann, bought for €120 million (S$190.6 million), left Atletico Madrid for the Nou Camp and what he thought would be the pinnacle of his club career. Yet earlier this month, he was reduced to coming off the bench, against Atletico, in injury-time.
And it is not just Messi nearing the end. Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and Jordi Alba are all 31 or older.
Off the pitch, political blunders have angered the dressing room, with Messi issuing a public rebuke to sporting director Eric Abidal in February over the sacking of Ernesto Valverde.
Removing Valverde might have been understandable last summer after two successful years appeared to have run their course.
But a change mid-season, with Barca top of the table, and to a coach like Quique Setien, whose ideas need time to be absorbed, now looks reckless.
Setien has admitted managing a squad like Barcelona’s has been a challenge for him. He has intimated that some players need to think more about the team.
He has made mistakes too and it remains to be seen if he pays with his job.
Bartomeu has said Setien will stay for the Champions League but the home defeat by Osasuna intensified the doubts.
“I hope so,” said Setien, when asked on Thursday if he would be in charge next month.
But with presidential elections at the club to come next year, the position is not an attractive one for an elite coach.
-AFP
Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The League of Wealthy Sportsmen
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
World’s Highest-Paid Athletes 2025
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