Streaks, notes and numbers for every team in the preseason Associated Press college football poll

Jon Rahm will face Scottie Scheffler in the opening Ryder Cup singles clash on Sunday as Europe captain Luke Donald opted to send out his strongest players first to defend their 10...

Lala Kent shared a cryptic post after her ex-boyfriend Ran Emmett cheated on her with multiple women

A missile targeted Kyiv on Saturday, ending nearly two months of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital, while frontline regions fended off waves...

Jurgen Klopp gives his feelings on Jordan Henderson's surprise move away from Liverpool.

Errol Spence Jr knew this time would be different. For the best part of five years, fans had debated what a fight between the two best welterweights of their generation would look like. Promoters had spoken in public and in private about whether fans would get a look at that fight at all. On more than one occasion, the contest seemed to be within grasp before drifting out of reach. But when Terence Crawford texted him, Spence Jr knew this time would be different. “I think it really took us just getting on the phone, and talking to each other,” Spence told The Independent over Zoom, a week out from their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on 29 July. “It took us relaying different messages to each other about the negotiations, and basically me just giving him stuff that he wanted to make the fight happen. I didn’t really want much. The big obstacles were the [purse] split and the ring walk.” Such obstacles could not have been overcome without Spence and his fellow American sharing a mutual respect, both fighters told The Independent, with Crawford saying on a call with other reporters: “You’ve got a lot of people that put on a little circus act and start going about things the wrong way – being disrespectful, taking it to another level that it doesn’t need to be taken to. Sometimes, you can’t come back from that.” There was no such problem when Crawford and Spence picked up the phone, initially bypassing promoters, agents and handlers to try to hash out a deal for a historic fight – one between two unbeaten title holders, to crown an undisputed welterweight champion. “There’s definitely a respect between us, I respect him a lot,” Spence acknowledged, while Crawford said: “It was never nothing [antagonistic], it was all business and respect [on the phone]. “I hit him up on 1 January,” Crawford added. “I sent him a text, just telling him that we need to actually fight, to make history. He was in agreement about us fighting. And at that particular time, I reached out to [promoter] Al Haymon and started back up the conversation. Errol got back on a phone call and started talking about the structure of the fight, the deal. That’s how the fight was made.” “The conversations were just us talking about what was going on with the negotiations, and seeing if we could get to the middle of it – the meat of it,” Spence explained. “Basically there was some stuff that he wanted, which me and my team didn’t agree to [at first].” Eventually, however, agreements were reached. It had been a year of mixed results in terms of talks over marquee fights. Tyson Fury’s prospective clash with Oleksandr Usyk collapsed, despite the latter agreeing to a 70-30 purse split in the Briton’s favour. The Ukrainian made that concession in spite of holding three of the four major heavyweight belts, compared to Fury’s one, and holding an unbeaten record like his potential opponent. A long-awaited bout between Fury and compatriot Anthony Joshua also crashed and burned before it got off the ground, and not for the first time. However, a highly-anticipated showdown between Gervonta “Tank” Davis and Ryan Garcia did materialise, as did huge title fights between Vasiliy Lomachenko and Devin Haney and Josh Taylor and Teofimo Lopez. So, should more fighters take the approach that Spence and Crawford did? “If they’re mature enough, they definitely need to get on the phone with each other and talk,” Spence said. “But I don’t know if they’re as level-headed as me and Terence are, talking and having disagreements but trying to make the fight happen. You’ve got to have a level head to talk to another fighter and just come up with the same scenario. [It was me] talking to my people, and then at some points we had my team and his team, himself and myself. We were always on a call with each other, trying to figure out how to make the fight happen.” Crawford then told The Independent: “If you have two grown men that are willing to set aside their pride and put the hype to the side and come together and both want the same thing, then yes,” before telling another reporter: “I can’t speak on other people’s situations, because I’m not the one trying to make the fight happen with them, but boxers are the ones in charge. “Once a fighter realises that, the advisers, promoters and managers go to work. They’ve got to give the fighter what he wants. You’ve had two cases recently: ‘Tank’ and Garcia wanted to fight each other, and they made sure that deal got done, just like you have Terence Crawford and Errol Spence wanting to fight each other. We both went to our people and got the fight done, so it all comes down to the fighters at the end of the day. “Yeah, our handlers want to look out for our best interests and make sure we make the best business decision at the right time, but it’s up to us as fighters to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. There’s a lot of fighters that can say, ‘No, I don’t wanna fight this guy; I want him, give me him,’ and if the opposing fighter is saying the same thing, there’s nothing anyone can do but to make the fight happen.” And so, one of the most-anticipated fights of a generation did happen, as Spence carried the WBC, WBA and IBF welterweight titles into the T-Mobile Arena, while Crawford brought the WBO belt. On a shocking evening, it was not the ‘50-50’ fight that most expected it would be. Crawford produced a masterclass to dismantle Spence, dropping him once in the second round and twice in the seventh, before overwhelming his rival to force a TKO in Round 9. And while Spence will have been devastated by the result and the manner in which it came about, he deserves immense credit for ensuring that this fight, which so many fans craved for so many years, came together. He deserves credit for taking the risk. “I definitely think it’s something that would’ve been hanging over our heads for our whole careers, if we didn’t make this fight happen,” Spence admitted to The Independent, ahead of the fight. “It’d have been tied to us all the time. ‘Man, Spence, I wish he would’ve fought Terence.’ Or, ‘Man, I wish Terence would’ve fought Spence.’ It would’ve been that super-fight that didn’t happen.” Meanwhile, Crawford said before the bout: “It means a lot, but at the same time, there are a lot of other fights in the history of boxing that didn’t happen. So, if the fight with Errol didn’t happen, I wouldn’t be the first and I wouldn’t be the last to have people talking about them like that. It’d just be another fight on the list.” Thankfully, the fight did not belong on such a list. Rather, it belongs on a list of all-time great performances in boxing super-fights. Read More Terence Crawford dismantles Errol Spence Jr to become undisputed welterweight king What time does Spence vs Crawford start tonight? How to watch Spence vs Crawford online and on TV tonight Exclusive look at Terence Crawford’s ring gear ahead of clash with Errol Spence Jr The meaning behind Terence Crawford’s ring gear in Errol Spence Jr clash Terence Crawford wins coin toss with Errol Spence to make key fight-night decision

(Corrects para 9 to clarify group is yet to put up outdoor signs but is planning to do so) By

Questions have been raised within the game over whether the VAR team at fault for a major error in Tottenham’s win against Liverpool on Saturday night were fatigued. It has emerged that VAR officials Darren England and Dan Cook had made a six-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates the day before, after taking charge of a league game between Al Ain and Sharjah in the UAE Pro League on Thursday night. VAR England and assistant Cook made a “significant human error” when they failed to overturn Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal in the first half of Tottenham’s 2-1 win. Both referees have since been stood down for Sunday afternoon’s match between Nottingham Forest and Brentford as well as Monday night’s game between Fulham and Chelsea. The referees’ body the PGMOL have put the error for Diaz’s offside down to a “momentary lapse of concentration”, and questions have now been raised within the Premier League over whether workload fatigue played a part. A flight between London and the UAE takes at least six hours, with the officiating team of Michael Oliver, England and Cook only arriving back on Friday. A variety of sources have pointed to how teams in the Europa League don’t play until Sunday after a Thursday evening game. Officials who work in those same continental fixtures are usually fourth officials or VAR on Saturdays and on-field from Sunday, but that generally comes after much shorter travel than a trip to the Gulf. The explanation so far put forth for the error is that the VAR for the Liverpool game thought they were checking whether Diaz’s goal should stand rather than whether it was offside, which is what on-field referee Simon Hooper had actually ruled. That created the farcical situation of a "check complete" communication leading to a fair strike being ruled out in completely preventable fashion. What is not clear, however, is when the VAR officials realised that they had failed to intervene. Under the rules of the game, when Tottenham took the free kick to restart the match, the officials would have been unable to go back and award Diaz’s goal. It has since been confirmed that Oliver, Cook and England were involved in officiating in the UAE in midweek. An approach had been made to the Football Association and was subsequently approved by PGMOL chief Howard Webb, with it not affecting their availability to be selected for Premier League fixtures. Webb has since got in touch with Liverpool to apologise for the decision, as has become protocol. Liverpool went on to finish the match with nine men and suffered stoppage-time heartbreak when Joel Matip deflected Pedro Porro’s cross into his own net in the sixth minute of stoppage time, but the post-match discussions focused on the crucial first-half error. “Who does that help now? We had that situation in the Wolves-Man United game. Did Wolves get the points? No,” Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp reflected when informed of the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited) statement. “We will not get points for it so it doesn’t help. Nobody expects 100 per cent right decisions on [the] field but we all thought when VAR comes in that it might make things easier. “I don’t know why the people... are they that much under pressure? Today the decision was made really quick, I would say, for that goal. It changed the momentum of the game, so that’s how it is.” Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher reacted to the decision on Twitter/X and said: “It’s an horrendous mistake no matter how they did it. But if they knew just after the Spurs free-kick was taken that they’d made a huge mistake, it’s nonsense they can’t bring it back just because a free-kick has been taken.” Read More Bizarre reason why Liverpool goal wrongly ruled out by VAR revealed VAR officials who missed Liverpool’s ‘onside’ goal to be replaced PGMOL admit Liverpool offside goal should have stood after ‘significant human error’ VAR officials who missed Liverpool’s ‘onside’ goal to be replaced Bizarre reason why Liverpool goal wrongly ruled out by VAR revealed PGMOL admit Liverpool goal should have stood after ‘significant error’

How was the air breathed by Caesar, the Prophet Mohammed or Christopher Columbus? A giant freezer in Copenhagen holds the answers, storing blocks of ice with...

Shares of Enphase Energy slumped 17% in premarket trading on Friday, after the solar inverter maker's third-quarter revenue

Charley Hull defends her Ascendant LPGA title this week, hoping a return to Texas sees her break through for a first victory of 2023...

Seven people were killed and at least 31 others were severely injured when gunman Robert Eugene Crimo III opened fire just minutes after the parade started on July 4, 2022