Five stories to start with

• Britain’s audit regulator begins enquiries into Manchester City’s accounts.

• Greece’s basketball federation changes president after bribery arrests.

• A banned coach’s return to children brings fines for Congolese football authorities.

• A former Toronto Blue Jay and his wife face charges over undelivered youth training.

• An Australian coroner seeks tighter betting controls after a young gambler’s death.

Manchester City

England | Manchester City’s accounts draw scrutiny from the audit regulator

Britain’s accounting watchdog is making preliminary enquiries into Manchester City’s accounts and the audits carried out by BDO, according to a letter published by Parliament on 20 October. The Financial Reporting Council is deciding whether there are grounds for a formal investigation after a Premier League commission found extensive financial-rule breaches at the club.

City is challenging those findings. The accounting regulator says the appeal does not prevent its own enquiries, which could also cover regulated accountants working at the club. Its powers have limits: City is not classed as a public interest entity, and the watchdog cannot compel information from such businesses or discipline directors who are outside the accountancy bodies it oversees.

England | Football regulator sets out how City’s owners could be forced to sell

David Kogan, chair of England’s Independent Football Regulator, said the watchdog could force Manchester City’s owners to sell if it concluded they had run the club improperly. In an interview released on 21 October by The Rest Is Football, he explained that the regulator could examine the conduct of individuals involved in the club after the appeal against its Premier League ruling.

Kogan said he would wait for the evidence and the appeal before deciding whether to open the regulator’s own investigation. City, owned through Sheikh Mansour’s Abu Dhabi investment vehicle, is contesting the commission’s findings.

England | Investigation traces City owner’s influence over Manchester’s housing

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour’s influence extends into the city’s housing supply. A Guardian investigation on 25 October found that Manchester Life, the Sheikh’s partnership with the council, delivered 2,039 homes against a 6,000-home ambition, with none designated social or affordable housing.

The council sold prime land for £5 million and gave Abu Dhabi preferential access to further developments. Former council leader Richard Leese defended the partnership as necessary to restart stalled construction. The council rejects claims it sold the land too cheaply.

England | Land records map the scale of Mansour’s Manchester holdings

Companies linked to Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour account for two-thirds of the land held by Emirati-linked businesses in Greater Manchester, according to Guardian analysis published on 25 October. They hold at least 34 titles, including the Etihad Stadium.

Using Land Registry and Companies House records, the newspaper found that the wider group’s holdings grew from 73 to 101 hectares between 2016 and 2026. Most of that expansion came from other investors, including the Abu Dhabi government’s healthcare acquisitions.

Football

Brazil | Eight clubs given 45 days to pay or lose the right to register players

Brazil’s new financial watchdog notified eight clubs on 19 October that they must settle specified debts within 45 days or lose the right to register players. The group includes top-flight Grêmio, São Paulo, Atlético Mineiro and Internacional, alongside second-division Ceará, Fortaleza, Náutico and Ponte Preta.

The Brazilian football federation’s oversight agency, Anresf, checks what clubs owe to other teams, players, coaches and public authorities against their declarations and payment records. Its system treats debts incurred in 2026 more strictly than older liabilities, which remain in a transition period. São Paulo, for example, must settle a current-year debt to São José. Grêmio also faces a shorter deadline to pay a player, backed by a R$100,000 fine. The clubs have ten working days to appeal, but an appeal does not stop the payment clock.

Brazil | Judge rejects detention request against Corinthians vice president

A São Paulo judge rejected prosecutors’ request to detain Corinthians vice president Armando Mendonça on 22 October, finding insufficient evidence that he had interfered with a witness’s dismissal.

The dispute concerns Marcelo Munhoes, the club’s former technology director and a prosecution witness in a case over suspected irregularities involving Nike equipment. Prosecutor Cássio Conserino argued that sacking Munhoes before a November hearing could obstruct the proceedings. Judge Amanda Eiko Sato found no concrete evidence linking Mendonça to that decision or showing a threat to the evidence-gathering process, and placed the dismissal in the context of internal club politics. The case continues, with a hearing scheduled for 10 November.

Brazil | Betting companies keep shirt exposure through results brands

Palmeiras and Fluminense wore the names of sports results platforms in their Libertadores semi-final this week as their betting sponsors adapted to Brazil’s advertising restrictions. UOL documented the arrangement on 22 and 23 October: Palmeiras displayed Sportingblog, while Fluminense used Superscore, a brand also appearing on São Paulo’s shirts.

The platforms belong to betting groups, allowing those businesses to preserve a visible relationship with supporters through a different service. Brazil’s provisional measure bans communications that promote or facilitate access to fixed-odds betting, but does not specifically define how affiliated results and statistics businesses should be treated. The clubs’ new shirts therefore test the reach of the restriction. The original sponsorship relationships remain in place.

Democratic Republic of the Congo | Coach’s return to training children brings sanctions for federation and club

Fifa has extended Jonathan Bukabakwa’s ban to 2048 and fined the Congolese football federation and Racing Club Baki US$50,000 each for failing to enforce his suspension, in a ruling reported on 21 October. Bukabakwa had been barred from all football activity for 20 years in 2023 after a finding of sexual abuse of a minor.

He nevertheless returned to coaching young players at the Kinshasa club, previously called Esperanto. The additional punishment includes a US$15,000 fine for the coach and an order requiring the federation to educate clubs and officials about disciplinary decisions and monitor compliance. Bukabakwa has said he was not notified of the original ban and has denied the abuse allegations.

Ecuador | Player suspended and ground closed after stone attack on referee

Ecuador’s football federation has provisionally suspended Jhon Michel Perlaza Salas for 60 days after an attack with a stone on assistant referee Lenin Ojeda during a national promotion competition. The order was issued on 20 October, according to El Comercio’s account of the disciplinary proceedings.

The restrictions reach beyond the player. His club, Ciudad de Yantzaza, cannot stage home matches at its municipal stadium for two months while the federation examines the incident. The club is competing for promotion from Ecuador’s lower divisions but has lost access to its home ground during the decisive part of the competition.

South Africa | Safa agrees to pay the defence bills in its own funds case

The South African Football Association will pay the legal expenses of president Danny Jordaan and chief financial officer Gronie Hluyo as they defend charges concerning the use of association money. The decision, announced on 21 October, includes costs already accumulated in the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court proceedings.

The case centres on roughly 1.3 million rand (73,000 USD) allegedly spent without authorisation, including private security and public relations services. Safa’s executive also approved lawyers to monitor the proceedings and a written statement disputing the allegations. It says the complaints came from former officials acting personally, rather than from the association, and points to its unqualified audits.

Spain | Atlético reviews former youth coach’s work after school abuse arrest

Atlético Madrid disclosed a review of former academy goalkeeping coach Mario F.’s work on 23 October, after his arrest over suspected sexual offences against children at a Madrid school. He worked with more than 200 youngsters at Atlético before leaving in 2020.

The club is questioning former supervisors and colleagues about possible warning signs. It says the conduct currently under police investigation occurred after his departure, outside the club. Police have asked Atlético to pass on relevant information while leaving the wider investigation to them.

Spain | Tebas referred to sports tribunal over Nazi propaganda comparison

Spain’s sports council referred LaLiga president Javier Tebas to the Administrative Sports Tribunal on 22 October over his comparison of Real Madrid TV’s methods with Nazi propaganda. The tribunal must assess whether the comments breach rules protecting sporting dignity.

Tebas had invoked Joseph Goebbels in an online post about the channel’s treatment of refereeing. He said he was comparing communication techniques, rather than ideology or supporters. Real Madrid demanded his resignation. Tebas accused the council of ignoring the club’s own attacks on the integrity of Spanish football.

Turkey | Betting inquiry brings bans for 147 club officials

Turkey’s football disciplinary board banned 147 current and former club officials for 45 days on 20 October for breaching betting rules. Trabzonspor president Ertuğrul Doğan was among those sanctioned.

The board considered 448 referrals involving officials from the top two divisions. It found insufficient grounds to punish the remaining 301. The bans prevent officials from performing football duties during the suspension. The findings concern betting while holding club positions.

American Football

United States | Players’ union seeks investigation into Jalen Hurts’s medical care

The NFL players’ union called on 20 October for a full investigation into the treatment of Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts after he played in London having been diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg. Further tests later identified clots in his lungs.

The union said the league had previously told it there would be no review of his care. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell subsequently said the league welcomed the union’s request, while chief medical officer Allen Sills defended the examinations, imaging and decisions made by the Eagles and London specialists. Hurts’s agent and the team say he is stable and expected to recover, but cannot play contact football while taking blood thinners. The disagreement concerns the decisions that allowed him to play and travel before the later diagnosis.

United States | Broncos restore Cooper to roster while assault case awaits trial

The Denver Broncos activated Jonathon Cooper ahead of their 25 October game against Arizona after the pass rusher spent the season’s first six weeks on the NFL commissioner’s exempt list.

Cooper was arrested twice in June and faces several charges, including felony assault by strangulation. His trial is scheduled for March. Removing him from the exempt list allows a return to competition while the criminal proceedings remain unresolved.

Athletics

Australia | Sprint champion Jake Doran barred from training and club events

Australian Athletics disclosed a provisional ban on sprinter Jake Doran on 22 October after he was charged with indecent treatment of a child under 16. The restriction prevents him from attending club events or taking part in athletics training.

Doran, 26, is a former national champion who represented Australia at two world championships and reached the 100 metres semi-final at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Police arrested him in Townsville the previous week following an investigation into conduct alleged between January 2025 and September 2026. He was granted bail and is due in Townsville Magistrates Court on 5 November. Australian Athletics says he holds no paid or unpaid role within the organisation; its action restricts his access to the sport while the case proceeds.

Baseball

Canada | Former Blue Jay and wife charged over undelivered youth training

Durham police announced fraud charges on 20 October against former Toronto Blue Jays player Richard Butler and his wife Michelle over money paid into the Ontario Devil Rays youth programme. Families had enrolled children for the 2025–26 season.

Investigators say roughly C$60,000 entered the programme’s account during 2025 before money was transferred to accounts associated with the couple. The promised training was not provided, police allege. Families later received an email saying the organisation was closing and claiming bankruptcy. Investigators found no insolvency proceedings and say a lawyer’s name had been used without permission. Both Butlers face charges of fraud over C$5,000, possession of property obtained by crime and using a forged document. Police are looking for other families who may have paid into the programme.

South Korea | Police receive 31 suspected postseason ticket-resale cases

South Korea’s sports ministry announced on 20 October that 31 suspected high-volume baseball ticket resellers had been referred to police. The referrals concern the postseason, when demand for seats rises as the remaining clubs compete for the title.

The Korea Sports Promotion Foundation analysed reports received between 13 and 19 October and selected sellers. The combined asking prices were about ₩730 million (550,000 USD). Officials are passing evidence to police during the competition, instead of waiting until the season ends. Online monitoring is being combined with checks around stadiums, and second-hand platforms are being asked to restrict suspicious listings more frequently.

Basketball

Greece | Federation changes president after bribery arrests

Greece’s basketball federation appointed Angelos Papanikolaou as president on 25 October after Vangelis Liolios stepped aside amid a bribery and match-manipulation investigation. Liolios had been arrested on 21 October alongside refereeing figures following an investigation by the Athens sports prosecutor.

The case concerns suspected payments and influence over games across several levels of Greek basketball. Those pursued include international referee Vaso Tsaroucha and former referees with roles in the system that appoints and evaluates officials. EuroLeague suspended Tsaroucha from its competitions while the authorities and league conduct their reviews.

Liolios denies the charges. Appearing before an investigating magistrate on 25 October, he argued that opponents wanted him removed and cited tax checks that had raised no objections.

United States | Beasley enters plea talks in NBA betting case

Malik Beasley is negotiating a plea agreement in his federal betting and bribery case, his lawyer said on 24 October. Prosecutors accuse the former NBA guard of manipulating his statistics in at least four games while playing for Milwaukee in 2023–24.

The alleged arrangement allowed associates to bet on his individual performance. Beasley previously pleaded not guilty after his June indictment. His lawyer said a decision on an agreement was expected early next week.

United States | Ole Miss accepted money from a booster it was ordered to exclude

The US college sports regulator, the NCAA, published an agreed settlement on 23 October covering prohibited recruiting contact and a failure by the University of Mississippi to enforce an earlier booster ban. Ole Miss accepted 18 contributions totalling US$109,240 from a supporter during a three-year period in which it was supposed to have cut financial ties with him. He also received premium seating.

The basketball finding concerned former assistant coach Wes Flanigan, who made 16 calls and sent 10 texts to the adviser of a player at another university before that player entered the transfer system. The player ultimately went elsewhere. Head coach Chris Beard received no penalty because he was unaware of the contacts and had promoted compliance. The settlement also records the university’s failure to monitor the booster restriction imposed in its 2017 case.

Boxing

Wales | Cordina acquittal clears obstacle to boxing return

Former world champion Joe Cordina was acquitted of assault at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on 20 October, after a judge accepted that he had acted in self-defence during a petrol-station confrontation. The case had disrupted his boxing plans, with Bad Left Hook reporting that the charges prevented him securing a visa for a proposed title fight against Abdullah Mason.

Judge Charlotte Murphy found that Jamie O’Brien deliberately shoulder-barged Cordina and that the boxer’s single punch was a proportionate response. O’Brien had already pleaded guilty to assault. A second allegation against Cordina had earlier been dismissed for lack of a case to answer. After the verdict, Cordina’s lawyer said the boxer wanted to concentrate on his family and career, with a December return hoped for.

Swimming

India | Para swimmer sent home from Japan after hotel worker’s complaint

Indian para swimmer Mohammad Shams Aalam Shaikh was sent home from the Asian Para Games in Japan on 20 October after a hotel employee accused him of sexual misconduct. He left before competing in his scheduled events.

A senior Paralympic Committee of India official told the Times of India that Japanese police detained Shaikh after the complaint at the team hotel in Nagoya. According to that account, organisers intervened, the delegation supplied a written apology and Shaikh was released before leaving Japan. The official said the head of the Indian delegation had recommended a lifetime sporting ban.

Tennis

International | ATP expands online-abuse protection beyond the top-ranked players

The men’s tennis tour reported this week that its Safe Sport service had prevented more than 234,000 abusive comments from reaching players and fans, while expanding access to players across all ATP rankings. Previously, eligibility for the service was concentrated among the top 250 singles and top 50 doubles players.

The programme examined more than 3.7 million comments in its second year and identified over 284,000 as abusive. More than 82% were removed in real time. Software hides comments, while specialist investigators assess threats that may require further action. Over 1,800 comments were escalated for assessment and 690 automated threat alerts were raised.

Volleyball

Brazil | Two rulings remove Tifanny Abreu’s permission to play

Osasco volleyball player Tifanny Abreu was left unable to compete in Brazilian Volleyball Confederation (CBV) women’s events after two rulings on 23 October. Volleyball’s sports tribunal unanimously rejected her challenge, while Rio de Janeiro’s state appeals court suspended the temporary order that had allowed her to play.

Abreu, a transgender woman who has played in the Superliga since 2017, is challenging eligibility rules introduced by the CBV in August. The policy uses screening for the SRY gene to determine eligibility for women’s competitions, with limited exceptions, and has excluded her from those events.

The state court’s decision concerned the requirement to complete the sports-justice process before seeking relief in the ordinary courts. Abreu’s lawyer said he would seek reconsideration and continue the challenge, with Osasco supporting her case. She had played in the Supercopa and the Superliga opener under the temporary order.

Pro Wrestling

United States | WWE ring-boys lawsuit survives challenge to revival law

A federal judge on 19 October rejected WWE and Vince and Linda McMahon’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by eight former teenage ring-crew workers. They allege abuse by announcer Melvin Phillips and other officials in the 1980s and 1990s, and negligent hiring and retention by management.

Judge James Bredar upheld the Maryland law allowing the older claims to proceed. The civil case can now continue against the organisation and its former executives. The McMahons have denied knowing about the alleged abuse.

Across sport

Australia | Coroner seeks betting-advertising ban after young gambler’s death

A Victorian coroner called for restrictions on gambling advertising and inducements after finding that online gambling was the main and direct cause of Kyle Hudson’s suicide. The findings, reported on 20 October, examine how a young customer’s betting escalated across several operators.

Hudson opened a Sportsbet account on his 18th birthday and wagered about A$895,733 before his death in 2021, aged 22. His net losses were A$47,945. Coroner Paul Lawrie identified a monitoring gap: each bookmaker could see only the betting on its own platform. He recommended a national gambling data repository, consideration of an advertising ban and an end to bonus-bet inducements for young customers. Sportsbet said it would consider the findings and acknowledged that stronger customer protections were needed.

Greece | Teachers’ union refers school-sport admissions allegations to minister

Greece’s private-school teachers’ federation sent allegations of manipulated school sport and false attendance records to education minister Sofia Zacharaki on 23 October. The referral followed the basketball arrests, but concerns a separate reward for winning: extra points in university admissions.

Union president Giorgos Christopoulos said complaints concerned at least four private schools in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras. Talented young athletes were reportedly promised enrolment with little attendance, while some school teams were said to benefit from favourable treatment in competitions. Sporting success can improve students’ admissions scores, giving schools and families a reason to seek titles beyond the trophy itself. The union asked the ministry to act on the complaints and proposed changes to oversight.

Mexico | Lawmakers advance bill to criminalise competition manipulation

Mexico’s lower-house sports committee approved an anti-manipulation proposal on 21 October, moving it towards a vote by the full chamber.

The proposed offence covers offering, seeking, receiving or accepting a benefit in exchange for altering the course or result of a sporting competition, including through an intermediary. It would carry two to six years in prison and fines, with penalties potentially doubled for people working in or running sports institutions. The full chamber must now decide whether to pass the proposal.

United States | Utah seeks court order stopping Kalshi’s prediction markets

Utah announced a civil lawsuit against Kalshi on 20 October, seeking to stop the prediction-market operator from taking bets from state residents. Attorney general Derek Brown says contracts on sports and other outcomes violate Utah’s gambling prohibition and create an ongoing public nuisance.

The dispute turns on who can regulate the contracts. Kalshi argues that it operates a derivatives exchange under federal law. Utah says that status does not displace its gambling restrictions. A federal judge ruled for the state in August, and an appeals court subsequently refused to block enforcement while Kalshi’s appeal continues. The new state-court action seeks an order directly restraining the platform’s operations.

United States | Webull tells Connecticut customers to close sports contracts

Webull, an online investment platform offering stock and options trading, told Connecticut customers on 21 October to close their sports prediction-market positions by 11.59pm Eastern time on 31 October. It is withdrawing those products from the state, although its other brokerage services remain available.

Through a partnership with prediction-market exchange Kalshi, Webull lets customers buy and sell “yes” or “no” contracts on outcomes such as whether a team will win. The withdrawal follows September cease-and-desist orders from Connecticut’s consumer regulator to nine companies. The state considers their sports contracts unlicensed gambling; operators including Robinhood and Coinbase argue that federal derivatives regulation governs the products.

The independent commission found that City used sham commercial arrangements to inflate revenue and reduce costs, filed misstated accounts, significantly breached Premier League and UEFA spending limits and failed to cooperate fully with the league’s investigation. City has appealed the ruling, arguing that it contains material errors of law, principle and fact and maintaining that it possesses “irrefutable evidence” supporting its position.

If the core findings survive that appeal, a serious sporting sanction is difficult to avoid. The current Premier League rules allow the commission to deduct points, suspend a club from matches, impose an unlimited fine, order compensation and recommend expulsion from the league. The commission can combine those sanctions or impose another penalty it considers appropriate.

There are two routes by which City could leave the Premier League.

A points deduction could push them into the bottom three, producing ordinary relegation to the Championship. Alternatively, the commission could recommend that City be expelled from Premier League membership, which would require a separate vote of the league’s clubs.

Those routes have very different likelihoods.

A points deduction is the realistic route to relegation

The simpler option is for the commission to impose a very large points deduction and allow the league table to decide City’s fate.

Premier League commissions already use points deductions for financial breaches. Everton initially lost ten points for exceeding permitted losses before an appeal reduced the sanction to six. Nottingham Forest received a four-point deduction in another PSR case.

Those precedents establish the principle that financial-rule breaches can justify punishment on the pitch. They are much less useful for calculating City’s sentence.

Everton and Forest overspent within particular assessment periods. City’s case covers nine seasons and involves findings that the club misstated both income and expenditure, concealed the true source of sponsorship funds and then used those figures to demonstrate compliance with spending rules.

The commission therefore does not have a neat precedent telling it that a particular amount of disguised funding equals a particular number of points.

Nor would simply multiplying Everton’s deduction produce a credible answer. City were found guilty under several different rules, covering different behaviour and different seasons. The commission will have to decide how those offences fit together and what punishment is proportionate to the overall conduct.

Relegation would be an unprecedented punishment o

A points deduction can be enormous without actually relegating Manchester City.

The Premier League’s own analysis shows that the club finishing 18th has historically tended to collect somewhere in the mid-30s. A City side otherwise capable of earning 80 or 90 points could therefore require a deduction of 40 points or more before Championship football became likely.

That is vastly beyond the sanctions imposed on Everton or Forest.

There is nevertheless a serious argument for going far beyond those cases.

The commission concluded that the club had presented an inaccurate financial picture over years and that those figures affected whether City appeared compliant with both Premier League and UEFA restrictions. The league has said the arrangements produced more than £900 million in overstated revenue or understated costs across the relevant period.

A fine presents an even greater problem. Punishing one of football’s wealthiest clubs by asking it to pay money would have limited sporting effect, particularly when the underlying case concerns the financial resources available to build and maintain a successful team.

The strongest argument for relegation is therefore not that another club once lost six points and City’s offences were larger. It is that the commission may decide only a very substantial sporting sanction can adequately address conduct that distorted financial compliance over almost a decade.

A huge deduction short of relegation remains easier to justify

Suppose the commission decides 30 points properly reflects the offences. If City survive, that is simply the consequence of their results.

It is different if the commission first decides City must be relegated and then works backwards to discover how many points need to disappear.

That would expose the sanction to an obvious challenge over proportionality.

City have already demonstrated their willingness to contest adverse regulatory decisions through every available legal route. The commission therefore needs a sanction it can explain offence by offence, not merely one producing a politically or emotionally satisfying final league table.

A very large deduction that destroys City’s title challenge, removes European qualification and leaves the club fighting to stay up may consequently be easier to defend than a deduction explicitly calibrated to guarantee 18th place.

It would also preserve an element of sporting uncertainty. City would receive the penalty; their remaining results would determine whether it actually relegated them.

That may sound like a fine distinction, but in a case likely to generate another round of legal challenges, fine distinctions have developed something of a career of their own.

City’s appeal could still change the calculation

All of this assumes that the core verdict survives.

City’s appeal is comprehensive, and the proceedings are private. If the Appeal Board overturns the central findings around disguised sponsorship funding and hidden expenditure, the justification for an extreme sporting sanction could shrink dramatically.

If the findings survive largely intact, the commission faces the opposite problem. It will then have to explain why conduct of this scale does not deserve a punishment substantially greater than those imposed in ordinary PSR cases.

The strongest central scenario remains a major points deduction, potentially combined with financial or other sanctions. The scale of the findings gives the commission room to impose a deduction large enough to threaten City’s Premier League status, but there is no tariff or precedent pointing naturally towards the number required to guarantee relegation.

The inquiry follows an extensive investigation by ProPublica and The Washington Post that exposed shortcomings in the AAU’s disciplinary procedures, identified coaches who continued working with children despite bans imposed by other sporting bodies, and documented the obstacles families faced when trying to hold the organisation accountable.

The findings raise serious questions about how the AAU protects the hundreds of thousands of young athletes participating in its competitions. Why did banned coaches continue working with children? Why did an internal disciplinary panel clear a senior official accused of abuse without interviewing potential witnesses? And why did the organisation leave so many of its promised reforms unfinished?

Here are five takeaways from the findings driving Congress’s investigation, and what could happen next.

1. How Could Banned Coaches Continue Working With Children?

On 19 February 2026, the US Center for SafeSport permanently banned Ryan Richardson, a volleyball coach from Pharr, Texas, after finding that he had engaged in sexual misconduct involving a minor, an inappropriate relationship with a minor, physical misconduct and bullying.

The following day, Richardson was back training teenage girls at his gym, Texas Fierce Elite. He posted a video of the session online.

According to an investigation by ProPublica and The Washington Post, Richardson continued coaching throughout his suspension. In March 2025, he appeared at a volleyball tournament in Kentucky that accepted memberships from the Junior Volleyball Association (JVA), which operates outside SafeSport’s jurisdiction. JVA subsequently renewed his membership despite rules excluding coaches on SafeSport’s disciplinary list.

The AAU told journalists that it had independently banned Richardson in November 2024. Yet ProPublica subsequently identified another AAU-registered volleyball club, The Complex, operating from Richardson’s gym address. The AAU did not answer questions about the club’s ownership.

Richardson denied wrongdoing when initially suspended and has not been criminally charged. In September 2026, Homeland Security Investigations opened a separate child exploitation inquiry following the journalists’ reporting.

His case was not unique. The investigation identified eight previously banned or suspended coaches who had worked with children in AAU programmes during the preceding five years.

Among them was California volleyball coach Elias Perez, who continued coaching boys through an AAU programme after SafeSport temporarily suspended him following allegations from a former player. Perez denied inappropriate contact during the investigation. SafeSport permanently banned him in April 2026.

The problem lies partly in the fragmented American sports system. SafeSport sanctions bind Olympic and Paralympic governing bodies, but independent organisations such as the AAU are not automatically required to enforce them.

The AAU promised in 2012 to exclude coaches banned elsewhere. Congress now wants to know how it enforces disciplinary restrictions and why those safeguards failed to prevent previously sanctioned coaches from working in its programmes.

2. How Did the AAU Break Fourteen Years of Safeguarding Promises?

In 2011, two men accused Robert ‘Bobby’ Dodd, then president of the Amateur Athletic Union, of sexually abusing them when they were young basketball players in the 1980s. Dodd denied the allegations, resigned and was never criminally charged.

The scandal prompted the AAU to announce sweeping safeguarding reforms in 2012. The organisation promised mandatory background checks, sexual abuse prevention training, restrictions on adults being alone with children and measures to exclude coaches banned by other youth sports organisations.

The AAU had already received warnings. In 2004, The Seattle Times identified dozens of people with felony convictions coaching AAU teams in Washington and Idaho, including a convicted murderer. At the time, becoming an AAU coach required little more than paying a membership fee. Dodd promised to consider background screening, but universal checks were not introduced until after his resignation.

Even the 2012 reforms did not prevent further controversies. That same year, the AAU gave a leadership award to Rick Butler, a prominent volleyball coach whom USA Volleyball had banned in 1995 following findings involving sexual relationships with teenage players. Butler continued coaching through AAU competitions until 2018, when the organisation finally banned him.

Other promises remained incomplete. The AAU directed coaches towards an online course developed by the Positive Coaching Alliance, but its content focused largely on coaching techniques and character development rather than comprehensive sexual abuse prevention. Jason Sacks, the training provider’s chief executive, subsequently told ProPublica that the course was not designed to satisfy federal abuse-prevention training requirements.

The organisation also struggled to ensure coaches completed the training. Although approximately 20,000 people initially participated, completion numbers declined even as AAU membership expanded.

When ProPublica and The Washington Post questioned the AAU in November 2025, its website changed the description of the course from mandatory to encouraged. Eight days after the journalists submitted their questions, AAU officials contacted the training provider about developing more substantial safeguarding material.

Another promised reform was an abuse-reporting hotline. By 2026, callers reached the organisation’s general office telephone menu, which had no dedicated option for reporting abuse but did offer one for ordering medals.

3. Did the AAU Clear Officials Accused of Abuse Without Interviewing Witnesses?

In January 2018, Ashlee Orndorff, a former Nevada basketball player and Gatorade Player of the Year, publicly accused Matt Williams, her former coach and an AAU vice-president, of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager.

Williams also ran Jam On It, a major basketball tournament business affiliated with the AAU. He denied abusing Orndorff as a minor but acknowledged fathering a child with her when she was 19.

The AAU placed Williams on administrative leave and referred the allegations to its Board of Review, an internal disciplinary panel.

Orndorff submitted a detailed 34-page account identifying dates, locations and potential witnesses. Williams attended the hearing with an attorney, while Orndorff said she could not afford legal representation.

Yet the panel did not interview a single witness before reaching its decision.

According to court records examined by ProPublica and The Washington Post, ten people later corroborated aspects of Orndorff’s account during civil proceedings. The board also failed to consider an earlier allegation against Williams from 2005, despite its chairman having previously responded to that complaint.

In May 2018, the AAU cleared Williams, citing insufficient evidence and concerns about Orndorff’s credibility. He returned to his paid position, earning approximately $84,000 annually.

Orndorff subsequently pursued civil litigation, which settled in 2023 without a determination of the allegations. Williams’ AAU membership had been terminated in 2022.

Former Board of Review member Peg Adams later acknowledged that the panel lacked consistent written standards for deciding whether coaches should be banned.

Congress is now demanding those procedures, including how the AAU investigates complaints, evaluates evidence and holds its own officials accountable.

4. How Did the AAU Keep Abuse Allegations Out of Court?

In 2018, Iowa youth basketball coach Greg Stephen was arrested for sexually exploiting young players. He subsequently pleaded guilty to federal offences involving the exploitation of minors and received a 180-year prison sentence.

Stephen had coached through Barnstormers Basketball, an AAU-affiliated programme. Families of former players subsequently sued the AAU, alleging that it had failed to enforce safeguarding policies, including restrictions on coaches sharing hotel rooms with young athletes.

But the organisation had another defence: the membership agreements signed when children registered to compete.

Those agreements contained arbitration clauses requiring families to resolve disputes against the AAU privately rather than through ordinary court proceedings. The AAU successfully argued that the families’ claims belonged in arbitration, preventing a public trial of their allegations against the national organisation.

The ruling did not establish whether the AAU had adequately protected the players. It determined where the families could pursue their claims.

According to ProPublica’s investigation, the families also faced limitations on the insurance coverage available for abuse claims, including a $1 million policy limit shared among potential claimants.

Congress restricted the enforcement of compulsory arbitration clauses in sexual assault and harassment disputes in 2022. Nevertheless, the AAU attempted to enforce an arbitration agreement in another sexual abuse lawsuit involving a teenage volleyball player in Florida in 2024. That case settled in 2025.

5. What Happens to the AAU Now That Congress Is Investigating?

The AAU has grown considerably despite years of questions about its safeguarding arrangements. Its annual revenue increased from approximately $24 million in 2021 to nearly $44 million in 2024, as it expanded into sports including volleyball, swimming, gymnastics and flag football.

Some of that growth came in direct competition with national governing bodies subject to stricter SafeSport oversight. In swimming, for example, ProPublica found clubs paying approximately $20 per athlete to register with the AAU, compared with more than $70 through USA Swimming. Lower fees and simpler administration made the AAU attractive to clubs, but also raised questions about whether its safeguarding arrangements kept pace with its expansion.

Congress now wants answers.

In the investigation announced on 7 October, bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee demanded records of abuse complaints, disciplinary decisions, investigation procedures, coach training and the AAU’s use of confidential arbitration.

AAU president Jo Mirza must provide a requested briefing by 21 October. The organisation has pledged to cooperate and maintains that it operates comprehensive athlete protection policies.

The immediate question is whether the AAU can demonstrate that the safeguards it promised in 2012 are now being enforced across an organisation serving hundreds of thousands of young athletes.

Norway’s FIFA complaints over the Falorin Balogun red card, US gymnastics sanctions and Brazil’s betting shutdown lead this week’s coverage. Elsewhere, British PM Andy Burnham promises to disclose his dealings with Manchester City and the US Congress investigates the Amateur Athletic Union’s (AAU) handling of child-abuse allegations.

Football

Argentina and Spain

Nine footballers report recruitment scam after travelling to Madrid

Nine footballers from Córdoba say they paid around US$5,000 each to pursue promised club contracts in Madrid, only to discover they lack…

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Beginning in 2015, the Portuguese computer hacker behind Football Leaks obtained millions of confidential documents exposing contracts, tax arrangements and internal communications across European football. His files helped trigger investigations involving players, clubs and officials across several countries and included the Manchester City emails later published by Der Spiegel, which fed first UEFA’s investigation and then the Premier League’s case against the club.

But Portuguese authorities decided in July to end the special witness-protection arrangements he had received since 2020, after assessing the threat against him as low. Pinto was not informed until 30 September, 83 days later and only …

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The Premier League brought its case against Manchester City Football Club Limited, not against any individual. The commission ultimately found the club guilty of the substantive financial charges and most of the allegations concerning its failure to cooperate with the investigation.

But understanding what happened means tracking the many people who are named in emails, contracts, and payments, who ran the club while those arrangements operated, who defended it before regulators, who gave evidence, and who represented sponsors.

So, from Sheikh Mansour and Pep Guardiola to Rui Pinto and the wonderfully named Lord Pannick, this is the Sports and Crime Briefing’s Who’s Who of the Manchester City case

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“I would be really concerned to lose them,” Burnham told the BBC on 30 September. He was not defending the accounting arrangements that an independent commission had just found concealed hundreds of millions of pounds of owner funding. He was talking about something much larger than the football club: the physical transformation of Manchester.

Burnham had spent nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester before becoming prime minister in 2026. During that period, investment connected to Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi ownership became increasingly woven into housing, regeneration, infrastructure and civic projects across the city-region.

Burnham described City’s owners as a major partner in building modern Manchester while also saying he would not in…

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On 29 September, an independent Premier League commission found that City had repeatedly presented a financial picture that did not reflect how hundreds of millions of pounds were actually entering and leaving the club. Owner funding was recorded as sponsorship income. Costs connected to managers and players were kept outside City’s accounts. An image-rights arrangement increased reported income while reducing expenditure. The Premier League says the distortions exceeded £900 million.

Those findings also changed the calculations used to test City against football’s spending rules. Once the commission recalculated the club’s finances, it found breaches of UEFA financial regulations and the Premier League’s own profitability and sustainability rules. City was separately f…

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Manchester City Financial Case

Commission finds City’s accounts distorted by more than £900 million

Manchester City inflated revenues and reduced costs by more than £900 million between the 2009/10 and 2017/18 seasons, an independent commission has found. Its findings, published by the Premier League on 29 September, describe owner funding presented as sponsorship income and other arrangements concealing the club’s finances. City denies wrongdoing and has appealed. Punishment will be decided separately after the commission upheld all the financial charges.

Football regulator signals possible scrutiny of City’s owners and executives

En…

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The investigation behind that reversal was considerably older. Police had searched a doctor’s practice in Lucerne in 2023, investigating suspected false vaccination documentation.

Granit Xhaka denies, then confesses

The doctor whose practice was searched is suspected of supplying false certificates to Xhaka and others. Before his admission, her lawyer told the press that she had vaccinated the footballer in January and November 2022.

Xhaka had publicly declared himself vaccinated in March of that year, joking to media that journalists would have nothing more …

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Al-Khelaifi was then president of Paris Saint-Germain, a member of the Ligue 1 board and chairman of beIN Media Group, owner of beIN Sports.

So, to clarify, he presided over the country’s biggest club that would receive money from the sale, he helped oversee the league itself, and he was chairman of a prospective buyer.

Investigators are now examining whether he used those overlapping positions to favour beIN, according to L’Équipe.

On 20 September, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed to AFP that a preliminary investigation had opened in April following a complaint by the anti-corruption association Anticor. Al-Khelaifi’s lawyer responded that his client had always acted independently, impartially and objectively.

So what happened exactly?

By July 2024, French clubs were running out of time to secure the television income they needed for the coming season. Amazon was not renewing its €250 million-a-season agreement, and Vincent Labrune, president of the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), had spoken of broadcasting revenues exceeding €1 billion. The offers available fell well short of that ambition. Days before the meeting, some clubs were expressing fears of bankruptcy.

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The Los Angeles Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five consecutive first-round draft picks between 2029 and 2033, cutting them off from one of the league’s main routes for acquiring elite young players.

Owner Steve Ballmer was suspended for a year, senior executives Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank also received suspensions, star player Kawhi Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000 and Leonard’s former business manager Dennis Robertson was barred from dealing with NBA teams for five years.

Ballmer initially disputed the findings, but has since said the Clippers will accept the penalties and move on.

For those among you not basketball-mad, Kawhi Leonard is one of the most decorated players of his generation. He is a two-time NBA champion and twice the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals.

In 2019, he led the Toronto Raptors to their first championship before leaving for the Clippers, who spent the following years trying to build a title-winning team around him.

Ballmer, the former chief executive of Microsoft, is meanwhile one of the wealthiest owners in professional sport.

The case began in September 2025, when investigative journalist Pablo Torre revealed a deal under which Leonard was due $28 million from Aspiration, a sustainability company backed by Ballmer.

Torre found no public evidence that Leonard had promoted the company. This triggered a year-long NBA investigation into whether the Clippers had helped generate outside income for Leonard through companies that were simultaneously doing business with the team.

But the problem went far deeper.

The implications reach beyond basketball. Clubs and teams across modern sport rely on dense networks of sponsors, suppliers, insurers, technology companies and other commercial partners. The Clippers case shows what can happen when those relationships overlap with restrictions on athlete compensation and competitive spending.

The Sports and Crime Briefing breaks down 8 takeaways from the Kawhi Leonard scandal.

1. The NBA Found a Pattern of Corruption

The scandal first looked relatively simple. In September 2025, journalist Pablo Torre revealed that Leonard had signed a four-year, $28 million endorsement agreement with Aspiration. The deal had never been publicly announced and there was little public evidence that Leonard had actually promoted the company.

Aspiration had also received a $50 million personal investment from Ballmer. The obvious question was whether this was really an endorsement or a way of getting additional money to Leonard outside the NBA salary cap.

Torre subsequently published further details of how he had traced money between Ballmer, the Clippers and Aspiration.

But when the NBA published its findings on 2 September 2026, alongside a 36-page report by the law firm Wachtell Lipton, it revealed three previously less prominent companies in the case: wireless-network provider Boingo, scoreboard manufacturer Daktronics and insurance broker Lockton. All three were pursuing or conducting business with the Clippers when they were introduced to Leonard’s representatives.

The common link was Gillian Zucker, then the Clippers’ president of business operations. During a six-day period in June 2020, Zucker introduced executives at all three companies to Dennis Robertson, Leonard’s uncle and longtime business manager, who was negotiating commercial opportunities on the player’s behalf.

Within weeks, Leonard had signed multimillion-dollar endorsement agreements with all three companies. He eventually received a combined $18 million from them. At roughly the same time, each company also entered into substantial business arrangements with the Clippers.

2. This Looks Curiously Like a Shakedown

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It asks the committee to investigate Gianni Infantino for alleged breaches of FIFA’s ethics code and to ban him for two years.

Full disclosure: I signed it. I support it. I doubt it will change anything.

Two days before the complaint arrived, FIFA had confirmed that Infantino would stand for re-election at the FIFA Congress in Rabat in March 2027. “Of course, nothing has changed,” a spokesperson said.

The petition serves as yet another public rejection of Infantino, all of which may eventually topple him.

But for the moment, FIFA has already explained its stance on this pressure. “Those who do not have the support of FIFA’s Member Associations should not seek to achieve through allegation, insinuation or misinformation what they cannot achieve through FIFA’s established democratic processes,” it wrote in an August 8 statement.

The organisation’s position is straightforward: Infantino’s authority comes from its 211 member associations, and any attempt to remove him must ultimately pass through them.

Infantino is comfortable meeting his critics on that specific battlefield. The doomed FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) collapsed, but was intended to put millions in member associations’ pockets.

His relationships with individual members are what Infantino is banking on to save his job.

When the leaders of UEFA, the AFC and Concacaf turned against him, he specifically did not treat the confederations as unified electoral blocs. Their presidents can challenge him, but they cannot cast the ballots of the national associations beneath them.

And his moves over the last month show exactly that.

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Anzalone was trying to bring the former Manchester City striker into a new ticketing venture. According to the messages later seized by investigators, a script was being prepared for Agüero to record a launch advertisement.

By the time those preparations became public, Anzalone was in custody. He was arrested on 23 June in an investigation into an organisation allegedly bringing cocaine from Bolivia and synthetic drugs from Spain into Argentina.

Police later detained Pablo “Bebote” Álvarez, a former leader of the barra brava (hardcore supporters) from Independiente, one of Argentina’s largest soccer clubs, as part of the same process.

Investigators recovered the conversations about Agüero and a venture called KRÜ Tickets. KRÜ is an esports brand Agüero founded in 2020, with Anzalone seeking to build the ticketing company around the star’s established company.

Agüero and KRÜ both issued statements saying they had reviewed the proposal and passed on it.

But by then, the story was already running wild.

How did the investigation start?

The police investigation began in June when 12 liters of “liquid ecstasy” were discovered at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza airport in a shipment from Barcelona. The subsequent operation saw over 27 raids across Buenos Aires and Salta, with 11 people arrested, and drugs, currency, and vehicles seized.

The information retrieved allowed investigators to map out 25 courier journeys bringing the drugs, according to Argentine crime outlet Encripdata.

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However, evidence to support such a claim is hard to find.

“At the moment we have situations where vulnerable nineteen-year-olds come from Sudan to play in domestic soccer leagues, or in the under nineteens, and they are targeted for match fixing by overseas operators,” Minister Wells told a room full of journalists in late August.

This article was written by Tracey Holmes and originally published in The Sports Ambassador. Across Substack and her podcast, Tracey does an outstanding job at holding sports authorities to account. It is republished here with her kind permission and I encourage you to subscribe and support her work.

When asked by The Sports Ambassador podcast, none of the major football organisations working in governance, delivery of competition, integrity, and player representation were aware of such specific ethnic targeting in t…

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“Generale, večna slava i hvala.” “General, eternal glory and thanks.”

Supporters repeatedly chanted the name of Ratko Mladić.

Earlier that day, Mladić had died in UN custody in The Hague. The former commander of the Bosnian Serb army was serving a life sentence for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

His forces conducted the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo, during which thousands of civilians were killed, and in July 1995 overran the UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica. More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were subsequently murdered. International courts ruled the massacre was genocide.

Mladić was also convicted over the persecution, murder and forcible removal of civilians across Bosnia, as well as…

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This averts the immediate confrontation of a civil war between FIFA and its richest confederation.

At a meeting in Monaco on 27 August, UEFA will tell its member associations that FIFA has met the conditions for ending the boycott and that UEFA members will participate in the U-20 Women’s World Cup in Poland, beginning on 5 September.

But among online discussions, this decision is being equated to letting Infantino off the hook. In recent days, UEFA and Concacaf had discussed a joint Nations League, outside FIFA’s jurisdiction. which would move more international matches and their commercial rights under the control of the regional bodies.

Infantino, meanwhile, seemingly crashed a visit to the Caribbean Football Union in the Dominican Republic to …

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Tiangong Ultra ran 100 metres in 9.39 seconds at Beijing’s World Humanoid Robot Games, beating Bolt’s 9.58-second human world record. Its closest rival, Lightning, developed by Honor, finished in 9.47 seconds.

Both were seemingly overwhelmed with their achievements. Tiangong failed to stop and slammed into the crash mats. Lightning collapsed beyond the line and was carried away on a stretcher.

Millions of people have watched the race and it has been covered by every major media outlet.

The records kept coming. The next day, Tiangong Ultra won the 400 metres in 38.15 seconds, comfortably inside Wayde van Niekerk’s human world record of 43.03. Another machine from the same Beijing research centre managed a 2.88-metre standing jump, compared with 0.95 metres at last year’s Games. The comparison with human high jump is imperfect, since the robot jumps from standing rather than using a run-up, but the improvement in a year is substantial.

Speed was not the only attraction. An AgiBot Expedition A3 traded table-tennis rallies with Olympic champion Ding Ning without live remote control, tracking the ball through cameras, predicting its trajectory and selecting its own returns. Elsewhere, robots boxed, played autonomous football and attempted rather less glamorous challenges such as plugging in cables, weighing powder and moving individual beans with tweezers. Reuters neatly summarised the problem facing the industry: robots can now outrun humans, but useful work remains considerably harder.

Tiangong is not merely a robot athlete. It is a product of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, a Beijing-backed technology centre originally established with shareholders including Beijing Yizhuang Investment Holdings, UBTECH, Xiaomi and Beijing Jingcheng Machinery Electric. Company filings show the ownership structure, while subsequent financing has brought in further state and private investors including the Beijing AI Industry Investment Fund, Yizhuang Investment and Baidu.

Tiangong’s results are therefore a striking demonstration of the progress being made inside China’s heavily backed humanoid-robot industry. Last year, the winning robot needed 21.50 seconds to cover 100 metres. Twelve months later, Chinese machines are running the distance in less than ten.

The event is called the World Humanoid Robot Games.

Bu the “World” part is up for debate.

What do you mean?

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According to the International Tennis Integrity Agency’s announcement, Kyrgios provided a sample on 22 June during the ATP 250 tournament. A World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory reported on 17 July that it contained benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine. His mandatory provisional suspension began on 4 August

Cocaine is classed as a stimulant and is prohibited in competition under WADA’s 2026 Prohibited List. Normally, a positive test for a non-specified stimulant can expose an athlete to a lengthy suspension.

But Kyrgios could be banned for just a month.

Kyrgios separately said that he intends to step away from public life for a convenient 28 days.

Has WADA suddenly become lackadaisical about cocaine?

No, this attitude is because anti-doping authorities have spent years trying to distinguish between athletes taking coca…

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Ten years on, Infantino is fighting to keep his career. His plan to operate the World Cup and FIFA’s main commercial operations through FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) met with revolt.

With three confederations, half of the six that make up FIFA, calling for his head, Infantino removed FFE and has apologised for the plan. However, he has defended FFE’s core goals and refused to resign from his position as FIFA President.

The opposition to him is broad. UEFA, AFC and CONCACAF, representing European, Asian and North American football, refuse to drop their threatened boycott of FIFA competitions until Infantino is gone.

But CAF and Conmebol (Africa and South America) remain firmly on his side, as do many member nations, especially smaller ones who have seen their revenues skyrocket during Infantino’s tenure.

World leaders are similarly divided. Canada’s Mark Carney and the UK’s Andy Burnham have called for Infantino to go, while Trump, who received a FIFA Peace Prize from the Italian executive, has defended him to the hilt.

But the immediate dispute may now reach further back. UEFA’s lawyers may go back to the beginnings of Infantino’s career.

The immediate dispute may now reach further back. UEFA’s lawyers have demanded that 18 FIFA officials, including Infantino, preserve material about FFE to be used in potential future proceedings. The Telegraph has reported that UEFA is also considering a full review of Infantino’s 16 years spent atop European then world football.

So we went digging. The list of allegations is not a continuous corruption case, it is incredibly varied. It is also not meant to be a ruling on Infantino’s guilt or innocence, but as a journey through a career riddled with a surprisingly consistent stream of allegations of corruption, cronyism, and governance clashes.

We initially found 76 separate controversies. We narrowed them down to 45 as instances of related behavior were combined. Sometimes, matters that came out in the same scandal were separated when they tackled unrelated issues. Where possible, we have always sought to include Infantino or FIFA’s statements about the case.

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