Sports, in brief

Cristiano Ronaldo left Portugal's training camp in Copenhagen on Wednesday, a day before a Nations League match against Denmark. [1][2] The Nations League is a competition between Europe's national teams.

He said on Instagram that he decided after the coach's press conference and a talk with Pedro Proenca, president of the Portuguese Football Federation. [2][7] He said he would tell people his reasons later. [1]

Earlier that day the coach, Jorge Jesus, said Ronaldo would start on the bench again. Goncalo Ramos would lead the attack instead. [1][8]

On Sunday 27 September Ronaldo sat on the bench for the whole of Portugal's 2-1 win over Norway in Oslo. [7][9] Ramos, who plays for AC Milan, scored the winner. [7]

It was only the third time Ronaldo had been an unused substitute for Portugal. [2] He walked straight to the dressing room at the final whistle and did not train with the squad on Monday or Tuesday. [3]

The federation reported no injury. [3] Jesus said Ronaldo was doing his own gym work, and that he had not refused to train. [5]

Jesus gave his reason plainly. A 41-year-old is not like Joao Neves, who is 20 and can play every three days, he said. [3]

Portugal play four matches in 11 days in this break: Wales on 24 September, Norway on 27 September, Denmark on 1 October and Norway again in Porto on 4 October. [6][2]

Jesus called Sunday's decision a tactical choice. [4] He said he regretted making Ronaldo warm up for so long and then not using him, but added: "I can promise whatever I want, I'm the coach." [1]

Jesus coached Ronaldo for a year at Al Nassr, his club in Saudi Arabia, and they won the Saudi league together. [3] Jesus took over Portugal after this summer's World Cup. [6]

No man has played more games for his country than Ronaldo, 234, or scored more goals, 146. [3][5] In August he said he would probably retire from football at the end of this club season, next June. [3]

The federation said the squad will carry on preparing with its other 24 players. [2][7]

Why it matters. Watch whether Ronaldo gives the reasons he promised, and whether he is in the squad when the Nations League starts again in November. [1][4]

The Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros 7-3 in Houston on Wednesday to win their best-of-three baseball playoff series 2-0. [13] It is their first playoff series win since 2005, when they beat Houston in the World Series. [12] They lost 100 or more games in each of the last three seasons. [12] No team had ever reached the playoffs straight after two 100-loss seasons. [12] Chase Meidroth's three-run home run in the sixth inning settled the game. [13]

Why it matters. The White Sox play the Cleveland Guardians from Saturday. [12][14] Houston have now lost nine home playoff games in a row, and their manager, Joe Espada, is in the last year of his contract. [12][13]

The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox again on Wednesday and won their series 2-0. [10] Over the two games the Yankees scored 18 runs to Boston's two, and had 26 hits to Boston's seven. [10] In the sixth inning Boston brought in Garrett Crochet, their best pitcher, in relief, which means part-way through the game. [10] He had not pitched in a game since 25 April, and he gave up four runs without officially getting anyone out. [10]

Why it matters. The Yankees play the Tampa Bay Rays in the next round. [11] Boston scored 2.96 runs a game in September, and the playoffs were more of the same. [10]

The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs for a second night running and are through to the next round. [10][15] Their 8-0 win on Tuesday meant their four best relief pitchers were not needed. [10] On Wednesday all four pitched, and gave up one hit in five and two-thirds innings. [10] In Atlanta, Alec Bohm's home run in the tenth inning beat the Braves. [10][15] So the Phillies and the Braves play a third and final game on Thursday. [10]

Why it matters. The Cubs scored more runs than any other team in the regular season. [10] Their two best hitters, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, went 0 for 15 between them in the series. [10]

Senior figures in English football, including club officials, told BBC Sport that Manchester City's punishment should come before this season ends. [21] This week the Premier League announced that an independent panel had found City guilty of breaking its money rules from 2009 to 2018. [21] City have until Friday, 2 October, to appeal. [22] League rules say an appeal should finish within 12 weeks of being filed, with a decision within 30 days after that. [21][23] Some rival clubs are talking to law firms about claiming compensation. [22]

Why it matters. City are top of the league with 15 points from five games. [23] If the punishment comes after the season, clubs that finish below them could go to court over places they lost, the BBC says. [23]

Etihad Airways, an airline from the United Arab Emirates that has sponsored Manchester City since 2009, says it will take legal advice about the Premier League. [20][21] The panel found that City inflated their income with sponsorship deals that were secretly paid for by the club's owners. [20] Etihad is not named in the published report, where many names are blacked out. [20] It says the league never asked for its side, and it rejects any suggestion that it made improper deals. [20][21]

Why it matters. Etihad's name is on City's shirts and stadium. [20] A former chairman of Etihad's parent company sat on City's board from 2010 to 2021, The Athletic reported. [20] The Premier League declined to comment. [21]

Madison Square Garden Sports, the company that owns basketball's New York Knicks and ice hockey's New York Rangers, will split into two companies. [16][17] Its board approved the plan this week, and the two teams will trade as separate shares from 27 October. [17] James Dolan stays in charge of both. [17] The company is worth about $11bn on the stock market. [16] Sportico, a sports-business site, values the Rangers at $4.15bn and, in a count a year old, the Knicks at $9.85bn. [16]

Why it matters. Sportico says investors have valued the company at less than private buyers would pay for its teams. [16] The split comes months after the Knicks won the NBA title in June. Their playoff run brought in $66.9m more than the year before. [17]

The NBA is close to choosing an owner for a new basketball team in Las Vegas, and three groups are left, ESPN reported. [34] One is Nancy Walton Laurie, daughter of a Walmart founder, and her husband Bill. [34] Another is Steve Apostolopoulos with Marc Lasry, and the third is Bill Foley, who owns Las Vegas's ice hockey team, with Jerry Colangelo. [34] Sources told ESPN the price for the team and a new arena is at least $12bn to $13bn. [34]

Why it matters. The league plans a formal vote on two new teams, in Las Vegas and Seattle, by the end of December. [34] Las Vegas comes first because more groups want it and they are offering more, and the losers may bid for Seattle. [34]

Federal judges in New York dismissed three lawsuits against Fanatics on Tuesday. [19] Fanatics is the biggest online seller of official sports clothing. [18] Since buying Topps in 2022, it has made the trading cards for baseball's MLB, the NBA and the NFL. [19] Card buyers said this let it raise prices and lower quality. [19] The judge said three Reddit threads and a podcast did not prove the buyers themselves had paid more. [18] A second judge threw out two cases about who may sell NFL goods, writing that the law protects competition, not competitors. [18]

Why it matters. Sportico says the rulings show a league can deal with only one partner without breaking competition law. [18] A bigger case brought by Panini, a rival card maker, goes on before the same judge. [19]

India beat West Indies in Guwahati on Wednesday, scoring the 406 runs they needed with only two batters out and 39 balls to spare. [25] It was a one-day international, a cricket match between countries with 50 overs a side. [29] India's captain, Shubman Gill, made 223 not out and reached 200 in 117 balls, the fastest double hundred in these matches. [24][27] West Indies had made 405 for seven, their first total over 400, with three batters scoring hundreds. [26][29] Only South Africa, with 438 in 2006, have won a match chasing more. [24][27]

Why it matters. India now lead the series 2-0 and cannot be caught. [28] West Indies made their record less than a week after their players were told to take a 25% pay cut, the BBC reported. [29]

Novig, an app where people trade on the results of sports games, is raising money at a value of up to $2bn, Front Office Sports reported. [30] In February it raised $75m at a value of $500m. [30] Interest grew after the CFTC, the US regulator for these markets, approved it in June to operate across the country, one source said. [30] Novig confirmed it is raising money, but the amount and the investors are not known. [30]

Why it matters. Its two bigger rivals are worth far more: Kalshi is reported to be in talks at about $40bn, and Polymarket at about $21bn. [30] Novig also has a deal with baseball's New York Mets. [30]

Stephen Ross, 86, who owns American football's Miami Dolphins, is close to selling 20% of the Miami Grand Prix, Front Office Sports reported last Thursday. [31] The likely buyer is Otro Capital, an investment firm that also owns part of the Alpine Formula One team. [31] No deal is final, and Ross does not plan to sell the whole race. [31] In 2024 he sold 13% of the Dolphins, their stadium and the race at a value of about $8.1bn. [31]

Why it matters. The race has sold out five years running and has grown into a week-long event. [31] Next year it is the sixth of 24 races, from 30 April to 2 May. [31]

Owners in American football's NFL see no need to let investment firms buy more than 10% of a team, Front Office Sports reported last week. [32] Baseball's MLB raised its limit this summer from 15% to 20% for each firm, the same as basketball's NBA. [32] NFL rules also say a team's main owner must hold at least 30%. [32] No public company or government wealth fund may own any part of a team. [32]

Why it matters. The average NFL team is worth about $9.5bn by Forbes' count, so even 10% costs close to $1bn. [32] The Atlanta Falcons' sale of 10% to Arctos, an investment firm, could be approved when owners meet in October. [32]

The company that owns the rights to the name and signature of Mickey Mantle, a New York Yankees star who died in 1995, has sued Cardsmiths, a trading card maker. [33] The case was filed in a federal court in New York last Thursday. [33] It says Cardsmiths copied Mantle's 1952 Topps rookie card without permission. [33] An original sold for $12.6m in 2022, the most ever paid for a baseball card. [33] The owners ask for at least $750,000. [33]

Why it matters. Cardsmiths declined to comment and will ask for the case to be thrown out. [33] Sportico says it may argue its card is protected under US free speech law. [33]

David Kogan chairs the Independent Football Regulator, which the UK government set up in 2025. [35] He said this week that the Manchester City case had raised serious issues. [35] He said the regulator can assess whether owners and directors are fit to run a club, and will use that power where there is clear evidence of wrongdoing. [35] For now it will wait, because City's dispute with the Premier League, England's top football league, is not finished. [35] City deny breaking the league's money rules and have until 2 October to appeal. [35]

Why it matters. Andy Burnham, the UK's prime minister, said on 30 September that he would be really concerned if City's owners sold the club. [35] He also said it would be wrong for him to step in. [35]

Rui Pinto is the Portuguese hacker whose leaked documents started the Manchester City case. [36] On 30 September he wrote that Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the body that runs world football, should have no place in the game's future. [36] Pinto repeated a claim from 2018 about Infantino's earlier job at UEFA, which runs European football. [36] The claim is that in 2014 Infantino helped City and Paris Saint-Germain, a French club, get away with fines. [36] Infantino said at the time that he was doing his job honestly. [36]

Why it matters. Switzerland's football association, in the country where FIFA is based, has become the latest to withdraw its support for Infantino. [36] He stands for a fourth term in March 2027, and his opponents have until 18 November to find a candidate. [36]

The New York Liberty beat the Minnesota Lynx 87-71 on 29 September and won their first-round playoff series by two games to none. [37][38] The WNBA is the top women's basketball league in the United States, and the playoffs are the knockout rounds that decide its champion. The Lynx had the best record in the regular season, with 33 wins and 11 defeats. [37] The Liberty were ranked eighth, the lowest of the eight playoff teams. [37][38] No eighth-ranked team had beaten the top team since the league began this format in 2022. [37]

Why it matters. The first round is the best of three games, and coaches and players say that gives the better team too little advantage. [37] The players' contract says more playoff games must mean bigger bonuses, so a best-of-five first round would add about $400,000 to this year's $1.44m. [37]

Arizona State University, in the United States, put its men's ice hockey head coach, Greg Powers, on paid leave on 30 September. [39][40] One of his players, Matthew Mayich, 21, collapsed at an outdoor team workout on 20 August and is still in hospital. [39][41] His family's lawyer says heatstroke cut the flow of oxygen to his brain. [41] Seven players wrote to the university's president on 28 September, asking for the coaches to be put on leave during an outside investigation. [41][40] Mayich's parents asked for the same a day later. [41][40]

Why it matters. No outside investigation has begun, and the university's own police are looking into the workout. [39][40] An assistant coach, Mike Corbett, will lead the team when its season opens on Friday 2 October. [40]

An NFL game played in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 27 September drew an average of 24.9 million viewers on CBS, a US television network. [42] The NFL is the top league in American football. CBS said that is the most for any NFL game played outside the United States, in records that go back to the late 1980s. [42] Rio is one hour ahead of the US east coast. [42] So the game could be shown late on Sunday afternoon, the slot that usually draws the NFL's biggest audiences. [42]

Why it matters. NFL games played in Europe or Australia are usually shown early in the morning or in the evening in the United States. [42] A storm over the north-east of the United States that day probably added viewers as well. [42]

The New York Yankees, a US baseball team, have almost $120m set aside to keep paying their stadium debt if the 2027 season is not played. [43] The contract between the owners in Major League Baseball and its players ends on 1 December. [43] The two sides disagree about a salary cap, which is a limit on what a team may pay its players, and a shutdown is widely expected. [43] The Yankees borrowed about $1.2bn to build the stadium, and this year's payments came to $76m. [43]

Why it matters. The money covers 18 months of payments, where newer stadiums usually hold about a year's worth. [43] Fitch, a firm that grades how safe a debt is, raised its grade for the stadium's debt in May. [43]

Many players from other countries who agreed to join US college basketball teams are still waiting to be cleared to play, Sports Illustrated reported. [44] The first real games are about a month away. [44] In May the NCAA, the body that runs US college sport, tightened its checks on players who had been paid by professional clubs abroad. [44] One college said it was asked for more than 70 pages of a player's bank statements. [44] Marcio Santos, 23, had agreed to join Louisiana State University and signed for Baskonia, a Spanish club, instead. [44]

Why it matters. US colleges now pay their players, and one player who earned about 30,000 euros at a European club will make around 10 times that this season. [44] In September two US senators proposed limiting students from abroad to 20% of a college team. [44]

Chris Fagan, 65, has stepped down as coach of the Brisbane Lions, days after they won a third title in a row. [45] The Lions play in the AFL, Australia's top league in Australian rules football. Fagan was appointed 10 years ago, and under him Brisbane went from last place to three straight titles. [45] He never played in the AFL himself. [45] After the final on 26 September he said part of him would rather walk away while the team was on top. [45]

Why it matters. If Brisbane win again in 2027 they will be only the second club to win four titles in a row. [45] Collingwood, another AFL club, did it about a century ago. [45]

Arike Ogunbowale scored 45 points for the Dallas Wings on 30 September, the most by one player in a playoff game in the WNBA, the US women's basketball league. [46][47] A defeat would have ended her team's season. [46][47] She made a long shot worth three points in the last seconds to tie the game, then scored 11 more in extra time. [46] Dallas beat the Golden State Valkyries 108-100, so the best-of-three series stands at one win each. [46][38] The old record was 42 points, reached three times. [47]

Why it matters. The deciding game is in San Francisco on Friday 2 October. [47][38] Golden State were the league's best defensive team this season, and no other team had scored more than 92 points against them. [47]

Jurgen Klopp, who coaches Germany's men's football team, has dismissed a social media debate over whether his squad is 'white enough'. [48] He called it complete nonsense and idiocy. [48] The racist posts followed Germany's 1-0 defeat by Greece on 27 September, the first time Greece had beaten Germany. [48] Klopp said his players, several of whom come from migrant families, could not be more united. [48]

Why it matters. Politicians from the AfD, a far-right party that is the largest opposition party in Germany's parliament, have repeatedly criticised the ethnic make-up of the team. [48] Klopp's contract runs to the end of the 2030 World Cup. [48]

The number of women coaching sport in the UK has fallen by 6% in recent years, a study by UK Coaching found. [49] UK Coaching is the body that speaks for coaches there. [49] Among unpaid volunteers at local clubs the fall is 10%. [49] In England, 7% of the people coaching local football are women, new figures from the Football Association, which runs football in England, show. [49] Coaches told the BBC that the cost of courses, childcare and sexism keep women out. [49]

Why it matters. Half of girls who play organised football say they would tell a female coach something they could not tell a parent. [49] For a male coach the figure is one in eight. [49]