Christian Horner sacked by Red Bull Racing F1 team

Christian Horner sacked by Red Bull Racing F1 team

Red Bull have sacked team principal Christian Horner and appointed Laurent Mekies as the Briton’s replacement, the Formula One team announced.The 51-year-old Horner was the longest-serving team principal, having been in the position since Red Bull made its Formula One debut in 2005.Frenchman Mekies joins from Red Bull’s sister team Racing Bulls. Alan Permane, currently racing director, will be promoted to team principal at Racing Bulls.“Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today (Wednesday 9 July 2025) and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing,” the Milton Keynes-based team said in a statement on Wednesday.Red Bull won eight Drivers’ World Championships and six Constructors’ Championships under Horner, but struggled this season, with the team sitting fourth with 172 points in the constructors’ standings. They trail leaders McLaren by 288 points.Red Bull’s four-time Formula One champion Max Verstappen has won two of 12 races and is third in the drivers’ championship. He is 69 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri at the midway stage of the 24-round season.Horner’s position was questioned, with Verstappen’s father calling last year for him to go, after allegations of misconduct were made by a female employee. The Briton denied them and was cleared after an investigation.“It has been an amazing adventure to contribute to the birth of Racing Bulls together with all our talented people. The spirit of the whole team is incredible, and I strongly believe that this is just the beginning,” Mekies said.“Alan is the perfect man to take over now and continue our path. He knows the team inside out and has always been an important pillar of our early successes.”

7/9/2025 5:37:00 PM

Mbappe and PSG set for Club World Cup reunion as Real Madrid eye final

Kylian Mbappe will come up against Paris Saint-Germain for the first time since leaving the French club a year ago as Xabi Alonso's Real Madrid revolution gets its biggest test yet in Wednesday's Club World Cup semi-final.Mbappe should be remembered as a PSG legend, having spent seven prolific campaigns there and eventually departing as their all-time top scorer with 256 goals in 308 games.But his legacy was a little tainted by the manner of his departure, the sense among many that for the last half of his time in Paris he was just waiting for the right moment to move to Madrid, the club he had dreamed of representing as a young boy.PSG, under their Qatari president Nasser al-Khelaifi, were not happy with the way in which Mbappe chose to run down his contract in order to sign for Real in 2024, denying them a transfer fee.A bitter legal dispute has gone on between the parties for much of the time since, with Mbappe claiming he is owed 55 million euros ($64.4 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses from his spell in Paris.The latest twist came just this week, when one of Mbappe's lawyers told AFP that the France captain had withdrawn a complaint of moral harassment against his former employers.That was after the Paris prosecutor's office revealed last month that an investigation had been opened following a complaint by the player over the way he was treated by PSG in the summer of 2023.He believes he was sidelined by PSG and made to train with players the club were looking to offload after refusing to agree a new contract.Mbappe missed a pre-season tour to Japan and the start of the next campaign before eventually being reintegrated into Luis Enrique's squad.All of that should have been behind Mbappe long ago, given the way his first season at Real has gone on a personal level.The 26-year-old, a World Cup winner in 2018, scored 43 goals in 56 matches for his new club across all competitions up to the end of the campaign in La Liga, a remarkable tally.However, Mbappe has endured frustration at the Club World Cup, not featuring at all during the group stage due to a stomach bug which led to him requiring hospital treatment.- First start? -In his absence, young forward Gonzalo Garcia has made the step up in impressive fashion, starting all five matches in the United States and scoring four goals.The last of those was the opener in the 3-2 quarter-final win over Borussia Dortmund at the MetLife Stadium on Saturday, but it was Mbappe who got what was ultimately the deciding goal.He came off the bench midway through the second half and scored a brilliant, acrobatic overhead kick for Real's third of the afternoon in stoppage time."He is still not perfect, not 100 percent, but he is getting better every day," Alonso said of Mbappe after that match.“Now he will have three days to keep progressing and feeling better ahead of the semi-final.”It is hard to imagine Mbappe not getting his first start of the tournament against PSG, the club who won the Champions League in the season following his departure after so many years of disappointment in Europe with him in the team.PSG came to the US fresh from crushing Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League final.They reached the last four with a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in Atlanta in the last eight -- despite having Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez sent off -- and need not fear Real."It doesn't matter who we play in the semi-finals. All that matters is that we are there and that we want to get to the final," said Luis Enrique, for whom this is also a special occasion given that he spent five years at Madrid as a player in the 1990s.Alonso has just taken over as Real coach after an outstanding spell with Bayer Leverkusen and has already displayed great tactical flexibility, flitting between a back four and a three-man central defence at the tournament.It will be fascinating to see which system he opts for here, and if Mbappe starts as he prepares to play against PSG for the first time since July 2017, when he was still a thrilling teenager at Monaco.

7/8/2025 2:49:33 PM

Liverpool's Jota Mourned by Family and Locals at Hometown Wake

Hundreds of residents of Gondomar in northern Portugal filed past the bodies of former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at a chapel in their hometown on Friday, after their deaths in a car crash in Spain.At an earlier private wake, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, FC Porto President Andre Villas-Boas, Portuguese Football Federation President Pedro Proenca and Jota's longtime agent Jorge Mendes joined the brothers' family including Jota's wife Rute Cardoso, who had married the footballer just weeks earlier."It is a moment of great pain for the family, who are left anchored to this tragic accident," Proenca said as he left the wake. "Diogo was an icon for the talent that Portuguese football represents and for its ability to generate unity around a person."The brothers were believed to be driving to a ferry in Spain to travel to the UK when their Lamborghini veered off the road and burst into flames after midnight on Thursday. Police said they suspected a tyre had burst.Silva was also a footballer, with Penafiel in the Portuguese second division.Their funeral is expected to take place on Saturday at a nearby church at 10 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), the office of Gondomar's mayor said.The death of forward Jota at the age of 28 has jolted the world of football, with tributes pouring in from former teammates, clubs, national leaders and fans."Diogo was a silent hero for everything he represented on and off the pitch," Villas-Boas said as he left the wake."These are tragic days, days for reflection, and may the memory of these two athletes, these two great men, live on," the former Chelsea manager added.Outside Liverpool's Anfield stadium fans left flowers, scarves and handwritten notes, many from children."I never thought there would be something that would frighten me off going back to Liverpool after the (summer) break," Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah said on Instagram."Teammates come and go but not like this. It’s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won't be there when we go back," he added.Football clubs including Paris St Germain -- who have several Portugal internationals in their squad -- Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid observed a moment of silence during training for their matches at the Club World Cup in the United States.Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said on Thursday that forward Pedro Neto was weighing up whether to play in Friday's quarter-final against Palmeiras, as the Portuguese international mourned the tragic death of his close friend.Jota's manager at Liverpool, Arne Slot, said in a statement on Thursday that his thoughts were with his family."My message to them is very clear - you will never walk alone," Slot said, using the words of the team's anthem."For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player, he was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special," the Dutchman added.In Gondomar, a town of about 160,000 people in the Porto metropolitan area that is known for artisanal gold and filigree jewellery, residents were struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of a local hero.At the Diogo Jota Academy in Gondomar - whose motto is "It’s not important where we come from, but where we are going" - people placed candles and flowers, as well as scarves and shirts from the clubs he played for and from the Portuguese national team in tribute to the player.Jota opened the academy in 2022 for children aged six to nine at the Gondomar Football Club where he himself played for 10 years as a child.It was at Gondomar's high school that he met his wife. They began dating aged 15 when in the same class and she became a pillar in his life.When they were 19, they moved to Madrid together, when Jota was transferred from the small Portuguese club Pacos de Ferreira to Atletico Madrid."Besides being his girlfriend and best friend, I'm his number one fan," Cardoso told the newspaper 'A Bola' at the time.Jota was making his way back to Liverpool by car after he was told he should avoid plane travel for up to six weeks following lung surgery to address a fractured rib, his physiotherapist Miguel Goncalves told broadcaster Now late on Thursday.Goncalves said Jota was recovering well from the pneumothorax surgery and that he had planned to take a ferry to the UK from Spain.

7/4/2025 8:50:00 PM

Salah 'frightened' to return to Liverpool after Jota death

Mohamed Salah said the death of Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota in a car crash had left him "frightened" to return to the club as the Premier League champions postponed the return of some players for pre-season training.The Portugal forward and his younger brother Andre Silva, died in the early hours of Thursday after their car veered off a motorway in Spain and burst into flames.Mourners gathered at a wake in Portugal on Friday ahead of the brothers' funeral on Saturday.Jota's Liverpool teammates have spoken of their struggle to comprehend his death, with captain Virgil van Dijk writing on Instagram that he was "absolutely devastated and in total disbelief".Liverpool manager Arne Slot said everyone associated with the club owed it to Jota to "stand together and be there for one another".Egypt international Salah paid tribute to Jota on Friday."I am truly lost for words," last season's Premier League top-scorer posted on Instagram. "Until yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break.

7/4/2025 4:51:00 PM

Liverpool's Diogo Jota Dies in Car Crash in Spain

Liverpool's Portuguese forward Diogo Jota, 28, died in a car crash near Zamora in northwestern Spain with his brother, the Portuguese Football Federation said on Thursday.The regional fire department of Castile and Leon, where Zamora is located, said on its website a car crashed early on Thursday, shortly after midnight, and burst into flames, with two men, aged 28 and 26, found dead."We have lost two champions. Their deaths represent irreparable losses for Portuguese football, and we will do everything we can to honour their legacy every day," the Portuguese Football Federation said in a statement.Spanish police told Reuters they could not yet officially confirm the names of the deceased, but everything pointed to it being Jota and his brother. The Lamborghini they were travelling veered off the road, the spokesperson said.The bodies have been taken to a forensics unit in nearby Zamora where autopsies will be performed, they said.Jota, who got married on June 28, helped Liverpool win the Premier League last season and also won the FA Cup and League Cup with the Merseyside outfit.Jota arrived at Anfield from Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2020 and scored 65 goals in 182 appearances for the club in all competitions.He also made 49 appearances for Portugal, twice winning the UEFA Nations League.

7/3/2025 12:40:50 PM

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Christian Horner sacked by Red Bull Racing F1 team

Red Bull have sacked team principal Christian Horner and appointed Laurent Mekies as the Briton’s replacement, the Formula One team announced.The 51-year-old Horner was the longest-serving team principal, having been in the position since Red Bull made its Formula One debut in 2005.Frenchman Mekies joins from Red Bull’s sister team Racing Bulls. Alan Permane, currently racing director, will be promoted to team principal at Racing Bulls.“Red Bull has released Christian Horner from his operational duties with effect from today (Wednesday 9 July 2025) and has appointed Laurent Mekies as CEO of Red Bull Racing,” the Milton Keynes-based team said in a statement on Wednesday.Red Bull won eight Drivers’ World Championships and six Constructors’ Championships under Horner, but struggled this season, with the team sitting fourth with 172 points in the constructors’ standings. They trail leaders McLaren by 288 points.Red Bull’s four-time Formula One champion Max Verstappen has won two of 12 races and is third in the drivers’ championship. He is 69 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri at the midway stage of the 24-round season.Horner’s position was questioned, with Verstappen’s father calling last year for him to go, after allegations of misconduct were made by a female employee. The Briton denied them and was cleared after an investigation.“It has been an amazing adventure to contribute to the birth of Racing Bulls together with all our talented people. The spirit of the whole team is incredible, and I strongly believe that this is just the beginning,” Mekies said.“Alan is the perfect man to take over now and continue our path. He knows the team inside out and has always been an important pillar of our early successes.”

7/9/2025 5:37:00 PM

Mbappe and PSG set for Club World Cup reunion as Real Madrid eye final

Kylian Mbappe will come up against Paris Saint-Germain for the first time since leaving the French club a year ago as Xabi Alonso's Real Madrid revolution gets its biggest test yet in Wednesday's Club World Cup semi-final.Mbappe should be remembered as a PSG legend, having spent seven prolific campaigns there and eventually departing as their all-time top scorer with 256 goals in 308 games.But his legacy was a little tainted by the manner of his departure, the sense among many that for the last half of his time in Paris he was just waiting for the right moment to move to Madrid, the club he had dreamed of representing as a young boy.PSG, under their Qatari president Nasser al-Khelaifi, were not happy with the way in which Mbappe chose to run down his contract in order to sign for Real in 2024, denying them a transfer fee.A bitter legal dispute has gone on between the parties for much of the time since, with Mbappe claiming he is owed 55 million euros ($64.4 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses from his spell in Paris.The latest twist came just this week, when one of Mbappe's lawyers told AFP that the France captain had withdrawn a complaint of moral harassment against his former employers.That was after the Paris prosecutor's office revealed last month that an investigation had been opened following a complaint by the player over the way he was treated by PSG in the summer of 2023.He believes he was sidelined by PSG and made to train with players the club were looking to offload after refusing to agree a new contract.Mbappe missed a pre-season tour to Japan and the start of the next campaign before eventually being reintegrated into Luis Enrique's squad.All of that should have been behind Mbappe long ago, given the way his first season at Real has gone on a personal level.The 26-year-old, a World Cup winner in 2018, scored 43 goals in 56 matches for his new club across all competitions up to the end of the campaign in La Liga, a remarkable tally.However, Mbappe has endured frustration at the Club World Cup, not featuring at all during the group stage due to a stomach bug which led to him requiring hospital treatment.- First start? -In his absence, young forward Gonzalo Garcia has made the step up in impressive fashion, starting all five matches in the United States and scoring four goals.The last of those was the opener in the 3-2 quarter-final win over Borussia Dortmund at the MetLife Stadium on Saturday, but it was Mbappe who got what was ultimately the deciding goal.He came off the bench midway through the second half and scored a brilliant, acrobatic overhead kick for Real's third of the afternoon in stoppage time."He is still not perfect, not 100 percent, but he is getting better every day," Alonso said of Mbappe after that match.“Now he will have three days to keep progressing and feeling better ahead of the semi-final.”It is hard to imagine Mbappe not getting his first start of the tournament against PSG, the club who won the Champions League in the season following his departure after so many years of disappointment in Europe with him in the team.PSG came to the US fresh from crushing Inter Milan 5-0 in the Champions League final.They reached the last four with a 2-0 win over Bayern Munich in Atlanta in the last eight -- despite having Willian Pacho and Lucas Hernandez sent off -- and need not fear Real."It doesn't matter who we play in the semi-finals. All that matters is that we are there and that we want to get to the final," said Luis Enrique, for whom this is also a special occasion given that he spent five years at Madrid as a player in the 1990s.Alonso has just taken over as Real coach after an outstanding spell with Bayer Leverkusen and has already displayed great tactical flexibility, flitting between a back four and a three-man central defence at the tournament.It will be fascinating to see which system he opts for here, and if Mbappe starts as he prepares to play against PSG for the first time since July 2017, when he was still a thrilling teenager at Monaco.

7/8/2025 2:49:33 PM

Liverpool's Jota Mourned by Family and Locals at Hometown Wake

Hundreds of residents of Gondomar in northern Portugal filed past the bodies of former Liverpool footballer Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva at a chapel in their hometown on Friday, after their deaths in a car crash in Spain.At an earlier private wake, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, FC Porto President Andre Villas-Boas, Portuguese Football Federation President Pedro Proenca and Jota's longtime agent Jorge Mendes joined the brothers' family including Jota's wife Rute Cardoso, who had married the footballer just weeks earlier."It is a moment of great pain for the family, who are left anchored to this tragic accident," Proenca said as he left the wake. "Diogo was an icon for the talent that Portuguese football represents and for its ability to generate unity around a person."The brothers were believed to be driving to a ferry in Spain to travel to the UK when their Lamborghini veered off the road and burst into flames after midnight on Thursday. Police said they suspected a tyre had burst.Silva was also a footballer, with Penafiel in the Portuguese second division.Their funeral is expected to take place on Saturday at a nearby church at 10 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), the office of Gondomar's mayor said.The death of forward Jota at the age of 28 has jolted the world of football, with tributes pouring in from former teammates, clubs, national leaders and fans."Diogo was a silent hero for everything he represented on and off the pitch," Villas-Boas said as he left the wake."These are tragic days, days for reflection, and may the memory of these two athletes, these two great men, live on," the former Chelsea manager added.Outside Liverpool's Anfield stadium fans left flowers, scarves and handwritten notes, many from children."I never thought there would be something that would frighten me off going back to Liverpool after the (summer) break," Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah said on Instagram."Teammates come and go but not like this. It’s going to be extremely difficult to accept that Diogo won't be there when we go back," he added.Football clubs including Paris St Germain -- who have several Portugal internationals in their squad -- Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Real Madrid observed a moment of silence during training for their matches at the Club World Cup in the United States.Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said on Thursday that forward Pedro Neto was weighing up whether to play in Friday's quarter-final against Palmeiras, as the Portuguese international mourned the tragic death of his close friend.Jota's manager at Liverpool, Arne Slot, said in a statement on Thursday that his thoughts were with his family."My message to them is very clear - you will never walk alone," Slot said, using the words of the team's anthem."For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player, he was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special," the Dutchman added.In Gondomar, a town of about 160,000 people in the Porto metropolitan area that is known for artisanal gold and filigree jewellery, residents were struggling to come to terms with the sudden death of a local hero.At the Diogo Jota Academy in Gondomar - whose motto is "It’s not important where we come from, but where we are going" - people placed candles and flowers, as well as scarves and shirts from the clubs he played for and from the Portuguese national team in tribute to the player.Jota opened the academy in 2022 for children aged six to nine at the Gondomar Football Club where he himself played for 10 years as a child.It was at Gondomar's high school that he met his wife. They began dating aged 15 when in the same class and she became a pillar in his life.When they were 19, they moved to Madrid together, when Jota was transferred from the small Portuguese club Pacos de Ferreira to Atletico Madrid."Besides being his girlfriend and best friend, I'm his number one fan," Cardoso told the newspaper 'A Bola' at the time.Jota was making his way back to Liverpool by car after he was told he should avoid plane travel for up to six weeks following lung surgery to address a fractured rib, his physiotherapist Miguel Goncalves told broadcaster Now late on Thursday.Goncalves said Jota was recovering well from the pneumothorax surgery and that he had planned to take a ferry to the UK from Spain.

7/4/2025 8:50:00 PM

Salah 'frightened' to return to Liverpool after Jota death

Mohamed Salah said the death of Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota in a car crash had left him "frightened" to return to the club as the Premier League champions postponed the return of some players for pre-season training.The Portugal forward and his younger brother Andre Silva, died in the early hours of Thursday after their car veered off a motorway in Spain and burst into flames.Mourners gathered at a wake in Portugal on Friday ahead of the brothers' funeral on Saturday.Jota's Liverpool teammates have spoken of their struggle to comprehend his death, with captain Virgil van Dijk writing on Instagram that he was "absolutely devastated and in total disbelief".Liverpool manager Arne Slot said everyone associated with the club owed it to Jota to "stand together and be there for one another".Egypt international Salah paid tribute to Jota on Friday."I am truly lost for words," last season's Premier League top-scorer posted on Instagram. "Until yesterday, I never thought there would be something that would frighten me of going back to Liverpool after the break.

7/4/2025 4:51:00 PM

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